The first day of spring and in a couple days I’ll begin building my cabin. I still need to make my final connection to get across Hecate Strait and am waiting for the 11pm sailing from Prince Rupert.
After about a year of preparation, packing to leave Vancouver was an unholy mess. I’d had fantasies of having all my possessions in perfect order, carefully assessed for utility and catalogued on a spreadsheet. I’d be able to account for every item that would take up valuable space in my car, then in my small cabin.
Yesterday, I set out on the road at 5:20am after not sleeping that night, doing the last-minute packing that one does before a trip. Mine was for a year off-grid, so it was last-minute packing x 20.
Although at 9pm on that evening, I was still having beer (Philips IPA on tap) and wings (free-range, lemon, rosemary and honey glaze) on Main St. with my friend CRae, so I must have thought that I had it all under control.
You know Parkinson’s Law, work expands to fill allotted for it? I’d already subconsciously counted on being up all night. Something similar might be said for physical space available. It turned out that the enormous pile of gear I’d laid out to pack into the car, squeezed in exactly.
Well, not exactly, I was super cocky about having got everything in (at 4:55am), but when I put in the last few bags of computer and camera gear, the food dryer, which had the place of honour on the front seat, on top of the boxes of nails, had to go.
I ended up with my paddleboard and my 110-liter Seal Bag strapped to the roof, a mountain bike on a rear rack and the back cargo area jammed to the ceiling. The whole car, a Subaru wagon, was kicked back on its haunches like a dog taking a poop. All that was left was a cockpit/cocoon for me as the driver and space for a few snacks around the gearshift.
I’d set out into the early morning darkness, rain spitting, and by the time I hit the Upper Levels highway, I was weaving, periodically jerking awake. I’d had the foresight to have an energy drink sitting in my cup holder but I was saving that for when I got to the other side and the 5-hour drive up Vancouver Island.
I tried filming myself in the car in the ferry lineup waiting for the 6:30am sailing at Horseshoe Bay, using the camera the good people at High Fidelity HDTV had provided me with, but it was completely dark and I was mumbling incoherently.
On the ferry, I crashed in the car and was out cold right until we arrived in Nanaimo.
One ferry down, two more to go. I just had to make it to Port Hardy by 4pm. The 15-hour Inside Passage ferry only runs once or twice a week in the winter so missing it would mean a serious delay. I’d chosen to take the earliest ferry to Vancouver Island to give myself some buffer. Buffer that I was going to burn by doing some last minute shopping.
I revived myself at Tim Horton’s (Rolling Up the Rim to win a free donut) until opening time at Staples (stockpile office supplies). The newspaper I read had more bad news from Japan. Surreal, apocalyptic images. Scientists here were putting out sensors to detect radiation on this side of the water.
Also made a stop in to Wholesale Sports (WSS). Never been before. It’s the Canadian big box store for the hook-and-bullet crowd. Although once you’ve been in a Bass Pro, other places just don’t have the same awe-inducing power. (I’d like to write a WSS vs. Bass Pro cage-match comparison, extrapolating to how it reflects on their respective national characters. Another time, perhaps.) I lingered long in the empty store, mulling over the graphite fly rods (I held off on buying one) and prowling the savannah expanse of gear.
I did buy a pack saw for large game and a book on how to make the most of your deer. I paused for a while at the orange, torpedo-shaped, ‘butt-out’ tool, the sole purpose of which is to detach the anus from your deer when you’re cleaning the animal. The guy behind the counter convinced me that using a knife is still the best way to go.
If I’d had room in the car, I might have also bought the largest cast iron cauldron that I’d ever laid eyes on. I just imagined it hanging over the fire in my vast stone fireplace, stewing venison all day.
Two energy drinks and a full tank of gas later I was at the ferry terminal, early. I somehow missed getting to see the world’s largest tree burl (kinda like a massive wood goiter) but found out from a guy I asked in Port Hardy that it was in Port McNeil. Next time.
A relief to be on the ferry and headed north. I was so amped with caffeine and other stimulants (all legal) that I couldn’t crash out as planned. Saw my new immediate neighbour, Toni, the ex-wife of my new mentor, Rapid Richie, and her travel companion, writer and poet, Susan Musgrave (author of , among many others, “You’re in Canada Now, Motherfucker: A Memoir of Sorts.”) Toni had bought a pimped-out Toyota truck from a kid in Nanaimo but having learned to drive on Haida Gwaii, she’d never driven on freeways or even changed lanes before. So she’d convinced Susan to drive it up with her.
I’d met a guy ahead of me in the ferry lineup, a Prince Rupert local, named Greg who ran grizzly bear viewing tours in the Khutzeymateen wilderness, north of Rupert. He’d built a floating guesthouse, milling his own timbers with an Alaskan Mill. His brother, Leo was also on the ferry, he’d packed in a smoked salmon business down in the States and was returning home to start up a wilderness tour company himself.
That evening, I grabbed a drink with them in their cabin, ostensibly to celebrate the birthday of a girl who’d joined them yesterday, a kayak guide from Saltspring who would help Greg set up his lodge for the season. She reclined on a bunk, rebraiding the twine on a bead necklace for Greg, which featured a large wolf’s tooth on the front.
There was an extra-full moon that night, the moon being about 40,000 kilometers closer to the earth. It happens once every 18 years and looks massive with fine detail visible to the naked eye. I’d forgotten that it was last night and was in my room watching No Country for Old Men instead, Cohen Brothers week on some satellite channel.
At least, on my last night of my last visit to Haida Gwaii, I was out on North Beach for a full lunar eclipse on the winter equinox, something that happens twice a millennium. No sign of another soul as I stood gumboot deep in the ice washing up onshore, taking in the amber-hued orb.
In the morning we met up on deck in time to check out Grenville Channel, perhaps the most dramatic section of the Inside Passage. The channel at this point gets to its narrowest point, strictly single-lane traffic. Even Greg and Leo, who had grown up in the area and spent a lot of time on the water here, were out admiring the views. Waterfalls cascading out of the otherwise impenetrable forest, granite cliffs rearing up.
Off the back deck of the Northern Expedition
Greg pointed out a set of snow-capped peaks immediately to port, where he’d been dropped in with snowshoes and a chainsaw to cut a platform for rescue of a downed helicopter. Leo showed me the island camp where they’d lived as kids, taking family trips up the inlet to log.
In the scramble to get off in Prince Rupert, I lost track of them but hope to see them again some time. I crashed out on the front lawn of the courthouse. Definitely up there in the Top 10 best naps of this decade for me, waking up to see the blue sky and drifting clouds you see on the opening credits of the Simpsons.
Out of curiosity, I dropped into the hardware store here and saw that the 50-lb box of nails that I’d bought for $83 in Vancouver were $185 here. I went into another buying frenzy and stocked up on groceries, finding some sizeable air pockets in my packing, like the space behind my legs in the driver’s seat.
Had my last supper on the mainland. A bowl of pho at a mom and pop Vietnamese restaurant. I realized that I was going to miss pho (and that pork with vermicelli and spring roll dish). 11pm and we’re setting sail for Haida Gwaii right on time. Tomorrow morning we’ll wake up on-Island.