Photo: An old-fashioned logging camp

After too many 50 mile days we were looking for a quiet anchorage. The straight-sided shores with patches of stubbly clearcuts of Westerman Bay, where we had anchored the evening before, didn't appeal to us. Mereworth Sound, just around the corner offered several choices.

The first thing we saw when we turned the corner was an old-fashioned logging camp with its rows of float houses. Such floating camps provided housing for loggers' wives and children as well as the loggers themselves and could be towed from site to site. This one appeared quiet and empty, although still in good shape.

"Let's do a swing through Village Cove and then go back across to Strachan Bay and anchor," Steve suggested.

As we passed the entrance to Strachan Bay, I looked in to see a large modern logging camp: floating barracks, log skids, log booms and noisy equipment.


Photo: A modern logging camp in Strachan Bay

"How about a swing through Strachan Bay and then anchoring in Village Cove," I countered.

As we cruised along the shore of the Bay we were surprised by the number of float houses tucked into niches. Some were colorful and attractive, others had the look of floating trailers. In the southwest corner we found a small cove that offered good anchoring and pleasant scenery but we opted for Village Cove instead.

At Village Cove we anchored behind an island off the shore of the Indian Reserve. We puzzled over the location of the Indian Reserve: on a point with majestic trees but no water source and no suitable beach for hauling out canoes. The shore next to the creek seemed a more likely spot for a village.

In their book, Exploring the North Coast of British Columbia, Don Douglass and Réanne Hemingway-Douglass wrote of a logging road next to the creek where you could hike to some large cedars. In our dinghy we puttered along the shore, looking for the road. All we saw was an impenetrable wall of trees. With a publication date of 2002, it had been at least 12 years and probably more since the Douglasses had been here.

That evening as the sun lit up the anchorage, a small powerboat anchored off the creek. It was the only recreational boat we'd seen that day. We had found our quiet anchorage.


Photo: Village Cove