Uncharted

by Kim Brown Seely

  It was a warm late-summer night, still light at a quarter to nine. All Klemtu seemed to be outside after dinner—either pushing a stroller slowly along the cedar-planked boardwalk, or leaning over its rail to drop a line in the cove.

  Near the longhouse a round-faced beefy man in a worn T-shirt stopped to introduce himself. “Joe Robinson,” he said, inquiring where we were from.

  “Seattle,” we said.

  “You’re on the sailboat?”

  We nodded.

  “When I first stepped inside the new big house and saw it, I cried,” he offered, unbidden, his eyes the color of stones. “I thought: This is Klemtu? I couldn’t believe it.”

  Then he turned quickly and entered a ground-floor unit in a yellow prefab structure, its yard strewn with plastic toys, and shut the door.

  Another Robinson, Gary Robinson (our deckhand friend’s cousin), met us at the longhouse, unlocked the door, and let us inside. I’d had no clue why the first Robinson, Joe, would have cried when he first stepped inside the big house, but standing there with Jeff, I got it. Everything smelled of rich, fragrant cedar, heightened by the pleasant, pungent scent of ash and cinders. Two massive cedar logs, each about four feet in diameter, ran the length of the longhouse. They supported a soaring cedar roof; the scale dwarfed us, but the space felt intimate too. It had a honeyed glow. Soft sand covered the floor, and seven rows of gleaming cedar bleachers climbed cedar walls. We sat gingerly in the bleacher seating, spoke softly. At either end of the house stood winged totems, mythical creatures carved from larger-than-life cedar logs. Representing the four family clans—eagle, raven, wolf, orca—they loomed toward a small opening in the cedar ceiling that let in a sliver of light.

  It was a magnificent structure, completed in 2002 in the style of a traditional west coast big house. Until then Klemtu (indeed, most of the remaining First Nations communities) had been without any sort of traditional gathering places. But this building, in homage to the traditional big houses of the Tsimshian First Nations, created a space where for the first time in decades they could begin reconnecting with their past, drawing from their oral culture. Since then they had been trying to bring some of the ancient language, stories, music, and myths back to life.

  We sat rapt while Gary, understated, bristly haired, wearing blue jeans and a blue windbreaker, talked of his family and his father, ancestors and potlatches, the traditions of Klemtu. Then Gary led us to the small “museum” shed next to the longhouse, where artifacts donated to the Kitasoo nation in honor of the new longhouse were being temporarily stored. The treasures included exquisite old coppers used in ceremonial potlatches (elaborate gift-giving feasts practiced by indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast, among whom it was the primary economic system); button blankets; carved masks, including an ornate “bear” mask with a hinged jaw, flat copper nose, and copper eyes.

  * * *

  When I got into bed later and closed my eyes, there was not only the bear mask sprung to life as a live bear crossing a stream but also whales like birds leaping through the sky. It had been years, sadly, since I’d even remembered my dreams. I’d feared that maybe with all the distracted busyness of working life and mom life and wife life, I’d stopped dreaming altogether. But when I awoke the next morning before dawn at a thump on the stern and a crazy fish hitting Heron in midair, I realized I had, in fact, been dreaming…

  It was a dream of a bear fording a stream, of sails filled with wind, and of whales like birds floating through sky.

  The sky was an ocean, the stars were fish, the sails white wings.

  In the midst of it all there floated a shimmery white whale. And I understood it was something I hadn’t encountered since I was a small child who dreamed I could, and therefore believed I could, fly—it was my soul, my innermost spirit—me.

  MEYERS NARROWS

  The barometric pressure had dropped and the wind, colder now, howled. We awoke to epic rain: sheets of water lashing the cabin, steamed-up windows, and a persistent drip, drip, drip: leaks. The cabin was freezing. It felt about forty-five degrees. I scuttled into the galley and swapped out the dish towel we’d been using to soak up rainwater that had begun seeping in through a seam in the starboard window. Jeff had sealed and resealed and sealed that edge again. But the seal refused to hold. And now when it rained, a thin slick of water coursed down the galley to the right of the gimbaled stove, puddling in a fist-sized pond on the cherry-wood shelf.

  It had rained hard all night. So hard that for the first time Heron had sprung several leaks: there was not only water puddling on the shelf and behind the settee but also water dripping in through the snack cupboard, water slipping through one of the deck’s stainless dorade boxes and splashing down, disconcertingly, a few inches from my head in the stern berth, where I slept. I wrung out the wet dish towel, hung it from a ceiling rail to dry, and spread out more towels to catch the new leaks. The situation was disheartening. Jeff revved up the generator and got the floor heaters going, along with a strong pot of coffee.

  It would have been tempting to stay hunkered down in Klemtu, waiting out the weather. But once we dialed in the Garmin’s electronic weather map, it showed the storm moving east. We were headed northwest—so when the rain stopped momentarily around eight that morning, we untied our lines and, beneath dark gray skies, slipped out of friendly Klemtu.

  “Everywhere I look I see a fish jump,” Jeff said wistfully, and it was crazy-true. With salmon leaping in determined circles, their rings widening around us in the fresh cold water, we headed north again.

  * * *

  The Inside Passage north of Klemtu is all humps of forest and rock, dark-treed islands schooled like furry whales in narrow channels. Ominous deadheads (submerged tree trunks and even treetops) and stray logs rode the outgoing tide, their tangle of roots and limbs lurking beneath the surface. Whole islands of kelp floated and swirled in the mist. The wind was blowing ten knots from the southeast, the barometer read 29.9 and falling, the rain started up again. There was no room in this watery maze to put up the mainsail, so we Velcroed our foul-weather gear tight and motored on past Swindle Island. It was work enough, just guiding Heron through all the logs and tangles; each log a potential spear lying in wait to puncture the hull, the kelp strands inches from strangling the propeller.

  Up ahead were more swirling currents. Serious rapids. And Meyers Narrows—a dogleg channel that cut from the inside of Swindle Island to the outside. We’d have to time our passage, riding a flood tide to the channel’s entrance, transiting the narrows on a high tide, then letting an ebb tide push us through. We’d known nothing of flood tides and ebb tides, currents and current tables, high tides and low in our other life. But in Heron life, even in its worst moments, we have absorbed and been absorbed by these things. Even puttering along in the rain, life felt thicker somehow, more immediate, the barriers between us and the world paper-thin.

  We took turns: one at the helm peering from beneath the plastic rain shield through the binoculars, watching for swirling debris; the other standing scout on the bow. It was cold, but our foul-weather gear was snug. The hours were long. We settled into them and, in this way, passed the morning, mountains looming in the distance like gods.

  * * *

  Because we moved so slowly on Heron, I felt the wide curve of the ocean beneath her hull and understood, if only instinctively, the vast healing immensity of the world. It was reassuring, reminding me of all that endures while so much else changes. I began to feel braver, bolder. I wanted to claim the sea—all of it: sky, cloud, light, wind, water—and have it claim us. The deck would be wet with spray, and suddenly we’d see a solitary humpback as big as a bus. The rain would be slipping and sliding down the shrouds, and I’d try to think about things that might be glad for this much rain, which wasn’t always easy. Moss, I’d think. Slugs. Trees. Fungi. Ferns…

  On days like this Jeff and I didn’t talk much. It was a huge relief, having time and space to settle into separate soli
tudes. Jeff busy in his, fiddling with the single sideband radio, splicing a line, polishing a winch, fixing the long list of things on Heron that needed fixing, thinking while doing. Me more or less useless in that department, but expert at daydreaming…

  I might think about the dual nature of marriage, the proximity, the intensity, of fury and love. Even on the calmest boat days, potential disaster lurked around every corner. Granted, Jeff and I had advanced leagues on the boat; we’d grown pretty smooth, the two of us, and were proud of it. But there were still inevitable screwups and flare-ups in such close quarters. The night I’d inadvertently spilled a whole glass of milk on the just refinished cherry-wood table and Jeff had barked: “You f*ck! You f*ck-up!” in front of the boys while milk pooled between the Scrabble tiles and dripped through the table hinges onto the teak floor, and we went to bed without speaking. The time we got into a screaming match over whether to put up the mainsail in Fitz Hugh Sound because Jeff was convinced the wind would die, but I flipped him the bird and put it up anyway—and then, relishing the wind, went on to raise the jib thinking F*ck you, Skipper Jeff! But I forgot to release the jib cleat, nearly ripping the whole side off the boat. The night we got into a fight about I couldn’t even remember what later and were so fed up with each other we stormed off to opposite ends of the boat—there was no place else to go—and stayed there: one of us sleeping in the bow, the other in the stern.

  I might think about the middle years of a sustained marriage: how they can be long and hard. What happens when you’re long past the burning desire of your early days? Some of us crave new love, fall into the age-old game of shedding one relationship for another like caterpillars shed skins. Some of us crave stability. Others, and I’d put myself in this camp—with a husband, who was fearless and loyal enough to play along—crave adventure. Instead of collecting shoes, we lust after experiences. On days like this, even with sheets of rain in my face, I hoped our lives would be fuller, richer, by being out on the far edges of the earth. I wanted to look back in ten or twenty years and think That was the trip of a lifetime! in a grateful way, an astounded way. Mostly, I didn’t want to wait and wait for the right moment only to realize that not only is it never the perfect time but that your window of time can pass.

  We all have our own ways of making it through the world. But as Heron threaded her way through the channels and over the sea, I came to realize that people are together for reasons that are almost impossible to explain; it’s hard to define why certain people are right for each other. I’ve always believed that opposites attract, that when you have two people with very different temperaments, they are often drawn to one another. The difficulties make you stronger—if you survive them. There’s a lot to be said, I think, for warmth and steadfastness and the exhilarating sense that, even after decades, your marriage is still a work in progress.

  * * *

  By early afternoon we’d made it through Meyers Narrows: entering on a flood tide, leaving on an ebb tide. Making our way past thick forests of cedar and hemlock lining the passage, we veered slowly from starboard to port, mindful of the bottom; Meyers was a minefield studded with rocks. The water was deep enough, though, with a mid-day high tide, that we’d be fine if we paid attention. No sooner had we traversed the narrows, however, than the water opened up and the sky darkened, shading from gray to purple-black. By the time our ramen noodles were ready, we had to eat lunch beneath a dripping plastic bimini. We hadn’t seen a single boat all day, not even a fishing boat or a kayaker, and as we ghosted our way north past ragged hemlock jungles beneath a purpling sky, the day felt dark and menacing.

  We emerged at Laredo Channel, its wide mouth open to swells rolling off the Pacific, and were astonished to see the sky ahead begin to lighten. Dramatic patches of lilac and blue were opening and closing and then, out of nowhere, a sun as bright as a flame broke out to the west and burned through. We dared unzip our foul-weather gear a little, but not enough to jinx it—sailors are superstitious. The chance of blue sky, the mere possibility that better weather lay ahead, seemed unbelievable, miraculous really, given the way the day had begun.

  As the green-fringed shoulders of Princess Royal Island hove into view, we faced a sudden decision: Should we try to find the ancient longhouse that Jeff had heard about? The site sounded extraordinary, but the prospect had seemed unthinkable an hour before; we’d put it out of mind entirely with the wind-lashed rain, even though we knew we were nearing the side of the island where Jeff had pinned the rough location. But Princess Royal is a massive place.

  We pulled up our iPad’s Garmin BlueChart and calculated we might just be able to make it across the mouth of the channel in about two hours. We’d explore the coastline, looking to see if there was anything like a break in the trees—a cove, a bay, an inlet—and if so, we’d also check for a remote chance of anchoring safely, then somehow scour the shore for a place where the longhouse might be before continuing on our way and anchoring for the night. It seemed ludicrous, like hunting for treasure with only the vaguest X marking the spot, but life doesn’t offer up much unexpected in these days of GPS locators and trackers and mapping devices and even our own cell phones broadcasting our paths, inch by inch, like snails’ trails.

  We peered ahead at the impenetrable shore: nothing but trees and more trees and a thin band of rock where trees met sea. Even knowing where to look, chances were we’d never find the longhouse.

  There were many things that could go wildly wrong. We could get lost. The boat could float away. We were way beyond cell range. What if we went ashore and ran into trouble? Then what?

  My mind raced while we plowed on through the swells: Princess Royal is immense; how would we find a mostly disintegrated ruin in all those trees? At 869 square miles, the island is the fourth largest in British Columbia; it is located in an extremely remote area, accessible only by boat or air, utterly uninhabited.

  “Aside from the Tsimshiam tribe,” I’d read, which once kept a coastal village on the island but no longer live there, “almost no one has entered the inland rainforest of Princess Royal Island.”

  An air of mystery pervades the place. As the island grew closer, I could see its gleaming base, a fawn shimmer of rock dropping into a cold dark sea and flocks of seabirds wheeling by. There was no beach. Ancient spruce and lacy cedar, toes dug deep between rocks, towered up from the sea and clung there, not only impervious to storms blowing in but thriving; the spruce growing even and tall, the cedars’ branches hung with beard lichen breathing in the Pacific’s pure streaming air.

  Of course, Princess Royal does have wildlife. It is perhaps best known as being one of only two islands (the other is Gribbell Island) that are home to the spirit bear. I took heart from this. We were in range of black bears, grizzly bears, wolves, and wolverines, and finally, after all this, the mythical white bear. Whether we’d see one or not, the fact that we’d made it all this way—that we’d made this happen, on Heron, just the two of us here now—filled my heart with a kind of wild, amazing disbelief.

  LOOKING FOR A LONGHOUSE

  Motoring along the massive curve of Princess Royal Island after crossing the channel, we peered at the trees, iPad in hand. I didn’t have high hopes. But Jeff was on a mission.

  “What do you think?” he said after a few hours, holding the iPad map alongside Heron’s chart plotter.

  I stared at the iPad.

  Looked back at the chart plotter.

  Stared at the iPad map again.

  Peered ahead.

  We were approaching a place where the coastline deviated from the norm. A narrow-waisted peninsula extended slightly into the sound like a thumb, interrupting the island’s endless scrim of trees. Now that we were here, we could see that the spot Jeff had marked with the pilot’s help sat on the inner curve of a small promontory. It was a place we would have ordinarily passed by, a place we would never have noticed. Most of all, it was a place we would never, in our wildest imaginations, have considered going ashore.
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  “Jesus, you think we can make it in there?” I asked doubtfully.

  A rocky spit pummeled with threatening waves rolling in off the channel’s open jaw to the Pacific rose just off the starboard bow. We’d have to round it, see what was on the other side…

  “Let’s at least try,” Jeff said after a moment. “The tide’s in our favor.”

  I didn’t know what to say. As we rounded the tip of the point and pointed Heron toward shore, our chart plotter went blank: the water here was evidently completely uncharted. We’d have no way of knowing what was beneath us—how quickly the shallows shallowed up, or worse, where a hulking rock might lie in wait. Waves of spray burst over the jetty. But none of this would deter us. Dead ahead we could just make out, tucked inside the arm’s inner crook, a long glimmering crescent of white-sand beach.

  Now this was something. A beach this far north was miraculous by any measure. But this one, so hidden, felt like a mystery.

  We both had a feeling we’d arrived someplace charged, somehow out of the ordinary.

  “I think this might be it!” Jeff said.

  “Do you really think we should go in?” I said.

  I wanted to, but I didn’t want to. Maybe this place, so hidden, was meant to remain unseen. And since it was uncharted, we had no way of knowing whether there would be two hundred feet of water—or two feet—beneath us. Heron needed six feet to clear. We hadn’t seen another boat in a day.

  We took in the cove: its inky-blue water, quarter-mile-long beach, white spray crashing on the rocks, backlit by sun. The sun seemed a good omen.