Clayoquot Sound wolf print. Photo by John Schaefer

Although it was late in the day, it didn’t take John long to set up a kitchen and get one of his famous gourmet meals on the stove. While he was attending our meal, I noticed a gentleman approaching from the far end of the beach. Turns out he was a locale fisherman staying in the small cabin partially hidden in the woods. He welcomed us to the beach but also wanted to pass on the warning that a wolf had recently been getting a bit bold and curious about paddler’s camps. He declined our invitation to join us for dinner, but wished us a pleasant stay and strolled back to his cabin.

His warning brought back memories of my first visit to this area with my wife Theresa. This was back in 2000 and that year, just weeks before our trip, a paddler was attacked during the night by a wolf. I clearly remember our trepidation about spending the night on the very beach he had been drugged from his tent during the night and bit on the head. As it turned out that was the lease of our worry. (You can read the rest of that epic paddle in the article I wrote for Sea Kayaker Magazine) National Geographic ran an article on the island as well as publishing photos of the wolves. Although I’ve been back to the area a half dozen times, the closest I’ve come to the wolves is seeing their tracks near the tide line.

No one particularly liked the idea of a marauding wolf, but after making sure we had a spotless camp, we passed the night with no incidents. A search of the beach the next morning showed that we had had no visitors during the night.

Lunch on Whaler Islet. Photo by Steve Weileman

Regardless of the calm just off our beach, Brabant Channel was occasionally showing signs of white caps, but as this was an experienced group of paddlers, we set our sites on the off shore island to explore. It was a bit of a slog to get out there but we made our way to Whalers Islet which is located just NE of Bartlett Island, an reserve with landings prohibited except by permission by the Ahousaht tribe.

What a gorgeous little island. The sand was much finer that back at our camp, and the water was tropical in its clarity and color if not temperature. We quickly pulled our kayaks from the surf and spread out on the dark volcanic rocks to soak up the warmth.

Bleeding Heart (Dicentra formosa). Photo by Steve Weileman

A leisure lunch followed by a bit of a siesta was eventually interrupted by the tide and we reluctantly turned our bows back toward our base camp.