2014/06 Haida Gwaii trip - Queen Charlotte |
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Thursday June 26th
It was cool and sunny as we drove back across the island, past Tlell and Skidegate, and onto our last piece of its highway system, the road into Queen Charlotte “City”, actually more of a village. We were thinking of camping on the west coast, so we continued through to check out the other end of the Queen Charlotte main logging road and were disappointed to find that access was only allowed if we waited for a logging truck to come along and followed it in.
We went back to the village and asked the people at the visitors centre which logging roads were open, but they just gave us a number to call, difficult as our phone had no service on the island. Sandie was looking for halibut so we had lunch at the Oceanview Restaurant. The village is perhaps the biggest place on Haida Gwaii and it certainly has the biggest commercial district. It’s on the island’s south coast, looking across the Skidegate Channel to Moresby Island and its mountains. There were a few seagulls here but still outnumbered by ravens.
After some shopping we gave up on the west coast for now and took a very poor industrial road along the coast to Kagan Bay. The road ended at a large flat area, once a
loading dock for logs perhaps. Now it seemed to be an informal shooting gallery so we retreated to one of the campsites we’d passed. We found the perfect site just above the beach with a view over the channel. We hiked along the beach until we met deep water; it was a beautiful sunny afternoon with views of mountains in all directions, only marred by the pops, bangs, and booms echoing around the bay.
We cooked burgers over a fire and sat out in the warmth until heavy rain rolled in.