Mark Sundstrom

I took a guided kayak trip to the Broken Group Islands in Pacific Rim National Park in British Columbia, Canada. Many thanks to Batstar Adventure Tours for the excellent provisioning, logistics and behind-the-scenes details required for the trip; to their guide, Laurel Archer, an all-around expert guide, cook, and you-name it, and thanks as well to my fellow guests – Brooke, Tracy and Fred; it was great fun spending 4 days with you.

I recorded the GPS track for each day and I have added each day's track to EveryTrail.com. In July of 2011, Google (finally) added high resolution satellite imagery of the Broken Group Islands, so with these tracks you can zoom in and see a lot of detail for all the islands and areas that we visited. The tracks are:

Friday: Toquart Bay to Dodd Island

Saturday: Day trip to Benson Island

Sunday: Caves and lagoons

Monday: Return to civilization

I've created a photo album with 95 photos, taken by Tracy, Brooke and myself. Each thumbnail photo can be clicked for a larger version.

Tracy has some great video of a humpback whale going close by. I've combined that with some other video showing Dodd Island and some of the other places we visited:

This is my fourth trip to the Broken Group Islands, a unit of Pacific Rim National Park on the west coast of Vancouver Island, British Columbia. I was last here in 2006. Here is a writeup of that trip, along with some other Batstar trips from earlier.

The journey begins Thursday evening, when we meet for a trip briefing and to receive our trip bags. All clothing and gear needs to be packed into 3 dry bags. At first glance, you would think these bags couldn't possibly be enough space. There is a 20 liter tapered bag, specially designed to fit in the bow or stern of the kayak. Then there is a 25 liter bag for more storage, and finally a 20-25 liter day bag, which you keep with you in the kayak cockpit for ready access. Bulky items like boots and shoes do not have to go in the dry bags and you can keep a water bottle strapped to the kayak or inside the cockpit. A waterproof camera is the best choice, otherwise you'll want to have some kind of waterproof case for it and anything else that shouldn't get wet.

Breakfast Friday morning is at 6:30, to be ready for a 7:30 departure. It's partly cloudy, no rain in the forecast, but fairly strong winds are supposed to build in the afternoon. We want to get started as early as we can, to avoid the wind. Paddling in the rain is no problem, but too much wind could cause us to turn around and go back, or end up waiting for the wind to die down.

It's a beautiful drive on Highway 4, first along Sproat Lake and then through the mountains, some still with plenty of snow, past Taylor Creek and eventually along Kennedy Lake to the turnoff for Toquart Bay. We reached the turnoff at 8:55, then it's 10 miles of decent dirt road to Toquart Bay, arriving at 9:17. Besides being a campground, this is the most popular starting point for kayaking trips to the Broken Group Islands.

The tide is low, so it's a long walk with the kayaks and the gear to the water's edge. Batstar owner Blake and our guide, Laurel, expertly pack the kayaks and we are on the water at 10:25. They pack as close to the waterline as possible, because the kayaks will be very heavy at the start of the trip, until we get some of the food and water consumed.

There is some wind, but it's not too bad as we head around the Stopper Islands on our way into the Park. We've heard reports from incoming kayakers of humpback whale sightings and we do see some spouting in the distance as we begin. We stop at Hand Island for lunch - wild rice salad with tuna, cheese, fruit, juice and cookies. We collect a lot of driftwood to take to Dodd Island for a fire tonight. We see quite a few humpbacks after Hand Island, including one that goes right past us, close enough for one of the boats to feel the spray. (See the video.) The whales are large and they look even larger close up! They know where we are, of course, so there's little concern about a collision. I have seen orcas this close before, but not humpbacks. Very impressive. Humpbacks did not frequent the Broken Group Islands until just a few years ago; I had not seen them at all on my previous trips here.

After the Brabant islands we encounter the strongest wind and we are paddling directly into it. There's enough wind to generate a few waves and a lot of spray, making for a bit of splashing, but the weather is warm and we know we'll dry out soon enough. We arrive at our campsite on Dodd Island at 3:15 p.m. This is one of the more popular campsites, because of its central location, but we are the first to arrive, so we have our pick. The tents, new to all of us, are a bit of a mystery at first to figure out, but eventually we get them set up.

We paddled a total of 8.3 statute miles today. By 5:15, I'm having a glass of wine on the beach, listening to the birds in the trees and keeping an eye out for more humpback whales. Our campsite is on a spit of land, giving us a northwest view.

Foccaio is the appetizer, and dinner was a fresh cole slaw, and coconut chicken curry; all excellent. There was a dessert planned, but we were stuffed from dinner and opted for after dinner drinks and marshmallows over the fire instead.

Saturday morning I was up at 6 a.m. and read a book on the beach until the first coffee was ready at 7:10. The weather looks excellent, very calm, so we will head towards the outside of the Park today, the outside meaning the islands closest to the open ocean. They have some of the most ruggest coastline and always interesting history as well.

We get underway at 9:25 a.m. and spot a river otter with 2 babies just swimming over to Dodd Island as we were leaving. We spot more humpback whales throughout the day, as well as the Arctic Loon, several Bald Eagles, the American Oystercatcher and some small deer that live on a few of the larger islands, including Dodd.

We cross a very narrow passageway between Lovett Island and Trickett Island, almost too shallow for kayaks but not quite, then after a short break, head towards Clarke and Benson Islands. The sea was calm enough to paddle around the outside of Benson, i.e., the ocean side. This gives us a good chance to see the rugged outer coastline of Benson. The islands that face the open ocean are often very windswept and look different from the sides of islands that are more sheltered.

We land on Benson and have about an hour to explore the island, which has been inhabited for some 5,000 years by the Indians (First Nations) and also sported a hotel for some time as well, long before the area became a park. Tracy and I followed a trail that crosses the island to the ocean side, where there are views and also a blowhole, but the trails are faint and in the end, we decided we would not be able to find it before having to be back for lunch. But there were some nice old trees along the way, including a nurse log and some large fungi growing on the older trees. Our landing beach has some nice tidepools and some large driftwood.

Lunch on the beach:wraps with rice, fruit, cheese and cookies.

The weather was still calm as we head back, with a lazy paddle to Turret Island, where we stopped for a break and took a short trail to see what is reputed to be the largest tree in the park, a very large and old Spruce tree, probably 5 meters across. We saw a few harbor seals on the way and humpback whales, too. We scooted around the east side of Turret Island, cross Thiepval Channel and back to camp.

The appetizers tonight were oysters, brie and goat cheese and crackers. Dinner was salmon, boiled new potatoes and fresh green beans. Dessert was fresh raspberries and yogurt on shortcake. And after dinner, of course, another campfire and marshmallows. And some yoga for sore muscles. We paddled 11.7 statute miles today.

Sunday morning I was up at 6 a.m. again, and this time took a walk in the woods. The trail was going to involve more bushwhacking than I wanted, however, so I left the trail and walked along the shore at low tide, to a point we could see from our campsite. More humpback whales were visible again today.

Breakfast was ham, banana pancakes, fruit, yogurt and coffee. The weather continues to be partly cloudy, calm and warm.

As we head east towards Keith and Mullins Islands, we see some harbor seals sunning themselves on rocks barely above the water. Past Keith Island, we headed around Demster Island to see the sea caves there. We hear the waves crashing inside the caves, occasionally generating some spooky sounds.

We paddle around the southeast side of Demster to a tiny beach (a much larger beach at low tide), for a snack break, then head out again and across to Gibraltar island, where there is another cave and some more rugged coastline. We see a lot of Bald Eagles in this section of the Park.

Our lunch stop is the campsite at Gibraltar Island, where I camped on a Batstar trip in September, 2000. Another group was there for lunch; it's a popular spot. Lunch was hot butternut squash soup, meat, cheese, avocado, tomatoes and cucumber, and dessert with the usual fruit and cookies.

We head next for the shallow lagoon between Jacques and Jarvis islands, the best spot in the park to see some of the underwater life. There are numerous oysters, sea cucumbers, a few crabs, moon snails, batstars and other sea stars. The water is very shallow at low tide, only a few inches, but deep enough to float over most of it. This is also one of the areas where the Indians created fish traps, where they could herd fish and trap them at high tide.

We head for the west exit from the lagoon, which is dry at low tide and not passable by kayak. However, the tide was coming in and the passage was just starting to flood. We could tell that within 15-20 minutes, the tide would rise high enough that we could get through. Our guide, Laurel, in the single kayak, went first, since the single is narrower and she eventually floated through. Our two doubles came next after a few minutes, with some creative shifting of weight and waiting for the next rise of water, we all got through. (See the photo album.) This was worth the wait 1) because it was fun and 2), it's a fairly long way back out the north entrance. Once we were through, we had a straight 2 mile paddle back to Dodd Island.

Appetizers tonight were chips and salsa, and then two kinds of freshly made sushi. The main course was clam chowder and dessert was freshly made carrot cake. Quite a meal!

After seeing so many humpback whales each day, it was a bit disappointing to see only one on our way back to Toquart Bay. The weather again was partly cloudy and warm and the waters a flat calm. We were underway about 9:30 a.m., heading northwest towards St. Ines Island. We took a snack break there, then paddled west of the Stopper Islands along the Macoah Passage. We were in no particular hurry, since we were not due back at Toquart until noon. Arriving at Toquart, we exchanged greetings with the group who would be going out to Dodd Island. After loading the van, waving goodbye to the new group and having a nice lunch on shore, we headed back to Port Alberni for some welcome showers and a great big dinner with storytelling and great memories.

I made two trips to Ocean Falls in 1977-78, for Diamond Engineering Corporation, to install a paper roll handling and printing system in the paper mill that was there at the time. We stayed at the large hotel which also had a restaurant.

The only practical way to get to Ocean Falls is via float plane. My first trip there was with my work associate, Chuck H. We drove to Vancouver from Seattle to catch the flight. The aircraft being used were Grumman Mallard (or Goose? can't remember.) I think our first flight was cancelled due to weather, but eventually we made it in. We spent a couple of days there, then I think our flight out was cancelled, due to weather, perhaps more than once. Chuck was not a huge fan of airplanes and suggested an alternate way home. This meant getting up at "oh-dark-hundred" one morning and taking a boat launch for a few hours to Bella Bella. There we caught a B.C. Ferry, the "Queen of Prince Rupert", all the way to Vancouver. This was an overnight trip.

I was by myself on the second trip and flew in and out both ways this time. I remember on the trip north that we flew above the clouds for a couple of hours, then the pilot circled down and we followed the ocean channel to Ocean Falls. We flew pretty close to the water surface much of the time and I distinctly remember flying under some power lines once.

At least one of the flights I took involved a stop at Bella Coola and another time at Bella Bella.

The computer system that we installed was based on a Data General Nova 3 computer, with no hard disk, just core memory used for everything. I think it was 32KB, maybe 64KB. The program was loaded via paper tape . Of course, once it was loaded, it would stay in core memory and not have to be reloaded unless some sort of corruption occurred.

The system had a CRT and keyboard enclosed in a metal housing, with cooling. It attached to a scale that was used to tell the software the weight of the paper roll, and also to a customized printer which was used to print a large sheet to identify the paper roll.

I have taken several guided trips with Batstar Adventure Tours.

I have another trip scheduled for early July.