Why We Need Protected Areas

February 28, 2011 9:37 PM

Around the Coast Mountains The first part of my trip in 2010 was a kayak journey up the Inside Passage from Richmond, BC to Prince Rupert, BC... I only made it halfway in 2010, which was still quite a trip though! Next summer I plan to continue the kayak expedition and maybe start the bike ride back down the other side. MarkBC started his trip in Vancouver, British Columbia in June 2010, and ended his trip that August at Port Hardy, on the northern tip of Vancouver Island, after traveling along the Inside Passage. He traveled by inflatable kayak, and took plenty of interesting photos of wildlife along the way. He camped on the beach most of the way.

The Coast Mountains region supports a wide diversity of ecosystems and landscapes because of its varied geography and the meeting of a moist maritime climate from the west with a polar continental climate from the east. All along the length of our left hand border, the coastal areas are divided from the interior by a continuous and almost impenetrable mountain range. Few roads cross it. Only ten rivers manage to cut through it. What binds it all together is the forests, the wildlife and the waterways.

posted by KokuRyu (16 comments total)

Great photos! Thanks!
posted by tomswift at 9:43 PM on February 28, 2011

In the Summer of 2006, an amazing friend of mine, Jon Walpole, solo-paddled the outside passage, from Prince Rupert to Port Hardy, took some amazing photos, and wrote an article about it. I'm quite sure he'd agree with this FPP's subject line. By all accounts, this is an amazing part of the world, and an intimate way to experience it.
posted by dylanjames at 9:58 PM on February 28, 2011

That was wonderful. Nice being able to just scroll through them.
posted by bonobothegreat at 10:04 PM on February 28, 2011

Fantastic photos - I am so lucky to live in this beautiful province!
posted by Bron-Y-Aur at 10:05 PM on February 28, 2011

Some of best memories as
a teen was sailing in these waters
with my family. These photos brought
it all alive again...sigh
posted by quazichimp at 10:09 PM on February 28, 2011

Wonderful post.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 11:21 PM on February 28, 2011

Thank you for posting this. I live in Vancouver and sometimes I forget that these kind of places are actually so close by. I just love this image, it reminds me of growing up in Squamish in the '70s back before Whistler's influence took over. Out on the Howe Sound in dad's boat as a child in this kind of weather feeling very far away from just about everything imaginable. Beautiful, and all of this should be protected.

So much pressure now to develop, develop, develop and the powers that be have always treated this province as though there were another fresh one 3 miles offshore once we use this one up.

And, slightly off topic though related there is an amazing book about a trip an American writer named Edward Hoagland took in the '60s threw BC's north interviewing long time residents before the new industrialization changed everything.
Notes From The Century Before and I can't recommend it enough.
posted by Phlegmco(tm) at 11:38 PM on February 28, 2011

ooooo, this is beautiful. this is why I love to live here, this is why I love our coast.
posted by seawallrunner at 11:43 PM on February 28, 2011

Sorry; 'through' BC's north....
posted by Phlegmco(tm) at 11:49 PM on February 28, 2011

I'm a Vancouver native living in Berlin for the time being. This made me more than a little homesick.
posted by vansly at 12:56 AM on March 1, 2011

See also the documentary Paddle to Seattle, about kayaking from Juneau to Seattle. Currently streaming free on KCTS9 Reel NW.
posted by lantius at 3:00 AM on March 1, 2011

Good to know he had a friend with him some of the time.
This is just so, so, good. I love the PNW and hope to get back there again one day though I think I am probably a little too old to travel in this style and I don't think I could get Mrs adamvasco into a kayack on open water! Some of these pics are outstanding.
posted by adamvasco at 3:09 AM on March 1, 2011

That has to be one of the most beautiful places in the world.

Sometimes I think humans don't deserve this planet.
posted by fourcheesemac at 3:45 AM on March 1, 2011

Those terrific photos are making me sooo homesick. Thanks for the post.
posted by acheekymonkey at 5:24 AM on March 1, 2011

Moving back to Ontario was such a difficult thing for me to do. I'd been living in Vancouver for 10 years, dabbling in hiking and climbing more and more as the years went by. Easy things like climbing The Chief (not up the cliff, though, taking the back way. And just a random pic found on the internet), hiking Shannon Falls, camping anywhere, travelling around Vancouver Island and the Gulf Islands in all of their amazing glory and danger.

Yup, homesick.

Thanks for the post. This man has made quite an achievement and I'm glad he chose to share it.
posted by ashbury at 6:14 AM on March 1, 2011

I just like the fact that he knows the name of pretty much every living organism he took a photo of.
posted by KokuRyu at 6:27 AM on March 1, 2011