An Amazing Adventure in Haida Gwaii

Dogbark has reached Haida Gwaii, a place with huge forests, intriguing wildlife, and lots of Haida culture and history. After a couple stops at Haida Heritage sites complete with totem poles and hot springs, we headed to a beautiful anchorage called Crescent Inlet. As soon as we arrived, we spotted three black bears grazing in a meadow at the head of the Inlet. What a fascinating sight! It turned out to be one of my very favorite anchorages of the trip so far.

For this week’s blog post, I was told to write a lot about one, and only one, adventure in this week. I decided I would write about the expirience that put me closest to all sorts of fascinating nature, our “bushwhack” around Crescent Inlet.

For any that don’t know, a bushwhack is what we call a hike through the woods where you wander around without any specific destination, and no trail. It is a good chance to explore places where possibly no human has ever been before. Unfortunately for us, it was clear that we were not the first people to explore the area when we came across an old logging road.

This is how the adventure started: I had just finished all of my school work, and I was going a little stir crazy from being stuck on the boat all day. Dad had to do boatwork, but I was easily able to convince John, Becca, Mom and Savai to come exploring on a bushwhack with me. We hopped in the dinghy and motored to a rocky section of the shore. Then, we tied up the dinghy and set off towards the huge meadow where we had seen bears earlier. As we got closer, we realized that there was actually still a bear grazing in the middle of the meadow. After snapping a few pictures, we turned around to find a different path because the bear was right in the middle of where we wanted to go. We walked back towards the dinghy, and found a cut where we could turn up the hill into the beautiful old growth forest. We followed animal tracks and our ears up the moss and tree covered hill towards the sound of a quickly rushing waterfall. We crossed over the logging road and found a small stream. After crossing the stream, we hiked up the hill to an opening that looked out at the waterfall. It was way bigger than we thought it was, maybe 200 feet high!

After taking pictures of the waterfall, we hiked down through a fern covered valley back to the dinghy, being quizzed on the different types of trees and moss as we went. When we reached the beach, we crossed through the rushing water of the stream the led down from the same waterfall. There was a surprising amount of seaweed in the rocky stream.

As we climbed back into the dinghy, we reflected on how lucky we were to be able to go explore the wilderness in it’s natural state, and have grand adventures. What a fun way to live!