San Juan Island

Joop happily barbequing

San Juan is a beautiful pastoral island.  The house we are staying at is at Mitchell bay  on the west side of the island.  The location is very remote and we have amused ourselves by lounging about the house and yard and cooking meals on the barbeque. For some reason the Americans seem to prefer charcoal briquettes over the good old propane – so we have been forced to relearn the stacking of the briquettes and the layering once they are molten. Mostly we cook vegetables – our meals have been delectable and I must commend the Washingtonians on the clearness of labeling for both organic and local.

View from our deck to the bay

South beach on San Juan Island, American Camp

The history of the island is very entertaining. For some reason the “British” aka Hudson Bay Company – as part of their diversification from fur trading decided to invest in sheep farming on this island in the 1850’s. They happily imported Hawaiians for the task and were quite successful. The borders between the Americans and British were not clear around this area  - apparently the  Oregon agreement said 49^th parallel and channel but no one knew which channel – the Haro or the Rosario straight.  This meant that the San Juan islands were contentious property.  The Americans that tried to settle the area were quite hostile and  very racist towards the Hawaiian settlers. Somehow a pig from a Hawaiian farm on the south of the island was irritating a neighbouring American farmer by escaping the fence between the two properties and rooting around the American garden.  The Hawaiians laughed uproariously as their pig foraged around the American garden. This upset the American farmer so significantly that he shot the pig. This created quite a disturbance between the British and Americans.  In a dispute that lasted from 1850 to 1872 both powers had military settlements on the island and were poised to fight. Luckily this never happened. It was the last military dispute between Canada and the US. The military posts were on opposite ends of the island. The Americans had an encampment on the South point which was nothing but grass lands – completely exposed. Apparently this was confounding to the British; they could not understand why the Americans would set up camp in such visible and vulnerable spot. They simply didn’t know that the American commander had graduated 59^th out of 59 graduates! The British post on the north end of the island was secluded in a calm bay and heavily forested. 

Beautiful rocks from South beach

Grass lands of American camp

We visited both spots and loved the scenery in every area. On the south beach of the American encampment I searched vainly for any type of shell or sea glass and was forced into collecting rocks as they were the only things outside of driftwood.
I loved the grasslands of the south island. The meadow bird calls, the smell of the hot grass and the sound of the sea – so perfect.

Looking at Grandma's cove, American Camp

Beautiful grasslands American camp

British camp with wierd Dutch guy with ear feathers

The British camp was on a secluded bay on the Northwest part of the island and it too was very pastoral and beautiful but there were many more trees.  On one of our walks through the woods we were startled by this loud swooshing above our heads – 2 bald eagles were flying at top speed through the trees  - navigating the narrow spaces between the tall trees at break neck speed! 

Relaxing on deck

Mitchell Bay Haven

Our vacation home is right next to the British park. It is a lovely home – the front nothing but windows looking onto the bay with herons standing about in the muddy shallows when the tide goes out – the only sound is the buzz of hummingbirds surging about and dive bombing god knows what. We had a visiting dog  - a black lab – that the guest book said used to visit with a white goat. Somehow the dog visits without the goat. He is very darling – in dire need of veterinary attention – I did my best and attempted to treat his significant lameness etc…

Dear little visitor without goat

Lovely rocks from South Beach

Lavender farm

We visited a lavender farm – the undulating rows of lavender even not in bloom look soft and blurry – it evokes a funny feeling as thought you just can’t focus. I love the farms scattered around the island – such beautiful majestic old farmhouses – most at least 100 years old – all meticulously cared for and maintained – many are sided with weathered cedar shingles. The pasture fields are filled with such tall grass that we assumed that they must be bogs or sloughs  - how else could there be such tall grasses not being grazed – and then we saw herds of cattle dwarfed by the grasses. I’ve never seen the like.

Silver fox kit

The highlight of my trip was meeting a dear little silver fox kit. For some reason he was completely unafraid of me and let me stand and photograph him from a distance of 2 feet for at least 15 minutes. During that time he yawned and groomed and hiccupped. He darted back into his culvert when bikers went past but with just me there he lounged about without a care. I still cannot reconcile the experience.

Horsetails taller than me at British Camp

Young Hill, English Camp

Young Hill

Interior of Mitchell Bay Haven

Cows dwarfed by grass

Bamfield or Bust

Heading out from Horseshoe Bay

The roads and waters to Bamfield are long and winding. You can see Joop and Kyr heading off filled with hope aboard the ferry from Horseshoe bay to Nanaimo. The crossing was sunny and uneventful.

The nervous mother

Kyr, Joop, Chris, Kalyn and Kevan

We overnighted in Port Albernie  and visited with Joop’s son and grandchildren. The next morning I rose for a 5am walk around town and was amazed by the dryness of the region. Everywhere I walked the lawn grasses were dry and brittle brown. The yards I passed were mostly devoid of industry – the grass would be mowed but the edges generally were left – no weed whacking – giving everything sort of a derelict feeling. Sometimes people were inspired to plant annuals but mostly these were tentative affairs where only one planter box was planted in the midst of many more gone to weeds. Whenever I found a yard with evidence of lovingly tended plants I rejoiced – such an anomaly. The houses also give the feeling of having been briefly attended to 20 years before in a mad rush to put on vinyl siding and then left – roofs shingled over 30 years before and paint peeling on window sills. I passed at least 5 older men clutching those long handled grabbers that I call my turtle holders for radiographing turtles, and clear plastic bags filled with recycling. All the men were all unnervingly skinny and I wondered if this activity is to supplement their pensions

Kyr standing proudly in front of nice building at Bamfield Marine Sciences

The next day at noon we headed out in our rented Subaru Forester to navigate  the long forestry trunk road to Bamfield. You can’t drive over 60km/hr because of the roughly graded gravel and the windyness that can preclude seeing oncoming forestry trucks laden with logs. The entire 2 hour journey was quite bumpy with significant washboarding of the road surface. The trees  on the shoulders were shrouded in a layer of thick dust giving them a ghostly air. A rolly polly black bear cub galloped in front of us careening wildly – so darling – made it back to the shelter of the undergrowth before I could snap a photo. The only other wildlife was a plethora of robins on the sides of the roads that flew dramatically in front of the car just at the height of the grill. It was very disconcerting to disturb them and have them rush headlong into suicide. I’ve never seen so many. I guess finding that choice piece of gravel for the gizzard can be life risking.

Main buiding

Looking across the bay to West Bamfield

We finally arrived on the east side of Bamfield  (pop 250)– the only peninsula that is assessable by car and drove straight to the Marine station. It is perched on the tip of the peninsula with many architecturally beautiful buildings all belonging to the station. Kyr’s residence was nice. There are only 8 students in his first course – science journalism. Apparently there is a disproportionate number of female students – it does appear that way when you walk through the residence. Kyr seemed pleased as punch. We left him reluctantly – at least reluctantly on my part because I worried that he didn’t bring enough warm clothes and despite assuring me that they provide blankets – they don’t. Despite our trial cell phone calling  a few feet from each other– cell phone communication was not to be.

View from our cottage at Woodsend Landing

After the owners of the cabin we are renting – Woodsend- came and retrieved us from the government dock by boat in order to take us to the west penisula  where our cabin is,  practically all communication ended. The cell tower servicing the area is from Uclulet – several miles to the north west. – pretty much non existent coverage. Don’t get me started on the internet. There are 2 second bursts that will allow facebook to partially load and then nothing for hours. Very disconcerting. I would rather it be nothing because the frustration of partial communication is just an exercise in futility. We are somewhat trapped on this west side – there is a general store up the road but kayak rentals, restaurants , internet… are all a boat ride away and we don’t have a boat. We walked to the store last night only to find it closed. Two locals were hanging about drinking beer and chatting. A fairly large fishing vessel pulled up to the dock and the two visible deck crew were female. This amazed the two locals – when the captain (mid 30’s) raced up the dock in a rush to buy some stained glass of all things- they quizzed him on his crew. He said that he has two girls and one guy. According to the captain there is way less drama in his crew by having women – they just get right down to work. Sounded good to me. Right now his is spot prawn fishing and waiting to get the go ahead for Albacore Tuna. The ones he will get around here will be 17 – 18 pounds.  Last year he was down around California and got some near 50 pounds. The fishing is not too bad.

View of the open Pacific from Brady's beach!

We walk quite  a bit on gravel skree roads – interesting that there are roads on this side and even vehicles – some with license plates from 1967 – but nowhere to go and actually I don’t think a very consistent way off for vehicles.I have yet to see a marine vehicle that looks able to transport cars across the bay. We went to the most beautiful beach on the west side of the peninsula – Brady beach. You could view the open Pacific. The smells reminded me of Hawaii. We were the only ones on the beach. I gathered unbelievable amounts of sea glass and even pottery. I haven’t found sea pottery since Greece! We were the only ones there. It was hard to leave.

Joop sitting on bench at Brady's beach

Map of Bamfield