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Whale-Watching by Kayak in British Columbia
By Norie Quintos, a
senior editor at National Geographic Traveller Magazine August
2008
Whale-Watching by Kayak
in British Columbia Senior editor Norie Quintos edits Traveler's annual Tours
of a Lifetime issue, which selects the 50 best guided tours of the year. So
what did she do on her family vacation? She took two tours out West. This week
she blogs about sea kayaking in British Columbia; next week, rafting on
Idaho’s Salmon River. And the following week, she'll share tips on
planning a great family trip. It took three flights and an hour-long boat ride
from northern Vancouver Island to get to Hurst Island, in the heart of one of
British Columbia’s newest provincial parks, God’s Pocket. There, a
charming seven-room lodge at the water’s edge served as our base for
exploring the area by kayak.
I’ve kayaked before, but no way was I going to do
it in unfamiliar (not to mention sea mammal-laden) waters, and with two kids in
tow. This was a job for an expert outfitter and the one I called on was Sea Kayak Adventures, which
has been guiding trips to this area since 1993. The Couer-d’Alene-based
company also runs trips to Baja in winter.
The kids weren’t so keen on encountering Shamu up
close, but I was fixated on seeing orcas. So it came as a bit of a shock that
during the entire five-day trip, we saw not a one. Not. A. One. Apparently,
wild orcas, unlike their unfortunate caged brethren at SeaWorld, don’t
perform on a schedule, which is why all whale-watching tour operators in the
region, including ours, never guarantee sightings.
But we did spot something else in the water. And that
something else turned out to be just as awesome and thrilling. Huge humpback
whales, hunted to near extinction and a rare sight in this former whaling area,
have made a dramatic comeback in the last decade.
We spotted several humpbacks, including a mother and
calf that entered the cove at the entrance to the lodge. However, the encounter
that made chills run down my spine was kayaking on Browning Passage and hearing
behind us the forceful exhalation of air through the blowhole of one of these
otherwise silent creatures—like Darth Vader, but friendlier. Is there
anyone who can listen to the breath of that gentle giant (which might have gone
the way of the dodo) and not become an instant environmentalist?
 Other
wildlife sightings also lessened the sting of the orcas’ absence. Bald
eagles were as common as robins back East. In the water we encountered various
porpoises, dolphins, and seals. Marine invertebrates were also wild and
wonderful, especially when interpreted by one of our expert guides. Sea
cucumbers, which squirt when held (pictured, left); voracious sea stars, which
push their stomachs out of their mouths to eat; tiny dinoflagellates that glow
fluorescent when you churn the water.
Human legs get restless when they’ve been in a
kayak all day. The cure was hiking through mossy, forested Hurst Island. Here
and there we’d spot a massive old-growth cedar tree that early
20th-century loggers had left behind. Our guide was Lewis, the irrepressible
chocolate Lab owned by lodge co-owners Bill Weeks and Annie Ceschi; Lewis led
us to a kitchen midden, a great mound of discarded shells left by the First
Nations people who once lived here.
Another day, the dog took us to Harlequin Bay, on the
northeast side of the island. For Sasquatch believers, this is Ground Zero.
Over the years, there have been numerous sightings of Sasquatch (i.e. Bigfoot)
in the area, and Native American residents of neighboring Balaklava Island are
said to avoid the northeastern part of Hurst Island. And even lodge co-owner
Annie Ceschi has had enough unexplainable experiences that she can no longer
discount its existence. “Let’s put it this way: I’m open,”
she says.
And that is what is so great about travel. It opens
your mind (perhaps even blows it) to ideas you would never, ever, have
considered before. Sasquatch lives? Having kayaked these waters, walked these
forests, heard the stories, the kids and I, well, let’s just say
we’re open to it too.
"Our group followed Nori's by a couple of weeks and we
DID see orcas. Big males with 5-ft high dorsal fins, mommas and babies, glided
within 100 yards. Breathtaking. Posted by: Linda Hagen Miller | August 21, 2008
at 12:45 PM"
Photos: Top, by
Nancy Harrison; below left, by Norie Quintos.
Click here for God's Pocket Resort trip
description.
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