The Sitka trip to Haida Gwaii had been a dream of
ours for years, and we finally decided it was time to
make it happen. Some research had us stumbling on an
oasis screaming with surf potential, and after a lot of
dreaming and scheming, emails and phone calls, plane
rides and boat rides, we actually pulled it off.
When we arrived, we spent three days on Graham Island, the largest island in the archipelago.
It was our last chance to gather camping essentials
and complete our mountainous packs. Standing on
the beach, we looked at the trees surrounding us and
knew those were the same trees the first explorers
saw when they arrived.
The last evening before taking off, we spent a little
time running errands in town. By the time we were
ready to go, the sun had set and the wind and rain had
come up. I was standing barefoot in my shorts with the
wet and cold hitting my face and muck between my
toes. We were about to paddle our fully loaded canoe
through the blinding wind and darkness to an island off
of an island. I turned to face our destination and howl
into the night. The adventure had only just begun, and I
felt ready for anything. – Reid
For months, we’d been studying maps and trying to
imagine what it would be like. As we approached our
campsite, the visions I had in my mind started to take
shape before my eyes. We rounded the sandbar to see
little wedges peeling down the beach, and then it took
some time to figure out where to land and pull our
gear to shore.
Once we were on the beach, the boys were freaking
out. Ben Gulliver and Kyler Vos were fumbling with
their camera gear, Pete was running down the beach to
check the bar and the rest of us were getting dizzy from
trying to decide where to set up camp while still peeking out from the trees to call out good sets to each other.
We were like kids in a candy shop. I took a step back
to absorb all that was happening around me with a
shit-eating grin plastered to my face like pre-pubescent
acne. It was sensory overload. – Arran
While the waves were flat, we enjoyed some of the
other activities our little piece of coast had to offer.
Fishing, hiking, foraging, and relaxing in homemade
saunas were our go-to pursuits. But the timing of the
trip had also brought a ton of garbage to the shores
from the tsunami in Japan, as well as from the normal
marine debris. We fashioned the waste we collected
into sports equipment like basketball nets and hockey sticks to stay active. Exploring our surroundings
around camp was an endless adventure – many moons
ago, our temporary home was likely a summer fishing
camp, but it had been centuries since it had been left
to the wild and months, if not years, since humans had
last been there.
We felt lucky to be able to roam free with only the
deer watching as we played. Hundreds of years earlier,
Haida people were making a life there; some years after
that, European settlers may have been plying the local
waters. But that week, we had that wild coast to ourselves to feed on and play on. – Reid
When you put all your effort into planning and imagining a place, then have that dream become reality, that is
one true sense of human happiness. – Arran
More at sitka.ca