Women in Paddling: Two Sisters-Two Camps

June-July 2000

This is an article from WaveLength Magazine, available in print in North America and globally on the web.

by Mary Gazetas with Phoebe Dunbar and Calliope Gazetas

Enjoying the 'secret pool' at Rugged Point on Vancouver Island

For over fourteen summers, my twin sister Phoebe and I have paddled in canoes and kayaks on the West Coast of Vancouver Island, Haida Gwaii, the Broughton Archipelago and the Central Coast. When we first started to take these trips, it was with older, borrowed, pre-gortex gear in ocean canoes that could take everything-including dogs and the legendary "kitchen sink" loads. By the early 90's, our voyages had then become known as the 'women's trips'. Initially, husbands were too busy in the summers to come with us-so off we went. Over the years, our families began to recognize when it was time again for the women to go to sea.

There are so many incredible, beautiful places on this coast. How to decide where to go each summer, is often influenced by the moods we are in. One feature that is always foremost in our minds is that we have to camp in special places, filled with their own kind of beauty. The camping part has to be just as good as the paddle itself, places that are removed from our everyday, busy urban landscapes. Sometimes it could take many hours, if not days, to find a place to set up that perfect camp. One thing our more memorable camps all had in common was that they were discovered mostly as delightful surprises.

Two of these places are Rugged Point and the Japanese Lagoon.

Rugged Point

Phoebe had seen an aerial photograph in a yachting magazine of a very attractive looking place named Rugged Point, up in the Kyuquot Sound area. It's a wild stretch of striking sand beaches, sharp black volcanic rocks and fossil hunting spots. Descriptive names on the charts included Brecciated Point, Remarkable Cone Mountain, Family Humps, Jurassic and Mushroom Point. We have been there twice, once in 1988 and then again in 1993. Both times we made beach camps up behind the high tide logs in the sand.

This expansive area invites the paddler to walk the beautiful beaches, explore the off- shore islets and the small rocky coves of Rugged Point. If you are fortunate to arrive early in the summer, beachcombing reveals the treasures that have been washed up during the winter storms. Miles of rope, hardwoods and glass fishing balls brought in by the Pacific drift, can be found and then appear as camp ornaments or trophies.

One morning we were out beachcombing, looking for rare white eagle feathers. We scaled up the rugged rocks to retrieve a piece of rope that was dangling over the top of a rock outcrop filled with colourful wildflowers. Behind the rocks was this deep, hidden sea pool filled with warm, warm saltwater heated by the sun.

For days we came back here to sit and swim in what we called our secret pool. It was a magical place that we wanted to pretend nobody had ever found.

At Rugged, we met up with people harvesting gooseneck barnacles or fishing for cod and the huge spring salmon. The abundance of their catches was often shared with us. One family gave us a wonderful fish chowder. We were also told where to look for some grey whale vertebrae they had salvaged. We, too, tried fishing but with homemade handlines. A huge salmon towed Phoebe and my daughter Calli out to sea one afternoon. When they started to get nervous about being towed through a nasty tide rip they cut the line! Another time when they were fishing, it was the dogfish who were catching the mackerel in a frenzy, right beside their canoe.

Our fears of bear and cougar were often unfounded. When we mentioned to the barnacle fishermen that we didn't like hearing the cougar screams in the woods behind us at night, we were reassured that we were making far too much noise to be concerned. Quite a few bears were in the vicinity the second time we were there. One resting, panting bear was surprised in the hot afternoon when we all met on the same beach trail. There were a few screams, before the bear realized it was out numbered by the returning bathers and took off into the salal bushes.

Our Rugged camps had everything that we thought met the criteria for a perfect place. Lots of firewood, sources of fresh water, great views, room for everyone to have their own tent, as well as great places to draw and paint. If the winds and tides were in our favour, then leaving or returning to Fair Harbour made the trip down to Rugged an easy day's journey. When surf wasn't coming onto the beaches, landing on the exposed side was feasible, which meant you didn't have to camp on the Kyuquot Sound side or carry gear bags through the woods by way of a trail.

The Japanese Lagoon

Author's sketch in the Broughton

It was August 1998 and we were up in the Knight Inlet area for our first time. After having kayaked the previous three summers, I was back in a canoe again. With me was my daughter Calli and River, the dog. Paddling beside us was my sister Phoebe in her Icefloe kayak. We had been paddling for two days in cold rain and had yet to find some warmer places that were more to our liking. There was an unspoken code that it was far too early in the trip to start complaining. The first two camps had no firewood, the chart was left behind in the water taxi so we weren't sure where Insect Island was after all, and the glass bottle of scotch had broken in my clothing bag! So now everything stored in my bag had a very distinct, unwelcome smell indeed.

We moved on and by the third day, we started to be enchanted by the pink and white granite ledges, the smells of nori and the sounds of porpoises. We kept hoping to see whales. A quiet lazy lunch was enjoyed in Sunday Passage and we were feeling more cheerful because it looked like the weather was improving. The green waters started to take on a bluer hue as the intermittent afternoon sun made the stone ledges look so inviting for a possible and different kind of place to set up a camp.

As we rounded a point near Angle Island, we realized we were entering an amazing lagoon. The tide was flooding and suddenly we found ourselves in a beautiful small place. The sun burnt through the mists and revealed a tiny island with bonsai trees, white sand pockets and gentle rock slopes with soft sea asparagus edges to land upon.

With shouts of joy we landed and quickly started to air our damp things and stake out where we were going to put our tents. Phoebe chose a rocky perch nestled into a small rounded point just large enough to hold her tent. Ah, we had finally found a place we really liked with no signs of previous visitors! There was something about the scale of the lagoon we had drifted into, that made it so appealing. We stayed two days and ventured out of our sea cocoon to jig for cod, gather wood for the cooking fire or for carving, explore nearby islands, then retreat back to the hidden camp. We watched as the tides transformed and redefined our tranquil sea garden.

When it was time to leave, it was a rushed breakfast to beat the tide, fill the thin steel thermoses with coffee, make sure the snack box was packed on top, and let's hope the fog burns off soon. We left with feelings of gratitude for finding such beauty, and wondered what other beautiful spots we might find by the end of another day.

Mary Gazetas is grandmother and artist who lives in Richmond, BC. She is currently working on a book, Around One More Point, which is about the paddle trips taken with her sister, family and friends. ©

Phoebe Dunbar, an outdoor enthusiast, lives in East Sooke, BC, and has started her own Sooke-area paddling/back-country excursion business, ECOFUNS. For more information on ECOFUNS, call 250-642-4342, email: phoebeb@sprint.ca or check out www.ecofuns.com