It’s 7 a.m., and six of us are looking for pictographs while cruising along Canada’s British Columbia coast on a small boat. The air is cool, and the still water reflects pines and snowy mountains.
Our guide, Greg Shea of Maple Leaf Adventures, lives on the islands off the British Columbia coast. He won’t say exactly what the red marks on the rock faces symbolize — First Nations people have different opinions about what they signify, and if anybody knows for sure, they’re not telling the general public. One looks like a fish standing on its tail. The pictographs (made with red ochre and oily fish eggs, then sealed with urine) date back perhaps 250 years.
Shea is a fast talker with endless knowledge of the British Columbia coast. While we ponder pictographs, he explains the Grease Trail that First Nations people developed for trading valuable eulachon (also called ooligan or candlefish) oil. They’d transport it inside the hollow tubes of bull kelp sealed with cedar corks.
“You’d put a stick across your back like this,” he demonstrates animatedly, an enthusiastic guide no matter what time of the day or night. “And then you would slide the tubes of your grease onto your stick. And you know, then they would walk. And you’d basically be going through the forest with a stick full of tubes.”
Then, he interrupts himself, saying, “Oh, a merganser!” He seamlessly slips from discussing First Nations culture to the natural world to George Vancouver’s travels and the difficulties of reading the complicated tidal patterns within Desolation Sound.
For nature lovers who enjoy slow-paced adventures and lots of talk about trees, critters, and sea life, cruising Desolation Sound with Maple Leaf Adventures is bliss. Our group of 12 passengers and 10 crewmembers aboard the 138-foot luxury catamaran Cascadia had the extra luck of temperatures in the 60s and low 70s and no rain during our four-night springtime cruise.
What is Desolation Sound?
Desolation Sound Marine Provincial Park is well known to boaters. This area of fjords and islands lies between mainland British Columbia and about halfway up the east side of Vancouver Island. Our cruise started in the Vancouver Island town of Campbell River.
As we wound around uninhabited islands looking for wildlife, snow-capped mountains towered over us. At Desolation Sound’s most dramatic point, the peak of Mount Addenbroke rises 5,200 feet above the water. Our boat floated 2,300 feet from the bottom of the sea.
“It is very awe-inspiring,” said Emily Grubb, our boat’s naturalist. “You feel so small because there’s so much water below you and so much land above you.”
“The beautiful blue color of the water is really special to this area,” Emily Grubb, our boat’s naturalist, said. “It is very awe-inspiring in the sense that you feel so small because there’s so much water below you and so much land above you.” Add in powerful waterfalls and some black bear sightings, and you have an incredible nature break.
During our trip, we were often the only boat visible. But the area gets crowded during summer, when boaters come for the sunny days and warm water. In certain places, Desolation Sound heats up to a swimmable 75 degrees.
Cruising, hiking, and kayaking
Our main activity was cruising around admiring the scenery, either on the Cascadia itself or the two small crafts (called tenders) that took us into places too tight for a deluxe, oversized catamaran. As we sat comfortably on the padded seats of the Auklet and Puffin, Grubb and Shea pointed out trees and wildflowers.
We were a little early for the humpback whales that visit the area in summer. But one day, a pod of graceful and glistening Dall’s porpoises played in the tender’s wake. We also saw Pacific white-sided dolphins, harbor seals, Steller and California sea lions, and two black bears. Binoculars were a must for this trip, especially for safe bear viewing.
The Cascadia carries a fleet of tandem inflatable kayaks. Twice, Grubb took four of us avid kayakers out to see the wilderness at an even more intimate level. We got right on the shoreline of the inlets, where we could see ochre sea stars and watch barnacles in action. We almost tipped our kayak, peering into the water to watch the feather-like appendages sticking out of the holes in barnacles, combing the water for edible microscopic organisms. Curious harbor seals stuck their heads out of the water to stare at us.
We also got a good look at many seabirds. Grubb, a bird enthusiast, is always happy when people hoping to see bears and whales develop an interest in birds.
“It is kind of neat how quickly people kind of jump on the bird train,” Grubb said. “Especially when you start talking about some of their weird characteristics.” We saw plenty of her favorite sea bird, the black oystercatcher, with its long red beak.
Our group also had chances to go for short hikes in the forests of red cypress, Douglas fir, hemlock, and Sitka spruce. There, we saw remnants of 1920s logging operations. A hundred years later, we could still see the holes in gigantic stumps where loggers had driven in springboards to stand on while they worked two-person crosscut saws.
Maple Leaf Adventures’ three-ship fleet
This family-run business based in Victoria runs British Columbia and Alaska cruises on three distinctive boats. The Cascadia is by far the poshest, with a jacuzzi, spacious staterooms, and large lounging areas both inside and out. It even has a helicopter pad for winter heliskiing trips.
Guests can also choose to sail on the Maple Leaf, a 92-foot schooner built in 1904, or Swell, a 1912 tugboat. Each has a very different personality and feel.
“[Guests] go onto the website and they will identify with one of three vessels,” said Shea, who frequently captains the Maple Leaf.
I initially chose the gorgeous tugboat Swell. But the dates didn’t work out, so instead, I wound up on the Cascadia. And it’s hard to argue with luxury.
“For some it’s a little bit uncomfortable on the smaller boats,” Shea told me. “Where Cascadia’s kind of bridging that and bringing that comfort to the wilderness, but also the adventure and the ability for the ship to go into remote places.”
One of the other guests told me that she and her husband had also wanted to cruise on Swell — until they contemplated how his six-foot-plus frame would feel in the cramped confines of the tugboat.
Whichever boat guests choose, traveling with Maple Leaf Adventures is a slow tourism experience. During our five-day trip, the Cascadia only covered 132 nautical miles (151 miles for you landlubbers). Our average cruising speed was 8 knots (9.2 mph).
If you have a voracious appetite for scenery and want to enjoy watching waterfalls and bears, this trip is for you.
