They used to show up from Storm Bay, up the inlet a ways. They would park their car at the "logging museum" as we used to call it, canoe down and take off to Vancouver or whatever. They said we could use their canoe whenever while they were away. So one fine morning after a coffee or whatever we thought we'd take them up on it. We decided we'd paddle up to Storm Bay which was a commune. So off we went. It took a while, funky old aluminum canoe that it was. We socialized with some of the people that were there and spent the night. The next morning we headed back down the bay. It turned out that there was a heavy head wind. We battled away and weren't getting anywhere. So T. suggests we should paddle up to the mouth of the bay and check out the Skookumchuck. So we started off making pretty good headway now. Effortlessly moving along. Well, it was such a beautiful day and this is all we had to do so we decided to drop a little sacrament. We didn't always have it around by any means but somehow this day we did.
I did most of my experimenting in Toronto I the mid-60's. We got into 'dropping' on Saturday night, as it would be quieter on Sunday, coming down ( as the man in the song said). We took it fairly seriously in those days- set and setting, all that stuff. Those were other times. One knew exactly how much one was taking and where it came from. It wasn't till later that things got weird. But that's another story.
So time went by and we got closer and closer to the chuck. I didn't know it at the time but the Skookemchuck ( native word: skooke- fast moving, chuck- rapids) was a tidal- bore where the Seshelt Inlet emptied into the larger ocean. It is a narrows, about a mile long, with a couple of islands in it, where the inlet, which is about 25 miles long, empties and fills. We had probably canoed about ten miles or so and I imagine were starting to feel the effects of what we had ingested. Suddenly we were being deluged by the water flow. We had to paddle to the opposite side for all that we were worth. Now we're in the back eddy with water falling off in sheets into monstrous whirlpools in the centre of it all. We would paddle a bit then would have to grab onto salal bushes as the water would tilt underneath us. While doing this every now and then there would be mink snarling at us, I guess thinking we were vying for the fish that would be smashed up along the rocks. I remember looking off at one of the moments and seeing this massive cabin cruiser out in the middle of it all, U.S. flag and all going around in circles with some character on the deck reading his charts! I'm not making this up.
I saw a tree trunk get spit out of the water as if from some kind of projectile. Swarms of seagulls were swooping around in a feeding frenzy. After what seemed like a lifetime or two we arrived at a still pool just what was known as Rocker Point, where we could pull our canoe out and kiss the earth (or rock in this case). Looking out from this point you could see a drop in the water level of about a foot it seemed. And the sound, a huge electric roar. The seaweed was bright red and green.
So there was no way we were going back through this monster so after catching our breath we journeyed on around the top of the peninsula to the town of Seshelt where we got a ride back to Tillicum Bay with canoe in toe. Oh yea, that was my first canoe trip. And that's the end of that story.
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