September 1, 1998

Marathon in the Charlottes

he second two-week trip I did in the Queen Charlottes this summer (see Paddling to Ninstints for the first) was in the company of six folks from NW Oregon/SW Washington -- who paddled Easy Rider decked canoes. In my high-volume single sea kayak I was hard pressed to keep up with the Easy Riders, which they paddled as doubles, using 260 - 270 cm kayak paddles. We were very heavily loaded, due to their style of camping, of which more later.

As the lone sea kayaker, I got to be "veggie man," meaning, at the beginning of the trip, each morning I loaded 100 - 120 lbs of potatoes, cabbages, oranges, carrots, jicima, onions, etc., into my hatches, and ran the same package up lines each night (bear avoidance). [We had no negative encounter with our ursal cousins. We "shared" beaches with them everywhere. With good camp hygiene, they were a non-problem for us.]

The others carried seven sealed plastic buckets per double, one a 5-gallon pail loaded with four gallons of wine (!), and the others rectanguloidal affairs with maybe 4 gallons of volume per bucket. These were absolutely stuffed with food, kitchen gear, and the like, making for a payload which boggled the mind of this reformed back packer/climber. As veggie man, trucking along with my weenie (and diminishing, thank God!) 100+ lbs of produce, I felt like I was not holding up my end of the stick. Oh, yeah, they also had a milk box packed with canned goods in each boat!

The Easy Riders were equipped with nylon sprayskirts bungied to the fore and aft holes, and a similar spray cover bungied over the cavernous center hole. At 18 feet long, 38 inches wide in the center, and 22 - 24 inches deep, they were pigs in the wind, but pretty efficient for the load. Most were paddled *sitting on the deck,* which made for tremendous leverage and a very efficient vertical paddling style. I tried their style, but found it nerve-wracking as hell!

Despite the feeling I would tip over in a slight swell, the other folks paddled them with aplomb through moderate seas and chop, never missing a beat, except for one paddler whose only steering stroke was stern rudder! On flat water, I had to bust my ass to stay up. On windy/rough days, however, my reduced windage and foot-controlled rudder beat 'em to the beach regularly.

The capacity of the Easy Riders allowed us to cook over open fires, possible because of all the driftwood. We only had one campsite where driftwood was scarce, and carried a milk box full of dry stuff. This system worked very well.

They had monster fry pans and kettles, which exploited the high surface area/low temperature character of beach fires. Aside from my role as the fresh fiber guy, I also packed a small white gas stove as our backup. Mainly, this was used to expedite hot drinks on early launch mornings when we ate cold granola and did not have a fire, and to dispense the single-source, espresso-grind Venezuelan coffee I hid under the veggies at night. One couple claimed the stuff to be a powerful aphrodisiac -- I think they were just bragging, though they DID pitch their tent a long ways from the rest of us ... on coffee nights.

We spent fifteen days on the water, three of those being rest/storm days. With a drop-off at Raspberry Cove near the southern tip of Moresby Island (Queen Charlotte Adventures; nice converted troller with inside seating), the fifteen days was about right for the 130 mile return to Moresby Camp. We did not take the most direct route! However, we visited all the Haida Watchman sites, from Ninstints to Skedans (K'una), and did an "end run" around one outside section on a marginal day, which added a good ten miles to our route. Most paddling days we did 10 - 15 miles in 3 - 4 hours; our marathon was a 26-miler (8 - 10 hours), which about toasted my forearms and wrists! Certainly my most exhausting paddleday ever, with the load of veggies below decks.

I had never visited the northerly sections of Moresby Island before, and found them as fascinating as the southerly reaches of the Park though larger-featured. Because the Hotsprings Island/Skungwai corridor is heavily promoted, solitude is more available north of Hotsprings. Watchman-guided tours at Tanu and K'una were better-done, and allowed closer looks at totems and house sites than at Ninstints. In addition,we experienced little competition for campsites in the north.

In the south, we twice raced others to the beach (won one; lost the other) to get choice sites. And, Parks rules stipulating 12 campers maximum per beach were violated routinely at Raspberry Cove. One of the two nights we spent there we had an Ecosummer group (12), a couple from Everett, WA, and a foursome from Massett, as well as our seven bodies. Talk about public intertidal flush!

Random observations: a rat on Murchison nailed a dry bag for the nuts one of us stupidly left inside; there were way too many bodies at Hotsprings; Burnaby Narrows at low, low tide was amazing; there is a mystery cabin on Burnaby near Swan Bay; we caught (and ate) WAY too many rockfish; poor vibes at the RV park in Sandspit (but the only coin-operated hot shower stall around); believe the signs about logging road closures (we did not, to our regret); bring a head net for the bugs; beach-camping is not always possible; composting toilets (Watchman sites only) were very popular and are needed elsewhere; rained almost every day, though this did not prevent travel, despite one paddler who left her rain gear home, because the last time she was in the Charlottes it did not rain (!).

A "wilderness experience" it ain't, for the most part, with zodiacs and the odd cruiser zipping by, float planes plopping down, "mothership" yak groups clustered in popular places, and brightly-clad guided groups drifting along.

However, it was an incredible experience, doing the entire length of Moresby, and there are a lot of out-of-the-way spots for a person with a little extra time and just a little imagination.
---
Dave Kruger
Astoria, OR

Copyright 1998 by Dave Kruger.
May not be reproduced or redistributed without author's permission.
Originally posted on Wavelength list server, 1998.
Republished here with permission.