SETTLING DOWN
“How and when did you find a place to settle down?”
IT DID NOT TAKE ME long after arriving on the BC coast to realize that I had to have a boat. Boating, especially sailing, would obviously be fun in itself and would also provide access to the beautiful and largely roadless mountains that could be seen on every horizon, an explorer’s paradise. My first boat was a 21-foot sloop affectionately named Shadowfax after Gandalf’s horse that magically conveyed him to safety from the teeth of disaster in Lord of the Rings. Soon my old pal Bill showed up from the Rockies, and after a brief look at Shadowfax he suggested, with his usual mischievous grin, “Gee, that’s great. Now we can sail up the coast and climb Mount Waddington.”
“Good idea. Where is it, anyway?”
“Dunno. Must be up there somewhere.”
We had heard Mount Waddington referred to as one of the world’s great mountains, “a mountaineer’s mountain,” which was the polite way of saying it was bloody difficult to climb. Whereas this casual attitude of ours may have been justified, as far as reaching the top of a mountain was concerned, we were about to find out it was sadly out of whack in terms of what was required to get even to the bottom of this one.
With only a smattering of marine savvy, learned in Sea Cadets at high school, and a few elementary preparations that included looking on a map, we cheerfully boarded Shadowfax and took off up coast on what seemed the most direct route to the mountain: up Bute Inlet and the Homathko Valley, approximately 150 miles north of Vancouver.
During this exciting voyage the full range of hazards and difficulties that can be encountered by a small underpowered boat on this big, oh so big, coast was introduced to us the hard way. While storm-bound in a coastal pub we heard some old-timers arguing about the greatest coastal threat. Was it the tidal rapids with their 15-knot currents, three-foot overfalls and huge whirlpools? Or was it the southeaster with its hurricane force winds and mighty smoking waves turned chaotic by opposing tides? Or was it getting lost in the fog, going round and round in circles, running out of gas and freezing to death?
“Nah!” said one particularly crusty old fisherman, deliberately taking his time for maximum effect, “It’s the rocks … It’s the effing rocks that get you.”
So far we had managed to elude the “effing rocks,” but on our recent adventures there had been some scary moments. Sailing north out of Powell River, up the open strait toward Desolation Sound, for instance, with a freshening southeaster on our stern quarter the boat would not stay on course and under our control. Even though we pulled the tiller as far as it would go to turn her downwind away from the increasingly alarming swells, she kept on wanting to swing back up to windward and into the waves. This, we later learned, was due to “weather helm,” a safety feature built into every good sailboat causing the wind to spill out of the main sail and so reduce the risk of capsizing. Inadvertently, more by good feel than good judgment, we did the right thing, which was to reef, or reduce, the main sail. This elementary difficulty was typical of what is politely referred to as learning the hard way.
Another example of this learning style, which became our specialty, occurred when arriving after dark at one of the few-and-far-between anchorages. As Shadowfax nosed cautiously into the back of a large bay at the mouth of a large river, Bill was up on the bow making soundings to tell me how deep the water was.
Our desire to be close in against the shore for as much shelter as possible had to be balanced against the need of having enough water under our keel at low tide in the middle of the night. We figured that the ideal depth was 15 feet, but it needed to be that deep within the whole arc of swing of our anchor point. Just when it should have been about right, Bill yelled, “Five feet!” and before I had time to go in reverse he yelled, “Twenty feet!” This same pattern kept repeating, and eventually, having failed to make any rational sense of our measurements, we gave up in exhaustion and, hoping for the best, threw the anchor out and went to sleep. At low tide, early in the daylight hours, and after a luckily trouble-free night, the situation was explained: as the river flowed out through the tidal zone at the back of the bay it formed a “spit,” or raised embankment, either side of its main channel. The mind boggles at the complex array of possibilities of what might have happened.
It turned out that Bute Inlet and Mount Waddington were too distant for such a slow, light boat and probably also too serious for her crew. But Shadowfax did make it to the head of Toba Inlet. The crew climbed a 9,000 ft. peak right out of the boat and were initiated, inevitably the hard way, into steep, rugged, trail-less terrain, impassably thick coastal bush, fiendishly prickly devil’s club, horizontal-leaning slide alder and clouds of man-eating mosquitoes in otherwise idyllic, pristine alpine meadows.
From the Toba Inlet trip we learned to love the wild and rugged beauty of the Coast Range even more than the Rockies. It also became apparent that the greater availability of wild food, fish, oysters and clams, along with the relatively moderate climate, makes it much easier to survive off the land and sea on the coast than in the interior. We were also both inspired to start painting with watercolours. In synchronistic good fortune, that voyage also took us through Desolation Sound and the Discovery Island archipelago that later became my choice of place to settle down. I had noticed in passing at the time that it would be an interesting area to live in.
It was on the way back from this adventure that Shadowfax pulled into a derelict and characterful old dock in downtown Vancouver called Clay’s Wharf. We’d heard it was the cheapest place to tie up. The first person we saw at the end of the dock was a beautiful, dark-haired hippie gal in a long, flowing dress, just standing there smiling and nursing a baby.
“Is it okay for us to tie up here?” we asked.
“Of course,” she smiled. “Come on in.”
The next thing we knew we were invited aboard a funky old boat and were drinking herb tea with a bunch of colourful, long-haired live-aboarders. It turned out that at least one of these shady-looking characters was one of the original members of Greenpeace, which had had its recent origins at that very same dock in downtown Vancouver. As the city had, not surprisingly, condemned the wharf to make way for their Granville Island redevelopment scheme, these folks were being evicted, and some of them were plotting to form a co-operative to buy a piece of land on a remote island up coast somewhere.
“In the spirit of flower power and brotherly love an’ all that,” the charismatic, persuasive and exceedingly hairy old hippie with rings in his nose and ears asked with a wry and sly chuckle, “how would you like to buy a share?”
Not being at all sure about the whole deal, for once in my short life I was cautious, and I used the honest excuse of not having enough money in order to postpone making any commitment. However, Shadowfax stayed tied up at the wharf during the last year or so before the eviction notices were finally posted, while I worked in the city to save up some money for a share in the land.
I had an opportunity to see the land before committing to buying the share in the co-op, which was just as well, since I had not yet convinced myself of the merits of gambling what to me was quite a bit of cash on such a shady-looking deal. A respectable job in Vancouver at the time enabled me to take out a loan, which was something I had never done before, and my rambler’s heart did not relish the idea of being tied down to monthly payments. When I set foot on the island, however, all that doubt and uncertainty vanished in an instant. In fact, the hesitation had probably evaporated even before arriving at the island. Just the voyage up there from Powell River was an exhilarating adventure, especially the boat ride through the tidal rapids immediately prior to arrival at the destination.
A group of fellow enlistees in the co-op had quite sensibly organized a reconnaissance expedition and had invited me along. They chartered a sturdy old working sailboat, which turned out to be an excellent way to see the area and hear some tales and gossip of life beyond the end of the roads and power lines. The first part of the journey had been out in the open Georgia Strait, with enticing panoramic views of snow-capped mountains on both sides of the wide expanse of open sea. There was enough fresh breeze to set some sail, shut off the motor and feel the delightfully smooth rhythm of the classic old schooner heeling and heaving into the lively swell. Farther on we motored into the narrow channels that weave their way through the picturesque and heavily forested rocky shorelines of the cluster of islands squeezed between northern Vancouver Island and the remote mainland coast, at the top end of the Georgia Strait. This area has come to be known as the “Discovery Islands archipelago” after Captain Vancouver’s famous ship, HMS Discovery.
The huge volume of water that enters and leaves the Georgia Strait basin twice daily, enough to vary the elevation as much as 15 feet on a big tide, has to find its way through these narrow channels four times a day, on its way in from and out to the ocean. As it squeezes though the narrowest channels, it accelerates to form some spectacular tidal rapids, some of which have 4-foot overfalls and whirlpools the size of tennis courts. We were lucky on this first occasion to be initiated into the vagaries of the rapids by an experienced, female old salt called Zoey at the helm of a very sturdy and experienced old boat called Sailfish, both of whom seemed to know exactly what they were doing. Although they took us through while the tide was still clipping along at an impressive rate, it was in the right direction, going with the flow and not against it. They also chose the line very carefully to avoid the worst of the whirlpools and turbulence.
“Beginners are advised to go through at slack water,” Zoey explained.
“What’s that?” asked one of the would-be islanders.
“The brief interval four times a day, when the flow of the rapids stops and changes direction,” Zoey answered patiently, and then went on with a grin, “But we’ll go through with the ebb running a bit. So hold on to your asses!”
Although the Sailfish rocked and rolled and accelerated to twice her previous speed, she and Zoey came through smiling, while we greenhorns gripped the handrails with white knuckles and collectively gasped, “Wow! What a rush!”
So by the time we pulled into the calm and serene little bay that was our destination, it’s quite likely that I was already sold. Other than the occasional little beach shack there had been no sign of civilization for miles. As soon as the boat was tied up to the makeshift bundle of logs that served as a dock, the silence, beauty and peaceful serenity were a marvel. So too were the merganser ducks and blue herons in the back of the bay, the seals basking on the rocks and the eagle checking us out from his lookout on a branch, way up at the top of the magnificent old fir tree on the mossy bluffs nearby. This was exactly the kind of neighbourhood I was looking for.
A good hike around the property revealed a series of benches on south-facing slopes at the base of a dome-shaped mountain with fine views out to the ocean and neighbouring islands. Although it was hardly pristine, as it had been recently logged, the clear-cuts were relatively small and accessible by a network of skid roads.
“The clearings would likely make ideal spots for homesteads,” one of the more practical visitors noticed, “and there was enough standing timber to use for building houses.”
“Or to retain the integrity of the forest,” another one argued, with shades of things to come.
The vibrations of the land itself felt good, inducing quite a lot of primal hooting and hollering from the woolly-headed visitors, including me, perhaps inspired by adrenaline. We built a camp and had a wonderful gathering around a huge fire with sleeping bags laid out under the stars, amid wind-twisted pine trees on an exposed mossy bluff overlooking the water. My imagination was working overtime on the fantasy of building a home and settling down in such a beautiful and stimulating place.
Next morning the sadness at having to leave the island and go back to the city one more time was outweighed by the exhilaration of knowing the decision to buy into the land co-op deal had been made.
“How did you two meet?,” a female apprentice asked Laurie eagerly. “Was it love at first sight?”
WHILE ROB WAS LIVING ON Shadowfax at Clay’s Wharf and working in the city to pay off the loans on his boat and the land, one night in the climber’s pub in Vancouver, he complained to the old patron of the west coast climbing community, Jim Sinclair, that he wasn’t having much luck with the local ladies.
“I know just the girl for you,” Jim responded. “Her name is Laurie Manson. She’s going to be in Squamish this weekend.”
So, he set us up for a blind date in “The Chieftain,” a climbers’ bar in Squamish. Without telling Rob, Jim had phoned me and asked if I wanted to meet a famous ice climber from the Rockies.
“He has long, scruffy, blond hair and will be wearing a red windbreaker…. By the way, he’s a bit of a lad, so you’d better watch out,” Jim had warned me.
I had been brought up in Squamish and had learned to climb with a group of local climbing desperadoes who called themselves “The Squamish Hard Core.” They trained on the fierce walls of the local granite massive known as “The Chief.” They were some of the world’s best rock climbers but they had a wild and lawless lifestyle. Partly under their influence, at the age of 20, together with some other girlfriends I had become a good enough climber to make some first all-female ascents, including “The Grand Wall” on The Chief and the “Diamond” face of Long’s Peak in Colorado, and was just then developing it into a career as an instructor.
Being used to the Squamish Hard Core, I was not at all intimidated by the climbers’ usual disorderly barroom behaviour, and I was not surprised to find Rob and his buddies already quite drunk at seven in the evening. First impression aside, I knew he was a famous ice climber, so he must have had something going for him. I suppose by the end of that week end I was attracted by Rob’s energy, his ideas and his sincerity. It might have been bullshit but at least it was heartfelt.
“How about you, Rob, was it love at first sight for you?” Everyone in the steamed-up cabin laughed.
I WAS PROBABLY TOO DRUNK to notice at the time, but I remember thinking next day when I saw Laurie climbing that any girl who could climb that well could do pretty well anything she put her mind to. I was right about that at least. We hit it off right away and arranged to meet again at the Outdoor Centre where Laurie was working in the Vancouver Island mountains and living with her four-year-old daughter, Kiersten. I was immediately impressed by the quiet strength and inner peace that both Laurie and Kiersten possessed and by the delightful, natural intimacy of their relationship. This was exactly the kind of sincere integrity that I was escaping to, and the lack of which, in society, I was escaping from.
The attraction served to pull me away from the city, farther out into the wild, rugged and remote coastal landscape where the powerful combination of mountains, forests and ocean calmed my restless spirit and inspired me to take the plunge. Finally, I turned my back on the city and professional life and the security of steady income, for good. I bought the share in the land co-op and invited Laurie and Kiersten to join me in “the back to the land movement,” carving out a living from scratch, on a remote and beautiful west coast island.
“So it was love at first sight, then?”
YES. INDEED IT WAS.
“That’s about it for one night,” I announced wearily and we all turned in.
Next morning the storm continued and so did the stories.