Article Four - Kayaking The Broken Group

by Anne Mullens
Seattle Post-Intelligencer May 2003

The water was calm and the group quiet as we paddled our kayaks across emerald waters along a rocky shoreline. “Look, 11 o’clock off your bow! A bald eagle in that tree,” broke the silence. “Oh, eagle schmeagle,” we joked. We’d already seen more than a dozen that morning alone.

Welcome to the Broken Group Islands in Barkley Sound off the West Coast of Vancouver Island, where wildlife is so abundant it almost becomes blasé.

With more than 100 islands and rocky outcrops scattered like broken puzzle pieces across 25 square nautical miles of Pacific Rim National Park, the Broken Group is remote and beautiful paradise for sea kayakers of all abilities. Novices can spend days paddling comfortably among calm waters of the inner islands while experts can thrill to the surging swells of the Pacific Ocean on the outer windswept islands. Throw in a rich array of wildlife, teeming inter tidal life and centuries of Native Indian history, the kayakers’ paradise is complete.

Except for one problem: it can be a hassle to organize and get there.

That hassle factor, in fact, kept me from returning to the Broken Group for more than 17 years. About 200 miles northwest of Victoria, Barkley Sound is at the end of more than two hours of gravel logging roads. When the road ends, it is still a good six miles of open, often challenging water to cross before you get among the shelter of the islands. It can take more than a half-day’s paddle to reach a designated campsite. Add on the preparation it takes to plan meals, rent kayaks, load the vehicle, organize camping equipment and prepare to safely tackle a wilderness environment, it was simply too onerous an undertaking for me to return.

No wonder I was caught by the allure of joining a three-day, hassle free weekend trip that would take me back to a place I loved. I felt almost reckless, knowing I was going to virtual wilderness, throwing together a small carry-on bag of kayaking gear and a few comfortable clothes to change into at the end of the day. But Jeff Hunter-Smith of Island Adventure Tours of Victoria guaranteed I could leave everything else to him. They’d pick me up in Victoria,  provide the equipment, food and transportation, a support boat that would ferry us to and from the Broken Group, and a professional kayak guide who would lead us through the islands. A final, definite attraction (for this 40-ish body) was the fact that instead of camping on hard ground each night, we would be ferried back to Bamfield to sleep in comfort beds at a local bed & breakfast.

Leaving Victoria, we arrived Friday afternoon after a 3 ½ hour drive to the rustic village of Bamfield, a creaky scenic hodgepodge of docks, wooden boardwalks and funky cottages surrounded by deep green coastal rain forest, rocky prominences and white sandy beaches. First settled in 1902 as the terminus of the transpacific cable line, the first road to Bamfield opened in 1963. It still looks like a picture-perfect preservation of an old-fashioned fishing village.  Marked by a narrow ocean inlet that divides the village into two, Bamfield’s west side is only accessible by boat.

John Mass, of Broken Island Adventures, met us on the government dock with his customized 27-foot work boat, the Grunt Sculpin, and ferried us across to his clean and restful B&B on the west side. Mass and his wife Sheryl are both refugees from the hectic urban life of Vancouver where John sold real estate and Sheryl French lingerie until they packed it in seven years ago for a life in shorts and t-shirts, renting kayaks, leading diving tours and nature tours of the island, and catering to guests in their B&B.

After a quick snack, we changed into kayaking gear and met on the grass by the boathouse where certified kayak guide Don Barrie fitted us to our kayaks – sleek fibreglass models, not the typical slow plastic boats so common for rentals. He gave us a quick dry land run-through, emphasizing safety and comfort and showing us how to conserve energy with the most efficient stroke. Out on the water for a two-hour paddle down Bamfield inlet, Barrie fine-tuned our technique so we all would get the most out of our paddle in the Broken Group the next day. “I like to make sure people get the kinks out and get comfortable while I get a good feel for everyone’s abilities before we tackle the Brokens,” says Barrie.

I’ve kayaked dozens of times, even had a professional lesson, but I often suffer recurring shoulder soreness and fatigue in a kayak. Barrie took one look at my stroke and diagnosed my problem: I’m a small women and my stroke was too long. “In at the foot, out at the hip,” he said, shortening my stroke to no more than two feet in length.  He also noted that I tended to sweep too much, pulling with a horizontal stroke across the water, rather than dipping in perpendicular and closer to the boat. Making these two simple changes, the stress on my shoulder vanished – I could paddle for hours without fatigue. After a delicious seafood Bouillabaisse whipped up by Hunter-Smith in the kitchen of our B&B, it was off to bed to be ready for an early start to the islands the next morning.

The day dawned misty and overcast, but the air was warm and Mass assured us it would be sunny by noon. While we ate breakfast, the kayaks were loaded on the roof of the boat – it can take up to 10 singles and doubles – and then we were off.

Normally it would take at least five hours of paddling to cover the 7 miles from Bamfield to the Broken Group, first crossing Trevor Channel with its strong tidal current to the narrow Deer Group of islands and then across the much wider and windier Imperial Eagle Channel. In the high speed boat it would take about 20 minutes, but Mass took a circuitous route to show us local points of interest such as the site of an ancient Nuu-Chah-Nulth village, newly named a heritage site, where more than 1,000 people lived pre-contact until they were massacred in a battle with marauding Makah from the Olympic Peninsula.

 At the outermost islands of the Broken Group high winds and winter storms have gnarled and twisted the red cedar trees into Bonsai-like beauty. We watched the antics of a large colony of Stellar and California sea lions, a playful harbor seal, hundreds of cormorants and more soaring bald eagles, but the water was a bit too rough for our group to wet launch. Mass took us a few kilometres into the center of the islands to disembark in calmer waters. With a rendezvous set for 4 pm, Mass and the boat returned to Bamfield and we set off exploring the shorelines.

            So began hours of idyllic paddling among the emerald green waters – in sun as Mass had so rightly predicted. The intertidal zone along the islands’ shores were teeming with life: blue bat stars, brilliant orange sun stars, magenta and red sea stars, tawny sea perch, lacy white eggs of herring roe on eel grass, ghostly sea anemones. Bald eagles were our constant companions, in tree tops,  on rocks right in front of us, soaring over head. The shores of the islands reveal centuries of wear and tear where sea and wind has worked into weaknesses among the igneous rock, carving numerous caves, sea arches and pillars of stone called sea stacks.

            We lunched on shore in a quiet lagoon in Jaques Island, right beside an ancient Aboriginal fish trap – a wall of stones like a cofferdam that trapped fish with the receding tide. There were at least three fish traps in the lagoon and we later learned they were at least 1,000 years old. At one time, 10,000 Nuu-Chah-Nulth lived among the marine riches of the Broken Group and everywhere is evidence of their past – deep shell middens, foundations of old long-houses and the stone fish traps. More than 100 culturally significant historic sites still remain, including remnants of early white settlers such as dozens of shipwrecks, abandoned mines and early logging claims.

            We beached again on Gibraltar Island, and after an exploration of its sandy beach, tidal pools and wooded trails, we got back in the kayaks to be picked up offshore at 4 pm by Mass in the Grunt Sculpin. A quick 20 minute ride across the now windy and choppy channels and we were back in Bamfield to explore the funky boardwalk or soak in the ocean view hot tub on the B&B deck before feasting on fresh oysters and another seafood medley.

            While two in our group decided to stay ashore the next day to hike around Bamfield, I could hardly wait to get back out on the water Sunday morning. It was another day of scenic paddling among misty isolated coves and islands, marvelling over marine life and watching eagles dive. I could have done it for days. But one of the joys of this wilderness weekend getaway was once back in Bamfield it took only seconds to pack my small bag. By mid afternoon we were back on the road and in Victoria by dinnertime.

If You Go:

Island Adventure Tours weekend Broken Group expeditions run from May through September. Pickup is in Victoria at 9 am on Friday, arriving in Bamfield just after noon. On Sunday, guests leave Bamfield at 3 pm arriving back in Victoria by 6:30 pm.

Cost: $649 per person, includes return transportation from Victoria, two nights waterfront accommodation, all meals, kayak equipment, certified kayak guide and support boat transportation.

Accommodation:  Tour guests stay at the Bamfield Adventure Tours bed and breakfast or in cottages at Mill’s Landing on the West Side of Bamfield, accessible by water taxi.