Confessions of a land-lover

Sometimes when I return to a place on BC’s wild coast that I love, my heart lifts like a hot air balloon and I think, Oh, here you are.

There’s an element of recognition, of identifying the other like a Douglas fir silhouetted against the sky, or a bald eagle perched on a branch, close enough you can see white feathers glinting in the sun or like the time a harbour seal surfaced six feet from my kayak.

On that occasion, I’d shipped my paddle and we’d exchanged long looks. The seal had known I was there; she had seen the shape of the kayak from below and come to investigate. I am aware that when I look at the coast like that, all open heart and delight at what I see, the land may notice me back the way the seal did.

Sometimes, however, the land can go beyond recognizing me.

The first time I understood this, I was at San Joseph Bay, at the northern tip of Vancouver Island, on the west coast, part of the Cape Scott Provincial Park. San Jo is a very deep bay with promontories which break up waves from the open Pacific. Swells decrease to knee-high as they lick their way into the San Joseph River. If you only look at the Parks Canada photos, you’d think San Joseph Bay was a tropical paradise: white sand beaches for miles, with a deep, startling jade green forest. This is true when a roaring westerly is blowing and the sun is shining, however, you should also know this area gets 108 inches of rain per year.

Frequently the sky is leaden and presses down. It’s not quite raining but the air is so thick with moisture it eddies like fog. The river running into the sea is the colour of sky mixed with mud and incoming swells are the colour of pewter. They make a steady hissh hissh. The evergreens are so dark and wet it looks like there’s black mixed with their green.

Certainly the sand is white. It’s packed into hard ridges by the tide. You look at it and go, Wait, wasn’t there more sand in the photos? And there was. Some clever soul took pictures at low tide. When it’s high tide, the sand is a tight narrow arc by the trees. Even thirty years ago, before sea rise became a mainstream concept, I thought I wouldn’t want to be there on a king tide. In winter, storms hurl driftwood sixty feet into the trees.

On this trip, I had lured a friend to come with me. She was miserable in her relationship and I’d persuaded her that it would make her summer to drive north with me and camp at San Jo for two days. I was aware my friend wasn’t a hiker, but we both figured an hour’s walk in with a pack was do-able for her. When she complained about her weight and ate potato chips most of the way from Port Hardy to the parking lot where we would have to leave the car to hike in, I began to feel it was possible I’d made a mistake.

We each carried a pack. It was a smooth, easy hike, but my friend’s back hurt.

We set up our tents side by side just as it started to drizzle. My friend said she needed a nap. I felt fizzy with energy.

I started taking off my hiking boots to go barefoot; there wasn’t any point in getting my boots wet walking on the sand, was there? But wouldn’t my feet would get cold? I detested being cold. However, it felt clear to me that going barefoot was the right way to go, so I tucked my boots inside the tent vestibule to stay dry, and set off puzzled by my own actions.

First off, I scrabbled some wood together for a fire later; it was wet, but with enough fire starter, which I’d brought, it’s amazing what you can persuade to burn. We didn’t need a fire for cooking; I had my one-burner Primus and we had Mountain Co-op dried meals. Fires are just cheerful. And they made me feel safer.

That only took a moment. I stuffed the wood under a corner of the tarp under my tent. Next we needed was more drinking water; at the river mouth, where we were, the water’s too brackish to use. I’d forgotten exactly where the little stream I used for water was so I set off looking, a water bottle in each hand. I wandered along the beach, re-acquainting myself with San Jo, aware of a rising glow of happiness.

There are two main bays at San Jo; there are others further out but they’re accessible only by boat. That’s how I’d first come. For hikers, on the far beach you’re cut off at high tide so I’d positioned us in the first one, where we could leave whenever we felt like it. If someone was injured, I wouldn’t want to wait hours for the tide to change. In the wilderness, for me there’s always that prickle, the sense of having to be cautious and think strategically. San Jo is an area notorious for cougars. Park rangers warn campers: Don’t leave your tents after dark, because that’s when the cougars come out.

In the daytime, there are bears and wolves and the campground has big metal bins to store your food in. Supposedly Vancouver Island only has black bears but every year, grizzlies swim over from other islands and are transported away by rangers with much fanfare. Biologists suggest it’s only a matter of time before there’s a breeding population of grizzlies as well.

Now, the second bay was calling me. I watched the tide for a few minutes and saw it was going out. Good. I could get there and back. My wet feet didn’t feel cold at all. The sand was in such hard ridges it wasn’t totally comfortable walking but it felt good.

There were only five other tents pitched along the second beach. No one was out and about but me.

There was the stream. I’d fill the water bottles on the way back.

I admired the sea stacks, perfect islets the size of a small room rising up out of the white sand with sheer rocky sides, a tree or two on top, salal bushes, licorice ferns. Was it the vitality of growth I loved? The variety? I’d wait for my friend to explore the sea caves some of them had. As I remembered it, none of them were very deep but it’d be more fun looking together, maybe tomorrow.

It started to rain harder. I didn’t care. Ha, was this me speaking? I breathed in the clean sweet air from the sea, the iodine smell of seaweed on the beach. I walked all the way to end of the second bay, barred by rocky cliffs, and turned around. Oh, I was happy. Why? It’s just, I was here. If I needed to, when I got back to the tent I could take off my waterproof jacket and burrow down into my sleeping bag.

I filled our water bottles.

It wasn’t until I’d returned to the first bay with the river in sight and the far blip of pale green that was my tent, that I realized why I had wanted to come back to San Jo. I could feel the life in it rising up to greet me. I thought, The land here loves me. This had happened before. When I’d thought about it after, I’d decided I must have been mistaken. Nope.

This was like a best secret, fireworks that came exploding out of left field. I shook my head and strode back, giddy with joy and the land, to my friend who was awake and wanting tea.