I always loved going to Quadra Island to visit friends or to go camping. Back when I was a young teen, I had many friends who had bought land there and built a variety of hand-crafted domes and cabins. I always enjoyed getting an invitation to come for dinner. The freedom these people had was pretty cool; none of them had hydro, and they cooked and heated with wood-burning stoves. Dinner was always something different and usually vegetarian.
Camping on the island was awesome, we liked to head up to Village Bay Lakes where there was a cabin we could use. It was in between the main and little main lakes, it was on the creek that flowed between the lakes, and you could canoe up this creek right to the cabin. Fishing was good in the lakes and you could hook into some big bruisers when deep trolling from the canoe.
On one trip, I had gone in with a biker buddy, Bo was a good friend and one of my main fishing buddies. We would lake and river fish all over the place, and fishing out on the chuck was always fun. I had an 18-foot Sangster boat, which was our ocean boat. I also guided as an independent guide with my boat during the fishing season.
Anyway, Bo and I had gone camping at the village bay lakes and would be staying in the cabin for a few days. On our way into the cabin, we were heading up main lake, when I thought I saw a huge red shadow go by under the boat. Bo had not seen it and told me to slow down on the joints that I was smoking. Just as he was laughing at me, this shadow went under us again, and we both saw it. It was a huge school of Sockeye salmon. I did not know they spawned in these lakes. It seems they come up from Village Bay through a short creek that flows into Hoskyn Channel.
One thing about camping with Bo was the amount of alcohol that would be consumed. Bo liked to drink just as much as I did. When we reached the cabin and got our gear stowed away, I grabbed the upper bunk in the back room of the two-room cabin, and Bo took a lower one. There were 4 bunks in the room. We then went out fishing on the little main lake. We planned to fish in this lake on the first day, and then head to the main lake for the rest of the trip. The little main lake is not very big, but it has plenty of fish, as not many people go there. At the time, there were no roads in this area, and it was really pretty. The lake was surrounded by big trees, and there were shallows along the shore covered in all sorts of water plants. Winds were calm and the sky was blue, birds were singing, and fish were jumping. It was a beautiful day. We fished until the afternoon, and we had kept enough fish for dinner and released all the others. We then headed back to the cabin.
After a great meal, we started in on the booze. I guess I got quite drunk and do not remember getting into my bunk. I woke in the middle of the night and needed to take pee, so I swung my feet over the edge and went to climb down. I found my assent was compromised and could not find my way down. It was so dark that I could not see at all. It was like Bo had nailed a sheet of plywood up to block me in. I was crawling around trying to figure out how this could be when Bo woke up and asked me what the hell I was doing. When I told him he began to laugh, then said you were too drunk to get up to the top bunk and had crashed on a lower bunk, and as he turned on his flashlight I could see I was now crawling around on the floor. Bo never let me live that down, not ever.