Grizzlies, Gales and Giant Salmon. Pat Ardley

hand from working the throttle for twelve gruelling hours. We finally tied up at the government wharf in Port Hardy and stumbled up the dock.

      What kind of life had I gotten myself into?

      First Days in Sunshine Bay

      I survived the epic boat trip to Port Hardy, and we went on to Vancouver, where we could have some fun and buy supplies for our new life spending the winter on our own in Rivers Inlet. And here we were, three months later, waking up for the first time in the cabin we rented from the elderly fisherman, Jack Rendle. George and Jack had agreed on the rent for the winter. George would build a counter with a sink and taps and shelves underneath. That was our rent. At that time, there was no kitchen sink, but we had very limited groceries so having no kitchen sink didn’t bother me. This was our journey! We were on our own! And whatever didn’t kill us outright, would only make us stronger. Right?

      There was frost on our sleeping bag that first morning. My clothes were warm from being tucked under my pillow the night before, but it still hurt to climb out of our warm nest so I dressed quickly in the stinging air. The sun was shining and the outside air was brittle and clear. January in Rivers Inlet with no central heating and no electricity was going to be a challenge.

      The day before, we had flown into Dawsons Landing just hours after the freight boat had dropped our belongings off there. Everything we bought while we were in town was tied into a ten-foot skiff that was left sitting on the store’s dock. Lucky, the storeowner, was not pleased with us because amongst our supplies we had boxes of groceries in the boat. His actual words to us were, “Either shit or get off the pot.” Which I assumed meant that if we wanted freight dropped at his dock, we should have bought our groceries from him. We paid a freight charge to him and hoped we could continue to do business. We unloaded all of the cartons and bags and a twenty-five-horsepower Johnson outboard engine. George put the plug in the bottom and then pushed the empty boat into the water. He learned at Addenbroke to always check for the plug in the bottom because three men, probably talking too much, once lowered the skiff into the water far below the wharf and quickly scrambled to lift it again as it started to sink. He hooked the motor up and we loaded some of the goods back in and headed to the cabin that was tied to a standing boom in Sunshine Bay. A standing boom is a series of logs tied together and to another set of perpendicular logs called “stiff legs” that act like a hinge to keep the floats away from the shore as the tide goes up and down. We unloaded the freight at the cabin and headed back to Dawsons to collect the rest of our gear.

      There was a two-inch black plastic water line coiled up behind the cabin and George wrangled it to shore while walking along the stiff leg behind the house and up the hill about thirty feet to a natural little pond. After covering the end of the pipe with a chunk of one of my nylon stockings, he weighted the end of the pipe down low in the water with rope and a rock and scrambled back down and across the log to the float. Then he sucked on the end of the pipe to kick-start gravity to carry the water down to the cabin. After he was finished spitting out a few squirmy, buggy-type pests, the water finally arrived. He jammed the pipe onto the hose that was sticking out of the back of the house and water spluttered out of the tap into the bathroom sink. Even with the tap turned off, water still dripped into the sink. This was lucky because it kept the water moving overnight, which was just enough to keep it from freezing in the line. We weren’t so lucky with the toilet though: overnight the water froze solid in the bowl.

      George got the oil stove working while I cleaned the tiny one-and-a-half-room cabin that had a bathroom behind a curtain, which was actually a step up from the door-less toilet cubby we had recently been using at the resort. I made the bed by zipping together the two sub-zero sleeping bags that we had traded for George’s design and drawing skills when he designed an office extension for an outdoor-equipment shop in Vancouver. We had two Aladdin lamps that were our only light in the late afternoon and evening. We had water and a little heat plus our love to keep us warm. We were happy.

      That first night, the oil stove had quietly slowed and finally stopped during the pitch-black evening and we decided to climb into our warm and cozy sleeping bags and deal with it in daylight. In the morning, George took the carburetor apart and cleaned the firebox and got rid of quite a bit of dirty grease and managed to get the oil flowing again. He turned the oil stove up and put the kettle on for coffee. Then he went in and chipped through the ice in the toilet. Once I started moving around, I could feel the heat coming from the stove and was warmed in my soul again when I heard the water start to boil.

      We didn’t have a fridge, but we didn’t have trouble keeping things cold. We just stored them at the far end of the cabin, away from the stove. There wasn’t a lot of fresh produce to keep cool anyway. The freight boat Tyee Princess delivered groceries to Dawsons Landing every two weeks and there was never much produce to choose from. We had root vegetables, cabbage, apples and oranges. The rest of the vegetables and fruit were from cans. We also ate a lot of brown rice, which was easy to ship, store and cook and was full of nutrients. I could make a fresh healthy loaf of bread though. George still called it a brick of bread. It didn’t make a very good sandwich. Well, maybe an open-faced sandwich.

      Shortly after we settled into Jack’s cabin, a friend of ours came for a visit. Chas Bowman was an architect in Vancouver and an adventurer always looking for new, wild and wonderful things to do. We did a little fishing while he was with us and had fabulous fresh cod and chips for dinner. George took Chas beachcombing and the two of them came back beaming and full of the beauty of the inlet on a sunny winter’s day. The air was crisp and clear and the snow on top of the Coast Mountains created a stunning contrast between the blue sky and the evergreen slopes.

      I was quite content for the two of them to go on their adventures without me since it was only a ten-foot boat and having an extra person on board made it go too slow. And it was a boat. In the morning, we were taking our time at the breakfast table and just lounging with a second pot of coffee. I happened to look out the window and saw the Thomas Crosby V coming into the bay. Not a chance was I going to let them catch me in my pyjamas at 10:30 AM! With a squawk, I grabbed the milk jug off the table and scooped the corners of the tablecloth up with the rest of the dishes and breakfast things and ran clattering into the backroom. I raced back past George and Chas, who were still sitting at the table watching me with their mouths hanging open. Had I suddenly gone crazy? Apparently they hadn’t looked out the window. I ran to get dressed, and all was well and presentable by the time the minister and his wife were tied to the dock.

      The OM

      George just had to have the boat with the for sale sign on it. It was a twenty-four-foot very, very old wooden double-ended boat that looked to me like it leaked. Double-ended meant that the boat was pointed on both ends. George saw it as a great opportunity. I saw it as a disaster waiting to happen. The boat belonged to a young fellow named Ken Hall, who lived with his mother on floats tied to shore across the bay from Dawsons Landing. Ken called the boat the OM.

      Ken was interested in selling and moving to town, so one afternoon we bought the boat and towed it home. George didn’t understand why I couldn’t muster any enthusiasm for working on it. He started to think that I was just being lazy. I couldn’t stand the thought of going anywhere in what I considered to be a hazard to navigation. The whole thing needed to have work done on it. The engine wouldn’t start, and it needed to be pumped out constantly to keep it from sinking. George built an A-frame at the stern and started the long, slow process of raising the engine so he could move it off the boat and put it undercover somewhere where he could work on it.

      After hours of struggling with the engine, daylight was fading and he left his work to get ready to go out for dinner. We took our skiff to our log-salvaging friend John Salo’s cabin, which was about thirty yards away and tied to the same boom of logs that we were tied to. In actual fact, we were tied to John’s standing boom. We had an enjoyable dinner with John, then, at about 9 PM, headed back to our place. There was a very light, soft snow drifting down that seemed to mute even the sound of the skiff engine. I had a strange feeling as we came toward our float. I shone the flashlight onto the cabin and could see the whole end of it. The OM wasn’t there! As we neared the float George didn’t even stop to tie up the skiff; he leaped onto the float and ran to where the OM had been sunk. It was still tied at