Three's Company Too



John Arriving by SeaBus




John on Bow Watch





Roscoe Inlet



We welcomed our Nephew John aboard “Got d’ Fever” at Shearwater after his lengthy trip from eastern Washington.  His flight left from Lewiston, ID arriving in Seattle then on to Vancouver, B.C. where he had a connecting flight on Pacific Coastal to Bella Bella.  John arrived a day later than anticipated.  As it turned out, Pacific Coastal has a separate terminal building on the opposite side of the Vancouver Airport and the shuttle bus service between the two terminals only leaves every 30 minutes.  Needless to say, John missed his connecting flight.  He caught another flight the next day and we were happy to see him arrive at Shearwater from Bella Bella via the Shearwater SeaBus in the afternoon.  “Got d’ Fever” departed the dock at 16:00 and headed for Troup Passage.  John took “bow watch” as we navigated through Troup Narrows, watching for rocks lying just beneath the surface.  We entered Roscoe Inlet with sunny, clear weather affording great views of the mountains and anchored in beautiful Clatse Bay for the night.



Clatse Bay



WWII at Shearwater



Fishermen's Bar & Grill - Shearwater



We took a break from cooking on board and enjoyed an evening meal at Shearwater in the Fishermen’s Bar & Grill housed in a building left over from the early 1940’s.  Shearwater was first established as an anti-submarine reconnaissance unit in 1941.  The Navy pilots at Shearwater gave aircraft names to the McNaughton Island Group for position reporting purposes.  The base closed in 1944 and was later purchased and developed as a marina and fishing resort.  The marina occupies the site of the old WWII military seaplane base and the hangar now serves as a work shop for the marina.   Earlier in the day, we toured the island by bicycle along the graveled roads noting the alpine trees and low-growth foliage in contrast to the denser forest of the mountains further east.



Old WWII Hangar



Old WWII Hangar



Biking the Back Roads



Ocean Falls to Shearwater



Native Burial Site for Important Elders



Bella Bella





Shearwater

 Said our goodbye’s to Ocean Falls and traveled south on Fisher Channel then west into Gunboat Pass for overnight anchorage in Forit Bay, a little cove on the southeast end of Cunningham Island.  Departed the next morning and continued west along Gunboat Pass arriving at Shearwater on the west side of Denny Island.  Shearwater, together with Bella Bella on nearby Campbell Island, are resupply centers for boaters heading north or south along the Central Coast of British Columbia – boaters have two grocery stores from which to choose, one at each location!  We shopped at both, the Native Band Store at Bella Bella via dinghy, and the Marina Grocery at Shearwater.  On our way to Bella Bella, we passed a lovely islet, a designated burial ground for Native Chiefs.  Back at Shearwater, a resident eagle stood watch over grocery shoppers; she chattered loudly while perched atop a tree near the store.  A grand sunset finished the day with a shimmering red glow over Bella Bella.


Resident Eagle at Shearwater



Eagle's Tree at Shearwater



A Grand Sunset



Seafood Bounty



Bucket of Crab




Java Inspecting the Crab

 




 



A Portion of Our Prawn Harvest



Departed beautiful Eucott Bay on Dean Channel yesterday and returned to Ocean Falls in Cousins Inlet at the head of Fisher Channel.  Ocean Falls is a popular stop for boaters wanting to fill their water tank with good filtered water and moorage is reasonably priced.  It's also a great area for prawning and crabbing.  We set the prawn trap out in the evening and by late morning our trap was full of jumbo size prawns.  After boiling the prawns in seawater with sea salt, we barbequed them on skewers soaked with spicy mango barbeque sauce along with pineapple and peppers -- oh so good!  On our first stop at Ocean Falls, a neighboring couple gave us four large crabs and I cooked up a crab pasta recipe.  Crabs are easy to catch so most boaters share their bounty with others.  Earlier at Pruth Bay another boater gave us two crabs and I made some tasty crab cakes.  Crabs are rather messy to cook and clean while prawns are quick and easy to prepare and yield more meat -- both creatures make for good eating.  As we were cooking batches of prawns, two seals hauled themselves up on the breakwater to have a whiff, maybe they were waiting for the discarded prawn heads.  We enjoyed our stay at Ocean Falls and met some interesting people including Larry from Seattle who is an ex-Navy pilot and retired commercial pilot.  He and his wife spent 14 years sailing around the world.  We also visited with Chuck and Corliss from Vancouver, WA who sailed into Ocean Falls while we were there, we had met them previously at several other stops.







Cooked Prawns







A Visit with Larry







Medium Rare for Bear

After anchoring in Eucott Bay off Dean Channel, Leonard paddled his kayak to shore and enjoyed a soak in the natural hot springs overlooking the bay surrounded by mountains.  I paddled to the opposite shore to observe the bears feeding in the open meadows.  I managed to get close enough with the kayak to take a picture or two.  The bears were enjoying their salad but perhaps they could smell Leonard cooking to a medium rare in the hot springs and were anticipating a small roast for the main course.  I left Leonard with the air horn for bear protection but decided I should go back and check on him, "he must be fully cooked by now."  Such a pretty spot, Eucott Bay showcases a Yosemite like granite mountain, snow covered peaks, and a waterfall with creeks that run through the meadows into the bay, a great place to anchor with a mud bottom for good holding.



Hot Springs at Eucott Bay



Bear Feeding



Bear Feeding



Bear Feeding??



Wonderful View from Hot Springs

Unending Grandeur



Dean Channel



Dean Channel



Departed Ocean Falls in Cousins Inlet at noon and cruised four (4) hours up Dean Channel and anchored in Eucott Bay.  The camera couldn’t capture the full spectacle:  the mountains, falls, and sculptured granite cliffs stretched into an unending scene of grandeur.  Each photo taken only captured a fraction of this enormous territory – a vastness hard to comprehend.  On our cruise along Dean Channel, we stopped to see the Memorial dedicated to Alexander Mackenzie.  He and his party were the first to cross the North American continent north of Mexico (eleven years earlier than Lewis & Clark).  The Mackenzie expedition began on May 9, 1793; and on July 20, 1793, (73 days after leaving Fort Chipewyan) he and his men paddled down the Peace and Bella Coola Rivers into saltwater.  To mark the occasion, Alexander obtained some melted grease and vermilion from a local village and painted the date on a rock (date now chiseled in the rock), which can be seen below the Memorial along Dean Channel.  In 1801 Mackenzie published the accounts of his first attempt and of his second successful trip in a volume entitled “Voyages From Montreal.”  This was the volume read by Thomas Jefferson and shown to Meriwether Lewis.



Dean to Cascade Channel



Dean Channel



Alexander Mackenzie Memorial



A Living Ghost Town



Abandoned Dormitory



Enjoyed walking around the community of Ocean Falls and soon discovered that the imposing buildings on the hill stand empty, claimed by vines growing up through the open windows -- a ghostly reminder of a not too distant past.  Ocean Falls was home to a saw mill begun in 1909 and later a paper mill that went through several name changes ending with ownership by Crown Zellerbach.  The Crown Zellerbach paper mill in Ocean Falls closed in 1973.  Office buildings, dormitories, a large hotel, homes, schools, a theatre, grocery store, fire department, sport fields, and a swimming pool that produced Olympic champions were all part of the busy scene in Ocean Falls, where 5,000 people lived during the 1960’s.  Today, many of the buildings from the 1940’s to the late 1970’s have collapsed, while others still stand.  In 1973, the provincial government had bought the entire town of Ocean Falls, including all of Crown Zellerbach’s local assets for 1 million dollars and a new company was established called Ocean Falls Corporation.  After making a profit for only two years, the Corporation went steadily downhill, losses peaked in 1979.  In March of 1980 the announcement was made that the entire mill would be closed within three months.  Unlike the more compassionate manner in which Crown Zellerbach issued their closure announcement, the town’s people heard the news on the morning radio.  The last employee of Ocean Falls left the mill on May 31, 1980.  With costs mounting to $500,000 a year, the government was anxious to give independence to Ocean Falls but that meant a decision to “normalize” the area – a demolition of 200 apartments and 160 houses.  On “D-Day” a 70 year old resident since 1943 stood in front of the backhoe; the government came to recognize the heritage value of the original town but not after some of the buildings had been demolished.  Today the population is approximately 40 in the winter and 100 in the summer.  The dam at Ocean Falls provides electrical power for the communities of Bella Bella, Shearwater, and Ocean Falls.  A fish hatchery business is located on the site of the old mill and provides additional employment.  The historical background shared here comes from a book entitled “The Story of Ocean Falls, Rain People” by Bruce Ramsey and is an absolutely fascinating read – a sad story but also inspiring.  As a note of interest, I grew up in a small town also with a Crown Zellerbach paper mill.



Annex to Hotel - Vines Taking Over



A Once Proud Home



Homes Calapsing



Wrong Turn -- Norway?



Fisher Channel



Community of Martin Valley



Departed early morning and cruised through the McNaughton’s into Hunter Channel connecting with Lama Passage just south of Bella Bella, turned east through Lama Passage and north into Fisher Channel and Cousins Inlet reaching the community of Ocean Falls around 14:50.  We were fortunate to have clear weather while cruising up Fisher Channel enabling us to enjoy the stupendous views.  Nestled at the end of the channel in Cousins Inlet is the village of Martin Valley (about a mile from Ocean Falls).  This small community is set at the foot of enormous mountains surrounded by waterfalls and forest with green open spaces that look just like a scene in Norway, breathtaking! – perhaps we took a wrong turn?  As we rounded the bend, we could see the working community of Ocean Falls with the dam's spillway cascading water from the lake above down to the sea.  We moored at Ocean Falls guest dock along with three other boats and rode our bikes to the small grocery store in Martin Valley.



Dam at Ocean Falls



Community of Ocean Falls



Sensory Overload



Mountain Backdrop and Ocean Spray along Rocky Shore 



Blenheim Rock and Ocean Spray



Nearing McNaughton Island Group



The weather on May 19th was clear, calm, and sunny, not a cloud in the sky.  We took advantage of the good weather and cruised to the McNaughton Island Group located along Queen Charlotte Strait in Queens Sound rather than taking the more traveled “Inside Passage” route through Fitz Hugh Sound and Fisher Channel.  The McNaughton Group is seldom visited by pleasure boats, and I understand why.  Even with no wind, we had large ocean swells as we headed north from Pruth Bay.  Since the waves were far apart, “Got d’ Fever” was gently lifted and dropped as the swells passed under us. -- every now and then it looked like a wall of water coming our way, a little unnerving, but we got used to the idea.  We could see the beautiful mountains along the “Inside Passage” a great backdrop to the ocean swells crashing over small islands and islets out at sea - a sensory overload of beauty.  To add to the excitement, our Raymarine display of Vector Charts suddenly went blank – no islands, no mainland, or routes shown; it was like we had fallen off the edge of the earth!  We did have a backup however since we simultaneously use Raster Charts on our PC computer.  We soon realized that our Raymarine unit was operational; we just needed to put in a different electronic chip for the next segment of charts - not exactly a great place for boaters to have to switch over charts.  We arrived at our anchorage in the McNaughton Group (west of Hunter Island) around noon.  A paradise for kayakers, our anchorage was completely secluded and provided excellent protection.  It is interesting to note that many of the McNaughton islands and islets are named after WWII aircraft.  This group of islands appears small on the charts, but they actually cover a large area; as one reader put it, the enormity of the B.C. Coast never ceases to amaze!



Calm Anchorage in McNaughton's



Another Day at the Beach



Java's Cave



South Beach

 Today was Java’s day to play at the beach.  We carried her to the end of the trail and then let her run through the sand.  An Eagle flew overhead at low altitude, probably calculating Java’s weight as food cargo – Mrs. Eagle must have decided Java was too heavy.  Java then ran off to inspect a little cave by the seashore at the south end of the beach where another trail begins.  Tom, whom we had met yesterday, suggested that we hike this trail out to the other beaches.  Java was tucked inside Leonard’s jacket as we hiked more muddy steep pitches and negotiated the challenging cliff from which a rope hung to access the beach below -- guess they don’t worry about lawsuits in Canada!  They do take their Internet communication seriously, however.  These last two blog postings were made possible via the upland Hakai Beach Institute’s WiFi, located a half mile or more from our boat anchored in the bay.  After completing our expedition, we returned to the comfort of our boat and gave Java a bath off the swim step and hosed off our boots -- Java took a snooze in the warm afternoon sun.


Cliff Rope to South Beach



An Alternate Trail Route



Day at the Beach



West Beach







Little Girl at West Beach




North Beach

 



Climbing with Rope

 Departed Dawsons Landing late morning via Darby Channel to Fitz Hugh Sound and then west to Pruth Bay on Calvert Island situated along Queen Charlotte Strait.  We anchored in the bay along with several other boats and took the dinghy ashore to walk a trail to West Beach, a large crescent-shaped sandy beach.  The temperature was warm and it felt like summer on the Oregon coast.  From West Beach, we walked another trail which leads to North Beach, equally beautiful with wonderful views.  The North Beach trail was reported to be muddy so we wore our rubber boots and our yellow rain gear to protect us against the brush and possible insects.  Part of the trail is so steep that a rope is provided to climb up and down the slope.  While hiking to North Beach, we met Tom from Sandpoint, ID; he was traveling by boat with two of his buddies (both pilots).  We stopped by their vessel via dinghy for a short visit.  In addition to the beautiful beaches, Pruth Bay is home to the Hakai Beach Institute, a teaching, research, and conference facility serving the Central Coast.  The Institute has partnerships with universities and other organizations.