Tube North: Hunting Wild Waves & Elusive Photos in the Wilderness of British Columbia
“What’s that black thing on the beach? It’s moving.”
“It’s a bear. I think it’s making a meal out of that dead Humboldt squid we saw on the beach before paddling out.”
A month earlier, my friend Steve Hawk and I planned a trip for a wilderness surfing adventure on the remote Nootka Island, British Columbia. Now, the essence of the place was defined, in the form of a 400-pound furry package on the shore. It was our third day of the trip, and we were enjoying our best session so far. Out in the lineup with three others, I sat, bobbing on my board in awe of my surroundings. The backdrop of the forest, soaring bald eagles and backlit waves surging through the kelp beds were a visual feast, quite different from the surf culture of California and Hawaii. And now, the experience of a black bear patrolling the beach put everything in context. I was kicking myself, though, for not bringing my camera on the hike up the beach. I had come on this trip not only for the surf, but also to photograph the natural wonderland that composes this place. A shot from the lineup with a bear in the foreground was exactly what I had visualized before the trip began. And though I didn’t get the shot personally, I was able to get the bear shot for this piece from photographer Chris Burkard to show you what I missed.
Into the Wild
Getting to Nootka Island takes almost as much time as getting anywhere in the world. Our trip began with a flight to Vancouver, a two-hour ferry to Vancouver Island, a four-hour drive up the east coast of the island, then inland to the town of Gold River, followed by a one-hour boat trip across Nootka Sound. If you look on a map, you can see how remote this place actually is, even though it’s adjacent to a very cosmopolitan city.
Our host, Clay Hunting, met us for the last leg of the trip: a one-hour drive on a dirt logging road to the exposed west coast. The island, covered by one of the earth’s few remaining temperate rain forests, is separated from Vancouver Island by narrow inlets and is home to fewer than 10 full-time residents, none of whom surf. That works out to be a population density of about one person per 20 square miles. The nearest surfing population is in the town of Tofino, about 50 miles south as the crow flies. Tofino is the epicenter of Vancouver Island surfing, and during the summer months when the place is packed with tourists, the beach scene is not unlike Southern California’s, except for the bikinis. But on Nootka, it was pretty much guaranteed we wouldn’t see any other surfers for the entire trip.
Clay and his partner, Silvi Rautter, bought the property where we were staying several years ago and literally carved a niche for themselves on this 28-acre beachfront parcel. Using leftover fallen timber from patches of their property that had previously been logged, they hand-milled most of the lumber needed to construct a cozy A-framed house. For their guests, Clay built two tree houses among the old-growth cedar and spruce. Each tree house, which sleeps up to four people, has a deck offering prime ocean views to check the surf. Connecting the main house with the tree houses and the beach is a patchwork of boardwalks constructed of hand-milled cedar. I asked Clay if the purpose of the boardwalks is to minimize environmental impact. “Nah, I just don’t like to get my feet muddy when it rains,” he replied. Water is piped into the house from the nearby creek, no treatment necessary. Wood-burning stoves provide heat as well as hot water for the outdoor showers. And an endless supply of wood lies right outside their front door. Talk about low overhead! The end result of their hard labor is a self-sufficient village they call Beano Creek Eco Surf Lodge...
