Chapter Four
The Grizzly Corridor
It was the late summer of 1983. I was restless. Barrett’s phone call couldn’t have been better timed. The spring season that had such a positive and profound impact on my life was almost three months behind me. Barrett explained that he had just been awarded a treeplanting contract up Bute Inlet. I was invited.
We were to mobilize from Heriot Bay on Quadra Island in two weeks. After arriving at our destination, we’d establish a tent camp, though our meals would be provided by a nearby logging camp. It sounded good to me. I committed to the project without hesitation.
As soon as I hung up the phone, I searched for Bute Inlet on a map and was immediately struck by its geographic isolation. It stretched some eighty kilometres into the rugged coastal Interior from its mouth at Stuart Island to its head at the estuaries of the Homathko and Southgate rivers. There were no highways or roads leading in; access was by air or water only. The juices really began to flow when I learned from my sister that it was considered to be one of the most dramatic and picturesque waterways in the entire world. I was stoked.
Up until that time, my experiences in remote locales were limited to the Interior of central and northern BC. And as extraordinary as those regions were, veteran planters insisted that the coast, specifically the coastal inlets, was infinitely more wild and exciting. They regaled me with tales of glaciers, ice fields, giant cedars, boulders the size of condos and vast stretches of pristine wilderness. Bute Inlet, above all other coastal destinations, was given special standing for its exceptional beauty and mystique.
One day before I was to embark on the twenty-four-hour bus ride from Calgary to Campbell River, where I was to spend the night before crossing over to meet the crew on Quadra Island, I came down with a nasty flu virus, one that nearly knocked me out of the picture. My mom, being a registered nurse, didn’t hesitate in hooking me up with medication she thought might help take the edge off of my long journey. Before I hopped onto the bus, she handed me a small bottle of pain-relief pills, some with codeine, some without. We didn’t realize it at that time, but I had an allergy to codeine, one that produced hallucinations and extreme anxiety.
I was five hours into the first leg of my journey when the sun began to set over Rogers Pass. I found myself unable to settle my nerves, partly due to my feverish state, partly due to my excitement and anticipation over the prospect of a new adventure.
As night began to descend over the mountain pass, I thought about home. I thought about how much I was already missing my friends and family. I thought about my mom. I then remembered her care package and promptly put back two of the larger white pills, hoping a sense of calm and quiet would sweep over me.
From that point on, my memories are fragmented and vague. I remember an unfamiliar sensation sweeping over me. I remember becoming fixated on the jagged black shapes of the mountain ridges on the horizon. I traced their near vertical contours all the way down to where they transitioned into complete blackness below the edge of the highway. Everything had a somewhat surreal and interesting quality at first, but then things began to spiral out of control. Dark shapes and shadows began to emerge from the rock faces and conifer patches on the right side of the highway. Worse, the steep valley walls on the left began to crumble and collapse, threatening to crush and bury our bus under piles of rock and debris.
Until then I had never experienced what the hippies referred to as a “bad trip,” but this certainly had to qualify. I remember the panic, the desperation as I attempted to calm myself down. I remember hyperventilating, closing my eyes and burying my face in my jacket, trying not to scream. I’m not sure if I was successful in thwarting those impulses as my next real memory was dragging my gear across the bus station parking lot in Vancouver, some twelve hours later. But that was only a fleeting impression. I have no recollection of boarding my connecting bus, crossing the Strait of Georgia by ferry or making the journey up Vancouver Island. Apparently, I had so thoroughly programmed the entire itinerary into my head that I didn’t skip a beat. Waking up en route, hearing the bus driver call out, “Next stop Campbell River,” was a monumental relief. My dreams up until that point were toxic, plagued with flashes of alien landscapes and baleful faces.
Nearly defeated by the residual effects of a fever and a bad codeine trip, I dragged my heavy gear from the bus depot in Campbell River to a hotel I had booked in advance. Spotting the Quadra Island ferry dock from my hotel window was comforting—it was the vessel I would need to board early the next morning in order to hook up with my crew.
The first leg of my journey was behind me. To celebrate, I turned the TV on to the movie channel, collapsed on the bed and drifted off into a shallow coma. Later that night, I awoke with a start to the sound of roaring engines. For a few crazy moments I had no recollection of where I was, or how I got there. Running to the window and peering out onto the street below, I could see only the vague outline of unfamiliar buildings draped in a thick layer of fog. I was lost. I had no sense of time or space. On the desk next to the TV was an assortment of pamphlets and menus that finally revealed my location, allowing me to crawl back into the here and now.
The engine sounds that triggered the panic attack sprung from a movie that was playing on TV—George Miller’s The Road Warrior—an extremely disconcerting post-apocalyptic tale of a desolate world filled with fiendish, relentless antagonists. The intrusion from the television seemed fitting somehow, considering my current state of mind.
I shook off my dopey malaise early the next morning and managed to catch the first ferry over to Quadra Island. It was a short crossing. The warmhearted generosity of the local island folk made hitching a ride to the other side of the island an effortless task.
I arrived at Heriot Bay ahead of schedule. Barrett’s trucks, which were in the process of being loaded onto a barge, were a comforting sight. Though I felt as if I had been dragged behind the bus for the entire journey from Calgary to the West Coast, my strength was beginning to return. I felt myself coming back into the light.
It was good to see Barrett. He elevated my spirit. He was his usual animated self, grinning ear to ear, looking for any opportunity to laugh out loud. The crew he had assembled was small. There were only a dozen of us. I was surprised to see six new faces, including two younger bucks named Ricky and Zach.
Ricky was a tall, lean and ruggedly handsome fellow. He immediately came off as loud and unrefined. He was the kind of guy who didn’t give a shit about what others thought of him—an admirable quality, I thought. He too loved to laugh out loud and, despite his crass nature, I immediately spotted a friend in him.
Zach was the polar opposite of his buddy. He was a solemn man with piercing green eyes. He appeared restless, brooding. He had a simmering intensity that could be felt the moment you entered his space. Though I greeted him warmly, shaking his hand, I resolved to keep my distance for the time being.
Ricky had also brought along a friend, a gentle and attentive Doberman pinscher named Lady. She was smaller in stature than most Dobies I had met, but she was very well conditioned. She had strong lines. It was obvious that Ricky loved his dog and took exceptionally good care of her.
Also on the crew were three familiar faces from the spring: Kelly, my first foreman, Ron, the ex-high-school English teacher and Nick, a Stetson-wearing cowboy with a thick southern drawl. The one person I had hoped to greet more than any other was not in evidence. No one could tell me where she was or how she was doing. In a way, I was relieved Debbie wasn’t there.
There was one detail concerning the Bute project that I must’ve missed when Barrett briefed me over the phone. We were to sail along with the trucks for the entire ten-hour barge ride to the head of the inlet. I was stoked. The prospect of slowly skirting some of the more isolated islands within the Discovery Island group, before entering the inlet itself, promised to heighten the level of adventure.
Our barge captain navigated our vessel with great finesse through the narrow, turbulent channels between the islands of Read, Maurelle, Raza, Sonora and Stuart. There were also numerous smaller islands, completely uninhabited, that created an obstacle course of sorts, requiring delicate navigation. Once we rounded Stuart, about four hours