We left the San Juan islands on the Red Eye ferry one morning in August in a middle-aged Toyota Four Runner headed again for the northern tip of Vancouver Island. Colin Doherty and myself pulled into the palatial grounds of Painter’s Lodge in Campbell River that evening in a downpour. The cars filling the slips, we noticed, were all high end; sumptuous digs for two guys yearning for primordial. Filet mignon dinners and Courvoisier in the dining room overlooking the Salish Sea, and later, catching the Olympic diving competition in our two story room. A briefly cultured segue into a three week stay in nature’s finest five star digs.

The idea this time was a tour down the northwestern coast of the island from San Josef Bay to the Fair Harbour inlet just south of Kyuquot, essentially a thirty-five mile leg of wide open coast south to the Brooks Peninsula, then another thirty-five mile leg of more protected water south of the peninsula. Instead of launching in Port Hardy and paddling out around Cape Scott, like we did a couple of years back (see The Cape Scott Expedition, Wetdawg), we would launch a short ways south of the cape in a rainforest river.

At the most northwesterly bit of roadway in British Columbia lies the San Josef River Heritage Site. We’d gotten lost on the way in and had been puzzling over the cryptic marks that a guy at the service station in Port Hardy had scrawled on the map. We got it right finally and turned down the driveway at a sign nailed to a tree announcing the San Josef River Heritage Site. We met up with Doug DesJarlais, the jaunty Bomadillesque steward of the place, who confirmed that this indeed was where Pat Kervin with Odyssey Kayaking, directed his people.

"In the best American tradition we were technified to the teeth. In our defense though, it made sense."

I knew that the Danish settlers in the area had had a rough time of it in the early part of last century; maybe the intent of the little park was to reflect that struggle. Looking around, a scattered collection of buildings and campsites dotted the area, several still up on blocks after being hauled in from a logging site. Cozy campsites nestled in small clearings in the forest or along the San Josef River were well laid out. We threw a Frisbee sized hunk of steak on the barbee, rubbed on some bug ju ju to counter the mosquitoes and began our final gear sort.

Next morning brought sunshine and high hopes for a fine day on the water. I could hear the boom of surf in the distance. We readied our boats and stashed the key to the rig under the bumper. Doug came out to snap some pics and we pushed off. Glancing over at Colin’s boat I had to laugh. He had a solar panel strapped to the rear deck; I looked at my own cockpit and saw the mounted depth finder and GPS. In the best American tradition we were technified to the teeth. In our defense though, it made sense.

Granted, the panel was larger than we had intended, but the mounted electronics on my own boat fit seamlessly into the cockpit. It was all experimental: A depth finder to track bottom depth and contour, and a GPS to track our progress on the little screen in the fog, as well as providing tide and current data. It was even loaded with local Canadian marine charts. The gizmos were low profile, and mounted conveniently to a plate in the console between my foot wells. I had Colin to thank for that.

The focus of our trip this time was salt water fly fishing, journalistically at least. To paddle the west coast of this extraordinary island is therapy for hard core fly fishermen; the act of seducing fish with the long rod subsumes to the greater mystery of sea, shore and sky. Frankly, deep in our souls we were not there solely or even primarily to fish, but would wet a fly every chance we got. Trolling a single unweighted Coho fly or ‘bucktailing’ as it’s called, is ideal from a moving kayak, so our flies would be wet more often than not.

From San Josef Bay south to the tiny fishing village of Winter Harbour, there are only a handful of easy to reach beaches and most of them have trail access from the interior. Still, it isn’t difficult to surf ashore somewhere where no one but the bears are going to venture through camp. After a day of big surf at San Josef Bay, we jumped through a tiny window of opportunity, busted through a moderate break, paddled a mile out to the tip of the cape, then surfed ashore at a bouldery/shingle beach to let a two day gale pass by. A couple of days later we gave Cape Palmerston a wide end run to avoid reefy, turbulent waters closer to shore. I’d been thumped pretty good the last time I went around and was eager to avoid a similar fate this time. We reached Raft Cove a couple of hours later where we tucked in behind Commerell Point onto a steep, handsome gravel beach with stream and fine camp sites well away from the central beach and trailhead.

Next day the weather was prime and the seas were missing the area’s signature rolling swell as we made Grant’s Bay just north of the lighthouse at Cape Parkin. Here we found a broad beach with the bones of impromptu shelters sticking up out of the sand. There were fire pits all over the place, even a sad looking bit of line strung up between two askew driftwood poles for a volleyball court. When I went looking for water I found a well-kept trail leading a short distance to an old logging road and clear cut hills. It was like beautiful forest trail one moment then Boom -- the hill from hell with stumps as far as the eye could see. We were glad to be heading into Brooks Bay and the natural sanctity of the Brooks Peninsula on our next leg of the journey.

With clear skies you could see all the way down to the tip of the Brooks. The weather was varied with clouds and wind and sun and showers, preventing a steady high pressure from dominating the area. For kayakers on the move this can be a pretty good deal as a variety of windows open for travel. If the weather comes out of the south at all. the north side of the Brooks is a good place to paddle; conversely if you’re on the southern coast. When the pressure levels out at high, the seas and winds begin to build up like clockwork out of the northwest. This means you want to travel earlier in the day, not our favorite scenario. The unspoken rule of thumb when touring a long stretch of coast here is to go when the going’s good. We fell naturally into a pattern of paddling until we found a particularly neat spot or the weather was particularly quarrelsome, at which time we took a couple of days to rest and explore.

From Grant’s bay we rounded Cape Parkin and slipped inside the channel north of the lighthouse. It was our good luck to have timed the slack tide perfectly. Without hesitation we headed across Quatsino Sound. Hedging our bets just a bit, we paddled up the broad channel within reach of Gilliam Islands in case our tail wind got out of hand, then veered toward the southern shore about three miles distant. Flying my trusty Primex spinnaker, I zipped out across the bay. But by the time we were a little over half way across the inlet, the wave and wind conditions had picked up on our stern quarter. We worked very hard to get ashore before it intensified further and we were relieved to finally reach the calm waters of Gooding Cove. A cabin along the shore beckoned for the night and I, at least, was content to settle into bare bones civilization for a night and not have to dig everything out of the boat and pitch a tent for a change. Colin kept the faith and pitched his Hennessey Hammock in some nearby trees. The weather forecast promised a morning lull before yet another gale slammed the coast.