Haida Gawaii
Queen Charlotte Islands – eventually: 22/09/2002.
Morning dawned bright and early, and we were down at the ferry terminal by ten, ready for the eleven o’clock service. The car was safely tucked away in the parking service we’d found, the packs were shoul dered, and we were all set. Ten hours early. Seems the schedule had switched from summer to winter a couple of days before and we’d neglected to double-check. So, we were sitting in the terminal, wondering what to do, when the janitor, a middle-aged Nativ e Indian woman, offered to give us a lift into town at the end of her shift. It sounded like a good idea, so we stuffed the packs on the top of the vending machines (or Gerg did, since my back was killing me after sitting on the hard plastic chair) and wa ited about an hour. Gerg found a bald eagle sitting on a pole on the dockside, and went to take a photo of it, and thereby invoked Murphy and had Dorothy (for that was her name) wait for him to come back.
Dorothy suggested coffee, and we ended up at Java.dot.cup, an internet café that has the best muffins. There were two Australian couples using the corner we chose to sit in, from Kilmore, which isn’t hugely far from Wodonga, and we had a good chat until they had to go. Then Dorothy, Gerg and I talke d. For about two hours, maybe more. I wasn’t counting.
iamgerg described the whole thing better in his LJ, so I’ll let you read it there. Suffice to say, Dorothy is one of those truly interesting people, with an innate spirituality and love o f p eople that will hold her in good stead in her dream to become an elder. I learned more about Native culture and history from her than I could have from all the museums in Canada.
Once Dorothy had gone home, we pottered around Rupert, not doing anythi ng o vermuch except eating at Herbie’s, the Vietnamese restaurant, until it was ferry time. We headed back down to the terminal, got delayed a bit, but finally got onto the boat and marked out our sleeping spot on the floor of one of the lounges. I didn’t worr y about the movie, or food, really, just spread out my mat and grabbed Gerg’s blanket, and passed out – the back was really painful again by this stage.
Queen Charlotte Islands (Haida Gawaii): 23/09/2002 – 26/09/2002.
The Queen Charlottes, or Haid a Gawa ii, as they’re known in the native language, are two main islands surrounded by smaller satellite islands. The northern island is where the white population mostly lives, mingled with the Native Indians, a mixture of fishermen, farmers, those who c ater to the tourist trade, and the hippies, past and present. The southern island is pretty much Native, and you require permission and a cultural awareness lecture to see anything of it. The islands themselves are a mixture of forested mountains, rolling farmla nd, bogs, wind-swept beaches, and forestry re-planting. And they’re an amazing place to visit.
We arrived in the port town of Skidegate (pronounced Ski-de-get) pre-dawn, with a waning moon (three-quarters full) setting over the bay. We decided to head ov er to Queen Charlotte City, about five kilometres down the road, and set off in the moonlight. I was cursing my camera couldn’t cope with the lighting conditions, because the moon on the water, the dark line of the mountains surrounding the bay, the lights of QCC… as Gerg said, it was every South Pacific movie set come true. The walk itself wasn’t hard, and my back was feeling remarkably better considering I’d slept on the floor, but Gerg was feeling it, having most of the heavy stuff, including the tent, on account of me not having a full pack – my Backpack of Doom is fine for jaunts to and from airports, but it’s too big for me and really screws my back up when I try to carry it over distance, especially with a full load. I was using Gerg’s day pack (alm ost a full-sized pack on me, anyway!) and not feeling the weight as much as he was. So by the time we reached QCC, he was suffering, and had decided, adamantly, we were hiring a car, rather than the original plan of hiking/hitching. We’d been told the Isl ands were pretty good with hitching – many of the locals use that method to get around – but we hadn’t experimented with this on the way from the ferry. Perhaps we should have.
Any way, we had breakfast and hired a car. We also stopped at the Info Centre and got some very useful info, and admired their great building, including the mural hand embroidered by local women of the native wildlife. You’d love it, Nana. *grins*
We then drove north, to the campsite of Misty Meadows, our intended firs t home. It was during lunch there that we discovered Gerg’s campstove had decided not to work, which threw a nasty spanner in the whole campground works – no firewood meant no fire, no stove meant no food. Not good. So we continued up to Massett, stopping at Port Cl emments and the pub there for lunch. We’d been told at the info centre in QCC that there was a hostel of sorts in Massett, so we called the number we’d been given and got vague directions to the place. It was an old Army barracks, attached to the local co mmunity college, and took quite a bit of finding. It also turned out the furnace was out, so not hot water and no heat. We got a discount (we possibly could have talked him down to less, but I never did learn how to do that) and discovered th at, luxury up on luxury, the barracks were all separate rooms. Bliss! And strange coincidence, since I’d just been saying to Gerg that day I was looking forward to sleeping in a room on my own again. Besides the rooms, that’s all there was – no kitchen fa cilities, no c ommon room, as is usual – so the stove was a priority. Gerg went to see about getting it fixed, and I napped – the back was still stiff, and to put it bluntly, I was in a bad mood. Seriously. Pain makes not for the happy Rossi.
Upon awaken ing (the second time – Gerg came back, woke me up, found I was still incoherent and decided to go away again), I discovered Gerg had indeed fixed the stove, as well as purchasing a little portable BBQ plate and a bag of hot coals, as back up. And food. So we set off to find a picnic table somewhere. We drove. And drove, and drove around some more, until deciding to take advantage of the tables at a campsite just out of town. Massett is very much an old Army town, with the basics and just the basics. It was strange, sinc e I grew up in a series of areas like this – it reminded me of the Army area in Broadmeadows, such memories as I have of it (I was pretty young at the time). We made pasta, stuffed ourselves and had leftovers to boot, and then returned to the Hostel of Do om to find the other resident, a Canadian cyclist called Patrick, had emerged, or returned, or something.
Patrick gets a bit all to himself, since over our time on the Island, he became something of a feature. He’s another of those eternally young people, almost forty by my calculations, but looking younger than I am. And he’s had an amazing life so far, working as an artist for a film studio ("Can you make this elevator look like brushed steel for a budget of under $100?") and spending a lot of time cycling, including across China at one point. And his bike was something to behold, too, even though I didn’t recognise the brandname – I think it might have been a custom built, but it had compression shocks in the rear, something I’d never seen before and quite nifty. He was very personable, too, not minding the intrusion on his privacy and showing us the local ice-cream parlour, "where everyone hangs out". He’d only been there a short time, a few days, but he’d already become known to the locals, helping out with the carving of a memorial totem pole, swapping stories with various people, getting to know them. It’s something that comes of travelling without a car, I think. A car shuts you off from everyone, creates a protective bubble between you and the r est of the world, a distance. On a bike, or backpacking, you interact far more with the environment around you, and you’re more approachable too. And the bike, if you’re on one, is always a conversation starter.
Any way, we met Patrick. And we had a good time, even if he and Gerg started telling extremely bad jokes. Eventually we talked ourselves out and headed off to out individual rooms, where I slept deeply and uninterrupted for the first time since I can remember.
[Sidenote: Th ere’s a lot in my journal entry about needing private time. This is not to say I’m being anti-social. But you have to remember I’ve been sleeping alone for a year and a half, and I’ve gotten used to having my space. So being in someone’s company twenty-fo ur/seven can get a bit wearing. Mel knows what I mean. Besides, I’m sure it goes both ways – too much Rossi can be a bad thing. Or at least annoying. *grins*]
24/09/2002.
A reasonably early start, owing to the fact that I’d had a lot of sleep the previous twel ve hours. I had a cat bath in the sink in my room, washed my hair in the refreshingly – read icy – cold water and repacked my pack, which had exploded all over the place upon retrieving my sleeping bag. When all was done that could be d one, I went and wok e up Gerg. Mainly because he had the car keys and I wanted to get the cooking stuff out of the car.
Breakfast was leftover pasta, which isn’t as bad as it sounds. Bounce, you may convert me to your conception of breakfast yet. ;) Patr ick was stirring als o, and the three of us chatted over tea and hot chocolate. Then we headed off, neglecting, unfortunately as it turns out, to grab the bottle of camp stove fuel Patrick had offered us since it was extra weight he didn’t need.
The dest ination this time was a camp ground called Agate Beach, so called because, well, there are agates in them there beaches. Actually, the whole beach was made of stones of varying sizes, a exercise in exercise to walk on, but pleasing to both the eye and ear. We found the least-exposed unused campsite and had lunch, making the acquaintance of our neighbour, an man in his sixties or seventies called Stan, and his two Labrador dogs, Spinaker and Genoa, which are both types of sails.
It seems like most of the people we met – as in talked to for more than a few minutes – were more vivid, somehow. As if they were characters in a story. Stan is a tragic figure, and his story – or what I guess of it – is a sad one. He’s a widower, recently, I would say, from the w e he still says "we" all the time. And there’s a dreadful sense of loneliness about him, of someone lost and drifting, trying to find his way. He and Gerg talked for quite a while, Gerg being a dog person and enjoying playing with the pooches. But I got to talk to him a bit t he next day – more of that in the right time.
Agate Beach is a truly wild place, even with the camp ground and dirt road. The beach – stones, as I said before – is lined with driftwood, and I’m not talking little chunks and sticks. Whole trees, trunks t hat have escaped the loggers, or fallen into the sea from cliff faces, or been washed into the water by the torrential storms. Great piles of whitened, polished wood – I hope my photos turn out okay, because they should capture what I mean. Surrounding us were cedar and spruce forests, except where there was the bog meadow, and at one end the brooding shape of Tow Hill. Interestingly, the Hawaii name is Tao. It was used as a fort at one stage to protect a village from a marauding tr ibe. We walked up the b each towards Tow Hill to the Blowhole, taking our time to pick up leverite. No, it’s not a mineral name, it’s short for "leave her right there", and is used for all those bits of pretty, but useless, rock tourists end up stuffing t heir bags with. *ignores the small collection in her own bag*
After scrambling around on the rocks and watching Gerg get spat on by the Blowhole in his quest for the Perfect Shot, we wandered back towards the official walking track and I spotted the sign that read "Tow Hill Vie wpoint". ‘Whoopee,’ I thought, ‘another walk!’ Gerg, who by this stage knows how my mind works, groaned and whinged – he hates walking up hills. And down hills. He likes flat, but as I told him, he wants flat walking trails, he ne eds to go hiking in Saske tchewan or Manitoba. It was all board walk, nice and easy and covered with tar paper so you didn’t slip (the back by this stage was starting to recover, but I wasn’t taking any chances), and you could see why they had it; more ra inforest, this time deep with moss and mud and green growing things. And the brown slime, which makes for an interesting photo on the site. Walkers would have wrecked it, so the board walk was a good idea.
We meandered up and around and occasionally dow n, and eventually reached the top, and the view was well worth it, even with the sea mist starting to obscure the beach. I was full of beans – there’s something about the beach that always charges me up, makes me feel like I could walk a hundred miles, so while poor Gerg was semi-passed out on the bench at the viewing platform, I was all over the place, bouncing around, leaning out to see things, chattering non-stop. *grins* Hyper pixie. This continued on the way down, with a lively discussion of the inhe rent unhealthiness of West ern (and particularly American) diets and attitudes towards food, the value of exercise and how to change the status quo. The quickest way to get me on my soapbox is to whine about how that’s the way things are and there’s nothi ng to be done, because I be lieve there’s always something to be done, even if it means getting a bunch of boxes, filling them with dirt and growing vegetables on your patio. And if people stopped buying certain products because of the fat and sugar content, then maybe the lo ss of profits would make the corporations realise that maybe healthier food might be the way to go. But people don’t like to make their lives more difficult, so they just put up with horrible food and an unhealthy lifestyle </pontification>.
Back down th e bottom, we wandered back along the road to the campsite, where I promptly started collecting driftwood for a fire. There was a small amount of ceder left at the shelter, but not enough for a proper fire, so I ranged up and down the beach, returning with various chunks of smooth, white wood. Gerg had his handy hand saw and was doing the manly thing and cutting it up – the ones I didn’t karate-kick to death, that is. Then he took shelter from the extremely stiff northern wind – the thing about this side o f the Island is that it’s always windy. We were told in winter it can drive you insane – and I took advantage of his absence to light the fire in my own way. No, not using camp fuel. Gerg was a Scout Master, and if there’s a nyone guaranteed to make you fe el inadequate in the face of fire making, it’s a Scout Master. So I waited until he wasn’t watching, and had a nice little blaze going by the time he came out of the tent. By this stage I was up to four layers of clothing a nd my fleecy beanie (toque, they’re called up here), and was practically sitting in the fire, so I guess you could say I was cold. Dinner was a haphazard affair, with the camp stove running out of fuel half-way through cooking, and the fire being employed to fill in. Stan from next door offered us a cuppa after Spinaker came over and stole my fire-poking stick, so we went and thawed out and talked and were amused by various doggie antics.
25/09/2002.
The day started well enough; I woke up early and had a cuppa and a chat with Stan, be fore waking Gerg up and packing up the campsite. Our intentions were to head to Rennett Sound and Gregory Beach on the island’s south west coast, but first Gerg wanted to stop at the Hawai workshop in Old Massett Patrick h ad told him about (font of knowle dge, that bloke), to see about buying a paddle. After breakfast in Marg’s Café, and a bit of searching, we found the place, and Gerg went in while I napped in the car – it had been another rough night, with yet another gravel-lined campsite. For some reas on Parks Canada lay gravel on their tent sites. Even at the beach. It really sucks if you roll off your mat (or get nudged off by the man-mountain that is Gerg) in the middle of the night. So I caught quite a few winks, and was awoken by Gerg’s return, pa ddle in hand. He had to go into town and get some cash out, and when we returned, I went in with him.
I have to say, I’m falling in love with the smell of ceder – it’s wonderful stuff. And the workshop was full of it, the carvers and woodworkers having been quite busy in the past few weeks making bentwood boxes for the bones of ancestors being returned from a museum. The apprentice who made Gerg’s paddle showed us around and explained what he had been doing, and then h e and the other chap there, another apprentice, sang a few traditional paddling songs for us. I’ve had them stuck in my head since – not the words, since I don’t speak Haida, but the rhythm. As we were heading off, Christian, the man in charge of the place came in, and we had another brief chat. His father set up the workshop to teach the youth of the village about their traditions and history, and from we had been shown, it’s working well. Some amazing stuff, all a bit on the large side for me to get as gifts, but Gerg’s paddle is awesome – and certainly draws attention. *grins*
Heading back towards QCC, we stopped at the same pub in Port Clemments again for lunch, and then paused in another couple of what I call "hippy shops" along the way. You know th e sort – they sell crystals and bead s and healing stones and such, and there’s hundreds of them on the island, or so it seems. A lot of people come here as backpackers, and find themselves staying and opening a jewellery shop as a form of income. Not that I’m arguing, mind you – I love thes e places. They let me get in touch with my Inner Bohemian. One place we stopped at was called "Funk It", and I had a good long chat with the lady working there about life, travelling and the raising of cows and boys. The island people are like that – warm and full of welcome, once you stop long enough to chat.
We hit Skidegate getting on for five-ish, and stopped at the Longhouse Giftshop for more tousit-y things. It was then that Gerg discovered he had left his Visa card in Massett the day before – at t he other end of the island, a drive of 130km. And the rental car was charging by the kilometre. Still, there was nothing for it but to return to Massett, first stopping in Queen Charlotte City to book into the hostel, unload the car and drop me off. I’m s ure Gerg will have tales to tell about his adventures in the car, including becoming a one-man transport service for the island’s hitchhikers on the way back. Myself, in the meantime, I was pottering around the host el – a really nifty one, basically a bun galow at the back of the lodgings, sleeping eight in two bunk rooms, and another two in the double bed in the third room. Two bathrooms, even. I was chatting away to Tomo, the Japanese backpacker I’d been seeing on and off since Prince Rupert (he’d been a t the same hostel) and then went to grab some milk and stuff. Coming back, who should I see coming down the road on his bike but Patrick – and he was headed for the hostel. We ended up clubbing together for dinner, and turned the humble Kraft Dinner (macaroni and cheese in a box, for the uninitiated) into a feast fit for hungry cyclists and frazzled Gergs. He came stumbling back a few hours later than he’d left, totally wasted, but he did have the credit card back. Much cause for celebration.
We rolled into bed eleven-ish (early nights are usually the done thing in hostels – too many people expending large amounts of energy during the day hiking etc, or having early transport to catch), and I managed maybe a couple of hours sleep before two things conspired to make any further attempts futile. One, the room was small and absolutely stifling with the door closed, even by my heat-tolerant Aussie standards (I’ve spent the last week being freezing), and two, Gerg’s snoring was loud enough to wake the dead, even with the earplugs in (I think I’ll have to invest in better ones that don’t fall out in the middle of the night). After lying there contemplating the judicious application of duct tape to Gerg’s mouth, I figured it would better for my sanity and our travelling relationship if I went elsewhere for my repose. So my sleeping bag and I moved out onto the couch in the common room, even though it was fairly short, even for one of my pixie-esque stature. But, I did get sleep. Mostly.
26/09/2002.
Our last day on the Charlottes. Once again, this is a place I have to return to, and I decided as I was wandering around QCC the day before on my errand for groceries, that it’s going to be where I retire to. I can just se e it, eccentric old lady, cycling along th e roads on various trips, spending the winters writing and making jewellery from local materials to sell to the tourists… *grins* Well, it’s something to aspire to.
By osmosis, it was decided the last day would be a "do your own thing" day, mainly becau se we’re finding the benefits of letting each other go off and entertain ourselves every so often. But first, the drama of the hire car – Gerg went to take it back, found his credit card (yes, the one he’d gone back to Massett to retrieve) had had a large amount of money (thought cancelled) taken off it, and was now currently maxed. So he left his driver’s licence at the place, walked back, and asked me if I’d cover it. Which I did, after walking the two or thre e kilometres down the road to the place. The situation cast a pall on the whole day, and is certainly going to make the rest of the trip a bit more frugal – we’re really going to have to tighten the belts, since the car was a cost I wasn’t expecting to ha ve to cover, and Gerg is looking to be out $ 1000 or so as a result of the kerfuffle with his card.
We had lunch with Patrick after checking out, leaving our packs in the main office – we got subs and ate them in the park beside the Info Centre, with the sun beating down upon us in a most un-Island-like way. From there Patrick went off to do his own thing, and Gerg and I wandered along the main street of QCC, stopping here and there and hither and yon. I wanted to do a hike, having done nothing the day before but sit in the car, and Gerg wanted to explore the town and perhaps go down to the museum at Skidegate. So I set off, picking up my camel-back (one of those water bladders with a tube for drinking out of that come in their own little pack) from the lodgings. The manager warned me it was a ten km walk just to the trailhead, and that I ought to hitch, but it was a lovely day and I was feeling antsy from lack of activity , so I walked it. Of course, I was starting to regret it by the time I reached my destination, but by that stage hitching was p ointless.
The walk was called Spirit Lake, a 3km loop that wove through the red ceder forest to the small, perfectly still, perfectly clear waters of the lake, and back out again. Usually there are eagles th ere, but this time of year they were down at R ennett Sound, fishing for salmon as they migrated, along with the local bear population – again, I’m cursing we didn’t end up having the time to get out there. But the walk was invigorating, the setting peace ful and very calming, and I was feeling tired b ut euphoric as I headed back towards town. There was no way I was walking all the way back, pretty sunset or not, so I was trying unsuccessfully to get a ride (I’ve discovered Aussies hitch differently – you actually have to turn around and meet the person’s eye, rather than walk along with your thumb out), when I bumped into Gerg. This keeps happening. He’d been to Skidegate to the museums, and had been allowed to photograph the ceremony for the return of the museum bones. Quite the coup, when the local media had been forbidden. We managed to get picked up by a local fisherman – the trip back to QCC is quite short in a car! – and then met up with Patrick in the supermarket. We ended up pooling together and having a BBQ in the local park – pork chops for the boys, veggie burger for me, salad all round. All rather pleasant.
We’d been told by the locals not to hitch after dark – no-one picks anyone up – so we had to leave for the Skidegate ferry terminal aro und nine. At first it didn’t look good for the hitching – Gerg had a very long (between six and seven feet) paddle, we both had full packs, and all the cars that passed were tiny, or utes that weren’t stopping. But finally a Combi pulled up and we piled i n. Gotta love the hippies. *grins*
Once again, there was a delay, this time because we were there two hours early, and I read the book I’d picked up in the second hand ‘wordshop’ while Gerg paced. He doesn’t do waiting rooms well, and I ran out of conver sation. That’s been happening a bit lately. So h e wandered out and found Patrick and talked to him whilst I chewed my way through the book. At last the time came to board, and we staked out our floor space and watched a really crap film before passing ou t until the announcement all-too-early in the mor ning.
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Morning dawned bright and early, and we were down at the ferry terminal by ten, ready for the eleven o’clock service. The car was safely tucked away in the parking service we’d found, the packs were shoul dered, and we were all set. Ten hours early. Seems the schedule had switched from summer to winter a couple of days before and we’d neglected to double-check. So, we were sitting in the terminal, wondering what to do, when the janitor, a middle-aged Nativ e Indian woman, offered to give us a lift into town at the end of her shift. It sounded like a good idea, so we stuffed the packs on the top of the vending machines (or Gerg did, since my back was killing me after sitting on the hard plastic chair) and wa ited about an hour. Gerg found a bald eagle sitting on a pole on the dockside, and went to take a photo of it, and thereby invoked Murphy and had Dorothy (for that was her name) wait for him to come back.
Dorothy suggested coffee, and we ended up at Java.dot.cup, an internet café that has the best muffins. There were two Australian couples using the corner we chose to sit in, from Kilmore, which isn’t hugely far from Wodonga, and we had a good chat until they had to go. Then Dorothy, Gerg and I talke d. For about two hours, maybe more. I wasn’t counting.
iamgerg described the whole thing better in his LJ, so I’ll let you read it there. Suffice to say, Dorothy is one of those truly interesting people, with an innate spirituality and love o f p eople that will hold her in good stead in her dream to become an elder. I learned more about Native culture and history from her than I could have from all the museums in Canada.Once Dorothy had gone home, we pottered around Rupert, not doing anythi ng o vermuch except eating at Herbie’s, the Vietnamese restaurant, until it was ferry time. We headed back down to the terminal, got delayed a bit, but finally got onto the boat and marked out our sleeping spot on the floor of one of the lounges. I didn’t worr y about the movie, or food, really, just spread out my mat and grabbed Gerg’s blanket, and passed out – the back was really painful again by this stage.
Queen Charlotte Islands (Haida Gawaii): 23/09/2002 – 26/09/2002.
The Queen Charlottes, or Haid a Gawa ii, as they’re known in the native language, are two main islands surrounded by smaller satellite islands. The northern island is where the white population mostly lives, mingled with the Native Indians, a mixture of fishermen, farmers, those who c ater to the tourist trade, and the hippies, past and present. The southern island is pretty much Native, and you require permission and a cultural awareness lecture to see anything of it. The islands themselves are a mixture of forested mountains, rolling farmla nd, bogs, wind-swept beaches, and forestry re-planting. And they’re an amazing place to visit.
We arrived in the port town of Skidegate (pronounced Ski-de-get) pre-dawn, with a waning moon (three-quarters full) setting over the bay. We decided to head ov er to Queen Charlotte City, about five kilometres down the road, and set off in the moonlight. I was cursing my camera couldn’t cope with the lighting conditions, because the moon on the water, the dark line of the mountains surrounding the bay, the lights of QCC… as Gerg said, it was every South Pacific movie set come true. The walk itself wasn’t hard, and my back was feeling remarkably better considering I’d slept on the floor, but Gerg was feeling it, having most of the heavy stuff, including the tent, on account of me not having a full pack – my Backpack of Doom is fine for jaunts to and from airports, but it’s too big for me and really screws my back up when I try to carry it over distance, especially with a full load. I was using Gerg’s day pack (alm ost a full-sized pack on me, anyway!) and not feeling the weight as much as he was. So by the time we reached QCC, he was suffering, and had decided, adamantly, we were hiring a car, rather than the original plan of hiking/hitching. We’d been told the Isl ands were pretty good with hitching – many of the locals use that method to get around – but we hadn’t experimented with this on the way from the ferry. Perhaps we should have.
Any way, we had breakfast and hired a car. We also stopped at the Info Centre and got some very useful info, and admired their great building, including the mural hand embroidered by local women of the native wildlife. You’d love it, Nana. *grins*
We then drove north, to the campsite of Misty Meadows, our intended firs t home. It was during lunch there that we discovered Gerg’s campstove had decided not to work, which threw a nasty spanner in the whole campground works – no firewood meant no fire, no stove meant no food. Not good. So we continued up to Massett, stopping at Port Cl emments and the pub there for lunch. We’d been told at the info centre in QCC that there was a hostel of sorts in Massett, so we called the number we’d been given and got vague directions to the place. It was an old Army barracks, attached to the local co mmunity college, and took quite a bit of finding. It also turned out the furnace was out, so not hot water and no heat. We got a discount (we possibly could have talked him down to less, but I never did learn how to do that) and discovered th at, luxury up on luxury, the barracks were all separate rooms. Bliss! And strange coincidence, since I’d just been saying to Gerg that day I was looking forward to sleeping in a room on my own again. Besides the rooms, that’s all there was – no kitchen fa cilities, no c ommon room, as is usual – so the stove was a priority. Gerg went to see about getting it fixed, and I napped – the back was still stiff, and to put it bluntly, I was in a bad mood. Seriously. Pain makes not for the happy Rossi.
Upon awaken ing (the second time – Gerg came back, woke me up, found I was still incoherent and decided to go away again), I discovered Gerg had indeed fixed the stove, as well as purchasing a little portable BBQ plate and a bag of hot coals, as back up. And food. So we set off to find a picnic table somewhere. We drove. And drove, and drove around some more, until deciding to take advantage of the tables at a campsite just out of town. Massett is very much an old Army town, with the basics and just the basics. It was strange, sinc e I grew up in a series of areas like this – it reminded me of the Army area in Broadmeadows, such memories as I have of it (I was pretty young at the time). We made pasta, stuffed ourselves and had leftovers to boot, and then returned to the Hostel of Do om to find the other resident, a Canadian cyclist called Patrick, had emerged, or returned, or something.
Patrick gets a bit all to himself, since over our time on the Island, he became something of a feature. He’s another of those eternally young people, almost forty by my calculations, but looking younger than I am. And he’s had an amazing life so far, working as an artist for a film studio ("Can you make this elevator look like brushed steel for a budget of under $100?") and spending a lot of time cycling, including across China at one point. And his bike was something to behold, too, even though I didn’t recognise the brandname – I think it might have been a custom built, but it had compression shocks in the rear, something I’d never seen before and quite nifty. He was very personable, too, not minding the intrusion on his privacy and showing us the local ice-cream parlour, "where everyone hangs out". He’d only been there a short time, a few days, but he’d already become known to the locals, helping out with the carving of a memorial totem pole, swapping stories with various people, getting to know them. It’s something that comes of travelling without a car, I think. A car shuts you off from everyone, creates a protective bubble between you and the r est of the world, a distance. On a bike, or backpacking, you interact far more with the environment around you, and you’re more approachable too. And the bike, if you’re on one, is always a conversation starter.
Any way, we met Patrick. And we had a good time, even if he and Gerg started telling extremely bad jokes. Eventually we talked ourselves out and headed off to out individual rooms, where I slept deeply and uninterrupted for the first time since I can remember.
[Sidenote: Th ere’s a lot in my journal entry about needing private time. This is not to say I’m being anti-social. But you have to remember I’ve been sleeping alone for a year and a half, and I’ve gotten used to having my space. So being in someone’s company twenty-fo ur/seven can get a bit wearing. Mel knows what I mean. Besides, I’m sure it goes both ways – too much Rossi can be a bad thing. Or at least annoying. *grins*]
24/09/2002.
A reasonably early start, owing to the fact that I’d had a lot of sleep the previous twel ve hours. I had a cat bath in the sink in my room, washed my hair in the refreshingly – read icy – cold water and repacked my pack, which had exploded all over the place upon retrieving my sleeping bag. When all was done that could be d one, I went and wok e up Gerg. Mainly because he had the car keys and I wanted to get the cooking stuff out of the car.
Breakfast was leftover pasta, which isn’t as bad as it sounds. Bounce, you may convert me to your conception of breakfast yet. ;) Patr ick was stirring als o, and the three of us chatted over tea and hot chocolate. Then we headed off, neglecting, unfortunately as it turns out, to grab the bottle of camp stove fuel Patrick had offered us since it was extra weight he didn’t need.
The dest ination this time was a camp ground called Agate Beach, so called because, well, there are agates in them there beaches. Actually, the whole beach was made of stones of varying sizes, a exercise in exercise to walk on, but pleasing to both the eye and ear. We found the least-exposed unused campsite and had lunch, making the acquaintance of our neighbour, an man in his sixties or seventies called Stan, and his two Labrador dogs, Spinaker and Genoa, which are both types of sails.
It seems like most of the people we met – as in talked to for more than a few minutes – were more vivid, somehow. As if they were characters in a story. Stan is a tragic figure, and his story – or what I guess of it – is a sad one. He’s a widower, recently, I would say, from the w e he still says "we" all the time. And there’s a dreadful sense of loneliness about him, of someone lost and drifting, trying to find his way. He and Gerg talked for quite a while, Gerg being a dog person and enjoying playing with the pooches. But I got to talk to him a bit t he next day – more of that in the right time.
Agate Beach is a truly wild place, even with the camp ground and dirt road. The beach – stones, as I said before – is lined with driftwood, and I’m not talking little chunks and sticks. Whole trees, trunks t hat have escaped the loggers, or fallen into the sea from cliff faces, or been washed into the water by the torrential storms. Great piles of whitened, polished wood – I hope my photos turn out okay, because they should capture what I mean. Surrounding us were cedar and spruce forests, except where there was the bog meadow, and at one end the brooding shape of Tow Hill. Interestingly, the Hawaii name is Tao. It was used as a fort at one stage to protect a village from a marauding tr ibe. We walked up the b each towards Tow Hill to the Blowhole, taking our time to pick up leverite. No, it’s not a mineral name, it’s short for "leave her right there", and is used for all those bits of pretty, but useless, rock tourists end up stuffing t heir bags with. *ignores the small collection in her own bag*
After scrambling around on the rocks and watching Gerg get spat on by the Blowhole in his quest for the Perfect Shot, we wandered back towards the official walking track and I spotted the sign that read "Tow Hill Vie wpoint". ‘Whoopee,’ I thought, ‘another walk!’ Gerg, who by this stage knows how my mind works, groaned and whinged – he hates walking up hills. And down hills. He likes flat, but as I told him, he wants flat walking trails, he ne eds to go hiking in Saske tchewan or Manitoba. It was all board walk, nice and easy and covered with tar paper so you didn’t slip (the back by this stage was starting to recover, but I wasn’t taking any chances), and you could see why they had it; more ra inforest, this time deep with moss and mud and green growing things. And the brown slime, which makes for an interesting photo on the site. Walkers would have wrecked it, so the board walk was a good idea.
We meandered up and around and occasionally dow n, and eventually reached the top, and the view was well worth it, even with the sea mist starting to obscure the beach. I was full of beans – there’s something about the beach that always charges me up, makes me feel like I could walk a hundred miles, so while poor Gerg was semi-passed out on the bench at the viewing platform, I was all over the place, bouncing around, leaning out to see things, chattering non-stop. *grins* Hyper pixie. This continued on the way down, with a lively discussion of the inhe rent unhealthiness of West ern (and particularly American) diets and attitudes towards food, the value of exercise and how to change the status quo. The quickest way to get me on my soapbox is to whine about how that’s the way things are and there’s nothi ng to be done, because I be lieve there’s always something to be done, even if it means getting a bunch of boxes, filling them with dirt and growing vegetables on your patio. And if people stopped buying certain products because of the fat and sugar content, then maybe the lo ss of profits would make the corporations realise that maybe healthier food might be the way to go. But people don’t like to make their lives more difficult, so they just put up with horrible food and an unhealthy lifestyle </pontification>.
Back down th e bottom, we wandered back along the road to the campsite, where I promptly started collecting driftwood for a fire. There was a small amount of ceder left at the shelter, but not enough for a proper fire, so I ranged up and down the beach, returning with various chunks of smooth, white wood. Gerg had his handy hand saw and was doing the manly thing and cutting it up – the ones I didn’t karate-kick to death, that is. Then he took shelter from the extremely stiff northern wind – the thing about this side o f the Island is that it’s always windy. We were told in winter it can drive you insane – and I took advantage of his absence to light the fire in my own way. No, not using camp fuel. Gerg was a Scout Master, and if there’s a nyone guaranteed to make you fe el inadequate in the face of fire making, it’s a Scout Master. So I waited until he wasn’t watching, and had a nice little blaze going by the time he came out of the tent. By this stage I was up to four layers of clothing a nd my fleecy beanie (toque, they’re called up here), and was practically sitting in the fire, so I guess you could say I was cold. Dinner was a haphazard affair, with the camp stove running out of fuel half-way through cooking, and the fire being employed to fill in. Stan from next door offered us a cuppa after Spinaker came over and stole my fire-poking stick, so we went and thawed out and talked and were amused by various doggie antics.
25/09/2002.
The day started well enough; I woke up early and had a cuppa and a chat with Stan, be fore waking Gerg up and packing up the campsite. Our intentions were to head to Rennett Sound and Gregory Beach on the island’s south west coast, but first Gerg wanted to stop at the Hawai workshop in Old Massett Patrick h ad told him about (font of knowle dge, that bloke), to see about buying a paddle. After breakfast in Marg’s Café, and a bit of searching, we found the place, and Gerg went in while I napped in the car – it had been another rough night, with yet another gravel-lined campsite. For some reas on Parks Canada lay gravel on their tent sites. Even at the beach. It really sucks if you roll off your mat (or get nudged off by the man-mountain that is Gerg) in the middle of the night. So I caught quite a few winks, and was awoken by Gerg’s return, pa ddle in hand. He had to go into town and get some cash out, and when we returned, I went in with him.
I have to say, I’m falling in love with the smell of ceder – it’s wonderful stuff. And the workshop was full of it, the carvers and woodworkers having been quite busy in the past few weeks making bentwood boxes for the bones of ancestors being returned from a museum. The apprentice who made Gerg’s paddle showed us around and explained what he had been doing, and then h e and the other chap there, another apprentice, sang a few traditional paddling songs for us. I’ve had them stuck in my head since – not the words, since I don’t speak Haida, but the rhythm. As we were heading off, Christian, the man in charge of the place came in, and we had another brief chat. His father set up the workshop to teach the youth of the village about their traditions and history, and from we had been shown, it’s working well. Some amazing stuff, all a bit on the large side for me to get as gifts, but Gerg’s paddle is awesome – and certainly draws attention. *grins*
Heading back towards QCC, we stopped at the same pub in Port Clemments again for lunch, and then paused in another couple of what I call "hippy shops" along the way. You know th e sort – they sell crystals and bead s and healing stones and such, and there’s hundreds of them on the island, or so it seems. A lot of people come here as backpackers, and find themselves staying and opening a jewellery shop as a form of income. Not that I’m arguing, mind you – I love thes e places. They let me get in touch with my Inner Bohemian. One place we stopped at was called "Funk It", and I had a good long chat with the lady working there about life, travelling and the raising of cows and boys. The island people are like that – warm and full of welcome, once you stop long enough to chat.
We hit Skidegate getting on for five-ish, and stopped at the Longhouse Giftshop for more tousit-y things. It was then that Gerg discovered he had left his Visa card in Massett the day before – at t he other end of the island, a drive of 130km. And the rental car was charging by the kilometre. Still, there was nothing for it but to return to Massett, first stopping in Queen Charlotte City to book into the hostel, unload the car and drop me off. I’m s ure Gerg will have tales to tell about his adventures in the car, including becoming a one-man transport service for the island’s hitchhikers on the way back. Myself, in the meantime, I was pottering around the host el – a really nifty one, basically a bun galow at the back of the lodgings, sleeping eight in two bunk rooms, and another two in the double bed in the third room. Two bathrooms, even. I was chatting away to Tomo, the Japanese backpacker I’d been seeing on and off since Prince Rupert (he’d been a t the same hostel) and then went to grab some milk and stuff. Coming back, who should I see coming down the road on his bike but Patrick – and he was headed for the hostel. We ended up clubbing together for dinner, and turned the humble Kraft Dinner (macaroni and cheese in a box, for the uninitiated) into a feast fit for hungry cyclists and frazzled Gergs. He came stumbling back a few hours later than he’d left, totally wasted, but he did have the credit card back. Much cause for celebration.
We rolled into bed eleven-ish (early nights are usually the done thing in hostels – too many people expending large amounts of energy during the day hiking etc, or having early transport to catch), and I managed maybe a couple of hours sleep before two things conspired to make any further attempts futile. One, the room was small and absolutely stifling with the door closed, even by my heat-tolerant Aussie standards (I’ve spent the last week being freezing), and two, Gerg’s snoring was loud enough to wake the dead, even with the earplugs in (I think I’ll have to invest in better ones that don’t fall out in the middle of the night). After lying there contemplating the judicious application of duct tape to Gerg’s mouth, I figured it would better for my sanity and our travelling relationship if I went elsewhere for my repose. So my sleeping bag and I moved out onto the couch in the common room, even though it was fairly short, even for one of my pixie-esque stature. But, I did get sleep. Mostly.
26/09/2002.
Our last day on the Charlottes. Once again, this is a place I have to return to, and I decided as I was wandering around QCC the day before on my errand for groceries, that it’s going to be where I retire to. I can just se e it, eccentric old lady, cycling along th e roads on various trips, spending the winters writing and making jewellery from local materials to sell to the tourists… *grins* Well, it’s something to aspire to.
By osmosis, it was decided the last day would be a "do your own thing" day, mainly becau se we’re finding the benefits of letting each other go off and entertain ourselves every so often. But first, the drama of the hire car – Gerg went to take it back, found his credit card (yes, the one he’d gone back to Massett to retrieve) had had a large amount of money (thought cancelled) taken off it, and was now currently maxed. So he left his driver’s licence at the place, walked back, and asked me if I’d cover it. Which I did, after walking the two or thre e kilometres down the road to the place. The situation cast a pall on the whole day, and is certainly going to make the rest of the trip a bit more frugal – we’re really going to have to tighten the belts, since the car was a cost I wasn’t expecting to ha ve to cover, and Gerg is looking to be out $ 1000 or so as a result of the kerfuffle with his card.
We had lunch with Patrick after checking out, leaving our packs in the main office – we got subs and ate them in the park beside the Info Centre, with the sun beating down upon us in a most un-Island-like way. From there Patrick went off to do his own thing, and Gerg and I wandered along the main street of QCC, stopping here and there and hither and yon. I wanted to do a hike, having done nothing the day before but sit in the car, and Gerg wanted to explore the town and perhaps go down to the museum at Skidegate. So I set off, picking up my camel-back (one of those water bladders with a tube for drinking out of that come in their own little pack) from the lodgings. The manager warned me it was a ten km walk just to the trailhead, and that I ought to hitch, but it was a lovely day and I was feeling antsy from lack of activity , so I walked it. Of course, I was starting to regret it by the time I reached my destination, but by that stage hitching was p ointless.
The walk was called Spirit Lake, a 3km loop that wove through the red ceder forest to the small, perfectly still, perfectly clear waters of the lake, and back out again. Usually there are eagles th ere, but this time of year they were down at R ennett Sound, fishing for salmon as they migrated, along with the local bear population – again, I’m cursing we didn’t end up having the time to get out there. But the walk was invigorating, the setting peace ful and very calming, and I was feeling tired b ut euphoric as I headed back towards town. There was no way I was walking all the way back, pretty sunset or not, so I was trying unsuccessfully to get a ride (I’ve discovered Aussies hitch differently – you actually have to turn around and meet the person’s eye, rather than walk along with your thumb out), when I bumped into Gerg. This keeps happening. He’d been to Skidegate to the museums, and had been allowed to photograph the ceremony for the return of the museum bones. Quite the coup, when the local media had been forbidden. We managed to get picked up by a local fisherman – the trip back to QCC is quite short in a car! – and then met up with Patrick in the supermarket. We ended up pooling together and having a BBQ in the local park – pork chops for the boys, veggie burger for me, salad all round. All rather pleasant.
We’d been told by the locals not to hitch after dark – no-one picks anyone up – so we had to leave for the Skidegate ferry terminal aro und nine. At first it didn’t look good for the hitching – Gerg had a very long (between six and seven feet) paddle, we both had full packs, and all the cars that passed were tiny, or utes that weren’t stopping. But finally a Combi pulled up and we piled i n. Gotta love the hippies. *grins*
Once again, there was a delay, this time because we were there two hours early, and I read the book I’d picked up in the second hand ‘wordshop’ while Gerg paced. He doesn’t do waiting rooms well, and I ran out of conver sation. That’s been happening a bit lately. So h e wandered out and found Patrick and talked to him whilst I chewed my way through the book. At last the time came to board, and we staked out our floor space and watched a really crap film before passing ou t until the announcement all-too-early in the mor ning.
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