"Mothership Kayaking
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British Columbia Magazine Fall 2003 Mothership Kayaking whale that rescuers brought up from fourth morning is rich with culture. As we Seattle to release into her genetic pod here paddle into the bay of the abandoned in johnstone Strait. Her portable net pen Mi'mkwamlis Village, a colourful raft of is anchored nearby. visiting kayaks lines the white midden beach, created by centuries of discarded Sylvester and Graham winch our kayaks clam and oyster shells. Above the beach, a down from the Columbia's roof while we few crooked houses with gaping doors and don life jackets. Comeau teams us up, windows occupy an overgrown meadow. coddling each pair into double kayaks and Decomposing totems lie hidden in the tall, securing the spray skirts. She adjusts our sweet grasses. Salal, blackberry, and foot peddles, positions cushions behind salmonberry choke the many deer paths our backs, distributes water bottles and and fresh bear scat is evident along the paddles, and gently pushes us into the sea. trails. Our first short excursion around the bay Campbell River native Tom Sewid greets gives us a feel for the kayaks, while our us. He is dressed in his traditional greeting ever-watchful guides gauge our paddling regalia: a fine wooden headdress, blue- experience (or lack thereof). We glide and-red button blanket splendidly deco- around the whale pen searching for a rated with his tribal totems, beaded shirt, telltale fin - but we know in our hearts that and apron. We sit on logs before the Springer is gone. We're disappointed to remains of the longhouse - two large by JENNIFER GAZE miss a whale sighting, but happy to entrance poles topped by a lintel - as photography GRAHAM OSBORNE imagine her reunited with her kin. Sewid shares stories of the village's Kwakwaka'wakw people. Paddlers explore spectacular coastal Whales are in no short supply the follow- fiords of the Inside Passage by day, ing day. We paddle to the Cracroft Islands He explains the importance of the potlatch cozying up by night in the protective and scramble up a moss-carpeted rainfor- ceremony, a native celebration rich in cradle of the Columbia. est trail to Eagle Eye, a whale observation tradition, dance, and song. It brought point overlooking Robson Bight. Summer great honour to the host who bestowed Listen!" shushes our guide, Sharon researchers here observe killer whales that gifts on his guests, thereby disseminating Comeau, as she holds up one hand. come to rub their bellies on gravel beaches wealth among the people; sometimes, Though we can barely make out the yellow in Robson Bight (Michael Bigg) Ecological unbestowed gifts were destroyed - beauti- tips of our kayaks in the thick July fog that Reserve. Peering through binoculars, we fully carved copper shields tossed into the blankets the channel. We listen, spell- spy whales heading down the strait: three, sea - to demonstrate the giver's largess. bound, to the eerie and unmistakable four, and then six orcas. Two juvenile Misunderstood by observers, the potlatch 'wooosh' of whales surfacing as they pass, males veer toward shore, foraging about was outlawed by the Canadian govern- heard but unseen, before us. 18 metres below our perch. ment in 1884. Our pod of adventurers, three Americans and six Canadians, has signed on to the Hearing of the final forbidden potlatch on mothership Columbia III for a six-day Village island in 1921, when ceremonial kayaking tour of lohnstone Strait and the items were confiscated and several Broughton Archipelago. An eclectic group participants jailed, I feel uncomfortable in - an architect, office manager, lawyer, my white skin. After more than 50 years judge, retired househusband, art dealer, and lengthy negotiations with the govern- travel writer, teacher, and town mayor - ment, the Kwakwaka'wakw finally brought we have come with a common purpose: to their artifacts home, under the condition experience the raw beauty of the backwa- they would be displayed in museums built ters of British Columbia's Inside Passage by the native people. that carves its way between Vancouver Island and the ragged edge of the main- We saw these impressive masks and land. Some 200 million years of tectonic coppers at the U'Mista Cultural Centre on plate movement, volcanic eruptions, and our first stop in Alert Bay. ("U'Mista" earthquakes have created the powerful, refers to those returned home after being mountainous landscape of B.C.'s coastline. held captive by another tribe.) I remember Dramatic fiords, gouged out by glaciers the quiet dignity in the raftered space that moving from Interior ice fields, finger houses these treasures; there are no their way into the rugged western coast, protective glass cases here. "They have creating a mecca for marine mammals and been imprisoned long enough," said kayakers alike. former curator Gloria Webster, "now they Kayakers from the mothership Columbia III explore need to be free." And what better way to see the sights than intertidal life in Burly Bay off Mackenzie Sound, from the comfort of a mothership. By day north of the Broughton Archipelago. After an afternoon paddle past the old we will paddle the island-strewn fiords burial islands surrounding Village Island, and inlets in sturdy double kayaks, happy Another pod comes into view and soon we clamber aboard the Columbia and head in the knowledge that, by night, we return there are 30 or 40 of these magnificent across Knight Inlet, through Spring, to hot showers, gourmet meals, and dry marine mammals breaching, fishing, and Retreat, Arrow, and Spiller passages into beds aboard the handsome 21-metre playing. It is a riveting sight. I have spent the Broughton Archipelago. We negotiate Columbia. Boat's master Bill McKechnie many summers kayaking the West Coast our way through tight passages where the has lovingly transformed the historic without even a sighting. After lunch on reflections of salal and evergreens bleed vessel into an all-weather cruiser that shore, we paddle back to the Columbia onto the water, making the entire land- carries kayakers to otherwise hard-to- and, incredibly, encounter 20 more scape a wash of multi-hued greens. As we reach parts of the coast. There is no gear whales. We can hardly believe our luck. head ever north and east, we see fewer to pack, no tent to set up, and routes are boats and even fewer people. planned so paddlers travel with the tides A former single-kayak purist, I find the and current, never retracing the same teamwork of piloting a double surprisingly path. We board the Columbia late Sunday pleasant and 1 look forward to each day's afternoon from Port McNeill, a sleepy outing with different partners. We paddle harbour town on Vancouver Island's close to sheer walls in the channels northeast coast. Sharon Comeau, our head between islands, marvelling at the colour- guide and McKechnie's partner, intro- ful sea life clinging to the rock. Peering duces us to naturalist-guide Kyla Graham into the crystal waters, we spot starfish the and skipper Brian Sylvester. As we stow size of ball catcher's mitts, sun stars in our gear in our cabins, the engines come hues from bright orange to maroon, dog to life and we head to our first night's whelk, trumpet sponges, urchins, sea docking in Alert Bay on nearby Cormorant cucumbers, lions mane jellyfish, mussels, Island. plumose anemone, and huge gardens of bull kelp where spider crabs hide among the bronze fronds. Rounding a channel bend, we sometimes spot bald eagles or startle flocks of Bonaparte gulls, Pacific loons, Brandt's cormorants, auklets, herons, kingfishers, guillemots, or oyster- catchers (which, we learn, actually feed on clams). Bill McKechnie leads a hike through a rainforest on West Cracroft Island We catch a ride in the mild, mid-channel currents, lulled by the melodic plip-plop of On our final morning, the sun breaks our paddle blades. Orange and purple through the clouds as we power back to starfish clinging to craggy walls above the Port McNeill. We collect on the Kayakers relax on Columbia III, anchored at tide line look like strings of decorations set Columbia's bow, soaking in the day's Burly Bay out to celebrate our arrival. Skirts of cedar warmth and beauty. Rounding a bend, we and fir trailing to the water's edge appear catch sight of a log in the channel. As we While the crew bustles about the ship, precisely trimmed, as if by a master draw closer, the log sprouts ears, trans- passengers wander down the road into gardener. forming into a large black bear swimming Alert Bay. Some 1,100 Kwakiuti Indians from island to island. We watch as he pulls and non-natives live here amid a curiously After a day's paddling, we often congre- himself from the water, performs a appealing mix of tumbledown cottages, gate in the wheelhouse as Sylvester vigorous shake, and slowly disappears into rotting wharves (the docks are undergoing navigates the Columbia along the watery the salal. extensive restoration), a wonderful highways to our next destination. More gingerbread church, a row of gaily painted often than not, thick layers of grey stretch Our luck with wildlife sightings on this pink, yellow, and blue houses, shops, a across the West Coast canvas, but we are trip is remarkable. As we leave Queen hotel, and two restaurants. snug as bugs in our mothership. I wince at Charlotte Sound, the radio crackles with the sight of rain-soaked campsites where report of a humpback whale in the area. Our ragtag group makes its way along the kayakers cocoon in damp tents or huddle Cutting the engines off Malcolm Island, we waterfront to the old cemetery, where new under tarps sipping hot drinks to keep slow and spot not the heart-shaped spout and old totems grace the spaces between warm: been there, done that.