Rotting cement, upside-down tables, and a handful of limpets

From Campbell River to the south, the highway winds along a coastal plain, dotted with farms, towns, resorts, and light industry. To the north and the west, the situation changes. A terrain map shows what my Mom called an upside-down tableland; many tables, all with their legs in the air.

Google maps: terrain, mid-section of northern Vancouver Island. Campbell River is just off the map, to the lower right.

Here, the roads follow river valleys, keeping as far as possible to low ground, out of the grip of ice most of the year. And here, human settlements are small and widely scattered. Sayward is "large", with 400 people. Kelsey Bay holds 120. Woss, there in the centre of the map, is home to 200. In between, beside some of the lakes, there are a few campsites and inns; a house, a cabin or two, and nothing more. Near the northern tip, where BC Ferries has a terminal, Port Hardy boasts a large population of 4000.

"Port Hardy (population: 4,000) is the last bastion of civilization in the remote and wild north end of Vancouver Island." (Yes, they actually said that. Here.)

Along this coastline, even where there is access, human influence is attenuated. Shipping; cruise ships, fishing boats, log booms, and barges pass, leaving their wash and smoke; logging trucks roar by on the highways; and, of course, there are all the general effects of climate change. Apart from those, land and marine animals and plants go about their business mostly unobserved.

Kelsey Bay is one of the spots where we have left a deeper footprint. It used to be the southern terminus of BC Ferries' Inside Passage, before the road was pushed through to Port Hardy. The bay is full of rusting hulks, crumbling cement, abandoned wharves, interspersed with the usual activities of a northern port; a small-craft harbour, a log dump, parking lots full of machinery and trucks.

Old BC Ferries' ramp supports. High tides reach to the top of the exposed metal.

View from the end of the road, towards Mt. H'kusam. With marina, and several rusting hulks.

On the tiny beach, besides the dead sea urchin, I found shreds of a variety of kelps; the big bull kelp, a curly, wide-bladed kelp, and others too torn to identify. Rockweed is well-entrenched, growing firmly on the cement boat launch; I pawed through it, looking for small critters, and found beach hoppers. On the rocks, mostly too big or too wedged in to flip, barnacles and limpets waited for the water to come back.

Empty limpet shell.

An unusual pattern. This one's alive, and holding on tight.

Limpet on a stone.

Row of mask limpets (Tectura persona) on a rock. With two slipper snails, and another, possibly a ribbed limpet. Lottia digitalis. I had to move a rock to get at these.

All along the coastline, around the marina and the rotting remains of abandoned equipment, the tops of a bull kelp forest floated, their holdfasts still attached below.

The tide is low; at high tide, only the floating blades will be seen.

Keeping a few metres shy of the rocky shore. The water's pink, looking south, towards the setting sun.

From the old BC Ferries' dock, looking north. "My" tiny beach is in the shelter of that big rock on the left. Bare rock marks the high tide line. I was actually trying to take a photo of a loon, who, of course, dived just as I pressed the shutter. There's an eagle on one of the trees, though.

I won't be heading farther north from here until spring; I've been warned of an icy hill, just beyond the Sayward Village turnoff from the highway. Meanwhile, I pore over maps and aerial views, planning, planning.

Bird silhouettes on tinted mud

Mud. We dried our boots overnight, and today it took us each an hour to get them clean again. And we had been so careful! But what can you expect when you walk along the shore of a place called "Mud Bay"?

Mud Bay is the inside tip of Boundary Bay. Here, a map might help:

Boundary Bay forms the southern shore of the Fraser Delta. From the tip of the Tsawwassen Peninsula, at Point Roberts (USA), to Kwomais Point across the water, it measures about 13 km. From that same tip to the inner shore, at Mud Bay Station, it's 17 km. (At low tide, it is considerably smaller.)

See that amphipod-like blue-green shape at the top of the bay? That's all mud. And at the interior end, where the Serpentine and the Nicomekl rivers drop silt from the farms of the Fraser Valley, is Mud Bay Station. Here the railway turns to skirt the shoreline on its way to the US, marching straight across a sea of mud to cut the corner. And this is our destination. There are walking and biking paths around the hawk fields, but we are looking for the mud dwellers on the shore.

Boundary Bay is a prime birding spot; Mud Bay may be the best part of it. On this visit, we saw large flocks of red-wing blackbirds (the females have arrived, and they're all singing and chattering at once as they sort out nesting spots among the dry grasses), several great blue herons, a cacophony or two of crows, and a couple of hawks. And that's all before we even got to the shore.

Grey mud, then grey and orange water with birdy sprinkles. Straight ahead, Crescent Beach. It's about 3 PM, but the sun is already low in the southwest.

Most of our photos were silhouettes. These are long-billed dowitchers, and one green-winged teal.

Green-winged teal, much lightened up. I hadn't seen one for years; this time, there were several large flocks.

Long-billed dowitchers. Look closely; the one in front is pulling a worm out of the mud. The little tubes sticking up here and there are worms, too.

Northern pintails, pairing up. The males have the long tail, and the white bib; the females are "normal" ducks.

The railroad trestle bridge across the bay. I liked the way the warm sunlight tinted the mud.

By the way, that's deep stuff. I took one step wrong at the very edge of the rocks, and was immediately up to my ankle in mud. Laurie got stuck the same way for a while; I thought he was going to lose a boot.

On the far side of the tracks, in the dead end of the bay, another large, mixed flock of ducks swam in the river mouth, while dowitchers searched through the mud by the old, rotten fence. Looking closely at our photos, I noticed that most of the pintails sit upright, head high. Almost all the teals in the photos are lying flat, often with their faces in the water.

We usually see gulls and eagles here; only one eagle this time.

Calm before sunset. 

Laurie waiting for me. I was taking photos of coconuts.

Coconuts, again? Tomorrow, tomorrow.

A Skywatch post.

Thunder River viewpoint

On the Sunshine Coast.

We'll see it tomorrow. Rain or shine.

Tomorrow's route in yellow. Two ferry crossings. The next day, in red: one ferry crossing.

And no, I'm not packed yet. That's today's job. That, and delivering my aquarium full of hermits and their friends to be babysat (babysitted? crabsat? critter-sat?).

We hurried; now we wait.

Sunshine Coast, Day two, Leg one: Earl's Cove ferry landing.

The Lower Sunshine Coast is connected to the mainland by two ferries, at the north and south ends. We pay to get there, about $35 for the car, but leaving is free. (If people had to pay to leave, maybe they'd just stay put, move in and put down roots.)

Our route to Vancouver Island included three ferry trips: from Horseshoe Bay to the Lower Sunshine Coast, at Langdale, off again at Earl's Cove, connecting to Saltery Bay on the Powell River peninsula, and then from the town of Powell River to Comox on Vancouver Island. We spent a lot of time at ferry landings.

We took the second sailing at Earl's Cove, getting to the landing at 9:30 AM, and loading at 10:30. An hour to kill, but the morning was cool and there was plenty to see.

Morning shadows, on the way to the ferry.

Earl's Cove.

Waiting for the ferry.

Squiggles on the water.

Unidentified weed.

Hawkweed.

A flowery bush.

Barnacles and reflections.

A handy map.

With mermaid and octopus.

Good to know.

And a saucy robin.

Finally, here she comes!

Our ferry here was the Island Sky, a smallish boat, carrying only 125 cars. (BC Ferries fleet, for comparison.) The trip takes just under an hour.

Next: water, rocks, and lichen.

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