Category Archives: kayak camping

The Royal ‘Round: Sea Kayaking Princess Royal Island. Part 4

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July 6th, 2010

The day dawned clear and dry. It was sooooo much easier to pack when I didn’t have to plan the logistics of breaking camp and packing as if prepping for a spacewalk, as one needs to do in heavy rain.
A calm sea reflects the land and a blue sky

Paddling the southern end of Mathieson Channel was like kayaking across some huge northern lake. The water was mirror smooth. So much so, it was sometimes vertigo-inducing. As I looked at the rock walls on my right, the border between real and reflection was seamless. Continue reading →

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Fresh Water Interlude: Paddling Pitt Lake

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Wednesday May 23, 2018

An Osprey perched atop a piling

With a “long weekend” running from Wednesday to Friday, I wanted a trip that maximized paddling and camping time and minimized driving time. And it had been several years since I’d paddled nearby Pitt Lake. So less than an hour after leaving home, I was unloading the kayak and gear at Grant Narrows Regional Park. As I packed the ‘yak, I was surrounded by vast flocks of bird watchers. I recognized at least two common species: the Full-Breasted Matron and the Pale-Legged Lesser Warbler, identifiable by its Tilley head plumage and its distinctive call: “Shirley, where’s the sunscreen? Where’s the sunscreen?” Continue reading →

The Royal ‘Round: Sea Kayaking Princess Royal Island. Part 3

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July 2, 2010
Back in the day, Butedale was a thriving, company-owned fish canning community of several hundred people. “The day” ended in the 1950s. Since then, the rain forest has been relentlessly reclaiming the town. Today, only a few buildings remain habitable. Lou, the 65-year old caretaker, lives in one, and he rents out rooms in a couple of other cabins to recreational fishermen and the occasional kayaker.

Butedale, Princess Royal Island, British Columbia
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The Royal ‘Round: Sea Kayaking Princess Royal Island. Part 2

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June 27, 2010

a kayak under sail in a high windToday gave me the weather window I needed for the long hop to Campania Island. I got jumped by a rain squall at the half-way point, but its wind was in my favour, so I simply put up the sail and ran with it for about a half an hour. Continue reading →

The Royal ‘Round: Sea Kayaking Princess Royal Island. Part 1

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Prelude, June 19, 2010

I wheeled my kayak aboard the Queen Of Chilliwack at Port Hardy at about 20:00 hours. After a late supper of burger and fries in the cafeteria, I found a quiet corner of the solarium on the upper deck, and made camp with my mat and sleeping bag. As we steamed north through the night, the weather changed from clear skies to the cloud and light rain more typical of the central coast.

BC Ferries The Queen Of Chilliwack Continue reading →

Dances With Beers: Sea Kayaking The Broughton Archipelago To Powell River. Part 4

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August 19
Up at 5AM, on the water for 7:35. At first, I paddled through thick fog that was backlit by the rising sun into a luminous white. It looked rather like a Hollywood effects tech’s idea of “going to heaven.” Heaven or not, the prospect of running the Upper Rapids blind was pretty daunting, but fortunately the fog burnt off as I went.

a sea channel in low-lying fog

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Dances With Bears: Sea Kayaking The Broughton Archipelago To Powell River. Part 3

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August 17 An Epically Long Day

I got up at 3:30AM to get on the water for 6:00, as I had a fair way to go get to the Greene Point Rapids, and slack-to-flood was shortly after seven. I wound up breaking camp in the dark and fog by the dwindling light of a dying headlamp (good thing the batteries had been full a couple of nights before when I was dealing with Bruno).

Because I had to battle headwinds and a stronger-than-expected countercurrent, I was about 15 minutes late getting to the rapids. They were shrouded in heavy fog, and I could hear water splashing, which spooked me a bit. Surely there couldn’t be overfalls or standing waves just a quarter hour after slack? Then I spied a pod of our distant cousins, marine mammals, cavorting happily westward through the current, making the splashing sound I’d heard. A magic moment.

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