Gwaii Haanas: Hlk’yah G̱awG̱a & G̱andll K’in Gwaay.yaay

Sticking to my journal as a guide, we continue south to other parts of Gwaii Haanas Park including the rest of the Watchman sites. The first would be Hlk’yah G̱awG̱a (Windy Bay) where a recently raised legacy pole stands. The island, Tllga Kun Gwaayaay (Lyell Island) also houses the site of a very important protest where members of the Haida nation blocked logging. There is a documentary about it. There were meals shared between the protestors and the loggers; the Haida inviting them to eat to emphasize that the protest is not against the loggers on a personal level! The protest worked and largely helped achieve the preservation of the land that is now Gwaii Haanas.

26 July 2023 Hlk’yah G̱awG̱a

Slept in & pulled anchor tiredly around 10. Off to Windy Bay under water. Made banana panquacks. Lovely day – shorts! Mooring balled at Windy Bay, paddleboarded to shore where a bunch of kayakers dined. Gordy & Lada were the Watchman.

Lada went fishing for white fish while Gordy told us about the story pole. Sea to mountain the land will be taken care of. He told us stories of raising this pole & showed us the video while we were inside a 2 beam longhouse replica. And rigging stories.

Stories of funds to Haida Gwaii that were used to pay fisherman for halibut that was dispersed to all folks on Haida Gwaii, even non Haida Dean. [He is no an honorary Haida member.] It’s a continual fund & half Haida half folks-who-lived-around are on a board of sorts to approve projects using this Gwaii Trust.

Replicated 2 beam house. Dean the Dentist from Daajing Giids, whose friend’s birthday we celebrated at his home, is the one who painted the (used-to-be) white teeth on the house.

Legacy Pole raised in 2013

A video about the Legacy Pole can be found here: https://parks.canada.ca/pn-np/bc/gwaiihaanas/culture/mat-heraldique-legacy-pole. Below were the explanations we received at the carving that day buuuuuuuut the video features the carver and includes some footage of the carving & raising in addition to the history of course. I wish I recalled more of the rigging details for various tasks but if you visit, make note of the diagrams and techniques found in stories and in the replicated house.

• Eagle
• Watchmen
• The people who watch over the land here
• Dog
• Domesticated dog bones have been found here dating back 14,000 years
• Martin
• The martin runs up the & down poles during earth quakes
• Visitor Human
• Like the Karma crew! Very kind to include visitors
• Abalone Shells
• Shells allude to Chief whose frontal pole was covered top to bottom in them; they glittered from sea
• Supernatural person
• This person creates earthquakes by rattling the pole, rocking it
• Raven
• Protestors/blockade
• From the logging protests, the first arrested being the elders
• Grizzly Bear
• Bones have been found nearby in a cave next to a Haida arrowhead
• Sculpin

Haida print from inside the 2 beam replica. I cannot for the life of me recall the story behind it – if you do please remind me :^)

Walked the trails to a HUGE spruce tree! Apparently 700 or 1000 years old. Laid on the comfy moss & admired for some time before our stomachs stretched for food.

Ran into the tour group & had a chat. Six folks on Atlas, a DeFever 50 steel boat. A man named James who we met captains the charter boat. This trip had folks from NY, San Fran, Anacortes even!

We dubbed the water Haida blue and often use it to chat about the color of the sea to this day

We motored 8 miles, made pesto pasta with salmon from Glenn back at K’uuna. Anchored next to Atlas in 20′. Fiddled with the outboard. Spark plugs changed & gear problem found. Atlas collectively invited us over for wine so that stopped the work. Cut up our mango and a peach. Delicacies to us. We had a lovely chat about fish, crabs, our lifestyle, the area. They shared a tasty dessert & white wine! Shanna lived in the Sea of Cortez for 8 years, cruised on her 42′ boat with kids. [We met up later that year with her in Sausalito where she kindly took us out to eat and lent us use of her washer:]

27 July 2023 G̱andll K’in Gwaay.yaay

Slept innnnn. Then made coffee. Liam delivered it from the sky to the V-berth (in the NASA mug [this was a very exciting thing because that mug is enormous]) and started the bread. I made some brekky sandos & we read all morning. I then he paddled around the rocks which let the swell beat on them, pleasant for our ears but also made for quite a rolly anchorage that morning. We both half-caught waves on the board. Off to Hot Spring Island ~ 1230.

Soaked in the amazing springs. Tuna & Douglas were the Watchman. No history, just pools laid out. Drew, layed, chatted, snacked. Felt amazing. What a view too – especially when a sailboat roved on over & gave a show. Later confirmed it was Jay’s Ericson. 35 (+11″) Ericson. Tuna was quite kind for letting us stay longer as we hung out with the Avoca crew for quite a long time.

Hot spring island :^) You can walk to the colder water on the rocks beyond and swap in and out

Swapped salt water in engine stories. He replaced the boat’s original Universal with a 3GM – previous owner (of the engine) was preppin’ for Vic Maui and was talked into a Beta, had money too, so he sold this one for $2500! Jay was in the Goose Islands (highly recommended). Changed the fuel filter. Annoyed at manually pumping the fuel back in the filter’s cap so he smartly decided to run it sans compression. Opened up the 3 cylinders. 30 seconds. Break for the starter. 30 seconds cranking. Yada yada. Then goes to fire it up GUNK. Then electrical bad starting noises twice over. Battery was fine so he grossly realized he might’ve cranked saltwater into the cylinders from the exhaust manifold. So he pulled the injectors. Yep….WD40 & he flushed them all. The whole system – luckily he had a vacuum. Tried to start it again – no luck. He pulled all lines, injectors, & used rags as plugs. He closed 2 cylinders & tried just one. He ran the engine & indeed got 1 cylinder firing! Then opened the 2nd! He was worried about the third and thought to just leave it there at 2……but he tried anyway & bam all good! Need no help. He was alone too. I asked tongue in cheek if that all took longer than the 1 hour he was begrudging to manually fill the fuel up….yes many times over B) [We are lucky enough to keep running into Jay and stay in touch.]

Another valuable lesson learned vicariously, namely to just accept that your hand will cramp many times over but keep pumping the fuel with your finger.

Motored south about 11 miles to Burnaby. Tried to sail to no avail. Tomorrow Rose Harbour perhaps? Liam sans pants – the new usual. What beautiful layered blue mountains we get to look at. Hecate Strait wide open the other way. Read some crossing blogs from Cape James –> Cape Scott (Winter Harbour) including a funny yet classic tale of cruising about a lost toilet seat 😥 enjoy.

And that was a wrap on the 3rd and 4th Watchman sites. It’s funny thinking back to the people we met in Haida Gwaii. Shanna and Jay mentioned in this blog we would see again. We also met other sailors in Daajing Giids who we would continue to keep running into all the way down the west coast and into the Sea of Cortez – Itchy Feet, Muktuk. And our stowaway Zoe who was at this point bike packing around Haida Gwaii and integrating into the Daajing Giids social scene joined us on the boat near Puerto Vallarta down in Mexico the next year :’) And we keep in touch with Cari the biker we met in Daajing Giids too. It’s a magical place and it’s nice to be reminded of Haida Gwaii through the people we have connected with again.

Jay took us out and taught us to foil a few months later in the Broken Group. Good way to start is be towed on a dink. Then you can entertain the wing foil.