Thursday June 11, 1998 - Queen of Prince Rupert

Moresby Mountain from Mosquito Lake

Queen of Prince Rupert ferry - sunny and warm

I spent the night at Gray Bay and had a leisurely breakfast in the morning. Two people from forestry, a man and a woman, came by to clean up the site and while they were there I noticed that my truck had a flat tire, probably from the rough driving the day before. The guy helped me change the tire. The spare tire was low on air but the guy seemed to think it would be OK, so I decided not to cut short my trip. I drove the logging roads to Skidegate Lake, Mosquito Lake and Moresby Camp, then back to Sandspit and the ferry terminal.

Roadside deer

Another tiny deer, they're everywhere

There was lots of wildlife: eagles, ravens and the tiny island deer, the size of dogs. Also lots of no-see-ums and black flies. Mosquito Lake is in the middle of Moresby Island and there are no roads south of there. Moresby Mountain is the tallest mountain in Haida Gwaii, you can see it across Mosquito Lake. Moresby Camp is on an inlet from Hecate Strait, the waters between Haida Gwaii and the mainland.

Ocean inlet at Moresby Camp

To see the old Haida sites you have to approach the southern part of the island by boat. My one attempt to see an old Haida village site the day before did not turn out well.

While waiting for the ferry I talked to a kayaker who was just back from two weeks kayaking around South Moresby Island with friends. He was an American from Washington State, but used to live in Nova Scotia on the South Mountain just south of Middleton, "being a hippy". Small world. I got back to the Skidegate ferry terminal on Graham Island around 7.30 pm, had supper at the forestry site just outside of Queen Charlotte City, and then went back to the ferry terminal to wait for boarding the 11 pm ferry to Prince Rupert.

I had booked a cabin so I picked up some free ice for my cooler and went straight to my cabin. I had a nice hot shower and went to bed. In the morning I had a second hot shower ( you just never know when you'll have access to a hot shower again!) and bought breakfast. Then I went below to the truck where Yohan had spent the night and waited to offload. My truck was parked behind a cart and the ferry guys did see it, so they didn't move the cart and I couldn't get off. I had to go talk to them to let them know where my truck was but they thought I was a foot passenger and told me to go back and wait to be told to debark. But finally they moved the cart and I was able to drive off.

I learned a lot about the history of these islands while visiting. The Haida were once a powerful nation that lived on the islands but raided and traded with other nations on the mainland. When European traders first arrived on the west coast from the east, they set up their trading post in Prince Rupert rather than on Haida Gwaii, ostensibly out of respect for the Haida. But Catholic missionary priests did settle in the islands.

Later, during the many gold rushes on the west coast of North America, prospectors came up from the south and explored the islands looking for gold. Haida youth were fascinated by the prospectors stories of the cities of the south and some decided to pack up and move there. Unfortunately they did not do well in the south and many of them returned chastened to the islands. But they brought with them an unwelcome guest, smallpox. The disease spread rapidly and horribly, the Haida population was decimated.

Priests living at the north end of Graham Island in Massett convinced the remaining Haida to move there so the priests could help look after them. So all of the villages of Moresby Island were abandoned. When Emily Carr visited Haida Gwaii, the remaining Haida still lived mostly in Massett. But they used to spend summers visiting their old villages in the south, Carr was able to visit them also with friends she made among the Haida.

In their heyday the Haida were fearsome warriors, taking prisoners to be their slaves back home. Trading among the nations of what is now British Columbia was principally based on the oulichan, a small very oily fish. The oil-rich fish provided light, heat and food. The trading routes were known as the Grease Trails and extended from the Yukon to California, from the Pacific Coast to well past the Rocky Mountains.

Wednesday June 10, 1998 - Haida Gwaii

Queen Charlotte City from the ferry to Moresby Island

Gray Bay, Moresby Island - cool and cloudy

I had breakfast and did a bit of shopping in Queen Charlotte City and then took the ferry across to Alliford Bay on Moresby Island. I drove the short distance into Sandspit, the only town on Moresby. It was sure cold and windy! All the roads on Moresby are logging roads and you have to have permission from the logging company, Timber West, to go on them or to use the forestry campsites. I found their office building but I couldn't find the front door, I ended up going into the office by the fire escape. The man who let me in said that their back door was really their front door, and vice versa. He gave me a map and said there was nothing going on in the area so I could drive on any of their roads and stay at any campsites. It felt like being given the Keys to the Kingdom, I was quite elated when I left. I drove down the Copper River Road. There was hardly anyone on the ferry when I came across and most of those people were going to the Sandspit airport. I had the woods to myself!

My intention was to visit all the sites marked on the map: Gray Bay, Moresby Camp and Mosquito Lake. I stopped on the river at one point and disturbed an eagle who I guess was looking for fish, and then arrived at Gray Bay.

Gray Bay

Gray Bay is a crescent shaped bay about ten km from one end to the other, all beach. There are twenty campsites evenly spaced along the beach, about a half kilometer apart. I pulled into a lovely campsite out in the open by the beach. I had a sandwich while sitting on the beach, it was a long sand and stone crescent beach with a bit of surf and a light breeze.

I realized that this was probably going to be my last night camping by the ocean so I shouldn't bother going inland. However, I still wanted to drive a bit, so after the sandwich I went all the way to the end of the road at the south end of the beach and then turned around and went back to another road that my map showed leading to some old abandoned Haida village sites. This road went through a large area of clearcut. I went up one logging road, stopped at a ditch in the road and walked to the top of the road where I had a view of Gray Bay and the mountains to the west. Then I drove on to find the villages. I stopped to watch a deer by the side of the road, we stared at each other for awhile but he was too deep in the woods to photograph. Then I set out on the track that let to the village sites.

It was very narrow and somewhat overgrown. Quite suddenly I came up on a washout in the track. I skidded to a stop inches from going over the edge. The track was too narrow to turn around so I had to back up. I started going down a steep hill backwards and felt the truck tipping leftward toward the ocean side of the track. I thought I was sliding off the track down the side of the hill to the ocean, but when I looked in the mirrors I was still in the track. The lean toward the ocean was scaring me so I was steering toward the other side of the track, even though the mirrors showed that I was fine. I ended up getting into soft mud on the right side and having to drive forward up the hill again, and then back down trying to stay in the middle of the track away from the soft mud. But once again the truck was leaning way over to the left even though I was in the middle of the track. It was so scary!

By the time I got to the bottom of the hill my heart was just pounding. A short way along after that and the track widened enough to turn around and I was able to drive out normally, if a little too fast. I bottowmed out twice before slowing down. I had to remind myself that this was a very very bad place to have a breakdown or accident.

Beach view from my campsite

Gray Bay from my campsite

After another hour or so of checking out every campsite on Gray Bay I finally settled on #9. I picked up a grill from a fire pit at one site, some brush for kindling at another site and some good looking cedar logs at yet another site. The campsite I chose was in the woods but opening onto the beach. there was a tree down blocking the entrance to the campsite but I cut it easily with my little bucksaw. The black flies were out but I had a head net that worked fine. I sat on the beach to eat my supper and kept the fire going to just sit by.

I think I am the only person here and I wish I had come sooner, it was really nice. The nicest place I have stayed so far. Loveland Bay came close but this is by the ocean and much more private. It is just after 10 pm and the sun has just set. It is still light out. The tide went out and is on its way back in. Yohan stays very close to me, right now he is lying under the table. When I walked out onto the beach he went to the edge and just watched me.

This week has been interesting. I have felt lonely and anxious a lot of the time, I feel like I am not making the best use of my time. Whatever I am doing, I feel like I should be doing something else. I think that the backward drive on that track earlier in the day was typical, I should have just relaxed at Gray Bay instead of being hellbent to drive some more. it's hard to relax and just enjoy the trip. I listened to an 83-year-old sculptress on CBC radio in the morning who was talking about how life after 50 was about finding one's passion and doing it, taking on new challenges in old age but being more into art and music than physical activity. I must say that I am not ready to give up the physical life for something more cerebral just yet. But I do wish I could relax more.

Tuesday June 9, 1998 - Haida Gwaii

On the trail to the Pesuta

Queen Charlotte City - rainy and cloudy

I slept in because it was wet and rainy. I finally got up and it took forever to get a fire going. On this kind of day I felt like making oatmeal so it was just about noon by the time I finished breakfast. Everything was wet, even the dog. But I thought, what better day to hike out to the Pesuta shipwreck, so that is what I did.

It took four hours but it was through some beautiful rainforest along the Tlell River past some cabins at the mouth of the river ("beach dwellers from the '70s") and finally to the wreck on the beach.

Yohan and I at the wreck of the Pesuta

On the way I met a couple from Surrey and walked from the river to the wreck with them. I came back alone though and when Yohan and I got to my campsite there was a beautiful but bedraggled and starved afghan hound there. He disappeared before I could feed him. Poor dog.

I saw so many eagles and deer but could not photograph them. I had lunch at 5 pm and then visited the Tree House at Sitka Studio in Tlell before driving on to the forestry campsite just past Charlotte City.

The campsite was in a grove of tall Sitkas on the edge of a slate beach, and it felt cold, dank and foreboding. I went into town and had a cold supper of celery, carrot and hardboiled egg. I went back the campsite and set up to go to bed. Just doing that takes an hour, not including eating or feeding the dog. But I was very tired from the hike to the Pesuta which I think was 10 km.

Monday June 8, 1998 - Haida Gwaii

Skidegate Band Centre, Bill Reid totem

Misty Meadows, Tlell - cloudy and cooler

I spent a few hours on the beach but it was cooler and cloudy. I drove to Queen Charlotte City and bought gas and ice, then visited the museum in Skidegate. Bill Reid's canoe Wave-eater was there in a shed with another black canoe. I drove down the road by the Tlell River as well. I am not sure what to do, stay another day and hike to the Pesuta or move on. I kind of want to visit Moresby Island, the southern half of Haida Gwaii, but I don't feel comfortable driving on logging roads and camping at forestry sites alone.

It started to rain so I set up my tarp over the truck tailgate. It was OK, but when I went to bed I left the tailgate open and it began to rain harder and then I saw that the foot of my sleeping bag was getting wet. I closed the tailgate but the damage was already done, the foot of my bed was soaked.

Sunday June 7, 1998 - Haida Gwaii

Driftwood on the beach

Misty Meadows, Naikoon Park, Tlell - sunny and hot

I stayed put today. Listened to the radio, made curtains for the back of my truck from bedsheets and velcro, and spent the afternoon on the beach. I thought about walking to the wreck of the Pesuta but it is way too far along the beach with Yohan and a backpack (5 miles). Anyway, it turns out I wouldn't have made it anyway because I would have had to cross the Tlell River to get there. The Pesuta is a log-carrying ship that was wrecked off the coast in 1928.

More driftwood

It is very buggy today—no-see-ums and black flies. The netting I rigged up in the truck is not working very well. I'm using bug spray but they still bother me. I saw deer and sandpipers today, the deer are everywhere. Two galloped away as I headed back through the woods to my campsite. I tried to sketch some driftwood but it was hard to do with all the bugs. There are miles of empty beach, so later in the afternoon I lay naked in the sun on the hot sand, it was nice.

Saturday June 6, 1998 - Haida Gwaii

Rose Spit beach

Misty Meadows, Naikoon Park, Haida Gwaii - sunny

It was still cloudy windy and cold in the morning so I slept in and then left as soon as I could when I got up. I drove out of the camping area and continued down the road to the very end, on another beach, Rose Spit.

A sea of moss

Once I got away from Agate Beach it was sunny and hot. The rainforest was amazing, the ground cover of moss was so thick it looks like a green sea with trees emerging from it. Moss encased and hung from tree branches.

There were tire tracks on the beach so I drove out onto the beach, it was kind of neat to be driving on a long empty beach. I did not drive all the way to the end of the spit, but turned around and drove back to Massett, stopped at an art and jewelry store, and then followed the gravel road toward Queen Charlotte City.

I then went looking for the Golden Spruce which was a sight to see noted in tourism brochures of Haida Gwaii. It was supposed to be located not far from Massett. There was a sign on the road indicating the trail to the viewing point for the tree (it stood across a river from the viewing point). I walked out to the viewing point but saw nothing. A couple of other tourists were there and equally mystified. Unknown to us, only weeks earlier someone had cut it down and there is a book about that incident, and at the time that I was looking for the tree it was already gone and very few people knew about it.

The beginnings of a Haida war canoe, lying next to the stump of the tree it was carved from

I also went looking for the abandoned Haida Canoe, and that I did find. You walk into the forest to a place where a huge log is lying on the ground next to its stump and you can see that someone had started hollowing it out to create a war canoe. It is very old and I don't know why it was abandoned, it might have been flawed, or there might have been a death in the clan (apparently they would abandon a canoe in the making upon a family death).

The forest at the Golden Spruce site was beautiful. There were some very large (diameter six feet or more at the base) Sitka Spruce, moss and ferns everywhere. All you can hear are the birds and the wind in the trees.

The drive along the gravel road was very long and dusty, I didn't get to Queen Charlotte City until 5.30 pm. It is a pretty town with craft shops and houses built on steep hillsides overlooking the main street. A more touristy looking town than Massett.

I went on to Tlell to camp at the lower end of Naikoon Park. From Queen Charlotte City to Tlell there are museums and craft shops and beaches and so forth, so I would like to stay in this area for awhile. It is still windy but not nearly as windy as Agate Beach. The Misty Meadows campground is much more sheltered being on the east side of the island. At 9.30 pm there is still sunlight on the treetops around my campsite.

Friday June 5, 1998 - Haida Gwaii

Agate Beach, north shore of Graham Island

Queen of Prince Rupert ferry - foggy

In the morning at Prudhomme Lake two Canada Jays and a squirrel were into my spilled peanut butter. They had pecked holes in the plastic bag which I had anchored under a log. There were lots of no-see-ums and a few black flies. Two park attendants came by to collect my fee and chat, they were very friendly local First Nations. Dagmar and Robert had already left by the time I was awake enough to drop by their campsite. I headed back to Prince Rupert to catch the ferry to Haida Gwaii.

The trip to Haida Gwaii was cold and foggy so I didn't go out on deck much. I was invited to play canasta with a couple sitting at the next table to me. It was a nice sociable game with George and Gisella, a couple from Armstrong BC. I also talked to a man who was going to spend a month in a cabin in Rose Harbour, a privately owned property in Gwaii Haanas, the southern part of the islands. It turned out that he lived a couple of blocks from my brother Peter's place on Sandpiper Drive, Hornby Island.

The ferry trip was a few hours and we arrived in Queen Charlotte City on Graham Island while there were still a few hours left of the day. There are two large islands in Haida Gwaii, Graham Island in the north and Moresby Island to the south. Most people live on Graham Island and the southern part of Moresby Island is taken up by the protected area, Gwaii Haanas. There are many abandoned Haida villages there, with large totem poles slowly rotting back to nature. Queen Charlotte City is the largest town in Haida Gwaii, on the south coast of Graham Island.

I had decided to camp at the north end of Graham Island, in Naikoon Park. Naikoon Park has two campgrounds, Agate Beach in the north and Misty Meadows further south on the east coast of the island.

The road from Queen Charlotte City to Agate Beach takes you through Tlell (near the Misty Meadows campground) and Massett, a large Haida village. It was a nice drive but it was cold, cloudy and windy at the campground. All the campsites were right on the beach and exposed to the wind, but I found one that was buried in low coniferous trees that made an effective wind barrier. It was like camping in a cave made of shrubby trees. So inside my campsite I couldn't see the water, but the wind and surf were very loud. It was a nice drive through forest but cold, cloudy and windy at the campground, which is right on the beach. On a clear day one might see the southern tip of Alaska, but not this day. The sound of the surf and wind was very loud.

The windbreak between my campsite and the beach

After setting up camp I went for a short walk along the beach. There were tall dead trees standing above the scrubby trees of the beach. Looking at them I thought they looked like totem poles looking out toward the sea, and I wondered if this was where the Haida got the idea of making totem poles.

I fed Yohan and had a can of soup for supper and went to bed. At 10.30 pm it was still light out even though it was cloudy.