Sea Beavers and Caesers - Kayaking in Kyuquot Sound
During the course of this “Cabin in the Sky” project, I’ve come to realize a few things:
Writing is MUCH harder than simply taking and posting photos on the Internet
It takes a certain mental state to be particularly motivated to invest time in this and expose myself to the world in this way.
I enjoy the challenge of new things, including the vulnerability of putting creative works out in public, though it can definitely be very uncomfortable
Mary has been observing that I often describe things as hard, and it comes across as negative framing at times. I tend to not necessarily equate hard to negative, they are just that, hard. And sometimes, hard is good!
It’s just a different perspective.
With the current era of large language models and “Generative AI”, it should probably feel less daunting, but, like I said, I like the challenge of writing, so I’m going to keep pushing myself to take this on and keep going, and get a few posts done that I started years ago but never finished…
In late August 2023, two of our dear California friends, Nick and Mer, who Mary and I know through the Burning Man community and longtime members of our camp, Planned Playhood, had expressed a strong interest in joining us on a sea kayak adventure on the BC coast. We decided to continue a tradition I held for years following my first Burning Man by opting for a kayak trip during the week of the Burn to disconnect and experience a very different type of adventure. Truly the Yang to Burning Man’s Yin, sea kayak touring provides the experience of a full disconnect, far away from jobs, taxes, and day to day responsibilities, and further yet from giant sound systems, day parties, rubber ducky art cars, flame spouting giant metal octopus, 12 hour exodus lines, dust storms, and orgy domes (of which I have never participated in, let the records show).
As it happened, this proved to be an excellent decision on multiple levels, not least because in 2023, both activies were atypically alike in the amount of liquid water present.
We had narrowed our focus on a region of North Vancouver island we had not explored before: Kyuquot (pronounced "ky YOO kit"), not to be confused with Clayoquot Sound north of Tofino and the location of a few previous incredible kayak adventures of mine. We opted for a water taxi to/from Fair Harbour to access the exposed western coast and skip two days of paddling up and down the Kyuquot Sound, maximizing our time in the heart of the region, and explore the waters just south of the massive barrier of land that is the Brooks Peninsula, jutting deep out into the Pacific and the source of significant marine hazard to watercraft travelling up and down the Island.
Fortunately, we were staying South of Brooks, exploring 3 incredible marine and provincial parks separately, with day trip options from each location:
Big Bunsby Marine Park at the North end of Kyuquot, consisting of 5 major islands, and dozens of smaller islets, relatively untouched by development.
West Spring Island, off the coast from the First Nations townsite of Kyuquot, which has some development as it was used as a former marine base, and popular with large groups of kayak guided tours, boasting some fantastic old growth forest hikes and an incredible spit of land and beaches for camping
Rugged Point Provincial Park, a classic West Coast of Vancouver Island beach destination, with Tofino-esque miles long pristine sandy beaches, wolf tracks a plenty, swaying ancient cedars lining the shores. But in contrast to Tofino, at our remote end of the beach, we barely saw another person the entire time we were there.
Kyuquot Sound relative to Tofino and the rest of Vancouver Island
We arrived in Fair Harbour and made our final preparations while we waited hopefully for Kyuquot local First Nations resident, Leo Jack, to arrive. I had managed the communications with him to organize the boat ride and the rentals, and was 97% confident our sporadic messaging had landed and we were secure for this trip, but it’s a different style of communication with remote First Nations disconnected from mainstream media and messaging ubiquitous today, so you never really know. But sure enough, Leo pulled into the dock mid morning, and after loading gas and gear, we were off racing up the sound towards the big swells, open coast and adventure.
Leo’s house in Kyuquot
We learned a lot about the local village during our boat ride with Leo, who shared stories about the fishing lodge. Originally built and operated by settlers, the lodge is now managed by the local nation. Leo expressed pride in seeing the community take charge, but he also acknowledged the significant staffing challenges that come with this transition. With a limited pool of workers in the village, finding and retaining staff is difficult. Leo noted that issues such as alcoholism—an unfortunate reality in many remote communities- further complicates these challenges.
We feel very fortunate to be able to explore and interact with these incredible places and rich culture on the unceded lands of the Nuu-chah-nulth people.
Ready to paddle, leaving Kyuquot village
Very cool rock formations and waterfalls highlighted the coast as we paddled North
First lunch spot, looking North towards Bunsby and Brooks Peninsula
Pooh Bear Rock
We enjoyed perfect paddling weather all day, with minimal wind and bright warm sun, right until we approached the Bunsbys, where we encountered something completely novel to me in 70+ days of sea kayak touring: pea soup fog.
I know my way around a map and compass, as well as setting a bearing, etc., but fortunately, we live in a magic land with tiny supercomputers with a seemingly infinite ability to simultaneously make our lives so much easier (maps), and so much harder (Instagram). Fortunately there was no cell service in Kyuquot, so the latter wasn’t an issue, and man did the former come in handy in this moment! A quick long press on the Garmin Navionics app to set our destination on the far side of the open crossing at the edge of the Bunsbys and we had our bearing. It was extremely disorienting as we paddled, as we could not see anything besides the white void ahead, and a hope that my GPS was in fact doing its job.
In the end, it handled it perfect, and we were in the Bunsbys without any issues, and it was now time to find an available campsite. We toodled around the many islets inspecting the various marked known campsites I had pre-recorded from the BC Marine Trail website (https://www.bcmarinetrails.org/map/), and eventually found a great protected option near the outer edge of the chain where we settled in for 2 nights to explore, where our only neighbours were some curious sea otters.
We had a great time fishing this trip, and Nick really showed off his solid skills from the boat, learning a ton.
While fishing, we got to watch this otter crack shellfish on his pet rock he kept on his belly.
After a few beautiful days exploring the Bunsbys, we were off to Spring Island with perfect calm weather for the paddle. We were even visited by a small sunfish at one point who paddled along beside us!
Campsite on Spring Island
After some great fishing and misty old growth forest hikes, including some random basketball on an abandoned court built in the forest, remenants of Spring Island’s time as a WWII naval base, we were off paddling across to the main coast and the beautiful beaches of Rugged Point Marine Park.
Life is good! We intentionally kept the itinerary pretty simple with only 3 camps over 7 days, meaning less time breaking camp, packing/unpacking boats, etc., and more time exploring on foot with plenty of time for fishing, reading, daytime hammock wine, laughs, and stories.
And of course a few dance parties from the girls:
Classic west coast vibes. We did a longer walk one day where eventually we did find an established and active summer camp and signs of logging camps, but our North end in the park was deserted.
On our final day, we made a short portage to the sheltered waters of the Inside Passage in Kyuquot Sound, where we waited for our water taxi ride back to Fair Harbour with Leo. While there, we crossed paths with a fascinating solo adventurer, deep into his elder years, navigating the coast on his custom-built sailing/paddling rig. He had spent weeks exploring these remote shores alone, sharing stories, both triumphant and calamitous, from his time at sea. There’s something deeply addictive about life in the solitude of BC’s tidal waters, a way of being that draws people back again and again, fuelling a lifelong pursuit of exploration, resilience, and self-sufficiency.
Back in Fair Harbour for a celebratory beer, with Leo’s boats in the background.
As we re-entered cell service and reintroduced ourselves to the un(let’s say semi)-productive parts of our mini supercomputers in our pockets, a flood of work emails, overdue corporate GST payments, Airbnb bookings, targeted ads, untargeted ads, Instagram memes, expense reports, group chat drama, bank alerts about “unusual activity”, and “Your storage is almost full” warnings are unleashed onto your previously restful psyche.
But one interesting bit of hot news came through Meredith’s phone that she had to immediately share with an initial cackle that initially sounded quite comical until the severity of the issue was fully understood:
Stories of daring escapes circulated everywhere - from Neal Gottlieb saving lives smuggling Bay Area surgeons out to return to work, to Chris Rock’s unlikely team up with Diplo. This made for entertaining fodder, representative of the dizzying speed at which information travels in this wild space age world. While I was very appreciative to learn that no one would miss their critical heart surgery, I could care less about Chris Rock, and even less about Diplo, and this information tidal wave had a part of me wishing I could surf it right back out to our little slice of isolated paradise at the edge of the Bunsby Group.
That feeling faded a bit, though, when we treated ourselves to an epic meal at the marine pub in Campbell River: a giant burger and fries, a few tall pints, and—maybe best of all—not a single dish that needed to be hauled down to the ocean and awkwardly washed on a slippery rock, trying not to soak our feet or lose a shoe in the tides. It’s just so easy!
I guess easy can be as satisfying as hard sometimes.
As with my feelings toward hard things, it really is all about perspective. On this trip, we gained so many new ones: experiencing the culture of the Kyuquot people, disconnecting into a stunning new corner of BC, and deepening connections with friends we rarely get to see.
All in all, a flawless trip in a beautiful place with a great little crew. It’s such a treat to get to share the joys of coastal sea kayak touring with new people, and based on their reaction, I’m pretty sure Nick and Mer will be back for another.