khutze

our next stop after klemtu was khutze inlet, and it turned out to be one of the most fantastic places we’ve come to so far. and for the people, it was maybe even our favourite.

khutze (“koots”) is about thirty nautical miles north from klemtu, so we didn’t quite do it all in one day. on our passage up, we passed a sleeping whale - right after reading about them! - but otherwise didn’t see too much. it was tremendously exciting to come alongside princess royal island, the famed home of the spirit bear. we kept a binoculared eye on that shore all day, but no white bears graced our sights.

how to go telephoto with a phone camera

we had a pleasantly gentle sail up the channel in the afternoon. sid was swinging on the halyard, as he loves to do, swooping up onto the boom to rest in the cup of the mainsail. as we came alongside green inlet, we abruptly decided to stay there for the night, and adjusted our sails to make the turn. i guess sid didn’t clue in, and he went for a swing on the halyard - and suddenly found himself hanging out over the water! i leapt up over the cabin top and grabbed him by the lifejacket and pulled him back on deck. he was shook up for a sec - as was i! - but then we had a little laugh about it. thank goodness he didn’t let go!

green inlet was aptly named; somehow it just seemed greener in there. as we made our way up the channel that day, we noticed how the mountains around us were changing; bald faces and abrupt cliffs reminded us of the mountains in yosemite. as we explored green inlet, we could see snowy patches on the surrounding hills; it felt pretty northern, which excited us greatly. we anchored back by the mouth of the inlet in a little marine park, safely resting in calm water at the mouth of a creek, and densely wooded hills rising above us as we slept.

goodbye klemtu, hello princess royal! sid fishes in green inlet

our journey to khutze the next day was short and spirit bear-less, though exceptionally waterfall-full. seeing wildlife is something we look forward to, of course, though the scenery itself lends a sense of fulfilment. it’s hard to be disappointed in a place like this.

the watchmen we met in klemtu had their operation on a small spit near the entrance of khutze inlet. we anchored on the spit to have some lunch, but then decided to move up to the head. we radioed the guys on shore and they said they would come meet us down there later. up came the anchor and down the inlet we went, ogling the dramatic slopes and waterfalls all around. through the binoculars we could peek up at the misty mountains and see their impossible terrain. snowy steppes led to rounded, cloud-shrouded peaks - even a glacier

peeked into the inlet between two of the mountains, glowing ominously against the grey sky.

yet the most stunning view came last. the inlet ends in a huge estuary where the khutze river comes out. a vast stretch of green grass reaches from one side to the other. tall, healthy trees grow up behind and stretch back into the long river valley.

to the south of the estuary, a steep cutaway slope channels several smaller waterfalls together to form a thunderous flow that smashes down on the shore before widening out to seep into the ocean.

drawn by the waterfall and the forever ageless look of the land above, we anchored at the base and did a stern tie to the shore. we were definitely close, and with the tide high we weren’t even sure how close we really were, but for the time being, it was magic.

home for the night

as we were eating dinner, the watchmen came along and invited us for a tour of the river to see if we could spy some grizzly bears. we excitedly packed up some food to go and piled into their boat. the three of them, brady, landon, and tim, were very friendly and inviting; thanks to sid for striking up conversation to get us here :)

first we explored the north channel, where the river proper comes out. we wound among grassy islands and sunken logs, brady skilfully manoeuvring the boat upstream. the motor purred gently and we all kept our eyes out for bears. finally the current grew too strong and the river too shallow, so we turned around and rode the grey-blue waters back down.

looking up the estuary; north channel

at one point brady brought us to shore to take a closer look at bear territory. we climbed out into the tall grass and sedges, silverleaf and something like clover growing thick beneath the taller stalks. brady led us all single-file around to a very special tree. it was a rubbing tree, where grizzly bears go to leave their scent and have a scratch. these trees are essentially a news station for bears, where they can catch the scent of other bears in the area and get a drift on who’s who in the zoo. apparently bears had been rubbing on this particular tree for ages and it showed on the tree; the bark was greasy and polished from oil in the bears’ skin and clusters of hair were stuck in dribbles of sap (enjoy the graphic picture below). leading up to the tree were deep footprints in the grass; brady told us that the bears “stomp” on their way to the tree, where they place their feet in the exact same spot every time they pass that way and kind of stomp/twist as they go along. they've figured some of the stomp pads are hundreds of years old. the whole place was pretty powerful.

top row, L to R: brady explaining bear behaviour; stomp pads; hair bear sap

middle row: looking up the khutze river valley; tim, landon, and brady

bottom row: sid at the helm; up the south channel; kids in the rubbing tree

sid made a few faces in the trail cams, then we headed back to the boat to keep exploring. as we came back down the north channel, we saw a momma and two cubs on the bank. they didn’t notice us right away, so we got to watch them do their thing for a little bit before they slipped away. back out into the bay, sid steered a bit before we rounded into the south channel, which ran noticeably slower than the north channel. brady brought the boat up river, the motor humming faithfully as we crept along. slowly over the shallows, deking around the logs, we wound up and up. we saw two more bears, another mama and a yearling - standing by the rubbing tree where we just were! that felt extra cool, to have shared that space with the bears; i’m just glad we were there and gone by the time they came back around.

eventually we had to turn around, as the tide was dropping and our clearance was quickly diminishing. i was sad to end the tour but it was quite late and the kids were burnt out, even for bears. the fellas dropped us back at the boat (which was alarmingly close to the shore now) and sped back to their camp for the night. we decided the bottom was getting a little too high, so we raised anchor and tied to the kitasoo xai’xais mooring buoy nearby, grateful for the connection of our new friends.

khutze.

our entrance into khutze was marvelous, but it was cloudy and we were curious what capped the mountain tops around us. the next morning gave us hope that the skies might get blue enough to sate our curiosity. mist lifted off the estuary and the summer sun illuminated the clouds above, giving the place an ethereal timelessness, enough to strike one speechless. the ever tumbling waterfall crashed down relentlessly on the shore, its rising canyon yet another ode to a time before this time. we felt dazzled and privileged to be small creatures among huge beauty.

skies cleared as the morning went on, allowing for a day of lounging and enjoying a coastal summer. aaron and sid swam (sort of - the glacial runoff made the inlet quite cold), sage and i collected stream water to fill our tank (another timeless task, women gathering water), then aaron took off to paddle through the estuary. the kids and i lolled about, with only a few spratty moments to offset the otherwise peaceful day. i guess with kids you can only get so much peace and quiet. sigh.

laaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

in the afternoon we untied from our friendly neighbourhood mooring buoy and puttered back up to the spit, oo-ing and ahh-ing at the now-bare mountaintops gazing down over us, basking under an increasingly blue sky.

back up at the spit, the guys at the camp were working on building a platform for a yurt. the intention was to create a shelter for the watchmen who patrol khutze inlet, complete with a cook shack and everything. part of my morning was spent baking up a pumpkin loaf to give them in trade for the bear tour, which i brought ashore and was received with much enthusiasm by the working men.

the whole camp and worksite was beautiful, tucked into shady woods with a beach on the west side and a point jutting out to the north, eventually fading under water to the spit that we were anchored on. along with brady, tim, and landon, who we had met the night before, there was another guy there named matthew. he had come from hartley bay, in gitga’at territory, to work as a watchman for the kitasoo xai’xais. he was full of interesting information and stories, and i gleaned what i could from him as he worked on a wood carving. surrounded by devil’s club and the smell of yellow cedar, it was a wonderful setting in which to learn more about our coast.

khutze adventures

we parted ways with the friendly watchmen, leaving shore with a boat full of yellow cedar off-cuts for firewood and a fistful of the most delicious smelling red cedar kindling. i had a million and one more questions to ask, but alas, they had things to work upon other than answering me. we rowed out to our faithful boat for a glorious summer evening on the water, pleased again at our newest connections.

rafiki facing into khutze on a blissfully sunny day

although we felt a morsel of sadness to leave khutze (the mother in me very much wanted to stay and cook for those busy working boys), there was much goodness ahead of us. north we went again, up princess royal channel. as it turned west, we dipped into the old town of butedale. the first sight to see as you round into the bay is an enormous waterfall, butedale falls, that cascades neatly onto the ocean. deeper in the bay is a long dock, an old cannery building, and the remains of what looked to have been an enormous pier. on shore there were two red-roofed cabins in decent shape but looking rather abandoned. closer to the waterfall a shack leaned perilously over a stream, with the empty promise of ice cream italicized with the angle of building.

beyond butedale we stared at more yosemite-ish scenery. the charts showed huge lakes, apparent in real life by the bowls seemingly scooped out of the island (princess royal island, that is) off our port side. some swept down smoothly like valleys while others bared abrupt cliff faces to the sun, shining lightly in their vast majesty. though the scenery rolled by slowly, nothing about it was boring. and as always, the water kept us on our toes. at one point aaron was looking up ahead at a curiously singular wake - when suddenly he dodged aside as he realized it was a sleeping humpback whale! it was breathing very slowly, so not made apparent by periodic puffs. we came quite close to it, on accident - close enough to see it’s big white fins drifting lazily out to the side as it snoozed. it must have been deeply asleep, because we motored right by it and it didn’t stir at all.

foggy departure from khutze; old butedale; yosemite by the sea

as we rounded north into ursula channel, the wind picked up so we raised our sails. the winds became quite strong quite quickly, which is normally well and great, but we were having issues with the steering system again. aaron put on the emergency tiller and we cruised along using that for a while. however, the arm itself was made only of a cedar branch, sandwiched in a homemade tiller device pinched together with a through-bolt and mounted on a stiff, very unused pivot. as you may have guessed, the thing shortly broke, causing us to scramble madly to replace it with…. well, our gaff, as it turned out. aaron quickly removed the broken nub and we popped the butt end of the gaff in there and tightened it back up. it worked great, so long as aaron was mindful of the large hook at the other end.

fortunately we didn’t have too far to go and soon we came into bishop bay, the winds dying behind us. all sort of debris, large and small, was scattered over the surface of the bay - including more garbage than we had seen afloat in a while. at the head of bishop bay there are hot springs, and where there are alluring attractions there are humans, and where there are humans, there is garbage. we picked up what we could here and there, but garbage was most certainly not the focus of our stay there.

the bishop bay hot springs, located on haisla (hi-slah) territory, are a popular destination for people of the north, coming largely from kitimat and prince rupert. a few people we spoke to ventured from further inland, trailering boats to the coast just to make it there. the hot springs are within a park and there is a nice (if small) dock there. the dock was full, so we tied up at one of the available mooring buoys conveniently available to the public.

a boardwalk from the dock leads to the hot springs. the hot water source was somewhere up the hill, but had been piped down into a pair of concrete pools just above the high tide line. a shack had been built overtop, with a changing room that had a step down into the first pool. the natural rock side had been worked into the pool and a few other loose rocks had been dropped in for seating. the upper pool was the temperature of a nice hot bath, with mementos from passersby dangling above, while the lower was more like a warm swimming pool. they were spectacular.

bishop bay hot springs and our addition thereto

we spent the next three days there, basking endlessly in a never-ending flow of beautiful hot water. the kids brought their goggles ashore and practiced keeping their faces underwater. sage started with just dipping her chin, but by the end was spending a full minute face down with her nose plugged; sid practiced sinking. i think on our last day they spent at least six hours in the tub. and aaron and i just floated and lazed and enjoyed the precious gift of hot water from the earth (writing about it now, i am yearrrrrrning to go back!). aaron described it as a vacation from our vacation; everyone was relaxed and happy.

people came and people went, eventually making a space for us to tie up at the dock for our last night there. the irony was, after a seemingly endless summer of rain, we arrived at the hot springs in a stretch of good weather! on the one hand, it would have been nice to soak in the tub while the world outside was cool. on the other hand, it was nice to be able to toss our stuff all over the deck of the hot tub as we bathed and hang our things up to dry afterward. it was bliss, bliss, bliss. oh and one morning humpbacks were even breaching in the bay. #winning!

when it came time to leave, we were sad on more levels than one; sad to leave the hot springs behind and sad to turn around - because we had indeed decided to go no further. we made the decision primarily due to the fact that we didn’t have reliable steering and heading north meant crossing more open patches of water; it seemed like the safest call to turn back and stick to inside waters. the sweet that countered the bitter was that our plan also included going back to khutze to build another tiller arm, which of course meant getting to connect to our friends there again.

even southbound, skipper can't be sad if there's wind

so off we went, southbound for the first time in a long time. i pouted as the compass bore an S at the top; i had spent so much time yearning to see the N, staring at the N, wanting to go where it promised. but we made it 245 nautical miles north of quadra as the crow flies, and easily double that for the passage we travelled. we also made the call based on safety, not emotions, so it felt good to do the right thing.

at least the winds were with us, and we ripped out of ursula channel back into fraser reach. we paused for one night at butedale to duck out of the heavy winds - they weren’t much lighter in there, but at least there was a dock. we befriended our neighbours at the dock, and of all things the lady there had the kids quilting before the night was through! they patiently stitched triangles together to make hexagons, which was impressive in that their patience held out. after dinner we checked out the old cannery. it was a wealth of good lumber, heavens me, but it is private property, so we didn’t touch much - except the bowling set. in the morning we were the last ones at the dock. we buzzed right up close to the waterfall as we left, enjoying the short draft on rafiki and our ability to get such a vivid perspective.

confession: this is not butedale falls, though it could possibly come from the same source

and then we were headed back to khutze! it was a mere eight miles from butedale, so we were back in the area by mid-day. we didn’t head in right away; across the channel from the mouth of the inlet is canoona falls, supposedly a hotspot for spirit bears on princess royal. we hung out there for a bit to see if we could spy one, but again no luck. we could also see the watchmen boats tied up over there, so we lingered for a bit, casting for salmon, to see if our friends would pop out. they did not, but at least we knew they were around.

eventually we crossed back over to the mainland side to fish the points flanking khutze. we were trolling for salmon, but instead caught rockfish after rockfish after rockfish. it was nutty. i was on the rod for an hour or two, fishing around 50-70 feet with a downrigger. sometimes it was literally five seconds after we dropped that we’d have a little fish on. none of them were big enough to keep, and while it was cool to see the little creatures from the deep, it was a lot of work to reel up the rod and crank up the downrigger every few minutes. i tried and tried to catch a keeper, but no luck. wouldn’t you know, the moment i handed it off to aaron he caught a huge lingcod! he’s a pretty fishy guy, so i wasn’t surprised, and we were stoked to have a keeper.

by that time our friends had radioed us, and we soon found ourselves dropping our anchor on the spit yet again. we rowed ashore to find there was now a framed up yurt on site. they had been hard at it to get their project done, and it showed. we hung out for a bit, dreaming up plans for a new tiller arm and trying to organize a shared dinner. there were a couple of new guys there now, and some had gone, but everyone was exceptionally friendly. they had work to do and there was a drizzle (eek!) so we opted to pop the fish in their fridge and do a shared dinner the following night.

in gratitude for the use of their tools and materials, i decided to bake up some yummy treats for the watchmen and crew the next morning. aaron and sid went ashore and sage stayed aboard with me to make…. drumroll please…. fresh danishes! it was perhaps a mite ambitious for my small (nay, pitiful) galley, but we did it. somehow i cranked out 20 beautiful, fresh, hand-twisted danishes, topped with vanilla custard and wild blueberry compote. perhaps they weren’t the very most gorgeous danishes of all time, but considering they were baked a hundred miles from nowhere, i think they were pretty alright. the boys ashore surely appreciated them - again, the l’il ol’ grandma in me was eager to stuff some fresh baked goods into a group of hard working boys!

aaron took off fishing with tim while the kids and i hung about the construction site. the sun came out in full force, bathing the beach in a baking heat that still seemed misplaced in the northern rainforest, even five days of full sun later. the kids wandered back and forth between helping landon snap chalk lines in the yurt to helping rye get buckets of gravel from the beach to dashing out to the point to try on brady’s helmet and back to the beach to save stranded snails. they were so keen to help and did a good job at staying out of the way too. it was a very fun day, full of baking and sunshine and excellent people. at one point i realized they were the first young people we had hung out with since madeleine’s wedding nearly a month and a half before, so it was a treat in more ways than one.

aaron and tim were unlucky in their fishing, but between the lingcod we caught and some crab the guys already brought up, we had ourselves a delightful beachfeast that night. fish, crab, rice, and cabbage salad with a smokey mayo-lime-cilantro sauce that i recently invented made for some epic seaside dining. it was so lovely to socialize with such mindful and open-hearted people, people who truly cared for the land they were on and the place they were in, for all the animals in the woods and the creatures in the sea, for the people whose land it is and for the people who come and go within it. we felt very welcome, kids and all. it was, shall we say, deadly.

yurt of the hour

i wanted to keep creating delectables for the working lads, and i think aaron was maybe itching at least a little to heft a hammer. alack alay, the winds blew in our favour, and a sailor goes where the wind blows. brady came out for one last farewell and we radioed goodbyes with the others (well, shouted ashore to rye, anyway!) as we puttered out of khutze for the last time - this time!

our captain wished for wind and he got wind. we raised our headsail as soon as we were in the channel and cruised back down to klemtu, averaging six knots all day in a steady tailwind. we kept the radio on channel 06 for a while, hearing brady greet visitors to the inlet and giving them the rundown on the estuary (they have an ongoing research project there, and so alternatingly close the north and south channels of the river to human traffic). the chatter faded as we sped away south, as did the shores of princess royal island, the snowy mountains, the north.

but it’s not a final south! we are here in klemtu again to provision, then plan to head up to kynoch inlet, which will be another jaunt directly north then east. not as far as we just were, of course, but hopefully full of wild and exciting things all the same. we’re likely to be out of touch for some time, but don’t despair! we’ll be back.

maybe.