Day 19 - Back in Bread

We departed Bottleneck at 8am on an Ebb tide and continued south down Finlayson channel.  We made good time running at 11 knots on the tide as Roman made some coffee and I settled into another run in the rain but with good enough visibility that I didn’t need to fire up the radar.  The seas were calm so I decided to make the outside run through Milbanke Sound (namesake Vice Admiral Mark Milbanke, third son of Sit Ralph Milbanke, fourth baronet, of Halnaby, Yorkshire) and made the turn into Seaforth Channel and past Bella Bella into Shearwater.  We had cell service most of the morning when we got close to Bella Bella and i called ahead to confirm that the fuel dock was open and we could moor overnight.  

On arrival around at noon we were greeted by Harriet, recently hired by the resort as wharfmaster and filled out our Covid-19 forms.  The resort is still closed so we had to email our grocery order in and pick it up at the top of the dock, we got our propane tanks filled and the laundry and showers were open though so Patti and I took advantage of those and got a load done and I got my much needed shave and a hot shower. 

Like Echo Bay resort, Shearwater has been recently purchased by the Heiltsuk First Nation (although Harriet informed us of some controversy with the purchase being made without the knowledge of the community - but hopefully it will all work out) to provide economic opportunities for the band. 

We met up with Harriet and her husband later that afternoon and learned a lot about her history growing up in Ocean Falls and the continued impacts of residential schools and the day school system on the band, the impact of drug use, corruption on the local band council, blatant racism and sexism and the lack of jobs and economic development opportunities that are affecting the ability of the community to heal.  Her story directly paralleled the stories from the Golden Spruce. 

Harriet herself is a recovered alcoholic and had had a number of relationship and health challenges but is clearly maintaining a positive attitude, is giving back to her community in many ways and is clearly a great spokesperson for her nation. 

She is also learning the ways of the native plants from the elders and told us how to use the leaves of the large kelp and new growth from the pine trees for various ailments.  We had a good chat and then departed up the “road” which was actually a excavator track to see the local community attraction…an air raid shelter built in the forest during WW II in case of a Japanese air raid.  Bella Bella was the site of a naval presence in the Second World War and flying boats were stationed there to spot submarines.  There is a memorial on the waterfront to a Canso flying boat that crashed here during the war. 

The sun made its appearance again this afternoon and Patti found a puzzle in the laundry room so we are on speed puzzle duty tonight in the upper salon as we have to get it done to return it tommorrow before we leave.  Harriet has given us a tip on a bay just south of Namu that she says the humpbacks love as well as the Grizzlies so it’s on our list to check out tommorrow on our way to Fish Egg inlet.  We’ve decided to skip Ocean Falls as Harriet says it is closed like Shearwater so we won’t be able to tour any of the building's.

Roman is taking advantage of the power and has baked his best bread of the trip yet.  It’s warm bread out of the oven with Grandma Junie’s jam for dessert as we forgot to stock up on chocolate bars!

Some pics from our walkabout. We’ll fuel up in the morning so we have enough to make it to Port Hardy.