Graham Island

Are you wondering where the blog went on our paddle in Gwaii Haanas? Well, I did something unheard of and posted TWO blogs this weekend. I had a cold, what can I say. Sometimes it takes things like a cold to stop me from playing so much. The Gwaii Haanas paddle blog is here: http://jj-adventure.blogspot.com/2014/10/gwaii-haanas-national-park-reserve-and.html 

Our only full day on the most populated island of Haida Gwaii, Graham Island, was spent exploring in shitty weather. I wish I bought this t-shirt. I'm not sure if I would have ever worn it, but man, it cracked me up. We spent our time paddling in the wet and shitty (red) section of the islands and we planned to spend our one soggy day on Graham Island in the cold and shitty (blue) section of the map. After a lovely breakfast at a damp cafe called Queen B's in the town of Queen Charlotte, we headed east to the Haida Heritage Centre to immerse ourselves in their culture even more.

This museum was wonderful - a museum by the Haida people for the Haida people, and sure, for interested tourists too. This place was alive in Haida stories, history, ancestors, music, and crafts. We loved it. We couldn't take photos inside, but we could take photos outside of the longhouse-style buildings and the totem poles. It was in this museum that I learned something, that I'm ashamed to admit I didn't know. Maybe everyone else knew this but me and Jay (please do comment and tell us your story)? We were in a section of the museum that covered the general history of Indians from east to west coast, and I found a blurb about Lord Jeffery Amherst, the man whom Amherst, MA and Amherst College are named after, among other things. Around 1763 the British were struggling against Indians in the Ohio Valley.... from this point on I'm going to quote the facts from A People's History of the United States (Zinn, 1995). "Under orders from British General Jeffery Amherst, the commander of Fort Pitts gave the attacking Indian chiefs, with whom he was negotiating, blankets from the smallpox hospital. It was a pioneering effort at what is now called biological warfare. An epidemic soon spread among the Indians." Well, did you know that? And we name towns and colleges after this man? The University of Massachusetts has a web page devoted to this history with copies of the original letters where Amherst writes things like "inoculate the Indians" and "try every other method that can serve to Extirpate this Execrable Race." Apparently Amherst had no problem with the French though, despite the fact he was supposed to be their enemy as well....he was known to be quite kind to them.

IMAGE COPIED FROM: http://www.historymuseum.ca/cmc/exhibitions/aborig/reid/reid12e.shtml

While reading about all of this in the museum, the wall behind us was looming with artwork from Bill Reid, a world-renowned Haida artist. I'll let you interpret what story he was telling in this piece. Was Amherst responsible for the massive smallpox epidemic that raced though Haida Gwaii in the 1800s? Not directly.....but one must wonder if visiting European traders learned a lesson from Amherst? We don't know that for sure (as far as I know) but we do know the impact the disease had on the people. It is estimated that ~10,000 Haida people lived in the islands pre-European contact. Once smallpox (and other diseases) had their way it is estimated that 90% of the population died and by 1900 it is believed that only ~350 Haida people remained. I am so thankful that some individuals survived these diseases, as well as numerous other blows (like missionaries trying to destroy what remained of their amazing culture). I have learned so much from them - their culture and way of life only make the world a richer place.

I'm standing outside the carving shed at the Haida Heritage Centre with a replica of  Bill Reid's Loo Taas (which means "wave eater") canoe. Pay attention to the shape of the bow, you will want to recall that shape later on in this blog!

 Masset

We drove out along a dirt road toward the far NE corner of Graham Island to check out this cafe we had heard about. It reminded me so much of Gustavus, AK for some reason. When I lived there we didn't really have a place like this, but it would have fit perfectly in that tiny town.... soggy weather, green forest, warm drinks, kind people, and funky art. Perfect place for a hot chai tea!

 O.K. - this might be the largest cedar tree I've ever seen. Seriously

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We drove south from the town of Port Clements along a forest service road to a little signed pull-off that read "Haida canoe." Once we were out of the car we walked along a forest trail for about 10 minutes and came to this amazing find....an abandoned Haida canoe. They estimate that this canoe was abandoned around 100 years ago (this part is sad, as the canoe was probably abandoned due to disease or social change). The Haida people felled the cedar tree right here, kilometers away from the water, and began to shape it into a canoe. At some point, if it has not be abandoned, they would have dragged (??) it through the forest to the water. I can't image getting something this massive out of the forest!

Remember the shape of the bow of the canoe I was standing with at the Haida Heritage Centre? Same shape here.... timeless art.

That evening we were on an overnight ferry back to Prince Rupert. We had some seriously wet camping gear, so we decided to get a cabin on the ferry. Those poor people who let us pay for the room didn't know what we were going to do to it. All our wet camping gear was spread out wherever there was a spot for soggy stuff. It worked! We had a dry tent the next day!

 Jay was super stoked to have a bed for a night!

We woke up in Prince Rupert, drove off the boat, and stumbled around the town looking for good coffee (this isn't an easy request in Canada). I loved this mural because it really does capture the area well - green trees, rain, and gorgeous marine life. Ahhhhh....what a good life we have!

There is one more blog coming from our drive back south to Anacortes! But photos from the rest of the trip can be seen here: https://picasaweb.google.com/111221596171793333099/HaidaGwaii2014AndOtherAreasOfBritishColumbia?authkey=Gv1sRgCO7y6IjJytrt_QE

Gwaii Haanas National Park Reserve and Haida Heritage Site - or five days in the absolute wilderness

The ancient Haida village of Tanu (T'aanuu Llnagaay) was the first stop on our five-day paddle in Gwaii Haanas. We used our radio to hail the on-site Watchmen (these are Haida people who live and guide at these ancient sites) and asked for permission to come ashore. Our Haida guide met us right at our kayaks and watched while we lugged the beast of the double kayak up the beach away from the encroaching tide. Then he took us on a tour of wonder in the forest. It may not look like it in these photographs, but you are staring at a once thriving ancient Haida village. Back in ~1870 this village was full of life; it is estimated that 540 people lived here. Looking around today, however, you wouldn't know it because the forest has reclaimed the majority of the village in ~140 years. But depressions from the longhouses as well as their posts and beams remain. You can see the carvings on a totem pole to the left (look on the bottom of the fallen pole) and you can see an image of the village back in the 1870s below. Amazing isn't it - how quickly the forest reclaims a village?

 The Watchman who guided us around the village of his ancestors was a really neat guy. He was pretty darn well-traveled, spoke Japanese better than his native Haida tongue (very few Haida still speak their language), and was learning to draw Haida art while living with his father in the Watchman cabin for the summer. He took us into his cabin, made us tea, and showed us this old book with photographs of the village we had just walked through. We were stunned at the difference between then and now.

 

Here is the village now. You can still see the remains of the beams and posts and even the slight depressions in the ground from the longhouses. In the photograph on the left, I'm staring at an old mortuary pole. The Haida people placed the remains of their deceased in grave boxes at the top of these mortuary poles. You can pick out the standing mortuary poles in the old image of the village, they are the shorter poles where the pole top is slightly wider than the base.

The Haida people believe in letting their ancient villages return to nature, so these places are not "preserved" and rather are allowed to become a living part of the forest again. It is a lovely way to end one part of life and continue into another. But it also makes me appreciate seeing these sites even more, as the next generation surely will not see these structures. You can really visualize the change from thriving village to thriving Sitka spruce forest in the image below. You are looking at the remains of a longhouse. One part of the cedar house collapsed onto another and a Sitka spruce seeding took root on top of the two. If you look carefully at the long cedar log, you can see the difference between the living (and huge) Sitka spruce root and the cedar log below it. Really neat.

After spending several hours at Tanu, we reluctantly said goodbye to the beautiful site and our guide and excitedly said hello to wilderness. We hoped we wouldn't see a single soul after leaving Tanu, and Gwaii Haanas fulfilled all our dreams and then some!

We paddled around the southern end of Tanu Island, heading west toward the tip of the island where we hoped to set up our first camp. This paddle was magical. It was raining a lovely, gorgeous rain with no wind or waves. The mountains were encased in soft clouds and you could hear every bird, raindrop, and breath. Loud breaths to be exact. A closer look with binoculars revealed three orcas, including a big male, far off in the distance - wooohoooo! Too bad they were not heading toward us, but we were thrilled with the sighting in either case. 

We found a campsite on a big beach after a few hours of paddling and it couldn't have been more perfect. An easy beach for landing, a perfect spot for a tent, a great spot for intertidal dorks to dork out, and the view!! Oh the view!!

The best camping spot ever? Our other sites were also amazing, but I'll admit that this was my favorite spot from the trip.

I checked out the intertidal zone (while Jay took the kayak out to set a crab pot) and was distraught, but not surprised, to find evidence of sea star wasting syndrome in the purple sea star, Pisaster ochraceus. You may think this sea star looks healthy, but look again. All the arms are sort of deflated looking and the bottom two arms are tiny and turning white. In time (a few days) the sea star will lose one arm, then the other, then another, etc. until it simply melts and dies. Could you imagine if this happened to humans? We would start losing weight, then a finger or two would fall off, followed by an arm, then a leg, and then we would disintegrate into a pile of bones. Ebola sounds nice when compared to what this would be if it happened to humans. Lucky for us, this syndrome is not infecting anything but sea stars. Jay and I provided the first recorded evidence of the syndrome in Haida Gwaii, which is nothing to be really proud of. We found the syndrome whenever we had a low tide and remembered to look for it. This was interesting to us because Haida Gwaii is a relatively isolated archipelago - so whatever causes this syndrome (they think it is a virus but are not sure) travels easily.

Why should we care about sea star wasting syndrome?? Well, sea stars, like the purple star species, are keystone species. This means that they play an especially important role in the ecology of a community. Without the keystone species holding the community together, the entire community could change drastically or collapse. Sea otters are a great example of a keystone species. They eat sea urchins and urchins eat kelp (like the gorgeous kelp on the left that we saw in Gwaii Haanas). When you hunt otters to near or complete regional extinction the urchins explode and eat all the kelp. Without a kelp forest, an entire marine ecosystem collapses and you get the dreaded urchin barren. When you remove purple sea stars from the intertidal, the mussels they typically eat take over the entire rocky intertidal and exclude other species from making homes on the rocks, making that intertidal zone a homogeneous environment rather than a diverse and resilient marine community. And the syndrome isn't only affecting this species, it is appearing in almost all the sea stars species along the west coast and species along the Atlantic as well. Scientists are working as fast as possible to figure out the cause....but not much can be done now except watch loads of sea stars turn into piles of goo and try to determine if the juvenile stars will survive the outbreak.

Are you sick of me blabbing all the time now? I'll shut up. Just enjoy some photos! This image is looking into Echo Harbor.

We came here to eat our lunch next to a bunch of dead, stinky, rotting salmon. No really, we did. Why? Well, we had heard that there was an active salmon run here so we paddled over to check it out. We saw the salmon carcasses first (note the white dots in the water behind Jay) and then spotted the little stream.

Jay took up a spot in the middle of the run (these were pink salmon or humpies)

He was curious about catching one with his hands. This one went right in between his legs.

But this one didn't get away as easily. Jay was shocked that he was able to catch a fish by hand! He promptly put it right back, upstream, and still alive.

After leaving that magical place, we paddled south for a few hours and found a tiny, rocky island where we could pitch our tent. Little islands don't mean you are guaranteed a black bear-free evening, but the likelihood is higher, so it made our lives easier (no hanging the bear bag, there were no trees anyway!). We had another problem to deal with though - the tide. We thought we would be O.K. pitching our tent in the only spot available on this little island because we could see the "wrack line" where the tide was last high and the tent was above that. Nevertheless, Jay set an alarm in the middle of the night to check on the tide and it was, ummmm, right there! But it never got high enough to make us scramble to get the tent to higher ground. That said, look at the photo on the left and you can see the line marking where the rocks are still wet from the tide. Yup. That is how high the water came to our tent. Intelligent little folks we are. It worked out fine though!

In the morning we had a lovely tidepool to play in! It was filled with bat stars and sculpins! Once we packed up and left this awesome island we paddled further sound into De la Beche Inlet, aiming at De la Beche Island for our third camp. But the journey to the next campsite is always the best part of the day. We paddled past rocky cliffs, bald eagles, so many massive jellyfish right beneath our boats, and beautiful Sitka spruce trees. We stopped for lunch by a stream, refilled and treated our water from the stream, and paddled on. The wind picked up, as it did every day, and we had to paddle hard to make it across to De la Beche Island. We made it eventually, with soaking wet arms, and happily found an awesome beach with a mossy forest to camp in. Actually, I didn't think it looked awesome at first, but Jay inspected and found us a perfect spot to camp and I discovered a huge log that served as our evening kitchen! Yippee!

The sunset was horrible that evening.

Morning sun (the first time we had seen the sun on the paddle) on De la Beche Island. The intertidal zone was AWESOME here and we had a lot of fun hopping around on the rocks.

Mossy mattress

De la Beche Inlet (an awesome clam bed is just under the water in this photo)

Lunch on the perfect rock in Skittagetan Lagoon.

We crossed some bumpy water to get over to the west side of Lyell Island where we found a lovely little cove with a mossy spot for a tent and a big rocky outcropping for sunset watching and tidepooling. Lyell Island is ground zero for the peaceful protests the Haida people organized in an attempt to stop the clearcutting that was occurring throughout their native home of Haida Gwaii. These 1985 anti-logging protests eventually lead to the creation of the park we were now happily paddling in and thoroughly enjoying. We owe everything to the brave Haida people who stood up for the protection of their ancestral lands and people.

Happy paddlers

We set up dinner and sunset-viewing from the log on the far left. This was our last night in the wilderness and we lingered on this outcropping until it was almost too dark to see our way back to the tent.

The sunset was amazing that night. If you look at all the photos (link provided at the bottom of the blog) you can see all the changes in color and light.

The next morning we broke camp and paddled up Beresford Inlet - checking out some cool shorebirds and watching some loons. Then we paddled into the Bischof Islands where we were hoping to be found and picked up by the water taxi. They had told us that they were going to hail us on our radio around 10 or 11am, but we had not heard a peep from the radio - something that made me a little nervous since we didn't really have much extra food in case they didn't pick us up. After unsuccessfully trying to hail some Watchman on another nearby island we decided to stop and eat lunch in a visible place. It was at this point that we finally heard the taxi hailing us and we were able to tell them our location. They came to us, we loaded our crap into the boat, and settled in for the long ride back through the wilderness we just paddled through on our journey south. It was a beautiful and unforgettable paddle. We already are thinking about where to go when we head back - but next time I think we will just fly in from Vancouver rather than taking three days worth of ferries!

Photos are here (more will soon be uploaded from our day on Graham Island in Haida Gwaii and our drive back to Anacortes): https://picasaweb.google.com/111221596171793333099/HaidaGwaii2014AndOtherAreasOfBritishColumbia?authkey=Gv1sRgCO7y6IjJytrt_QE

Four ferries and one zodiac later....

Yes, we did this trip over a month ago. But hey, I'm busy having fun so it takes me a while to get to these blogs.

It took four ferry rides and one crazy fast zodiac ride before we finally made it to our destination, Gwaii Haanas National Park Reserve and Haida Heritage Site. So I could start my blog at the starting point of our paddle, but that would be leaving out so much! Thus, I'll start with tales from the very beginning of our trip.

Camping for twelve days involves lots of food planning and packing. For the paddling portion of the trip we needed relatively easy to cook foods that didn't use tons of freshwater or take up space in the boat, and we wanted tons and tons of snacks to chow on while in the kayak. Darwin was very curious about all the food and got right into the middle of it all. Pretty cute little fluff. We were off once the food was packed and our car was jammed full of more crap than seemed necessary. Our first ferry ride out of four was a five minute drive from our house - Anacortes, WA to Sidney, B.C. Once on Vancouver Island we spent the entire day driving north to Port Hardy along the length the largest island on the west coast. We love Vancouver Island but we didn't have time to explore today - we had to buy marine charts, some fresh veggies, and a crabbing license for Jay. Those stops and the six hour drive meant we arrived in Port Hardy just in time to have dinner with the last bit of daylight. I was thrilled to hear that wolves had been sighted in Port Hardy recently, but we were not lucky enough to see or hear them that evening. Boo. Following our tasty dinner we tried to go to bed as early as possible so we could get up at 4am to breakdown our tent and head to the ferry terminal. 

Our ferry, the Northern Expedition, was massive (507 ft.), brand new, and very fast (22 knots!). Speed, by the way, was a very good thing since this ferry ride up the Inside Passage was going to take 17 hours. We had to be at the ferry terminal in Port Hardy by 5am so we could sit in line and wait to board. Once our trusty Toyota was loaded, we were free to explore the ferry. We were still half asleep wandering around this massive ship and we couldn't figure out where we belonged. So we snoozed in some giant chairs for a while, waiting for the ship to actually leave. Once we were underway, we found the stern deck and set up shop there for almost the entire journey. It was freezing in the morning, so we bundled up against the chilly fog and enjoyed the passage out of Port Hardy into little islands with lighthouses and humpback whales offshore. Dall's porpoises occasionally came and blasted past our wake, taunting us with only fleeting glimpses of their black and white bodies. And the birds! Murrelets, murres, pigeon guillemots, and gulls. Nothing super new to report on the birding front, but tons of birds nonetheless. Thank goodness for binoculars!

Only one part of the B.C. Inside Passage is open to exposed water and we sailed through that in complete fog with our books for company. Everyone that had been on deck retreated inside except one hardy family that had sleeping bags for warmth. Once we made it back into protected waters, the sun started to burn through the fog and mountains began to take shape. You can still see the lingering fog through the deck windows behind me in this image. And with the sun came the people. They all found the deck, but Jay and I had already scored on the comfy chairs and were happy in our claimed territory. As the sun burnt through and the day started to actually get hot, we noticed that we were surrounded by tourists. I guess we were tourists too....but I'll revise. We were surrounded by Germans! All Germans! Germans everywhere! I love it - we hardly heard an ounce of English for 17 hours. Germans are so damn well traveled.... they put America (and Canada) to shame in how far and wide they travel. It helps that their country realizes the importance of time off from work.

We spent about 13-14 hours on the back deck of this massive ferry, simply watching the view go by. It was stunning. Way back in 2000 I took ferries down the Inside Passage from Juneau, AK (this is going back to the days when I worked for Glacier Bay National Park) to Port Hardy, BC. But that was in December and when it was light out, it was always drizzling and the mountains stayed out of view. What a treat it was to see the Inside Passage during the day! I only left the deck once to run up and down stairs in the ferry for some exercise.

I wouldn't say we completely scored on unbelievable wildlife sightings (I am comparing this to Glacier Bay, can't help it), but we had some pretty darn good ones! We had a great view of some brown bears feeding in a stream on salmon and there were more than enough whales and porpoises to keep us entertained (one German dude kept saying "thar she blows", perhaps trying to invoke his inner Ahab?).

This photograph was taken as we were nearing the northern end of the narrow and stunning Grenville Channel. The channel is less than a quarter mile wide but extremely deep - that said, there is no way any other large vessel (cruise ship, tankers, etc.) could have fit with our ferry in the channel. Obviously the captains must be chatting with one another to make sure only one large vessel goes through at once. After we passed through the channel, the sun left us and we decided to try and catch some sleep before we got into Prince Rupert at midnight. We claimed a spot on the floor with our camping pads and snoozed for about an hour before we were rudely awakened by the ship's captain announcing our arrival into Prince Rupert. We stumbled down to our car, unloaded into a calming drizzle, and found the massive campground that was conveniently located next to the ferry terminal. While this campground wasn't exactly our style, we didn't give a damn at midnight. Our tent was up in no time and we happily climbed in and passed out.

This may look like the same ship - but this is actually ferry number three - the Northern Adventure. At 8am the next morning, we boarded this ferry, a slightly smaller ship than the ferry we were on yesterday but probably even more sea-worthy as she has to cross some of the roughest waters in the area, Hecate Strait. Hecate Strait is quite shallow, so the seas here are notorious for building up to massive sizes. We scored on this crossing as there was barely a puff of wind and we were able to set up our wildlife watching spot from the stern of the vessel. We had hoped to see some bird species that we don't typically see close to land such as fulmars or albatross. We did see some type of a tubenosed bird, but never got a good enough look at it to identify it - perhaps it was some type of petrel? Oh well, we scored on a windless crossing which was good for staying outside but the lack of wind probably meant the birds were less active.

This was a seven hour crossing in mostly exposed and open water, but it only took a few hours of journey time before we started to spot mountains far off in the distance - Haida Gwaii! It looked like a dream even from far away!

Once we landed in Skidegate on Graham Island you would think we would have been off to find a campsite right? Nope - we still had one more ferry to take so we could get over to Moresby Island, just south of the more populated Graham Island. So we got off one ship and got right into line for the next ferry to Moresby. Lucky for us, we had an hour to kill and we both immediately spied a rocky beach to check out. Low tide in Haida Gwaii! The tides here experience something like a 20 ft. exchange which is like candy for marine biologists. Almost every morning on our vacation here was spent exploring the rocky intertidal or sandy beaches. I'll get to those stories in future posts!

Ferry four! Just a little one and a fast 20 minute crossing to Moresby Island! We had met a nice Canadian dude while waiting to get on this boat - we all had a beer together, some dinner, and then jumped on this ferry. Meeting people when you travel is one of the joys of traveling eh? It was getting late and we still needed to get over to Moresby Explorers, the kayaking company that was taking us via water taxi to the remote Gwaii Haanas National Park. Once we hit land again, we drove straight to their office, went through the mandatory orientation that all park visitors are required to go through, and left to get all our gear packed for a five day paddle.We were the only campers on a grassy patch of lawn in the town of Sandspit - but we were not alone. Millions of blackflies (or some pesky biting fly) tried to hang out with us while we packed. The headnets went on and everything got much calmer when we were not running around waving our hands over our heads.

How much crap does it take to go on a five day paddle in the absolute wilderness? Apparently this much crap. The part that was really funny about this is that the kayaking water taxi dude complimented us on packing light. Ha! No seriously - he did. He claimed that most tourists show up with far more stuff than us. Huh. We did have three bottles of wine for four nights. =) This was our vacation after all.

Our mighty water taxi with our double kayak rental on top. We opted out of bringing our own kayaks because we were not sure if my rib (see our Hozomeen Lake blog) could handle paddling a single boat for hours at a time. The thought was that Jay could be the power in the stern and I could sit up front like Cleopatra if necessary (although this would have driven me nuts). It turns out my rib felt fine and was typically only sore at the end of the day. So we covered some ground when we wanted to!

This is the view from the boat launch at Moresby Camp - it felt sort of wild here so it prepped us for the awesome adventure we were heading out to in Gwaii Haanas. Beautiful intertidal! 

Here we are going through Louise Narrows at low tide and high speed. Super fun and slight nutty. If you could have seen how shallow the water was, you would understand my comment about the "slight nutty" part of the ride.

One hour later, we were on a beach with our boat, tons of stuff, and each other. Perfect! Wave bye bye to the kayak water taxi dude! We knew we were going to be spending our first few hours in the park visiting an ancient Haida village with a Haida Watchman.....but after that visit we hoped to see only bears, eagles, and sea stars. Our wish came true.... not a single human was sighted in five days. If only we could have stayed longer. The blog and photos from our paddle will be next!