I was always getting in way over my head with my exploits, and although I would become an ocean-going youth by the time I was hitting my teens. This knowledge was quite lacking during my time as a 9-year-old. One spring day, a friend and I were playing along the bank of the river in front of my house. We were having a great time doing what kids do: chasing frogs, investigating the many different insects that were all around us. Eating saskatoon fruit, huckleberry, and salmon berries. Towed along behind us was this little blue tub, just big enough for one to sit in while the other pulled. As we were enjoying our day, we happened upon a possibly abandoned wooden boat, although that may be debatable. It was maybe 10 feet long. It was tied to the shore. It would hold us both.
We played around this little boat for a while to see if anyone came to claim it, but no one came. It looked pretty solid, so we got in, but we left the boat tied to the beach. Still, no one came. So we decided to untie the boat and float down the river like Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn, just like in the book. We tied our blue tub to the stern to be used as a lifeboat, and off we went.
At one point, we were opposite the Elk River Timber “A” frame log dump. A big Fatboy truck was being readied to have its load lifted off and dumped in the river. The load was lifted up and over the side of the truck, and then the load of logs hit the river with an enormous splash. We watched as a big wave headed our way, and we rode it like river champs. This was all very exciting to both of us young lads.
The river was moving slowly as it worked its way into the estuary, and we pretended to be in the wilderness. There were no paddles or life jackets, but we had our lifeboat. We had lots of fun as we slowly drifted down the river. We planned to just go ashore when we reached the sea at the river mouth. We had been floating for at least an hour, but no sight of saltwater yet. I had no idea that the estuary was so large. There were plenty of birds. I like birds.
Around every corner was something new to see, ducks of all kinds, sporting bright colours, taking flight as we floated towards them. Canadian geese by the hundreds, honking loudly to warn us to keep off their nests. Deer were feeding on the shores while eagles soared up high on air currents.
The E.R.T. booming grounds were downriver from the dump, and the gentle river current was put to use to guide the logs into the various booms. Most of these would be towed to mills around the island, but some would be towed up a channel to the mill pond at the Raven lumber. Here they would await the journey up the green chain that was used to feed the mill a continuous supply of logs. The mill ran 24 hours a day, and I grew up to the sounds of the green chain. As we coasted past the log booms, we got some weird looks from the men who worked there; perhaps they could see what was coming.
On the lower river, we saw many trumpeter swans that hardly moved as we drifted through them; they are such magnificent birds. In my later years, I was friends with a swan who was part of the estuary wildlife. When he would see me, he would come running up and hug me with his long neck. His name was Pete. The sounds of seagulls in the sky were like a song of the sea playing in the background, while we watched great blue herons feed at the edge of the river. They were beautiful, standing knee-deep in the river with their eyes fixated on the fish in the water. I never knew there was such an abundance of deer in the estuary, but we saw many. It was a warm sunny day, and we were having so much fun.
As we arrived at the edge of the ocean, we saw that it happened to be low tide, and the river was flowing pretty fast. To our total dismay, we just shot out into the strait between Vancouver Island and Quadra Island. Two boys, both 9 years old, in a very small 10-foot boat with no paddles or life jackets, out on the waters between these Islands, is bad enough. Things were about to get much worse; unfortunately for us, the outgoing tide was pulling us towards Seymour Narrows, located just a few miles up the inside passage from us. Up until the 50s, Seymour Narrows had an underwater mountain that at low tide was only 3 meters below the surface. Many ships and 114 lives were lost to the turmoil that was caused by this underwater mountain. Then, on April 5, 1958, that all ended when approximately 635 tons of rock were removed from the mountain in a huge explosion.
The threat of striking the underwater mountain is now gone, but it is still a narrow channel filled with back eddies, whirlpools, and the tides can run at 28 knots. This is still a very dangerous piece of water. If we were not rescued before we reached the narrows, we would, beyond any doubt, be pulled down by one of these giant whirlpools. Or perhaps flipped over by a massive back eddy, and that would be that.
We started to cry out for help, but for all our shouting, no one heard or saw us. We drifted past the painter’s subdivision, crying out for help, then past the pulp mill, yelling for help, past race point, still hollering out, past the entrance into Menzies Bay, crying out fearfully for help, and then we were in the narrows. We were no longer crying for help; we were holding on for our lives. There were boiling back eddies and monstrous whirlpools all around us; things were pretty grim, and we were sorely afraid for our lives. We were terrified.
Suddenly, out of the blue, a seaplane comes flying in and lands right in the narrows, amongst the tumultuous maelstrom of the waters. As it pulls up to our little boat, dodging whirlpools and back eddies on its way, the back door flies open and a young girl, 7 years old, hollers at us to get in the plane. She looked like an angel to me. We got in, and off the pilot flew, taking us back to town. The pilot was pretty mad at us. Yelled at us until we reached the harbour. He said our stupidity could have been the death of not just us boys, but the pilot had to risk the lives of himself and his daughter.
I often wondered who had tied that little boat up and what they thought when it was found gone. I wondered how it and the blue tub fared after we left them in the narrows that day. Do I feel guilty about it, ya, a bit? I had no right to take that boat, and I almost killed a pilot, his child, myself and a friend doing it.