August 20th

August 20^th we have been to Wakeman Sound before. Much of this region is a preserve area.  There is possibly over 100 miles of logging roads crisscrossing the valley.  Much of the logging has happened over probably 75 years or more and the trees are very mature now. 

Entry to Abandoned House

                                                                                                

There is a fertile fishing river in the valley floor with steelhead salmon in abundance along with large river trout.  IT IS PRIME BEAR COUNTRY. 

When the main camp was shut down the story goes that a young couple moved into the old camp and wanted to set up a fish guide and wilderness camp.  When we visited there a number of years ago we were given a tour up the logging road for many miles (it was the short tour).  We thanked him profusely and slipped him some cash for gas and his time.  We promised we would promote his new enterprise.  

Tool Shed

                      THE WINTERS CAN AND ARE GENERALLY BRUTAL IN THESE REMOTE PLACES. 

When they are a well-supported logging show men can survive here.  When deep in the winter, winds trash down the sound at 75miles +++++++and its’ just the two of you, without a large corporation at your backsides.  It not tough, you are on the edge of survival.  When the snow drifts up and under the cabin door and the spray of the salt sea freezes your small skiff (out on a buoy) to a block of ice, enough is enough. It is enough when (the late to bed) in the winter grizzly wants his last meal before he hibernates and it’s you.  Enough is enough.  The grizzlies were at their front door for some time in that winter, it was the nice couples first and last adventure here. 

I think it was about 2 years ago when we went in Wakeman Sound and there was not a lot of evidence that anyone had been there for a long time. The little dock was barely hanging together.  It was very spooky walking up the main road that was growing over.  We spent a lot of time hooting and yelling to scare off bears that could have been around every corner. It was hard to walk past all the old nice beater trucks that had been abandoned beside the road, that in my youth I would have given my eye teeth to have owned in Vancouver. 

This trip the sign at the top of the ramp said “Visitors must report in at the office I km up the road.”  We trekked up the road and sure enough there was the camp.  It kind of weird to start knocking on doors and no one is there. The lights are on and no one’s is home (Penny said that very recently about me). 

New Logging Truck

 

 

We walked back to the “Ravens” and a crew boat comes in with a full box of groceries.  Penny talked to the operator of the crew boat for a while but I think the frozen goods were thawing and he was running for the freezer down the road.  He is on the road building crew working out into the sound on the mountain side.  There was a logging crew working on hard wood tree harvesting (alder).  It was rough in the Sound on the way back to Shawl Bay.  Our little boat just slices through the chop. What a treat. 

We could make out the rock drilling high on the mountain for the placement of explosives.  Even from a great distance we could see the granite dust swirling around the new road head. 

We stopped on the return trip and checked out the prawn traps, not a harvest worth the pull.  The one thing that is obvious is how warm the water has become up here, the depth sounder has a temp gauge, and it has been showing at about 65 degrees F (in the REAL DEGREES).  The world is really changing up here from a climate stand point, as last year at this time if you did not have good heat on in the boat (like an old fashion but new) oil stove you could not get the boat dry and warm.