Weekend Photos: Kayaking the Broughton Archipelago, Part 1
I'm making only one promise about this trip report: it's going to take a while to get to the end, because I'm heading out for more adventures and have no expectation of getting all the photos edited, let alone posts created, before I leave.
August 9-14 (actually 8-15 counting the trip up and back), two friends and I joined a small group kayaking adventure out of Port McNeill, BC, to the Broughton Archipelago.
The trip started, for me, with a rendezvous at my house at 7:30 a.m. to drive to the ferry in Canada. We gave ourselves tons of time for the border crossing, which in fact took only about 5 minutes. I wasn't taking chances--we had a ferry to catch.
I don't take a lot of photos of ferries, but this line in the water was particularly striking. It's the flow from the Fraser River refusing to mingle with the waters of the Salish Sea.
After the 2 hour ferry ride, we had another 4 hour drive to Pt. McNeill--it really is a long way from anywhere! In the evening there was an orientation meeting (and we got our dry bags--very important!). The next morning the trip began for real!
We started with a water taxi out into the islands, as crossing the Johnston Straight isn't particularly safe for kayaks, given tides, currents, and the large vessels that use it as the entrance to Vancouver. Here, our guides Alex and Lee work on stowing our gear aboard. The boats were waiting for us in the islands. 
My traveling pal Petey Possum found some pals of his own aboard the taxi.
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| Petey's the one on the left--he needs a shirt like the others! |
About 45 minutes later, we were off-loading all that gear onto the shore, which involved lifting it to the roof of the water taxi, sliding it along to the bow, lifting it down, handing it to someone in the water, who'd haul it ashore and start it all over again. All without falling off. This trip is not for those who can't or won't pull their weight--there was a lot of moving of gear and of heavy boats.
Good-bye to motorized transport.
Next we hauled the kayaks from where they'd been stowed in the forest, and began loading them. Each guest got one hatch for personal gear (including tents), plus a "lap bag" of stuff needed during the day. The rest of the storage went to communal gear and food. LOTS of food.
Loading the boats.
We were a pretty experienced group, and were on the water at 10:30--three hours from being picked up at our hotel, and about an hour and a half after the taxi left. Our packing speed improved somewhat over the course of the week, but not all that much.
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| On the water at last! My friend Sumi shot this view of me looking determined. Maybe just trying to remember how to paddle, since I hadn't touched a paddle since last year's kayak trip. |
We had about a 7.5 mile paddle to camp, about 3 hours with one beach break in the middle, making for a pretty late lunch (but they gave us snacks).
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| Heading out of the harbor. |
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| On the Johnston Straight side of Hanson Island. We caught up with and passed through another group of paddlers. Of course, all the guides know each other and shared info about the trips. |
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| Our campsite on Little Hanson Island required us to carry the boats quite high on the very rocky shore. The tide filled in this gap, separating the land on the left from the land on the right. |
Our camp was in a great position to start seeing humpback whales traveling and feeding in the the straight (a little too far off shore for my camera to capture them).
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We stayed in well-established campsites, and this one had a great table! (No, it did not have an outhouse.)  Some of us went out for a short paddle after lunch, just for fun. We saw more whales, and glimpsed a lone sea otter--one of only 2 we saw on the trip. No photo, alas. The real star of the camp wasn't the whales--it was a family of bald eagles with a nest in a tree perfectly positioned to watch while we ate our meals.
 I was lucky to get a visible photo at all of the landing--the light was getting a little poor for full-telephoto shots.
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The next morning--after a night in which we heard wolves howling on Hanson Island!--we learned one of the hard lessons of paddling coastal waters: when the tide is against you, sometimes there's nothing to do but wait (this is actually true for much larger vessels as well in some places). We missed the morning tide (it came too early), and were unable to cross Blackfish Sound until after lunch. We spend 90 minutes trying very hard to cross, but making no progress, before we retreated to a beach (actually a little behind where we started!) to wait it out. So the second day we didn't get far, but had a couple of good paddles anyway.
On the beach at lunch (for about 3 hours). Whales continued to entertain us.
Eventually we made it across to our second camp (not where originally intended, but the routes and schedules were flexible--of necessity).
Since the passage by Red Point camp was narrower, the whales were forced a little closer. I never managed to get a shot of a breeching whale, but they were doing that as well as feeding--all afternoon and into the night. There was also a bull sea lion somewhere nearby calling pretty often.
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| Feeding humpback. The two bits you see are the two sides of the mouth. |
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| Sun is setting. |
Tents were well up the hill in the trees, and I'd gone up to bed when I realized the sky had turned bright colors. I charged back down the hill to capture the sunset.
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| Look toward Vancouver Island (the biggest and highest part in the background). |
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| Looking north and west (mostly west). It was so peaceful--the only startling noises were the whales blowing. I'll take that. |
That's as far as I've gotten with the photos. I'll be back with more... eventually. For now, I'm mostly taking a break from the blog while I hike and gather more photos :)
©Rebecca M. Douglass, 2026
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