Blog Three: In which we hike Cape Scott and our car gets attacked by a bear.

The Cape Scott Park is at the north west corner of Vancouver Island, the last piece of Canada before the Pacific Ocean stretches to Japan. It's rugged and wild, and usually windy and wet. But for the last couple of weeks - including our four day hike - it's been all sunshine.

Cape Scott is home to hundreds of bears. Driving the logging roads on the way to the trail we saw plenty, including two little cubs by the side of the road. They confused me - I'd only seen big bears before and for a moment I thought I was looking at Tassie devils far from home, or some sort of strange dogs. We didn't stick around, mother bears don't like that.

Before hiking we had lunch in a basic cabin - walls, roof, no door. While waiting for the rain to stop we had our closest run-in with a black bear. He came cruising along the road, about ten metres from the cabin. We saw him, a big one, and started banging on the walls and singing to scare him off. He looked at us unconcerned and continued along the road for a bit, but then stopped, sniffed our lunch and came straight towards us. The car was close so Jess got in, and we kept banging. I thought he would back off but he kept coming for the door of the cabin, so I grabbed our lunch stuff and jumped in the car too. He took off when we started the car and honked the horn. So no problem, but it spooked us a little as we prepared for the walk that he was so brazen - other bears had run away when they saw us. This guy seemed hungry and unafraid.

A hike of just over an hour took us to picturesque San Josef Bay, where we made a beach camp and watched the sun set. There were some great little rock stacks near the headland. Some of them were tiny with just enough room for a single tree on top, which grew small, like a bonsai. The second day was a bit of a megahike, about 19km in all, and we ended up at a nice little ranger's cabin which is open for public use. Two friends, both called Don, were already there. It was like a Mafia meeting - the Dons meeting in a secret location. They were on their annual hike, which happens every three years, and they were funny guys.

 

The third day was wonderful. With just a daypack we walked out to the lighthouse on the point, passing a series of beautiful beaches. Most beaches we've been in Canada have had flat seas (the coast around Vancouver is in the shadow of Vancouver Island), but at Cape Scott big swells rumble in and slam into the headlands and beaches, making a fine sea mist which hazes the horizon. The forest is thick, and the wildlife is plentiful. Massive eagles stood in the branches above us, a woodpecker worked a log (it looked painful, he just smacked his face into this log over and over - nice one evolution) and a seal fished a small bay nearby. We didn't see bears, but we saw plenty of bear poo. Does a bear shit the woods? No, it shits on the hiking trail apparently... 

Brilliantly coloured wildflowers sprouted on rocky outcrops. The best ones were flouro red or orange like a highlighter, and seemed to transmit a hallucinogen to the viewer. I swear they glowed from the inside. Hundreds of logs were washed up in a jumble at the back of the beach. Rounded and whitened by the weather, they looked like the disbanded parts of some immense whale - ribs, teeth, sockets.

The whole scene reminded of a friend who had a psychadelic afternoon in the bush at Coles Bay marvelling at the fractals in trees, the clouds. You could bliss out at Cape Scott, but it's an untamed landscape. You can't forget the bears, the cougars, the cliffs, the waves. Actually, that was the allure of the place. It was really wild, a little threatening, and its beauty was rugged and powerful.

Standard hiking attire

On day four we hiked out and discovered The Fridge had been attacked by a bear. For real. Known for their keen sense of smell and lust for automotive vandalism, bears have wrecked cars before by breaking in to get food inside. Unaware of this until later, we had left a little food in the back during the hike. The rear number plate was folded over like a map and dangling by one nut, and the speed stripes (ooh yeah) on the back doors had been ripped off. Muddy paw prints were all over the car, including the roof, and there was a gauge of claw marks on one front door. But Swedish engineering defied Canadian strength and the bear was sent away empty handed. The Fridge 1, Bear 0. Or maybe more accurately it's deuce, because The Fridge is still showing signs of a mauling.

Fridge post bear attack

The Fridge's heroics in The Battle of Carpark marked the beginning of a torrid time for him. While turning around on a logging road, I put him in a hole which has damaged a front panel, and the bumps, potholes and rocks of the logging roads are a long way from the paved streets of Stockholm. Strange noises started appearing everywhere. Under the bonnet we found a pipe sheared in half (I didn't know what it did, but it looked serious) and our back right wheel started clanging. Post traumatic stress. After camping the night at Cape Palmerston, and getting lunch and a beer at the Scarlet Ibis in Holberg on the way back, we were pretty happy to roll back into a reasonable size town, Port McNeill.

We went to see Dan and Charlene, friends of Chris and Hannah from Blackfish Lodge. We expected to stay two hours, and ended up staying three days after being treated to some real kindness and generosity - what Dan calls "West Coast hospitality". They live in a trailer park with a friendly vibe, where everyone knows everyone and their dogs play together outside. Dan is a pretty handy mechanic and he quickly diagnosed the broken pipe as a heat transfer (and not really important) and the back wheel as a broken park brake shoe. He fixed it, and polished our car for good measure. We were really well fed and looked after.

Dan mends wounded Fridge

There is a certain kind of person that grows up in the coastal BC wilderness. They're practical - good with guns and machines, animals and plants. They know how to survive off the land. Many hunt their own deer, moose, or fish to eat. They build their own houses. They're sceptical of the government. They've seen the environmental damage done to feed the faraway cities - logging, mining, fish farms, dams. They've often had more to do with native Canadians, and the mess caused by residential schools in the 60s (like the Stolen Generation, native kids were sent away from their families to learn how to be good Christians). They grow up quick and their work is hard. They're fond of a joint. Where as people in Vancouver seem to love their rules (and will go out their way to tick you off), these guys have a healthy disrespect for the law. And I mean that in a good way. They're not thieves or thugs, but they're not into bureaucratic fine print. 

Everyone tells great stories. Dan was a smoker at 6 and a fishing guide at 11. On one trip he crashed the boat coming down the rapids. He made a fire for the clients (an American family) and walked out to get help from a nearby loggers' camp. He almost drowned twice, but they eventually all got out safely. Chris goes to Grizzly country a lot and once came across a big bear with his gun lying half way between them. He charged the bear, which baulked at the kamikaze human, and got to the gun first. Dave caught a 5'11 halibut from a tin pot runabout. He gave almost all of it away to the old people in town. The first time Roger got done for dope his old man was running for Parliament. He did time for that. The second time he got done he knew he was in trouble. Some research revealed that there was no jail on the Queen Charlotte Islands, so Roger moved there and opened a saw mill. Got some government contracts. Beat the charge. The prosecutor was going to appeal. Roger talked to his smoking pals, some of them were in high places. The appeal petered out.

All of these people were damned good to us. I don't want to paint a rose coloured picture, it's obviously hard out there. Many towns are timber or fishing towns, dying a slow economic death. There is a lot of hard drug use and alcoholism. Many people die at sea. Bright students leave for the city. The salmon are dying of diseases from fish farms.

But we had a ball. We were lucky to have met so many good people there that have shown us such a good time and a different way of life. It was sad to leave Vancouver Island.

I'm writing this on the back deck of the Northern Explorer ferry heading up the Inside Passage to the Queen Charlotte Islands. The heatwave continues. People are sunning themselves, middle-aged Germans are slapping on sunscreen. It's like a cruise ship in the tropics, except for the snow capped peaks rising from the mainland. The captain keeps giving whale alerts and everyone rushes to the side to see. So far he's given four, but we've only seen one whale spout in the distance.

Next up is a fortnight in the Queen Charlottes working for a tour company. We're excited, we've heard the indigenous culture is strong and the place is beautiful. Hope you're all well. Write to us!

Nic.

June 5, 2009.