Higher Highs in Haida Gwaii

by Deepwater Don

The trip began with lunch. Chef Blaine and his all-star team had decided that a tasting menu would be an appropriate way to kick off the adventure for 52 wide-eyed folks who had walked off the helicopters and into The Clubhouse lodge on Langara Island, stopping only to accept the offering of a light fizzy cocktail—a French 75, they called it—and take in their first examinations of the stunning seascapes below.

One by one, the divine morsels arrived, running the gamut of gastronomy from both land and sea. It included plump Pacific spot prawns, for which these waters are famous, and concluded with grilled elk tenderloin on a skewer. The wine list afforded a wide selection to accompany each delectable item. Such a superb reminder that any damn fool can rough it; but with a lot of conviction and a little imagination, one can indeed live graciously this far off the grid.

I had journeyed here with my friend Ron, who I have known since playground days in Red Deer, Alberta. We had a rich but not privileged childhood. Memberships in the private golf club or luxurious vacations in faraway places were not options for our families. For this, we are ironically grateful, for it forced upon us the alternative of finding our own excitement in the nearby foothills of the Rocky Mountains where we camped, hiked, and fished at every opportunity. Our love and appreciation of the natural world were bred in our bones, and now we were about to set out on an unprecedented foray into a new and mystical wilderness.

After a brief orientation, we were off to the marine centre, where affable fish-masters Chantal and Emma greeted us and presented our 19-foot Boston Whaler, equipped with a new 90-horsepower Merc engine and all manner of electronics to keep us safe, oriented, and on top of the fish. Top-end rods with handmade Islander reels, check. Well-maintained downriggers, check. Lots of fresh herring, check. Extra downrigger clips, tackle, knives, and net, check, check, check, and check.

And off we went on a self-guided quest to find wild Pacific salmon.

Now, here is where I sometimes begin to get nervous when escorting a first-timer. Ron had noticed the guide boats, which are magnificent fishing machines captained by rugged seafarers who exude total mastery of the craft and art that is saltwater angling. Would we be sufficiently skillful to experience the exhilaration that inevitably awaited their guests?

To make the most of our chances, I steered us through the pass between Langara and Lucy Island, hung a left past the shoal, and headed north to Cohoe Point, generally regarded as the best bet to find not necessarily the largest fish, but typically the most abundant.

As predicted, Ron was a quick study in cutting and rigging the herring, and after some trial and error, he figured out how to operate the downrigger without catastrophe. Within minutes we were on to Chinook salmon, not large ones but an encouraging start, nonetheless. Our processes were working! By the end of the afternoon, we had caught and released five or six, and retained an eight-pound coho that had battled more on top of the surface than below. It was great fun and a good indicator of what we could expect in the days ahead.

Now, as many folks know, the end of the fishing day is something to which many of us look forward. It means that a new sequence of stimuli begins. It starts with a hot shower, clean clothes, a superb cocktail, artful appetizers, camaraderie of like-minded folks around the fish board and then….dinner!

Did I mention that Chef Blaine and his team are the culinary all-stars of the entire sport-fishing industry? And did you already know that, year in and year out, the lodge staff are—to a person—inordinately professional and personable?

With that as context, we tucked into a meal for the ages, consisting of appetizers, mains, and desserts selected from a varied menu of offerings from artisan producers who meet the most discerning standards. By way of example, Chef Blaine sources beef from a producer in Prince Edward Island who finishes the steers on potatoes. That’s not a joke—potatoes! And the result is hard to describe. Preceded by another serving of Pacific spot prawns, it made for a truly pan-Canadian dining experience, and one particularly well-suited for Canada Day. Between clinking glasses of wine, my old buddy and I tried in vain to wrap our heads around the wonder and privilege the day had brought.

And so it went for the entire four days and nights. Our days were filled with catching salmon and halibut, including a 32-pound turkey for Ron caught in shallow water on a mooching rod. On day three, we had to stop the boat rather suddenly as a group of humpback whales surfaced scarcely a seven-iron off our bow. We also saw white-sided Pacific dolphins, sea lions, and eagles galore. A dockside tussle between a sea lion and a group of determined otters over a fish carcass made for superb entertainment.

At this point, I should tell you a bit more about Ron. He has always been his own guy. Never followed trends, always thought for himself. An individual in every way, and I admired him for it. So did our teachers in high school, but they expressed harsh disappointment when he quit school in grade 12 to take a job as a gravedigger to fund a travel odyssey that took him and his brother to Europe and across North Africa. For an 18-year-old from Red Deer, it was an intrepid undertaking.

He was truly a mystic. With hair to his waist, his bold thinking and energy for adventure were compelling and refreshing. I should add that by this time, we had become skiing fanatics, and road trips into the Alberta Rockies listening to 1970s rock and roll were something right out of a Hunter S. Thompson novel.

Ron is also the most gifted and natural wisecracker I have ever met. Even my parents would chuckle and shake their heads whenever his name was mentioned. Sadly, we lost touch for many years after he moved to the West Kootenay region of British Columbia where he began a career in forestry that culminated quite successfully. His marriage, on the other hand, culminated in mutual misery, and so after many years he again wound up on my doorstep—figuratively, of course.

I tell you all of this as a means of conveying what it meant to reconnect with Ron after all these years and in such bucket-list fashion.

On our final day, having limited out on Chinook salmon, we switched to spoons and trolled a little faster with hopes of attracting coho. While retrieving a spoon on the surface, I saw a good-sized Chinook smash it on the surface scarcely 15 feet back. After a short tussle, he threw the hook and the spoon flew towards the boat. My friend and big-league guide DJ Shinduke witnessed the event from a short distance away. “I like that spoon!” he told me back at the dock. Always nice to get a nod from a guide, especially a great guy like DJ.

On our final night, we had a nightcap on the top deck where we could look straight down a moonlit Parry Pass. We barely spoke. No need. We just took it in, and were very glad we had made it happen.

I have often written in this space about how Haida Gwaii fishing adventures are inimitable in the manner in which they bring people closer together, be they friends, family members, or business colleagues. And I still believe that is true.

But for Ron and me, the relationship didn’t need strengthening. What it needed was a higher high. A new pinnacle of experience. We’ve always pushed the envelope, especially in the great outdoors. But Haida Gwaii and The West Coast Fishing Club provided us with a rare opportunity to discover something yet unprecedented in our journey as friends, something so far beyond extraordinary that it thrilled us to the core.

Friends, if you too want to push the envelope of experience with people who matter, head north at the next opportunity. And if you have already done so, then you know exactly what I mean.

To all the fine people at The Clubhouse who made this trip what it was, my sincere thanks. And to a couple of servers who seemed to understand and perhaps even appreciate our mild eccentricities—you know who you are—we are particularly grateful.

To you, dear friends, wherever you may be, please do stay safe and well. And when the time comes that you again venture into the marine wilderness, remember the golden rule:

Always, always, always keep a tight line!

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