As much as we worked to avoid setting destinations and expectations on this trip, there was and has always been one place, one goal, which I had settled in my mind: to return to and sit quietly for several days in the Klaskish Basin off Brooks Bay on Vancouver Island.
I am writing this as I sit here now in that very place.
What is it that drew me here? The anchorage is well-protected, but no better than many others all around the island. The scenery is sublime, but equal to much of what may be seen all along this coast. It is remote, but no more remote than many places north of Queen Charlotte Strait or up the long, narrow fjords on the mainland.
More than anything else, I think, it was the cool green waters winding placidly beneath fir boughs in the narrow entrance, dappled with sunlight, opening slowly onto a serene meadow at the mouth of an ascending valley, disappearing slowly into the mountains beyond. The entire basin seemed to be suffused with an emerald glow beneath the blue and white sky. That first glimpse, years ago, left me with a picture of serenity that I have been holding in my mind ever since.
Klaskish is a little off the beaten path, even for the West Coast of the Island. It’s further north than most boats coming up from the south ever get, and for cruisers coming around the north end, it is a bit out of the way–tucked into the “wrong” (windward) side of the Brooks Peninsula. Though these waters abound with sportfishermen, Klaskish doesn’t appear to hold favored fishing grounds, and though roads may approach it from the interior, the Klaskish River that feeds in at the head of the bay is a protected Ecological Reservation, and appears to hold no great appeal for backpackers or campers.
In the distance, of course, clearcuts shave off the flanks of mountainsides… but not here in the close confines of the basin itself. Hemlock and fir line the steep slopes to either side, giving way at the head to the grassy estuary of the Klaskish River.
We took the dinghy up the river at high tide, cutting the engine as the sand and gravel bottom came up beneath us and rowing between half-buried logs, stumps, and rocks. Wind ruffled the marsh grasses. In a dramatic demonstration of the relative densities of salt and fresh water, on the surface of the river a constant stream of fir needles, branches, leaves, and other forest detritus whispered downstream past our flanks, while just below, we marveled to see weeds, waterlogged wood chunks, and other unidentifiable sea-life ascending the river in company with us on the underlying flood tide.
The river, broad and calm, winds past the marshland and gradually the anchorage behind disappears from view behind a wall of impenetrable forest. To the north, the bottomlands abound with greenery; on the south bank, the ridge ascends quickly, spotted with trees and rocky banks formed by winter slides. Tributary streams trickle in over the stones and a waterfall hides somewhere behind the trees, a froth of white noise playing distantly through the woods.
Although there were fish below and birds wheeling overhead, we saw nothing moving ashore; no deer, no bears, not even a chittering chipmunk. Eventually, we came to a massive tree fall which blocked our ascent any further. After sitting quietly nosed up onto a gravel bar for a time, the tide shifted and we shoved off and let the current sweep us back out into the basin.
Outside the narrow entrance, we visited other small streams and beaches, these covered with shells and sea-life, washed by a much-reduced swell winding in off the ocean.
With gales in the forecast, we extended our stay by a day, visiting with another boat anchored nearby. By the time we left, the wind had filled in completely. I marveled at the small, close-set, unusually orderely sets of white-caps that serrated the bay. In the last few hundred feet back to the boat, we got more wet than during any of our extended explorations on previous days.
But on our last day, the sky cleared early and the sun lit up the trees and waters, unruffled by the wind hammering away outside the entrance. That beautiful, emerald glow filled the basin again. That was what I remembered; that was why I had returned.
