Our canine friends came down to see us off, but they stayed at the top of the gangplank. The Jofian pulled away from the dock, and I began bringing in the fenders. When I pulled the string of the flat fender, it came untied and pulled through the holes. The fender floated in the water, but I couldn't reach it, so I got the boathook down, but by then the boat was too far from the fender, so I told Roy, and he circled back to the dock, but the fender had floated away from the dock and was behind some logs, so I got in my Royak, paddled after the fender, and rescued it. After fender, Royak, and I were back on the boat, I pulled up the ladder and fastened the clasp that connects the lifeline to the stanchion with my bare hands--first time I've ever been able to do that. I must be getting stronger.
This is the ideal way to travel, gliding slowly along on placid waters, gazing at lovely, tree-covered mountains on both sides. We see so much more than cruise ship passengers do, and we can go wherever we want to, and stop whenever we want to. We're having the time of our lives!
Speaking of cruise ships, we've seen a surprising number in the past couple of days.
We've discovered that our navigation instruments (GPS, Loran, and Satnav) lose their minds every 300 miles and have to be told where they are.
Without good charts, a person would get hopelessly lost up here; there are so many inlets and channels and passages, twisting in every direction, and endless miles of uninhabited, roadless, wooded islands. It's a real maze. A person could spend a lifetime exploring and still not see it all.
We had planned on going to Lowe Inlet today, but we got side-tracked at Swanson Bay. The chart said "abandoned" and that there were a bronze benchmark and a 125-foot chimney there. That aroused our curiosity, so we went into the small bay. Sure enough, we could see a red brick smokestack through the trees. We could also see the pilings of a ruined wharf and a glimpse of a concrete building, so we dropped anchor and hopped in our Royaks to go exploring.
First, we paddled along the shore and found the mouth of a stream where there were rapids. We heard a loud roaring and figured there was a waterfall farther upstream, but we couldn't see it. Through the trees, we caught a glimpse of a second concrete building, even taller than the first. It looked about five or six storeys high. We went back to the ruined wharf, pulled our Royaks up on the beach, and tied them to pilings. Then we began making our way through the woods. The
undergrowth was so thick, I didn't think it was possible for any human being to get through it without a machete, but Roy kept going and I followed. We reached the first building. Just the walls were standing, but it still contained a huge evaporator. We plowed through some more jungle and found a trail! It led to the brick smokestack. There were big chunks of cement walls nearby and a lot of bricks. The other end of the trail led to another little beach. We could have brought our Royaks in there and not had to claw our way through the jungle.
The tide was coming in fast. By the time we got back to our Royaks, they were floating in the water, and even the piling I had tied mine to was several feet from the shore.
We wanted to see the second building, which was on the far side of the smokestack, so we paddled to the beach near the trail and carried our Royaks up above the high-water mark. The trail ended at the smokestack, so we had to do some more clawing through the jungle, but it was worth it. The second building contained two enormous rotating furnaces, lined with firebrick. They had apparently once been vertical but had toppled.
This entire project had required a huge investment of capital and effort. Clearing the forest, bringing in bargeloads of cement and machinery and other supplies and equipment, housing the workers--it had been a tremendous undertaking. We figured they must have been processing some kind of ore, but we couldn't figure out what. When we get to Prince Rupert, we'll go to the library and try to learn the history of Swanson Bay.
We pushed on up the hill and found the waterfall. And what a waterfall! A tremendous volume of water was dropping 100 feet or more. The roar was stentorian. We felt privileged; few people have seen it.
When we got back to our Royaks, we paddled along the shore looking for the benchmark, but couldn't find it.
By the time we got underway again, it was four o'clock, so we decided to spend the night at Butedale, another ghost town. It was supposed to have a spectacular waterfall, but it was nothing compared with the one at Swanson Bay.
There had been a big fish cannery at Butedale, but it had been abandoned years ago. From a distance, the buildings still looked sturdy, but up close, you can easily see they're falling apart.
The bay is surprisingly deep. We had a hard time finding a place to anchor. We finally anchored in 80 feet of water and tied the 200 foot floating line to one of the pilings.
We paddled ashore to explore, but it was more difficult than it looked to climb from the rocky beach to the buildings. I'd have given up, but Roy kept urging me on, and eventually we reached a couple of buildings. Huge, expensive machinery was still in place, the parts bins were full of parts, expensive electrical equipment was lying around--another big investment gone to waste.
It was too late in the day to do much exploring, so we scurried back to the boat before dark.
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