Otters abound in Winter Harbour

These playful creatures are on the dock and around the boats all the time. A family of 70 otters live in Winter Harbour. Lying on their backs using their bellies as plates, they eat fish and clams. They offer out morsels with their outstretched paws to the gulls and occassionally decide to snatch it away – leaving us chuckling at their human like antics.

Winter Harbour, Part Deux

It just took a day of slow fishing at TC for us to make the decision to return to Winter Harbour on a salmon expedition. Launching from Coal Harbour this time we enjoyed a late Sunday evening run through Quatsino Narrows to arrive at the Outpost, a private fishing resort whose logo is “The fish are bigger here”.

While fishing for Coho, we were surprised to see shark fins around the boat. The blue sharks would steal the salmon right off the line if we didn’t get them in fast and occasionally they even took our hoochies, spooling the line from our reels. Thankfully our quoto of cohos was met and we headed to deeper water to catch our springs/kings/Chinook. The Chinook fishing proved to be as exciting and bountiful as the coho and we left winter harbour with 16 salmon – our limit with big smiles – another excellent adventure and another witners fine dining looked after.

The Boys Go Fishing

A 4:00 a.m. departure by truck from Telegraph Cove to the boat at Port Alice had the boys tingling with anticipation. The plan was to make a two hour run out to Salander Island in the wild Pacific Ocean. Salander is reputed to be home to some of the best fin fishing on the entire west coast. Stephen was joined by two friends from the campground. Dan Santera, from New Mexico, known around the cove as Dan, Dan the Halibut man and Bob Sanford, the soon to become Bobby Ling.

The water was like glass as they raced towards their destination. Dan was using pink heads on circle hooks and Bob was using herring and pink bellies, looking for the big halibut. The action was fast and furious all day. We limited out on ling cod and snapper, had one gorgeous canary rockfish but alas no halibut. Hanging on longer that we should have, the winds came up strong from the north. Heading back to Quatisino Sound in ten foot waves with a big chop on top and many waves breaking over the top of the boat, the going was slow. We arrived back at TC with an enviable catch, tired and a little beat up from our buising ride but satisfied with a wonderous fishing adventure.

Winter Harbour

We have promised ourselves to visit each of the sounds on the west coast of the island. Hearing all of the fishing stories about Winter Harbour and the lousy fishing at Telegraph Cove this year, we decided that Quatsino Sound was a good place to start. We trailered the boat on the twisty turny, hilly horrible road to Port Alice. A wonderful hour run out to Quatsino Sound had us in downtown Winter Harbour (pop. 10). We stayed on the gov’t dock and spent the evening getting our fishing tackle in order. For our first day of fishing we planned to follow the guide boat out to the hot spots. At 5:00 am we woke up to find we were the only boat left in the harbour. With coffee in hand and the boat wide open we caught up to the pack. The water was rough but we pressed on with eager anticipation. It was a Coho extravaganza…with double header after double header and all of a sudden it stopped and we hadn’t kept a fish. We decided to pull our prawn traps on the way in for lunch. The traps seemed to be cemented to the ocean floor….after Stephen hefting on the ropes we tied it to the boat. 280 hp of Volvo diesel couldn’t move it either so the decision was reluctantly made to salvage the buoy rather than rip the cleat off of the boat. At 4:00 pm after finally locating the fuse blown by the prawn puller putting us down to one down rigger, we dejectedly sailed home to the gov’t dock in winter harbour, the only boat with no fish aboard.

The next morning we were determined to change our situation. We headed to locally famous Solander Island at the end of the Brooks Peninsula. This is supposedly where the big butts hang out….hali-butts that is. We were not there long until Laurie hooked a big one. Within two hours we had landed a 50 lb. halibut, a 25 + ling cod and some red snappers. We happily headed back to the harbour to clean our fish and head back to Port Alice.

Freshwater Swim

On the third night we were back at another regular ‘stopover’ Greenway Sound Marina. A floating ½ mile of red carpeted dock (it too is for sale and empty) and a world class restaurant featuring fresh local seafood. Just imagine this ½ mile of dock, miles from nowhere with a mile of dockspace had no vacancies. The next morning we hiked up to Broughton Lake where all three of us enjoyed a freshwater swim au natural. Does it get any better?

Jennis Bay

The signs were posted that a new Marina was open for business in Drury Inlet. While most marinas are in a state of disrepair and decline, with For Sale signs the norm we were curious as to who was starting a new business in what is sometimes referred to as Dreary Inlet.
A night on their dock introduced us to a very nice young family from Idaho. Tom, Allision and Orion (9) and Charlie Marie (5) Allo are making a place for themselves in the BC wilderness where Allison’s father had lived out his life as a logger. Within a very short time we felt like long lost family. The ‘other’ boater in the harbour was celebrating a birthday in which we all got involved. Nothing like chocolate cake in the wilderness. The Allos, told us about the long narrow, rocky Acetone Sound, with two secluded freshwater lagoons that can be entered at high tide. We went for an evening tour and definitely need to revisit it with more time….it was gorgeous. They also told us of many freshwater lakes within hiking distance for swimming and flyfishing…..once again we will be checking this out.
As we left we were delighted to see 8 really big yachts heading for their dock and Allison running down to greet them. Hopefully they will persevere through the winter, another year of homeschooling so that we can visit them again.

Grappler Sound delivered what Drury did not…….our prawn traps were full. After resetting the traps we explored Mackenzie Sound and Nimmo Bay. Nimmo Bay Resort was voted the #1 Helicopter vacation destination in the world. Yep, people do vacation in helicopters.

Billy Proctor

Billy is an 83 year old legend in these parts. He was born and raised here in the Broughton Archipelago and still resides here today. He has been a fisherman and a logger. We have read both of his books and it was on Laurie’s to do list to visit his museum. Stephen thought perhaps he would not have to go….until Laurie insisted that he should not miss the opportunity to talk with Bill. We knew the chances were good that he would be at his museum. As luck would have he was there.

This man has many, many amazing first nation artifacts in his museum that he has picked up on the beaches that date back 10,000 years. Trading beads, primitive knives, chisels, spears, arrowheads and even slave killers made from a variety of different stones and shells. As well as his amazing display, the man himself is very impressive. He was environmentally conscious long before it was even an issue. He understands fully the cycle of all life here in the Broughton Archipelago. He has an uncanny and humorous view of the entire world as well. Stephen and Bill hit it off and two hours later they were still chatting. It sure won’t be the last trip we both make to Billy Proctors in Echo Bay.