Paddle Nanaimo: Day Trips

Summer 2007

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

About 15 years ago I stood in an office in Guelph, Ontario, looking at a map of Canada. I was searching the two ends of the country—for Truro, Nova Scotia on the Atlantic side and Nanaimo on Vancouver Island to the west. I was in line for a promotion and could have landed on either shore.

A few weeks later I was walking along the Nanaimo waterfront on my way to work at my new office downtown. It was a picture-perfect morning in Nanaimo Harbour with sailboats at anchor between Newcastle and Protection Islands and the snow-capped mainland mountains in the background. Near the shore a seal was splashing—a sight completely alien to a worker fresh from metro Toronto.

I felt like I had won the lottery.

It took a few years to finally get the gumption to get out and kayak, but that’s when I really began to appreciate the area I now call home.

Nanaimo has to be unique in having a large island in the harbour, just moments from downtown, protected as a provincial park. If you launch at the boat ramp next to the Departure Bay ferry terminal, you can be paddling along the beautiful bluffs of Newcastle Island in a matter of minutes; on a nice day you can find any number of secluded beaches to have a picnic or catch some sun.

A favourite trip this past winter was heading out after work for a circumnavigation of Newcastle. It takes a little more than an hour if you paddle steadily, closer to two hours if you add in its neighbor, Protection Island, to your circuit. Sometimes you have no choice, unless you want to portage over the sandbar that forms in the channel between the two islands at lower tides.

On such winter trips the sun has usually long set by the time we return, but navigating by moon and city lights is part of the fun. Yes, catch the right day, and kayaking is a 12-month-a-year sport on Vancouver Island.

The north side of Newcastle Island is my favorite part of the island. Between Nares and McKay Points, the sandstone bluffs rise sharply from the water. Old Man and Old Woman rocks, so named for their place in native mythology, stare out at the ferries that pass by on their way between here and Vancouver. Then slightly farther south on the outer side is Kanaka Bay, a large drying bay with beaches and a headland perfect for whiling away a sunny afternoon. A passenger ferry service and trails make Newcastle Island accessible even without a kayak.

Newcastle Island may be the focus for trips in the harbour, but it’s not the only place to paddle. Jesse Island, a private island in Departure Bay, has bold sandstone cliffs to explore with the bonus of the only paddle-through sea cave in the Gulf Islands and great scuba diving. The main residents are two dogs that watch over the property, loudly proclaiming their dominance to anyone who passes by. Caught unawares, their barks could send you out of your sprayskirt. It’s hard to tell if they’re as vicious as they sound, but it’s probably best left untested. It’s a shame—the owners have no foreshore rights, so anyone should have beach access, but the dogs make that impossible.

If you continue north along the shoreline past Departure Bay, you round more headlands and more beaches, like Piper’s Lagoon with its long gravel beach and rocky headland protected as a city park, and Neck Point, a more recent park addition in Nanaimo. The waters around both headlands are favourite places for sea lions to feed. Usually a head or two will surface at some point during a trip past here.

Between the two parks is Shack Island, named for the humble cottages that dot the island. They sit much as they have for decades, their presence on the Crown land due to squatters’ rights, something that precludes any improvements. If seeing this picturesque island doesn’t make you want to pick up a paintbrush and paint, nothing will.

If you head east out of Departure Bay (towards the mainland) you’ll reach a small cluster of rocky islands. These are all part of Hudson Rock Ecological Reserve, created to protect a population of pelagic cormorants that, sadly, has spiraled in decline. In 1987, 142 nests were counted; in 2000, just three were found. It’s a fate shared across the Gulf Islands and Strait of Georgia. Is it due to human encroachment? Possibly. Is it from the resurgence in the number of predatory bald eagles? Probably. You can pass by and look for evidence yourself, but you can’t stop to investigate because access is by permit only. The other residents of the islands—mostly nesting murres and sunning seals—don’t need permission.

A little farther afield on an eastbound trip is Five Finger Island. Much larger than the nearby Hudson Rocks, it was named for its appearance as a fisted hand with each of the five knolls appearing as a knuckle. Perhaps from some angle it’s true, though I’ve never seen it. It’s safe to stop here on the island’s rough beach to explore the rocks, though have a light foot. It has its residents too.

On a calm day with lots of time on your hands, you may want to head even farther east. Sitting alone out in the Strait of Georgia between Five Finger Island and Gabriola Island is Snake Island. It’s one of those illusionary islands that never seems to get nearer as you paddle, right up until the moment you arrive. It is 3.1 km northeast from McKay Point, so be sure of your weather before you start out. Things can get hairy on the open water in the Strait of Georgia, and there’s nowhere to hide once you’re out there.

A beach on the south side of Snake Island offers a good kayak haul-out. Land only when it’s well past nesting season. After that you can stroll the bluffs or marvel at the wonderfully fretted sandstone overhangs on the island’s west side.

You can also kayak south from Nanaimo Harbour, but most paddlers don’t head in that direction. It will bring you into Northumberland Channel, a potentially busy industrial area with log booms and tugs on the Gabriola Island side of the channel and a pulp mill (Harmac), a fuel depot (Canadian Occidental Petroleum), a ferry terminal (BC Ferries’ Duke Point terminal for service to Tsawwassen) and a deep-sea port. But it has its charm. There are the magnificent cliffs of Gabriola to enjoy as a backdrop, and if you arrive here in winter (the beginning of December is probably best), you’ll likely see dozens, possibly hundreds, of sea lions on the log booms outside Harmac. Head a little farther south and you’re into fast moving Dodd Narrows and the world of the inner Gulf Islands. But that’s a different story.

You can avoid all the industry of Duke Point by heading down the west side of Jack Point. Jack Point is a peninsula with Northumberland Channel to the east and the Nanaimo River estuary to the west. The west side is an extensively drying mudflat, and sure enough some boater is likely to miss the channel and run aground here every year. The headland at the point is a city park (Biggs Point Park), and the area is as scenic from the water as it is from the trail that rounds the headland. There are even pocket beaches for lunch.

Other day-trip options abound in this area. Just north of Nanaimo you can launch from Lantzville or Nanoose to visit the incredible Ballenas-Winchelsea archipelago, where wildlife and exotic wildflowers flourish in the unlikely setting of sparse windswept rocks.

To the south there is Gabriola and the De Courcy group, where history and kayaks collide in the provincial park at Pirates Cove, infamous for the mysterious Brother XII’s cult.

And that’s just the start of the kayaking possibilities from Nanaimo. To tell about them all, well, I’d have to write a book about it, wouldn’t I?

John Kimantas is a Nanaimo-based writer and author of the series of BC kayaking guides The Wild Coast (Whitecap Books). His experiences include circumnavigating Vancouver Island and a 92-day trip up the BC coast’s Inside Passage and back down the Outside Passage. His list now includes kayaking every major channel and passage on the BC coast outside Howe Sound and the Queen Charlottes.