2014/06 Haida Gwaii trip - Moberley Camp |
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In the afternoon we drove further into the logging network, on roads that looked to be active and in better condition. We saw a few maintenance workers building new roads and a bridge, but no logging trucks. We passed along Skidegate Lake and looked in on Mosquito Lake, a scenic spot with a mountain backdrop but little to do without a boat. It was also a bit buggy but not with mosquitoes; the name comes from the logging of spruce trees there back in WWII to supply frames for de Havilland Mosquito aircraft.
We came out at Moberley Camp, a flat rocky area at the head of Cumshewa Inlet. The inlet was home to a number of Haida villages until they were wiped out by smallpox. This poster shows the Cumshewa village in its heyday; the boxes on the mortuary poles contain dead bodies.
For a while the site housed a fish cannery, and then a logging camp. There was even a railway, bringing logs down from Skidegate Lake. Now there was just an enormous parking area with some logging gear and some trucks and boat trailers.
There were some campsites back in the woods but there was no one around so we just camped on the waterfront, looking out towards Newcome Peak. Our only company was a yacht in the 
inlet and the birds, killdeer among the rocks and rufous hummingbirds in the trees. It’s amazing how tiny hummingbirds can fly over fifty miles of ocean.