It was the winter of 2016, I retired, and we moved to Sayward. My family has had a long history in the community. My oldest sister and her husband lived here in the ’60s; he was the head chef at the Mac and Blo camp that was on the shores of Kelsey Bay, Sayward, and their children grew up here. Several of my brothers began their logging careers in the camp. In 72, I was hired by a logging company owned by the Bendicksons on Hardwicke Island. The island is just across the strait from Kelsey Bay.
Sayward is located where the Sayward Valley joins the ocean on North Vancouver Island in British Columbia. It is accessed by a 12 km paved road off the Island Highway. It is under one hour from Campbell River in the south and about 2 hours from Port Hardy to the north. The Bay can also be reached by boat via the Johnstone Strait.
As with all communities on northern Vancouver Island, Sayward was only easily accessible by water in the past. It was not until after World War II that a gravel road connecting Sayward and Kelsey Bay with Campbell River was built. In 1979, the road was extended to the north island from Sayward Valley.
Sayward was at one time the southern terminus for the B.C. Ferries Inside Passage route, then in 1978, when Highway 19 was extended north to Port Hardy, the terminal was moved to Port Hardy.
Sayward is now a put-in point for sport fishing and tourism. From here, you can access a wonderful area of islands and inlets, a great place to put in a kayak, and a great place to start a wilderness adventure that you will never forget.
Fall and winter are good times to visit the Salmon River estuary to view winter waterfowl. Spring is also a delightful time due to the prolific nesting around the estuary. At one time, the Salmon River estuary was home to the island’s largest wintering population of Trumpeter Swans, but not many are here now though. The village maintains the path along the estuary to make your viewing experience even more special.
The Salmon River Estuary is made up of approximately. 500 acres of intertidal marshes and mudflats, with the river meandering through them. Spruce & hemlock forests dominate the estuary’s upland areas and open wet grasslands, along the waterways.
Coho, Chinook, Pink, and Chum salmon travel through the Salmon River Estuary on their way to their spawning areas. Cutthroat and Dolly Varden trout can be found here. Some steelhead can be found here and can weigh on the high side of 10 kilos!
Year-round access to sheltered, open waters, filled with insects & vegetation, has made this estuary a very important winter destination for thousands of waterfowl & shorebirds. During winter, birds can be seen in the thousands, including large numbers of trumpeter swans, green-winged teals, golden-eye ducks, widgeons, mallards, great blue herons, bald eagles, red-tailed hawks, and numerous shorebird species.
Cougars and black bears can be seen on the south side of the estuary, along with rare sightings of wolves and grizzly bears. The plentiful estuary grass supports a healthy population of deer and elk.
Just offshore from the estuary, Orcas and Grey Whales pass by regularly. Earlier this year, we had the pleasure of watching a Gray Whale swim past the estuary! I have seen false killer whales many times here as well.
Kelsey Bay Harbour is the only small craft harbour located between Campbell River and Port McNeil. It offers a loading ramp, a derrick, a breakwater system, and a boat launch ramp located at the end of the old BC Ferries’ parking lot.
The Salmon River is a popular river for exhilarating river rafting and canoeing in the Sayward community, and the lakes and rivers in the area offer a range of canoeing and kayaking routes. When I was a young man, my friends and I, in January, would put our canoes in at the bridge at Big Tree Creek and spend 4 days canoeing down the Salmon River, enjoying some incredible sights like elk and bears as well as some awesome fishing. It was cold, with snow and sleet, but the river would be running high, and this is what we were after: love running the winter rapids.
The Sayward Forest Canoe Route covers almost 50 km of lakes east of Sayward. Allow three to four days to complete the circuit, which begins on Campbell Lake.
Wisdom has it that the best approach to the route is to journey in a counterclockwise direction, putting in at the boat launch on Mohun Lake in Morton Lake Provincial Park. The well-marked route continues through 10 lakes before returning to the park. Road access to most of the lakes within the canoe route means that paddlers can pick and choose from a variety of put-in and take-out points.
The nearest large provincial park to Sayward is Schoen Lake Provincial Park, considered by some to be the most beautiful camping area and lake on Vancouver Island, offering wilderness hiking, canoeing, fishing, and spectacular mountain scenery. This campground will take your breath away. The mountains in the area are some of the most spectacular on the island.
I had always wanted to live here in Sayward, and now was the time to just do it. We leased a home in the townsite, packed our house and rented a big moving truck. The move went well; all my adult kids moved with us, so the house we leased was big. Had three of our kids, my youngest boys, Forrest and his girl, Katrina and their 2 kids also moved in with us. It was one big happy family.
My new website, gohiking, is now completed. Did I just say that? In reality, it is never complete, with new stuff added daily, but the rebuild and transition from askbud to gohiking was finished. My boys and I were out photographing many more areas, and by the time the rebuild was complete, I had a collection of almost 2000 new pages to be added, and this is always growing. It is an ongoing project. Now that I am retired, I can get more done.
We have many good friends here now and love the ease of living in the country. We learned that we needed to have a generator ready, as many winter storms bring power outages on a steady basis. It’s part of living here.