North Desolation: the beach episode (2/4)

on anthropomorphism

North Desolation Sound and the Discovery Islands are known as one of the more complicated shorelines in the world. Here, the tidal stream meets— the incoming northbound flood current from the Strait of Juan de Fuca south of Vancouver Island smashes into the incoming southbound flood current from the Queen Charlotte Sound north of Vancouver Island.

Here, tidal rapids guard all passages north. Fjords reach as many as 50 miles into the mainland mountains, each with their own wild currents and winds.

If you want to feel like you’ve fallen off the map, the fjords of the British Columbia coast are a good place to start— and where we were headed.

Off map, of course, isn’t entirely accurate. First Nations such as the Tla’amin, Klahoose, and Halmaco have paddled these waters for thousands of years.

Today, there are several First Nations owned and operated ecotour companies throughout the British Columbia coast. To visit this area specifically, I recommend Klahoose Wilderness Resort on the Homfray Channel, or Halmaco Wildlife and Cultural Tours based in Campbell River. (the link button isn’t working on the iPhone editor so I’ll have to add them later, but a copy & paste into google should also bring them up).

On a map of North Desolation, two major inlets stick out. Bute Inlet, stretching 50 miles into interior BC, notably prone to extremely gnarly katabatic/ inflow/outflow winds as well as guarded by the particularly gnarly Arran Rapids north of Stuart Island, and Toba Inlet, smaller than the behemoth of Bute, known for an abundance of waterfalls pouring directly into the sea with a few established camping opportunities for kayakers.

We were bound for Toba Inlet.

After one of the glassiest paddling days yet, we woke up to white caps and rough  water from our camp near the Toba Entrance, with a clear view of large waves crashing on Channel Island and the occasional dust-devil like swirl of sea spray. In general when paddling, winds tend to rise throughout the afternoon. This is true on Lake Superior, our home turf, and had proven true throughout the Salish Sea thus far.

Land heats faster than the water; that heat rises and the cool air from the ocean or sea rushes into take its place. Also generally speaking, if it’s windy in the morning, it’s usually part of a front or low pressure system. Generally, that wind will build throughout the day and eventually die off when the system moves through— these winds are generally accompanied by gray skies, rain, and cooler temperatures.

From our little camp, we had sunny skies and whitecaps as far as the eye could see. Otherwise known as a good reason to go back to bed.

So we did. Two hours later, the Toba Entrance looked even more gnarly, a rush of whitecaps meeting the peak ebb (the outward current of the departing tide), amplified by the fresh melt water from the first high temperatures of the summer finally melting the snow in the mountains above.

We settled in for our morning routine of coffee and oatmeal, pulling out maps and tide tables, and setting up shop for the day on the perfect little beach outside our camp.

Side note: this is my favorite campsite, maybe ever. It was sunny with nice tent pads in the shade and a biiggggg Cyprus tree. Ebba and I spread out on the beach and she jokingly said “oh it’s our beach episode”. The mountains danced and bluebirds sung. Finally, the beachy castaway vibes we’ve been craving! This spot is unfortunately hard for the average kayaker to reach, involving about a 4-day paddle from launch just to get to the Toba Entrance, and that’s if you’re hauling. My only complaint was the quantity of drunk yatchers on Saturday.

Just around the time we’d committed to a beach day, the sun peaked over the ridges and the inlet ironed out into a flat milky blue.

Must’ve been the ebb current, made closer to two knots than one by freshwater runoff, we decided.

The next morning we waited for the the peak ebb current to subside to ride the flood into Toba Inlet.

Like clockwork, the morning at Toba Enterance was a sea of whitewater, only this time I wasn’t so sure it was current alone. The way small swell washed up in our cove, the swirls of sea spray ripped off the top of waves, the gentle sway of the trees down shore— it was hard to tell from our spot in the wind shadow of a cliff, and harder to tell with our experience with ocean currents being limited to the past few months, our experience with fjords being none, but it sure looked like some kind of winds were wrecking havoc on the ebb tide.

Again like clockwork, around 11 the channel started to still, and though there was certainly still life in the water we decided it was time to try our luck at an entrance to Toba Inlet.Back in the realm of cell service, I can now report that we were indeed likely witnessing the influence of Katabatic winds of the BC fjords. By the same logic that in the afternoon sun-heated air over the land rises and cooler air rushes in creating a sea breeze, or inflow wind, in the wee dawn hours after the sun when the land has cooled faster than the water, the warmer air over the water rises and cool air from the mountain tops comes tumbling down the peaks aided by gravity, rushing out the fjords.

My guess is that a similar mechanism to this causes “waterfall wind”, or the phenomenon of large alpine-fed waterfalls and streams seeming to have their own cold winds rushing down with the water— the cold air above the water is denser than the surrounding warm air, and gets funneled down the falls by gravity to the delight of the sweaty kayakers at bottom, who get to bask in mist and fresh air.

We waited for the Inlet to look “calm enough”, then decided to try our luck at a trip into Toba Inlet.

Waterfall near the Enterance of Toba

At the time, we experienced a tailwind through 1-2 ft breaking waves around a corner, only to have the wind suddenly switch to a stiff headwind. While none of the conditions we experienced were in themselves concerning or anything we couldn’t paddle through, simply not understanding the rapid changes in weather and conditions left us in kind of a blind spot, particularly with some of the vague warnings we’d heard and read about winds and current in the area.

Again like clockwork, the winds and turbulent water were flattened to glass by noon. Rather than camp in the inlet, we decided to venture as far as we could in, then in the same day paddle back out to our previous camp, where at least we knew the risks and mileage.

Andy paddles straight into the waterfall wind

Some of the best places in the world are hard to get to. This isn’t to say that certain places shouldn’t be accessed by people who cannot reach them, rather that some incredible places— like the summits of remote mountains or shorelines of distant islands— are made incredible by the same conditions that make them incredibly difficult to reach.

Devil’s Island, Wisconsin, where the lacy arc of sea caves stretches thirty feet above you, carved out like architecture, is a 20+ mile paddle round trip. While you can hop on a cruise boat out to Devils and see the caves that way, it’s not at all the same as experiencing the natural rooms and caverns from water level. To cruise by is like walking past one of the most ornate & sacred churches in the world without going inside; it’s simply not the same experience. Plus— the caves are only possible to paddle on mostly calm days, of which there are few on Lake Superior. The same conditions that carved out ornate sandstone caves are the conditions that make Devils Island difficult to reach.

Manitou Falls, the only place on the North Shore where a waterfall tumbles directly into Lake Superior framed by a sea arch, is a 10-mile paddle with no landing for breaks no matter how you slice it. While again, you can technically motor in, I maintain that the intimacy of paddling a place is unmatched.

The Rose Cliffs of the Boundary Waters are at least a days paddle and hike in, or a hard 16-mile trek on one of the most brutal sections of trail in Minnesota. There’s no option to motor in. It’s the same difficult terrain leading to cliffs overlooking swirling lakes and bluffs far below that make both the view especially incredible and the trek in especially difficult.

Toba Inlet is a little like that— difficult to get to. Guarded by current, katabtic winds that tear down the mountains, and shear distance from the nearest town; one of the places gods live in the rocks.

It’s possible to motor in or book a guided tour, and probably just as magical an experience, but your heart will probably not race the way mine did rounding the bend into two-foot breaking waves on an otherwise calm day, unsure where they came from, and the rush of motoring up to a waterfall will not be the same as paddling up and feeling your little boat controlled by only you tremble, wind and whitewater swirling all around you in alpine blue, wondering how close exactly is too close. Chasing water that falls directly into the sea in a boat small enough to feel the force of a river is one of best good things in the world.

(Actually, after 50 some days on trail, motor me in baby. Experience nature without insane adrenaline AND get a hot shower and maybe even an avocado after? Count me in! Can you tell I’m writing this from a tent in the woods on an island?! I am daydreaming about fall days in Michigan and cooking in a kitchen. Dehydrated food is not doing it for me.)

This waterfall was so strong we felt the current shift before we could even see the falls

The thing that really makes these places remarkable is that they are a reminder of wilderness and how we fit into it.

The “real” world as we know it is the ping of bad news on your phone, blue light and algorithms that learn human psychology well enough to exploit it for the profit of people who are already billionaires (*cough* Facebook). It’s in the idea that success is defined by a big house with a nice fence, an expensive car, and the ever-present pressure to change— be smarter, be better, more moral, less uptight, be thinner not that thin, get a job no not that one.

But here in the inlets and fjords, in places where waterfalls come from the clouds to meet the sea, wind rushing down canyons; this here is the real world too.

Places like this, the hard to get to corners of the earth where gods live in the rocks and the waterfalls have their own wind, exist all over the world and they are far more real than the imaginary worlds of social media.

Humans have had a place in the wild for thousands of years. I hate the word anthropomorphism because it operates on the false pretense that humans themselves are not animals; we are.

The wild is not the other; in both the hard to get to corners of the world where your heart rattles in your ribcage around every bend, in the shady grove under the trees in your local park, we are a part of the wild and the wild is part of us.

hi & thanks for reading! as a fun little treat for paying subscribers, content below this line will feature some silly photos from the trip so far and the stories behind them⤵️