Wheelhouse Rambler Getaways (Day 4)

Day Four:

After the standard robust breakfast of waffles and bacon, we spend our last day navigating through Seymour Narrows. Here, we stop at Maud Island to climb a small hill overlooking the Narrows, where infamous Ripple Rock was blasted to kingdom come in 1958. From 1875 until blast-off, the Narrows and it’s infamous rock were considered the most treacherous stretch of ocean in North America. The rock pierced hundreds of hulls, sinking 119 ships and taking 114 souls before its two peaks were blown up with 1,375 tonnes of dynamited – the worlds largest non atomic blast. The there it is: the rainbow, arching out from one island to another ahead of us. It’s a grand finale. As Robert Kennedy Jr. once said about the inside passage, this vast unspoiled region is one of nature’s masterpieces. When we pull into Menzies Bay, we know we’ve explored only a tiny corner of it and still have only a vague sense of the tremendous biological diversity in our own backyard: the vast tracts of rainforests carpeting this coast; its great rookeries of sea lions; trees white with bald eagles congregating for the salmon migration; the fjords and deep inlets rivaling the splendor of Norway’s saw-toothed borders. Billy Proctor’s words ring in our ears: “Never been out of the province in my life. I dread the thought of having to go someplace.” And why would he bother?