Photo: Lou Simoneaux, Butedales sole resident.

We leave Khutze Inlet at 8 am, in time to escape the horse flies, and motor up Princess Royal Channel. A few miles north we come to the old cannery town of Butedale, its buildings slowly collapsing into the bay. We've been by a number of times but have never stopped. With the quiet water this is our best chance to tie up to the dock which faces north into the wind. We motor past a waterfall and tie up at a dilapidated but serviceable float.

We walk up the ramp to find Butedale's sole resident, Lou Simoneaux, putting the lid on an old can of paint and surrounded by discarded bottles and cans and miscellaneous tools. As we talk to him, he picks up a hose and proceeds to give his dog a bath.

Steve asks Lou if he's Butedales' owner.

The town is owned by Californians, he tells us. He just takes care of it. "But at least the electricity is free," he says, referring to the hydroelectric power that once powered the cannery complex.

We ask Lou if we can look around and he says, sure. Then he proceeds to follow us up the trail and give us a tour, talking all the while.

There are only two houses still habitable, plus the old cookhouse where he lives.

"It looks like they need to tear it down and start over," Steve says.

"Yes, but what to do with it?" Lou replies. Then he tells u s that the owners did a study to see about turning it into a fishing lodge but there isn't enough water going by in the channel. A thousand fishermen a year would wipe out the fish.

Lou takes us up to the old power house where we could see the Peltier wheel in motion. There's only one still working and it's powering a 12 volt alternator that feeds an inverter. "I hope it keeps working: Lou says.

We walk back to the cookhouse where Lou lives. "I've got some pictures in here," he says. I'm expecting old photos of Butedale, but instead find a wall full of small wooden squares, some painted with colorful images: herons, eagles, butterflies, etc., others decorated with simple wood burns of native designs. We buy a wood burn of a thunderbird in a kayak.

As we return to the boat, I ask Lou if he gets lonely in the winter.

"Oh, no," he says indignantly. I have to shovel snow off the boats and docks and repair the docks. I don't have time to be lonely."

The next morning we're relaxing in the Bishop Bay Hot Springs with some other boaters when one of them says,

"I'll think I'll go to Butedale tomorrow. I haven't seen Lou this year."
"Get ready for some stories," another one says. "Lou likes to talk. And in the spring after a long winter, he is cranky. He gets lonely."