Most of the kids that I grew up with had rowboats, or at least access to them, including myself. When we were young, we would row around the local wharves, exploring the sea life found beneath the wonderful array of boats and docks. Sometimes we would have races where we would row under the high pier through the pillings, out past the breakwater. It was always good for a laugh. This was a fair-weather sport.
My friends and I would gather feather duster tube worms from the edge of the floats and use them for bait. This sounds simple enough, but in practice, not so easy. It requires you to wait quietly till the dusters come out of the tubes, then quickly grab hold before they disappear back into the tube, and at the same moment, deftly remove a section of the worm with a sharp knife to use as bait for rock cod and sea perch. All this without pitching headfirst into the chuck. I did go in a few times.
When it was a successful fishing adventure, I would take my catch home for my mom to cook up. This gave me a sense of independence, a feeling that manhood was now within my reach. I felt that I could look after myself and protect and provide for those I loved if needed. Of course, I was just around 8 years old, and my manhood was only a precieved conseption, and in truth was still far off to me. Plus, my masculinity was always tempered by my mom’s teaching on how to be a good and gentle person. Mom had a way of using her grace and tenderness to teach compassion and empathy.
As we grew older, we all moved on to motorboats. Then there was no holding us back from fishing for salmon, ling cod, red snapper or giant halibut out on the waters of the Johnstone Strait. We spent as much time out there as we did on land. The fishing was great back then, and nothing beat fighting a northern coho on light tackle or hauling up a big momma ling cod from the depths. Two of my friends caught a 165-pound halibut from an 8-foot rowboat at the river mouth; it was big news locally with a front-page story.
Most of us had become accomplished fishers by the time we were 12 or 13 and were very much at home on the water. By the time my friends and I were getting into our mid-teen years, many of us were working as summer fishing guides for the local boat rental companies or commercial fishing on the Johnstone Strait. All of us would try to get a logging job during the winter months. There was always a short supply of loggers in those days, so we young ones could usually get rigging jobs as chokermen. I was 14 the first time I hired out to Elk River Timber.
When we were not working, we would be out exploring. At first, we stuck pretty close to home, but as we grew older, our trips took us further away. One of my pleasures was heading out when the weather was stormy. I would head over to Quadra Island to fish in the protected bays and inlets. I would be wave riding the storm, giving it gas as I rode the tops of the waves and backing off the throttle as I dropped into the trough between. It was like surfing, and it was awesome. Sometimes a number of us would race each other across. It was always exhilarating. Our boats were usually open 16-footers with 20-horse Johnson motors.
During these days of ocean-going fishing adventures, I would often see pods of Orcas sliding under my boat or sea lions running alongside to get a view of me. Sometimes we would make eye contact, and that was always a fantastic experience. Or perhaps I would see dolphins in the hundreds, all leaping out of the water as they swam by. The sea was my playground, and I was very comfortable out there.
My friends and I would go clam digging, crab and prawn fishing or oyster gathering and have a seafood feast around a beach fire. We ate from the sea regularly, and the eating was good. Sometimes we would head to Open Bay on Quadra Island, where the oysters were so thick that you had to break loose a big chunk containing many of them. We would place this on a bed of coals, and as the oysters began to cook, they would open up. We would race to eat as many as we could before the others got them first. The smells were incredible, and they tasted awesome. I could not have asked for a better place to grow up.