Month: August 2019

Home time.  An early breakfast so we could catch the early ferry and arrive at the Sandspit airport in time for the flight to Vancouver, changing for a hop to Victoria, and it was all over.

Well, the restaurant management is approaching a solution to the cold fried eggs.  Today there was a sign on the door saying No New Customers.  Our group got settled in at 7, but the other bus load was told to come back at 8.  And the couple that showed up in a car were told to just go away.  Since this is the only breakfast place within 100 km, they were kind of stuck. He eventually sold them a take away coffee. As we left a carload of 8 showed up and were negotiating.  Since I was the only one still sticking to fried eggs, mine were perfect today.  We later heard that a few of these extra people were wandering the streets looking for a solution, when a residence door opened and they were invited into the home for breakfast.  The Haida Gwaii people are really great.

The day started by picking up the sights we had missed – a balanced rock, a spring and a couple more artists’ studio/craft shops. 

We had lunch at a pub, and looked at the local logging machinery museum, and some more craft and art shops.

Then we picked up a guide for the walk to the site of the Golden Spruce.  If you don’t know that story you really should look it up, and even better, read the book. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kiidk%27yaas

The guide turned out to be a guy who had built most of the company logging roads on the islands, now turned environmentalist and native rights supporter.  He talked non-stop.  I’m not sure I believe all his stories, and certainly not all his scientific facts, but he was entertaining.  

He also volunteered to take five of us in his truck up an even smaller logging road to an uncompleted Haida canoe he had discovered in the forest. So naturally Vic and I were first in line to go. It was a log about 35 feet long and 3 feet wide, shaped roughly in the outline of a boat, with a groove up the middle, and covered in moss.  He estimates it to be 160 years old, said to be verified by carbon dating.  He suggests the reason for not finishing it could be the smallpox epidemic of that time. 

The stump is still there as well as another tree that had starting cuts in it until they discovered that it was rotten inside. 

This had to be a couple miles of dense forest from the nearest stream, so even getting it out of there to the ocean would have been a task.  He claims his efforts resulted in this area being made off limits to the logging companies. He says he has discovered 20 or so more canoes in the bush, but he is not revealing the sites.

Back in town, the converted pub provided dinner again, halibut this time, and better overall.

Another round of the breakfast egg roulette.  Mine were not too bad this morning, all of the other people having given up on having fried eggs.  We walked on to the first ferry across to the southern island, and there were loaded into two vans for a bumpy, rattling hour-long ride on an unmaintained logging road.  At the destination, an old logging camp, we donned every warm wind proof bit of clothing we had, followed by a very heavy floor length raincoat, all covered by a floatation vest.  Darth Vader in drag.  We were helped into three hard shell Zodiacs, each with a monster outboard motor.  And then we were OFF like the wind. 

We rafted together every now and then for a lecture and to catch our breath.  Crossing the open bit of Hecate Straight was a bit rough and exciting.  After an hour or so we arrived at our destination – the abandoned Haida village of Skedans.  Or that is the English version of the name: on the map the Haida version is K’UUNA LLNAGAAY (sic).  In the early 1800s the village had a population of about 1500, and had 24 large ‘long houses’. By 1876 smallpox had reduced that number to about 30 people.  The whole Haida Gwaii population of 15000 became about 700, and the villages were no longer sustainable. 

The surviving south island population gathered at Skidagate, and the north islanders at Massett, where they both are today.  The villages were left to the elements.  Most of the many poles have fallen in the intervening 150 years, but three or four still stand, although almost unrecognizable due to weathering and moss.

The watch keeper couple – a Haida woman and her Dutch husband – gave a cultural lecture tour.  Our tour company provided lunch on the beach.  Then, back in costume, we continued on the tour around Louise Island.  The other boats got close to a whale, but all I saw was a spout and a tail disappearing. Then it was discovered we might be late for the last ferry, and the engines were put on high for a very windy trip back.  Back in the vans, the hour long drive took 40 minutes, eating the dust of the other van, but we made the ferry.  

In the tiny passenger enclosure on the ferry, the tour director ‘discovered’ a bottle of Irish Cream and bunch of plastic shot glasses in her purse, so we (the whole group) killed that, right under the signs that said No Alcohol and This Area Under Video Surveillance.

The tour provided dinner tonight at a converted pub – salmon of course.  It has been a tiring day, being force fed fresh air for a good part of it.

And the weather was lovely – clear and sunny.  It would have been hell in the rain that we had expected.

The bus was to leave at 8:30, so we all hit the restaurant at 7, overloading the kitchen, as predicted.  My fried eggs were cold and burnt. How do you do that?  

We had a guide/cultural interpreter today – James Williams.  He was a Haida fellow the same age as Mark.  He was the second son and a nephew of a deceased chief.  That is all very important in Haida lineage, explained to us in detail, but not explained here.  He has spent the last few years as a Watchman – one of the people taking care of the old village sites. He took us around to his uncle’s mortuary pole. 

There are basically three types of historic totem poles: the classic pole we all know which is erected in front of the family lodge and has family crests on it, a memorial pole which has a couple carvings on the bottom and the upper part is a straight pole raised in memory of someone important, and a mortuary pole which has a box on top with the deceased’s remains in it.  Today, the box on top is only symbolic, and the remains are in a cemetery.  He was an excellent lecturer, and there is a lot more to learn in all of this.  If I ever need to recommend a guide his name will certainly come up.  I hope I can remember all he said when I need it.  Incidentally, if you have recently seen in the news or on YouTube a video of an eagle taking off with a guy’s video camera, this is the guy.  First Haida to hit 500,000 views on YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3VVXIYJNOaQ

The bus continued north to a small lake for a potty stop. Further on we stopped at a craft shop of a famous artist family.  Vic knows all the names if you need them. We arrived at Old Massett/Massett just at noon as the totem carvers we were to see working were heading off for lunch, so it was off to another craft shop of another famous artist.  Down the road from there was a famous totem pole, carved by Robert Davidson.  It was erected in 1969, the first pole erected in 100 years, as a result of the removal of the ban on potlatches.  

Then we drove east along the north coast on a very rough road to a beach known for its agates.  We had lunch and picked up some white stones, which I don’t think are agates.  After lunch the bus continued on the rough road to a large hill which was an old volcano core.  We all took the one km boardwalk hike through the forest to the top – about a thousand feet elevation.

The return walk involved a shoreline blow hole which was not operating at this tide level.  Then back on the bus and return to Charlotte by 6.  

We dashed off to the high end restaurant to beat the rest of the people from our bus, and another bus which had just arrived at the motel.  Unfortunately we weren’t fast enough, and we had to sit at the bar.  Vic had salmon and I had squid.  

The people taking the expensive float plane tour had first call on breakfast, so we didn’t hit the motel restaurant until 8.  We had been advised to not all arrive at once and overload the kitchen.  Even the half dozen of us seemed to be able to do that.  Since we are not taking the float plane tour we essentially have a free day.  We arrived at the Tourist Info center at 9 for the tour guide to give a talk and show a couple videos.  They have a very impressive quilted mural high around the wall.  Not exactly the Bayeux Tapestry, but still impressive.  Forty three meters of it.

 That left the rest of the day to wander around, checking out shops.  Without leaving town we put on 10 km.  It is a very linear town, sandwiched between the ocean and a high steep hill.  The weather varied between warm sun and misty rain showers.  We had lunch in the local hippie coffee shop and dinner in a new restaurant with pretensions.  Since it is the only one of its type in town and well patronized so far, it may do well.  Certainly the food was good. Vic had a large chunk of halibut and I had curried cauliflower.  Also a fantastic chocolate dessert was enjoyed by both.

Well it was a good breakfast, if a bit early.  Yesterday it looked as though our companions would all be elderly single ladies, but today a few more couples joined us.  However, it is definitely still an ‘all seniors’ tour. 

At the airport we got our own check-in line – one of the perks of being on a tour, I guess. The airplane was old enough to have actual propellers, but that also means it has the extra legroom from a decade ago, a decided plus.

It was, of course, raining in Sandspit when we landed – normal Haida weather. The grass sure is green here.  

The tour director took us on a walk (in the rain)  around behind the airport mainly to kill some time, I think.  We saw our first eagle of the day up in a tree. 

Then we piled onto a repainted school bus to drive to take the ferry to the north island.  A beef sandwich was provided for lunch, eaten standing while waiting for the ferry. 

We were taken by bus to the Haida Heritage  Museum which has a wonderful display of old and more recent totems and other artwork.  A teenaged Haida girl gave an excellent presentation on the five exterior (relatively new) totem poles associated with the museum.  That alone multiplied our understanding and appreciation of totem art many fold.

Then the bus was off to Skidegate to allow us to walk along the modern version of the beach full of totems and longhouses that you have seen in the old photographs and the art of Emily Carr. Today it is just houses with a few small modern totems. 

The sight of eagles has become commonplace.  They are sitting on the totems, in the trees and in groups on the beach. There are as many eagles as ravens.

Once again, back on the bus and whip back to Queen Charlotte City, (which is actually a village, now known as Charlotte) where our motel is located.  After a brief pee stop it was again ‘back on the bus’ to Skidegate for dinner.  Such is life on a tour.

There is a Haida lady (Roberta Olson) who opens her house and cooks dinner for tourists such as us. She pushes a few tables together in her living room and sets it for 20 with an assortment of crockery. Her kids do the serving. It is the kind of place where the tour director shows up with a few bottles of wine in a plastic bag. The food was excellent, not too strange for us, although some people didn’t eat much. There was an appetizer of bits of seaweed, dried herring roe on seaweed, smoked salmon and fried bread served on a scallop shell, followed by an excellent potato and halibut soup.

The main course included salmon, smoked salmon, more herring roe on seaweed (fresh this time), cold venison, rice flavored with seaweed, potatoes, peas and carrots.  Dessert was a simple cake and whipped cream.  Altogether a wonderful homey meal (paid for by the tour, including gratuity, so we have no idea how much it was worth).  We later learned that other tour groups do similar things at other houses, so it was not an exclusive experience. 

Then it was ‘back on the bus’ to the motel, and a brief walk around town, such as it is, completed the day.  A full day it was too, from the five o’clock start this morning, and it doesn’t get dark here until well after 10.

Hey, we are on the move again. Not very far – still in BC – or for long – only a week in Haida Gwaii, formerly known to those of us of a certain age as the Queen Charlotte Islands.

And it is a tour – it is so strange to have every minute of every day for the next week planned out ahead of time – and by someone else.  But it does come with a porter to shlep the luggage to the room. 

The trip began with a conducted bus to the ferry to the mainland, and we are now settled in a big hotel in scenic Richmond-By-The-Airport. It was a lovely sunny day for the ferry ride. Breakfast tomorrow is at 5 AM, so it will be an early start.