North coast expedition: From reverie to pucker and back again
- Thread starter Sharphooks
- Start date
Charlie415
Crew Member
Great tales once again! Thx
JUST ONE MORE
Member
Thanks for sharing an epic adventure!!---Most of us will only get there through your tales: and you write a good one. Happy Trails.
happy hooker
Crew Member
Wow epic trip epic fish epic read! Thank you
spring fever
Well-Known Member
Enjoyed every minute of it!!
Sharphooks
Well-Known Member
Thanks for the comments, Gents. You guys have helped me out hugely over the years with solid gold intel about your lovely backyard and these write ups are a way of giving back to the SFBC Forum
A few things I didn't get into on the earlier write up: every year I try and find a book to read for those weather days (this year there were at least 5!!) I search long and hard for the right book because it's a magical time for me and I want the book to dovetail with all the rest of the magic.
This year I read The Golden Spruce by J. Vaillant.
It really is a good book---captures the whole Haida Gwaii / Hecate Strait flavor, indeed the whole Central/North Coast flavor. His descriptions of the inter-tidal zones, the rocky outcrops, the crazy beaches stacked to the gills with huge logs, and the historical background of logging in that area and one man's psychotic reaction to that history is quite powerful.
One of the plates in the book, a Haida dance mask, gave me shivers when I first saw it. It represents a Gagiid, a person trapped between the surface and the spirit worlds, and is a representation of what befalls a person who has a near drowning experience in Haida Gwaii / Hecate Straits, specifically during the winter months...
Grant Hadwin, the guy who swims across the Yakoun River and takes a chainsaw to the Haida's Golden Spruce, probably suffered just such a fate when making a run for it in his kayak in the depths of winter after goring that stunning tree.
One day I hooked a huge spring. It peeled off line like I couldn't believe. I was finally getting it close enough to the boat so I'd get to "see color" when it took off again. This time, it took off at such a pace and with so much power I started to suspect something else was going on
Sure enough, 50 meters off my port side a huge sea lion went airborne with my spring in its mouth.
This is what I reeled back to the boat. One word came to mind when I saw it lying forlornly on the deck of my boat:
gagiid.....
And at the risk of getting too political with comments about logging, I would also confess that one of the prime reasons I wanted to visit North Coast was to see it in its pristine condition and somehow, wrap my head around the labyrinthal routing tanker captains are considering once they come out of Douglas Channel stuffed to the gills with dilbit from Alberta.
And the tankers will be going right past Places like this:
Seeing the photo-shopped routing that Enbridge chose to showcase in their brochure (the first picture from the Enbridge brochure shows Douglas Channel as a wide open sound with zero islands standing between Kitimat and the open ocean)
Knowing that dilbit sinks gives me a huge sinking feeling because there is ZERO doubt that if those tankers eventually get the white card from the Provincial Government, sooner or later one of them will do a Queen of the North. It's inevitable. Statistical probabilities of occurrence make it so. They're planning hundreds of trips a year!!!
The whale research and Ian McAllister's writings about that part of the world, the stunning grandeur of it, the Spirit Bears, the wolves, that's what will help keep North Coast the Promised Land
So it comes down to the foot of man on that precious land, or the foot of a wolf...
A few things I didn't get into on the earlier write up: every year I try and find a book to read for those weather days (this year there were at least 5!!) I search long and hard for the right book because it's a magical time for me and I want the book to dovetail with all the rest of the magic.
This year I read The Golden Spruce by J. Vaillant.
It really is a good book---captures the whole Haida Gwaii / Hecate Strait flavor, indeed the whole Central/North Coast flavor. His descriptions of the inter-tidal zones, the rocky outcrops, the crazy beaches stacked to the gills with huge logs, and the historical background of logging in that area and one man's psychotic reaction to that history is quite powerful.
One of the plates in the book, a Haida dance mask, gave me shivers when I first saw it. It represents a Gagiid, a person trapped between the surface and the spirit worlds, and is a representation of what befalls a person who has a near drowning experience in Haida Gwaii / Hecate Straits, specifically during the winter months...
Grant Hadwin, the guy who swims across the Yakoun River and takes a chainsaw to the Haida's Golden Spruce, probably suffered just such a fate when making a run for it in his kayak in the depths of winter after goring that stunning tree.
One day I hooked a huge spring. It peeled off line like I couldn't believe. I was finally getting it close enough to the boat so I'd get to "see color" when it took off again. This time, it took off at such a pace and with so much power I started to suspect something else was going on
Sure enough, 50 meters off my port side a huge sea lion went airborne with my spring in its mouth.
This is what I reeled back to the boat. One word came to mind when I saw it lying forlornly on the deck of my boat:
gagiid.....
And at the risk of getting too political with comments about logging, I would also confess that one of the prime reasons I wanted to visit North Coast was to see it in its pristine condition and somehow, wrap my head around the labyrinthal routing tanker captains are considering once they come out of Douglas Channel stuffed to the gills with dilbit from Alberta.
And the tankers will be going right past Places like this:
Seeing the photo-shopped routing that Enbridge chose to showcase in their brochure (the first picture from the Enbridge brochure shows Douglas Channel as a wide open sound with zero islands standing between Kitimat and the open ocean)
Knowing that dilbit sinks gives me a huge sinking feeling because there is ZERO doubt that if those tankers eventually get the white card from the Provincial Government, sooner or later one of them will do a Queen of the North. It's inevitable. Statistical probabilities of occurrence make it so. They're planning hundreds of trips a year!!!
The whale research and Ian McAllister's writings about that part of the world, the stunning grandeur of it, the Spirit Bears, the wolves, that's what will help keep North Coast the Promised Land
So it comes down to the foot of man on that precious land, or the foot of a wolf...
Last edited:
Sir Reel
Well-Known Member
Sharp hooks, another great read is Heart of the Raincoast. All about the life of Billy Proctor. He was a fisherman and logger on the west coast. He documents how the runs of Salmon were dwindling and why.
He has a museum in Echo Bay. I visited it a few years ago and he signed a copy of my book.
Amazing, resourceful, fearless man.
http://pierresbay.com/things-to-do/billys-museum/
He has a museum in Echo Bay. I visited it a few years ago and he signed a copy of my book.
Amazing, resourceful, fearless man.
http://pierresbay.com/things-to-do/billys-museum/
wishiniwasfishin1
Well-Known Member
Once again great job SH. How is it that you get to go on a couple 'trips of a lifetime' every year?
Outstanding right up and read for us all. Spent lots of time up there and yes its all amazing country, even the ferry sinking part, very emotional as was there the day after for security reasons, and a year later for ceremony. You have a bucket list trip crossed of, now you can start planning the next bucket list trip, I highly recommend completing the one you had younger and spoken to in the first and second para. That is also something you will never forget (change Kenya for Zimbabwe, Mozambique). Africa will keep you returning more than anywhere=trust me. Thanks for sharing Sharphooks. Good job
HM
HM
sailfisher
Member
Thanks for the account of your adventure. It was a great read and made me itch to get up there myself! One day, somehow, I'll make it happen 
tyeegalore
Active Member
Sharp Hooks, I know its been said many times but wholly **** man you have a talent for telling stories and describing the beauty we call home, I just found this story and will definetly do a search to read your others. Thank you for this!!!
ReelDreams
Member
What an awesome read, I enjoyed all of it. Thanks for sharing with all of us!
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