Port Neville, A historical Port in a Storm

Every trip through the Inside Passage going to and from SE Alaska is different, and most often never what those who ply these waters expect.  A few years ago, while sailing to Glacier Bay and back to Portland, the beauty of the landscape with its snow covered mountains plunging down to the blue-green of the water, wildlife greeted us each day as we sailed and sometimes, motored through the inlets, channels and bay of the passage.   We enjoyed dolphins, orcas, humpback whales, bears and even a wolf or two as we passed slowly by them. 

Sometimes after departing in late May for SE Alaska, we would encounter gale, after gale, followed by rain after fog, fog with rain along with more wind. All in all, not a great way to enjoy the beauty of B.C. and SE Alaska. Short days, lonely villages and foggy inlets offered us an insight into the people who have inhabited and those who now inhabit these northern waters as we sought a welcoming anchorage.  Some encounters with the locals were just a wave of the hand or maybe a quick cup of coffee while others…well you decide dear reader… 

Johnstone Strait offered us more gales and short seas from four to eight feet, as we battled the effects of the westerlies colliding with the ebbing tide currents that only allowed us to make 10 to 15 miles a day, before the constant pounding had us looking for the closest protected cove or inlet.  On that trip, day four had the winds blasting up to 50 knots driving the seas to more than eight feet, we decided instead of continuing into Port McNeill on Vancouver Island’s side of the strait, we decided head into Port Neville, on the mainland side instead.  As we gingerly entered the somewhat protected waters of the inlet and approached the government dock in 30 kt wind, we were met by two of the “costal colonials” (as they call themselves) who took the lines from Becky, as I let the wind push Autumn Days against the dock and the costal colonials making us fast to it. 

Now being the overly friendly person that my wife Becky says I am, I began to engage the colonials in conversation about living in a lonely desolated area of British Columbia.  Where upon Chet McCarthy invited us up to his cabin near the general store that has been closed since 1960 and of course the invite included Ron Swart who lived by himself across the inlet. Becky had some work related project to do, so off I went for coffee. 

Anyone who knows when three, let’s say over 60 gray haired men get together to talk… ok, the bull session begins.  For the next two hours we swapped stories, which some I suspect were a little on the tall side.  Ron was born just an “inlet down”, as he put it, was the chief engineer for a large BC mill for a number of years and retired after he closed the plant down five years before.  When asked if he had a wife, Ron said, “well, the first one ‘accidentally’ eat poison mushrooms and then the second one somehow did too” but he said his third wife had moved to the inlet property with him that his family had bought a “bit ago” and began to develop it.  Unfortunately, wife number three had too many scares on the violent waters of Johnstone Strait and after the last stormy misadventure in a small boat, left, not to return.  That was Ron’s story… however, I suspect that maybe she’d heard about the wild mushrooms that grew in the area.

Chet’s wife on the other hand was off for a couple of weeks on the “ M/V Coastal Mission” a boat that plies the waters of Northern BC and SE Alaska preaching the Gospel to small communities along the way.  But before she left on the trip, she had made sure that Chet had oatmeal cookies “to share with weary boaters”.  Chet and his wife are caretakers for Coastal Mission who lease the 66 acres of the Hanson homestead.  After five generations the Hanson family still owns the log built store and 5 bedroom log house.  Some family members are buried in a small family plot on the property.  

Ron had been coming over to get a couple of 1×12 boards to fix the door in his greenhouse that the night before that a black bear had broken into.  It seems that Ron shares his property on the other side of the inlet, with a black that was injured in a fight with a grizzly and who apparently likes to sleep on the path to his house that leads up from his dock.  (There are no roads on that side of Johnston Strait, all transportation is by boat or float plane)

Chet cautioned us about the bears, wolfs, cougars and other wildlife in the area.  Chet keeps a large part of the property mowed so that he doesn’t come upon any critter unexpectedly, although that didn’t help when Chet shot a grizzly as it was trying to get into the cabin.  When he reported it to the wildlife people, they sent someone out from Vancouver three days later to interview him, then fined him $500.00 for moving the bear from his front porch of his house.  It didn’t matter that they couldn’t come right away due to storms on Johnstone Strait and he and his wife would have to live with the dead bear and any animals that would come to feed on the bear.  Ignorance of the law about not moving the critter until wildlife officials inspected it is no defense, as Canada has strict laws when it comes to guns and wildlife.  The ever helpful neighbor from across the inlet, Ron helped move the bear was then fined $150.00 for helping Chet.

While listening to Ron and Chet talk about the experiences that they and others have had on Johnstone Strait and their inlet proved enlightening.  We heard of the large powerboat that smashed into the pilling on the dock so hard that it left a fender stuck so high up in the pilling that the skipper almost drowned when he tried to retrieve it and fell into the water.  Then there was the time that the sipper was yelling so hard at his wife as they were docking that once docked, she went up to Chet’s house to borrow his cell phone (no landline or electricity) and called a float plane to take her back home.  Keep that one on your mind the next time you yell at your wife, I know that this writer will.

While walking around the Hanson property, we came across the remains of floating logging rafts.  Due to the inaccessibility of ways to haul the timber to the mills, the loggers would build small communities on log rafts and move them from inlet to inlet as they fell the trees, skid them to the water and formed log booms to float them to the mills. Some rafts were just a bunk house, cook shack and equipment shed, while others housed families that used the cook shack for school.  These small floating communities are still being found all through BC and Alaska harvesting trees, fish or a mining operation.

Tales of boats in trouble entering the inlet looking for help or as we did, just to get out of a storm, tales of finding a skiff with no one in it, (Ron’s third wife?) bears fighting on the beach or better yet, there seems to be a cross dressing grizzly in the area with orange lipstick.  Hey, I’m just reporting it, and I didn’t make it up.  The grizzly found a can of orange marking paint and decided to bite into it exploding all over his face…that’s one I’d like to have had a video of.

As Becky and I motor sailed up and down the inside passage, we kept running into interesting Coastal Colonials, First Nations people, and Alaskans.  We learned their history and gained just a little local knowledge that has helped us through some very challenging situations.  Best of all we are not only learned about the people and places, but we gained a lifetime of adventure each day.