Alert Bay
09 July 2017 | Alert Bay - Port Harvey
Steve / Gales, some showers, but warm.
We spent 2 great days in Alert Bay. The community, occupying the whole of Cormorant Island, is comprised mainly of members of the 'Namgis tribe of Kwakwaka'wakw. On Thursday, we were able to witness a presentation of traditional potlatch and peace dances and songs in the tribal Big House - most impressive. We followed this Friday with an extended visit to U'mista - the sister museum that we saw some years ago on Quadra Island. The collections of repatriated masks, blankets, woven goods, and other paraphernalia seized during the potlatch bands early last century are well preserved and displayed and easily consume some hours to absorb.
We also found some respite from our recent careful practices around bear and cougar management by taking advantage of 20-ish miles of predator-free trails that are beautifully maintained across multiple environments on the island. As Barb said after these two days, our dogs are tired (including the Biscuit!).
Our visit to Alert Bay was all we had anticipated and is a must see in the North Island area. Our departure on Saturday morning was somewhat of a false start as we awoke to thick fog in the Queen Charlotte Strait and switched on the recently repaired radar to find it not working. Argggh. After a few minutes of circling, we located a bad connection, got it working, and set off to begin heading back Southward. As I write this, we had made our way up Knight Inlet, spotting dolphins and a massive lone Humpback whale, around the Southern Broughton Islands, and are in Port Harvey waiting for yet another gale to abate. We got up today at 5:00 AM to make the first rapid's slack, saw that the buoy report in the Johnstone Strait was building early, as predicted, and went back to bed. Later on, a 50 foot trawler docked in front of us, and reported they had passed the Grand Banks that left here at 5:00 and they were both getting beat up pretty bad with 25 knot winds blowing against the ebb current. Turns out we made a good judgement call to wait. We should be good to go tomorrow or Tuesday to make our way back through the tidal rapids.