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Author Archives: Karin Cope
Sailing into Vancouver
Sailing into a large contemporary city is a wonderful and rather anachronistic thrill. It can also feel a bit daunting, for contemporary urban ports like Vancouver contain all sorts of obstacles, challenges and marine traffic, from kayaks to tankers to float planes, all moving at different speeds and in different directions. Continue reading
Posted in 2013 Alaska and back
Tagged Alaska, Jericho Beach, Northern Gateway Pipeline, Quoddys Run, Vancouver
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To Alaska and Back I: Getting underway
It was wonderful to be back in the “land of the big trees;” each evening, after our chores, we walked around the docks or wandered the neighbourhood. One night we watched a family of river otters bed down in a pile of dead leaves; another evening we tracked damp racoon prints across sweet smelling cedar boards. The boat houses of Canoe Cove fascinated us–such fancy “boat garages” would be impossible to maintain in Nova Scotia, where each winter, snow and ice would wreak havoc on them. We also liked to peer at the starfish, fans and sea anemones that attached themselves to the pilings; we lived by and on the Atlantic, but everything here was different, brighter, bigger, multiplied. Continue reading
Back in the shadow of land life
We return to Nanaimo and every other return from every other summer washes over us. The headlong rush from watery wilderness, wind, a certain coolness, the sound of birds crying or calling dumps us into heat, diesel fumes, voices chattering and laughing, sirens, flashing lights, clearly demarcated borders and limits, bridges arches ferries dock, ribbons of highways, the stench of tar, screeching tires, beeping demanding telephones and messages. It’s like crossing a border from a world in which your thoughts and actions count, into one in which you are pure reactiveness. The shift is both painful and exciting. Continue reading
Posted in 2012
Tagged diesel, fog, land life, Nanaimo, Nigei Island, Quoody's Run, sailing, sea lions, wilderness
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Thinking about Rural Coastal Communities with the Hakai Beach Institute
2-3 August 2012 Pruth Bay, Fitz Hugh Sound We met our friends, the young kayakers from Juneau again, on a rainy day in the laundromat in Shearwater. They too had stopped here to clean up and reprovision. Finally, clean sheets, … Continue reading
Posted in 2012
Tagged archeology, Central Coast, climate monitoring, Coastal Guardian Watchmen Network. Rivers Inlet, depopulation, First Nations of the Central Coast, green technology, Hakai Beach Institute, Kwakshua Channel, natural history, North Pacific human cultures, Pruth Bay, rural coastal regions, salmon
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Don’t anchor near the outlet of a lagoon and other lessons from Kynoch Inlet
29-31 July, Kynoch Inlet, Fiordland Conservation Area We weighed anchor in Bolin Bay on an ebbing tide and sailed up Sheep Passage, doglegged into Mathieson Narrows, and then into Kynoch Inlet, a true deepwater fjord, where the fog laced steep … Continue reading
Posted in 2012
Tagged bears, Culpepper Lagoon, dragging anchor, Dungeness crabs, Fiordland, fjords, halibut, Kynoch Inlet, snow
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Halibut fishing and whales singing in Bolin Bay
28 July 2012 Where Sheep Passage bends north between Pooley Island and the mainland, steep mountains run down to the sea. We were aiming for Bolin Bay for the night, a narrow slit between mainland peaks, named, like many of … Continue reading
Posted in 2012
Tagged BC mainland, bears, Bolin Bay, Bonaparte's gulls, Fiordland, fishing, fog, halibut fishing, loon, mountains, sailing, salmon, salmon farms, Sheep Passage, whale songs, whales
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Fast Track Back–Fishery Politics in Northern BC
27 July 2012 Klewnuggit Inlet; Butedale Homeward bound. The low clouds suited our grey mood: we didn’t want to turn back just yet, but the concerns of our land life were calling; we’d been conquered by the calendar. At least … Continue reading
Posted in 2012
Tagged Butedale, DFO, fish farms, fishing, fog, Fraser Reach, Grenville Channel, Heikish Narrows, McKay Reach, Northern BC, salmon, Sheep Passage, Skeena River
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In Grenville Channel—and the salmon forest
24-25 July 2012 Grenville Channel: Lowe Inlet Marine Provincial Park and Klewnuggit Inlet Marine Provincial Park Grenville Channel is a straight narrow deep chasm that runs some 45 miles northwest from Wright Sound almost all the way to Prince Rupert, … Continue reading
Posted in 2012
Tagged Alaska, BC Marine Park, bear, fishing regulations, Golden Eagle, Grenville Channel, Klewnuggit Inlet, Lowe Inlet, salmon
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Looking for Signs of Kermode Bears—and a Ferry Wreck
24 July 2012 Coughlan Anchorage, near Hartley Bay We bid the Juneau kayakers farewell and left the hot springs of Bishop Bay. We headed north into Ursula Channel, which leads into Devastation Channel—one of two possible routes to Kitimat. But … Continue reading
Sharing the Waters in Bishop Bay Hot Springs
23 July 2012 Since we began dreaming about sailing in British Columbia nearly two decades ago, among the most seductive lures were the images you find in cruising guides of sailors basking in hot springs surrounded by primeval cedar forests, … Continue reading
Posted in 2012
Tagged A Trip South, BC hot springs, Bishop Bay Hot Springs, Junneau to Nanaimo, kayakers, Kitimat, Nothern BC, orcas
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West by East 