North from Nanaimo

Orcas, the main attraction

Five days ago I was ready to quit. It was cold and we were making slow progress. It seemed like things were constantly going wrong in an insurmountable way. The group dynamic was off, and it didn’t feel fixable.

In high school, my cross country coach told us “you can do anything for ten minutes”. I think about that a lot— I thought about it on a miserable backpacking trip, picking our way through boulder fields, running a half marathon in the mountains I didn’t train for, towing a sick kayaker through a storm in the Apostle Islands.

You can do anything for ten minutes, and then you can do it again.

The best way to do a trip like this (at least for me) is to let go of the idea you’re ever going to finish, to chunk it day by day, ten minutes by ten minutes.

After the incident with the tide at Pirates Cove (see previous post) we spent a windbound day there cleaning out boats best we could and talking about some of the things that weren’t working for us as a group.

The next day, we battled an ebb tide into Nanaimo for our first resupply. It felt great to have bread again, and it felt good to go over some of the things that had happened and communication differences in a non-wilderness environment— lower pressure than on the water.

From here the goal was to make it to Powell River as fast as possible, partially because Andy had a package waiting for him from his parents, partially because we’ve been taking it a lot slower than we expected to and were ready to cover some ground.

On Monday, we sat in the Sayshutsun Island campground and drank three cups of coffee waiting patiently for the flood tide. As a group, we hadn’t done a lot of hanging out and chatting about nothing in particular, and we hadn’t really gotten a chance to just chill and enjoy where we are without the complication of trying to figure out our next move.

Monday morning we sat around till three pm, then packed up and caught the conveyer belt of the flood tide north to the small islands before the Strait of Georgia.

Things do not often work out perfect in our favor but oh man when they do—

Paddling north from Nanaimo, the beaches and parks were lined with people with binoculars, which was weird.

“They’re behind you!” Someone shouted at us from shore (which is never really something you want shouted at you).

We turned and behind us in the Strait of Georgia were black fins sliding in and out of the water, large puffs of white spray. Eighteen days, and we finally caught a glimpse of the elusive orcas of the Salish Sea.

Orcas, also known as killer whales, are endangered in the North Pacific Ocean. There are currently about 75 orcas in the Southern Resident population, the population most often seen in the Salish Sea, less than half of the historic population.

Orcas have an important place in Indigenous/First Nations Coast Salish Culture. Specifically in the Lummi Nation, Orcas are considered part of the tribe, akin to people living under the sea. This is unsurprising— orcas use language, have dialects, lifespans of 50-80 years in the wild (oldest recorded orca was 105 at death) and even social structures. The same innate intelligence in killer whales that lead the Lummi Nation to recognize them as kin also struck a chord with the American public in the late 20th century— orcas made an excellent main attraction in sea life theme parks.

In the 1970s on one day alone, as many as 80 orcas were captured from the Salish Sea for theme parks in one dat, essentially decimating the population. Note that the current population has less individuals that the amount captured in 1970 on one day; one of these orcas, Tokitae, is still alive and held at the Miami Seaquarium. Now in her 50s, Tokitae has been retired but not released and returned to Puget Sound.

*note: Will add appropriate citations when not writing from phone— in the meantime, tap here*

Even in the distance the orcas looked large, moving at about our pace through the Strait. We were short on time before sunset, but we stood still and watched. It’s hard to imagine taking something so large and so at home out here, and putting it in a tank to do tricks, turning a creature with so many similarities to humans into a commodity, reducing its lifespan to less then 30 years when in the wild it might have lived to be a hundred.

There’s an ugly parallel between what was done to Indigenous communities throughout the US and Canada— forcibly removed from homelands, sent to residential schools, destruction of culture that amounts to genocide, and what is still being done to orcas. Orcas— regarded, protected, given first names, and treated as Lummi Nation — continue to be pulled from the ocean and from their families, separated from the Indigenous advocates and stewards with thousands of years of cultural knowledge of orcas, are commodified and made into the main attraction.

I was too busy scraping my jaw off the deck of my kayak to take a picture of the orcas, so here’s a sea otter

The orcas passed us and we paddled on, past a group of juvenile bald eagles going after a group of sea otters and learning the “what is food and what bites” lesson the hard way.

We camped on a beautiful wildflower covered island and watched the sunset and talked about whales, large mammals with names and languages that live under the sea.

In the next three days, we would paddle almost 60 miles to reach Powell River and cross the Strait of Georgia.

From the Winchelsea Islands, we headed first to the Ballenas Islands then across to Lasqueti Island. From there, we camped on Jedediah Island.

The next morning we had a 17+ mile paddle to Texada Island and Shelter Point Campground, a slog into a headwind. We made it to camp late, about 6pm, and hit the water early again the next day, 20 miles to Powell River and showers, again into a headwind.

There’s something to be said for a little bit of a sufferfest— grinding out miles in less than ideal conditions and the feeling of making it somewhere even when it’s hard. That’s what the past few days have been like.

The northern end of Texada Island was especially beautiful, cliffs and wildflowers and seals, light chop and sun. Around 5:30 pm after four hard days of paddling, we launched our five mile crossing into Powell River.

My hands were blistered and cut from saltwater, we were sore and tired from the second 20 mile day in a row into a headwind, and we weren’t even sure we’d be able to snag a campsite at the campground. A five-mile crossing is a lot of open water, and though the headwind had died the last miles into Powell River were undoubtably the hardest of the trip so far.

But hey— you can do anything for ten minutes. And then you can do it again.

Right now we’re in Powell River enjoying a bit of hot & fresh food, laundry, and trying to stay out of the rain. I’m planning on cranking out a few more blog posts while we’re here, including a paying subscribers-only post with more details and some of my favorite photos pulled from my big camera (remember to join my paying subscribers below!).

I’ll also be writing up & posting a gear roast, sharing what gear has worked great in the past twenty days, and what gear was not actually wilderness ready.

If you’re already a paying subscriber but still want to contribute to our trip expenses (campsites, food, more food, gear repair) consider gifting a subscription to a friend who might like to read this!

As always, thanks so much to everyone for taking the time to read, and I hope you have a sunny and warm day 💕

x Maddy