Day 34 - July 15

Day 34 – july 15:

This morning I could not convince Ralph to come ashore on my Cougar
Annie quest; he missed an opportunity of a lifetime I think. It was one
of those rare events that seem to only happen to people who write
stories for a living.

I rowed in with the dinghy dragged it about 50 feet up the beach so I
could tie it to a tree; I didn’t want it floating away when the tide
came since I didn’t know how long I was going to be. I couldn’t find any
indication of a trail where the sketch map said the homestead was. There
were some women walking the beach and I asked them if they knew where it
was; they said yes,just down the beach and turn into the woods. I wasn’t
sure where they were from since there was no other boat around that I
could see. As I went down the beach, another dinghy came ashore; they
had anchored in near the “basin” where we thought it would be too
shallow. There was a women with a baby, and 2 men and a LAB!..it was our
neighbours from Friendly Cove; we introduced ourselves and turned out
they too were looking for Cougar Annie. We eventually came to a shack on
the beach that was a nicely built sauna building near what turned out to
be an even nicer cabin. I walked in a ways and found a board walk. I
eventually came to the end and could hear voices and what sounded like a
vehicle… I popped out onto a road with a truck with people piled in
back. I asked if they knew about Cougar Annie and there was a long
pause. One man introduced himself as Peter Buckland, said this group was
going to tour it and I could join. He asked if there was anyone else
from my boat, and I told him there was another party behind me. I ran
back to get the people from Delua.

Peter is the property owner ( an bit of a story in himself: was captain
or coach of Olympic field hockey team; has rebuilt this garden, has
build a number of cabins in the woods to facilitate hikers walking to
Estavan point, makes his own lumber by “shakes” of 30 inch wide, 2 in
thick, 14 feet long shakes from cedar trees..on and on it goes.. this
all from the caretaker , not peter). There was a
caretaker/guide/naturalist and a First Nations (Cecil) guide for a group
of people who had come over logging roads from hot springs cove for this
tour. En route I asked the guide how one would make arrangements another
time and he said you don’t. This is the only tour they are allowing this
year. Peter has donated the property to a non-profit society who are
using it to study the rain forest, restore Cougar Annies garden among
other things.. (their web site is www.boatbasin.org
<http://www.boatbasin.org/>) They are still trying to sort out policies
etc and have , for now, decided against turning it into a tourist site
with scheduled tours,etc. For further reference you can go to the
Pacific yachting archives and look up an article on Cougar Annie from
June 2000. The bottom line is that if we had been here at any other day
and if I was on the beach 10 minutes later, I would have missed this
opportunity.

The first part of the tour was through an old growth forest with Cecil
pointing out trees that had been cut for canoes, or that had been used
for “shakes” ( i.e lumber) hundreds of years ago. Other “culturely
modified trees” were evidenced by cedar stripping. This is where they
would take a narrow strip of bark from young cedars ( bark is most
pliable) for their clothing, etc. Now that I know what to look for you
can see the scars on the older trees indicating that they were harvested
for bark hundreds of years ago. Cecil and his village still do this and
go out each spring for “stripping” trips. He is a very soft spoken
person and let us know that he has formed what he calls a “strippers
club’ to go off into the forest for bark harvesting; said that he is
always trying to get village women to join his strippers club! The other
guide pointed out the 5 village sites that were in Hesquiat harbour in
recent times ( they moved to Hot springs cove with the advent of power
boats; the anchorage is not secure here and cecil said they were loosing
too many b oats) and that the land is part of a First Nation land
claims. Cecil , in his soft way, said that “you must not believe only
what you read in the news; all I know about you people is what I read”.
The provincial gov’t had told them during negotiations that nothing
would be done to any of the land being discussed while negotiations were
underway. They woke up recently to find out that most of the disputed
land had been made into a provincial park without any warning… what he
says is bad faith negotiations. So, he was asking us to understand some
of their frustrations. They recently bought up land in the area from a
forest company to ensure that it would not fall into private hands with
the risk of a resort or fishing camp being built. It sounds like it took
all of their money to do it and they are now in financial trouble. He
said the elders told them that it was necessary to save the land at all
costs (Cecil was one of the negotiators, I gather)

The actual garden site has literally been hacked out of the encroaching
forest by 10 years of chainsaw labour by Peter. As he hacked away the
bush, her flower gardens ( she used to ship bulbs around the continent)
began to bloom. He has tried to resurrect as much as possible. However,
her old house/store/post office has decayed to the point of being
unsalvageable. It was a bit unnerving to be able to peer into her cabin
through a gaping hole in the wall and see her jacket and hat and other
things still in their spots; no one has moved anything since she died!
The whole site feels like it would be completely engulfed again if you
fell asleep for 12 hours!

I felt very privileged to have been able to “crash” the tour and thanked
the guide/caretaker. He lives in a small cabin on the grounds year round.

On the way back, there was a mother bear and 2 cubs on the beach slowly
making their way towards my position. I dragged the dinghy back to the
water and rowed back to Tatoosh. We were away to Hot Springs by 13:00
and got in about 2 hours of sailing in about 10 kts of wind, low swell
and sunshine. On the way in to Hot Springs Cove ( was called Refuge Cove
by natives), by the way, is very difficult to see. You really need to
trust the chart and GPS. There was a sailboat ahead of us by about 1
mile and seemed to be sailing onto the rocks and then suddenly
disappeared as he made the entrance. I could not make out the entrance
with the binoculars and it was not visually obvious until we were in
amongst the rocks and breaking sea.

As we neared the coast, we saw and heard, a whale doing “tail flips”;
I’ve never seen this before and have not read what this behaviour
signifies. He would do a head stand for a few seconds and then slam his
tail onto the water and then immediately repeat it. I captured some of
it on my camera’s hokey video; it is there but looses the drama.

We were anchored outside of the Hot Springs dock at 5:30, position
49-21.9N/126-15.98 W.

I was able to convince Ralph to go ashore for a soak in the hot springs;
which we did about 7pm after the tourist boats and planes had left. We
saw Splinters Apprentice, Luna Eclipse and Die Flynn on the dock; the
Delua was at anchor beside us!
( As I write this there is a hummingbird trying to figure out if our
dodger is the biggest red flower he has ever seen!)
The soak was wonderful; the pools are made from the natural rock as the
hot stream makes it way to the ocean. There are no concrete holding
pools so it feels very “organic”. There is a boardwalk the whole 2 km ;
it is a work of art. The edges of the board walk are perfectly aligned;
it is sound with no give at any point.. amazing job. Yachties and
visitors have taken to carving their boat names, etc and there was even
one from Vincent Massey high school who have been here for past 5 years
or so.