Sea Level II has been in Masset for a few days now and will
be here for a few more.
Daybreak has taken some guests out fishing nearby and Karen
Fisher has joined us on Sea Level II.
As the possession limits for different types of salmon and
halibut are quite low we don’t want to do our fishing too early and not be able
to fish down the west side of Haida Gwaii. The guests aboard Daybreak will be
flying home with their catch which resets their possession limits.
Daybreak will be doing a crew change on Friday, July 7 after
which we will start heading west towards Langara Island and down the west coast
of Haida Gwaii.
So, Kim, Karen and I have stayed in town and have been
exploring the north island (Graham Island) in a car we have rented.
Yesterday we went to a town south of Masset called Port
Clements which was quite delightful.
Port Clements borders a large bay internal to Graham Island that
is connected to the ocean via Masset Sound. It’s roots are fishing and logging
and they have built a very nice museum that highlights their heritage.
Just outside of Port Clements is a trail that leads to the
site where a very unique Golden Spruce tree used to be.
In 1997 a disgruntled inhabitant went out to this unique
tree and cut it down which, as you can imagine, created a huge uproar with
everyone especially the indigenous people in the area. They have since grafted
seedlings to the remnants of the old tree and are growing new seedlings which
they have planted in various protected locations so the tree will be preserved.
The walk in to the site where the golden Spruce tree was
located is through an old growth forest and the trees there are absolutely
massive. I’ve attached some photographs with Kim and/or Karen in them for scale so you
can see how large they are.
One tree in particular stood out in that viewed from one
direction it looked just like a normal large tree but when viewed from a
vantage point 90° to that you can see how inclined the tree is.
It looks to be 20° to 30° out of plumb and I can only
imagine what kind of root structure it must have to keep it standing!
Below are some photos of our hike to the Golden Spruce and the Museum in Port Clements
