Port Hardy/San Josef Bay

I didn’t have anything planned for this day. While on yesterday’s orca trip I spoke with a few people to see what they were doing. No real leads there. I had decided to walk the estuary trail in Port Hardy, it’s not very long but the possibilities abound of seeing all sorts of wildlife.

I got up early and took off on the Quatse River trail. The variety of birds is amazing, all sorts of sea birds, land birds and raptors. I saw several juvenile bald eagles just sunning themselves and watching the area for food no doubt. Once you get to the edge of town the trees show up like a wall. If you go off the trail the moss becomes a thick blanket on the ground. There’s no way you can go by the wives’ tale that moss grows on the north side of the tree, they are covered with moss all the way around.

I stopped at the local visitor’s center for an idea or two for the day and was directed to Cape Scott Provincial Park, San Josef Bay in particular. It was a 70km drive, ~45 miles, on gravel roads put in place for/by the loggers. Even though it was Saturday there were still a few full logging trucks you wanted to stay away from. It took 1 ½ hours to do the 45 miles as you only averaged 30 mph. That’s where metric is good, I was doing 50 km/hr so I didn’t feel like I was going so slowly.

All along the way was a patchwork of forest. Every few miles there were signs saying when the area was logged and reforested. Only once or twice on this drive did I see a recently logged area. I couldn’t believe the devastation! I have never been in a war zone, I’ve only seen them in news clips. This looked like a war zone; tree stumps ripped out of the ground, limbs scattered in every direction with just small shrubs and grasses still growing. It hurt to look at it. It made me think of the car wreck on the side of the road, you don’t want to look but you look anyhow. Fortunately from looking at the other areas that had been previously harvested the logging companies realize that they have to ‘reforest’ to keep forests for future harvests.

Once I got to the end of the road, which got narrower as I was going along, I had another 1.5 mile hike to San Josef Bay. It was through more of the forest. The smells of the forest and mosses are very rich. Once on the beach I smelled the sea. The beach stretched for over a mile. Since it’s a hike to get there and the beach is so huge it seems empty. I saw 3 – 4 campers on the edge of the beach tucked along the forest. There were also a couple dozen day tourists like me just taking in the scene. From here the next piece of land you could see is across the Pacific Ocean about 4,000 miles away.

There are a number of sea stacks along the beach. They are the remnants of the erosion of the beach. The sand and soft rock eroded from the pounding surf and these stacks remained. There is all kinds of life on the stacks; from grasses and shrubs to full grown trees. In the low spots on the stacks are tidal pools with anemones and other sea life. When I was there at a low point in the tide these pools were about 8’ above the surf.

Thank you for stopping by.

Mark