Before the Gwaii Haanas adventure, there was a quick two day escape to Rennell Sound. Rennell Sound is on the west coast of Graham Island, and to get there you have to bump over miles and miles of rough logging roads, dodging the ubiquitous deer the whole way. It's the only part of the west coast of the Charlottes that is road accessible, and there are BC Forest Service campsites there. You can also hike 
to Bonanza Beach, which would make a stunning place to camp. We wandered along logging roads, we poked around tidepools, we goofed off on the beach.
After Rennell Sound, we relocated to another BC Forest Service campsite on Gray Bay. Again, this involved travel on logging roads and deer dodging, though the roads to Gray Bay are in significantly better shape. Gray Bay is on the east coast of Moresby Island. Gray Bay is nice, as far as beaches in cold environments go, if sandy beaches are your thing.
My thing at Gray Bay was the hiking trail that runs south to Cumshewa Head. We didn't go nearly as far as we thought we would, but it was a great trail. It's one of the things I'd like to complete if ever I go back.
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It's been over a month since I left for the Queen Charlotte Islands, and I've been on a weekend trip and a long trip since then. But it's taken me a while to get the rest of the pictures up.
The Queen Charlotte Islands was a trip I'd been looking forward to for a long time - much longer than it had been planned, and much longer than I've been kayaking. I had built the Charlottes up as some sort of place of myth and magic when I was 17, and that impression had never really gone away. So I suppose expectations were high.
The thing is, the most special landscapes, maybe they don't grab you right away. And I wasn't grabbed by the Charlottes right away. I liked them, I was intrigued by them, and I was caught up in the rush of something new, someplace I'd never been. But I wasn't caught up in a warm, fuzzy rush of love. 
Tonight, I pulled out my journal, and on July 3, sitting under a tarp at Gray Bay, I wrote "So far, I'm having a tough time with this trip. I find the weather gets to me - it is too cold, too gloomy, and, most of all, too wet. I don't find the scenery particularly spectacular - it's nice, in places, especially the moss and old growth - but it hasn't really grabbed me". But I had been prepared for the cold and wet, or at least the clothing I'd brought indicated that.
I also had a sense that I would take time to get used to the place. Later on, in the same journal entry, I wrote: "I keep thinking of what Keith said, how he didn't get my love for Superior at the beginning of the trip and only in hindsight did he realize just how special it is - maybe this will happen here? I don't want to remember this trip as just cold and wet".
Well, that's not entirely how it went into my memory banks. Since returning, I've read James Houston's Hideaway, and Marlene told me how it took a while for the Charlottes to really grab her. I don't know if they did grab me - I do know that I've spent more time thinking about them than I usually do about a place after a trip. But so much happened on that trip, beyond cold and wet, that it's hard to separate the feelings and memories of the Charlottes from the memories of the trip. I think it will always remain a trip that I look back on with mixed feelings. But I've realized - someday, I want to go back. I can't really explain it.
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Thing is, I grew to love the Canadian Shield and Georgian Bay years ago. And this past week, I spent a week renewing that love with a Killarney-Parry Sound trip. It's like an old friend, who you take for granted even though you're not tired of her - after you bop around with newer, seemingly more exciting friends, you spend some time with the old friend and remember not only that she's just as exciting, but that you're already at that place, the place that you're excited about getting to with new people: comfortable, fun, dependable, wonderful. There's a reason you've been friends for years. And there's a reason I've loved the Shield for so long. I just feel like, this summer, I fell in love all over again. Look for a trip report soon...
Posted by Johanna at August 7, 2005 10:27 PM