by Andrew Bill - Special to The Spokesman Review May 2007

“It’s interesting to note that killers have a short, thick snout, similar to that of the Tyrannosaurus Rex,” explained Terry Prichard, with all the matter of factness one might expect from an ex-geologist. “Then there are the teeth. Fifty-two of them. Exactly the same number as the Dakosaurus Andiniensis, a giant sea crocodile with the head of a dinosaur, so savage, so ferocious, it dominated the seas 135 million years ago.”

These similarities might be “interesting” to someone sitting at home or in a doctor’s office reading a magazine, but they make a far deeper impression when you’re bobbing up and down on the gentle swells off the northeast edge of Vancouver Island, just a few kayak lengths from three enormous killer whales. Roiling the waters in search of food, they were swimming backward and forward in a slow rhythm, periodically stabbing six-foot-high dorsals through the surface, exploding vaporous breaths that hung in the suddenly silent air, then disappearing with the grace of precision swimmers into the opalescent depths for where-have-they-gone, heart-pumping minutes. Just when I was beginning to feel like the last succulent shrimp on the buffet table, Terry was greeting them by name, as casually as if they were family pets. “Judging by the shape of their dorsels,” he said, “those boys are Cracroft, Plumper and Kaikash."

Some people might consider sea kayaking in search of killers an eccentric choice for a summer vacation, a foolhardy pursuit akin to rough housing with Grizzlies or snorkeling with Great Whites. Yet it has undeniable attractions, starting with rare bragging rights. At a dinner party, when it comes round to the inevitable “What’s new?” question, there aren’t too many people who can trump an answer like, “Oh yes, I’m off kayaking with killer whales.” Besides, I reasoned, there wouldn’t be commercial kayaking trips offering killers as a main attraction if there was any danger. Right? And if there were, if killer whales actually did what their name suggests, surely Google would know about it. Right?

So, last summer, reassured by the Internet oracle, I booked with Sea Kayak Adventures (SKA) and traveled across the continent on two planes and two taxis from my home in urban New York to Port McNeill, at the northern tip of Vancouver Island. Starting from this quiet logging port right on the edge of nowhere in particular, SKA runs six-day trips paddling by day through the channels of Johnstone Strait and camping on its beaches at night. The price was right ($990 US - inclusive of food, dry bags, camping and kayak equipment) and killers were all but guaranteed.

Orcas, as they are more decorously named, live in all the world’s oceans from the tropics to the polar ice pack, but Johnstone Strait - a 2-mile wide, 50-mile long slit separating northern Vancouver Island from British Columbia - is one of the best places to see these endangered creatures in the wild. It’s as remote a spot as you’re likely to find below the Arctic Circle, inhabited until recently only by a handful of xenophobic fishermen and subsistence loggers. The Mainland, as the surrounding scatter of inlets, tide-torn passages and pine-pricked islands are known locally, still only holds a handful of very seasonal and none-too-sophisticated lodges. The currents demand respect, the weather is wild for eight months of the year, and the water is cold enough (averaging 48 degrees) in those other months that swimming for pleasure is something you try only once.

But it has fish. Johnstone and its feeder channels are a giant fish run, teeming with Pacific salmon from mid-June to late fall when they zero in like nature’s smart missiles on the narrow, forest-choked streams in which they were spawned. And this giant fish course attracts a similarly rich crowd of diners. Snow-headed bald eagles bend the uppermost branches of waterside firs; harbour seals lie like satiated slugs on the rocks; Steller sea lions, Dall’s porpoises and lone humpbacks linger in the bays; and around 220 “Northern Resident” killers return like clockwork, year after year, making these waters their summer home.

And, God knows, Johnstone has beauty. I say “God” with reverence, because there is something of the divine in this breach of sea and sky. Oh sure, it’s partly because of the wildlife and because there is an old pantheist in me eager to have his say. But it’s also because of that great and awful silence that every writer from Jack London to Robert Service has tried to capture with a net of words. It’s a beauty bestowed by harsh nature, by the syrupy swells and climbing tides that play with the kelp beds and rake the shingle beaches. It’s the rigid walls of pines, and the slanting light that filters down to a forest floor, springy with loam.

HEADING STRAIT TOWARD ADVENTURE

The gateway to this land of wilderness and water is Telegraph Cove, built in 1911 as a remote telegraph station and now, to its surprise, in the summer spotlight, the “put-in” site for fishing boats and kayaks bound for the Strait. And it was here, on a boat ramp slippery with seaweed, that my party assembled on the morning of the first day, dressed in bright Gore-Tex and splash covers (an oval of waterproof fabric, worn around the waist like an immodest and unfashionable skirt, that seals off the hatch of the kayak against rain and spray).

There were 13 guests and three guides in all - a typically broad mix of age groups, professions and characters that, after a few days in the crucible of nature, ends up being one of the great rewards of an adventure trip. Divided into pairs, we stuffed our 21-foot Seaward fiberglass doubles (only two of the guides had singles) as tight as drums with essentials, including personal belongings, tents, food, water, wine and even an ingenious sealed toilet. Under the keen eye of a bald eagle in a nearby tree, we then carried the laden kayaks down to the water and paddled in a tight but graceless flotilla out of the Cove.

There is something about sea kayaking that is satisfying, not just physically, but on a deep-down visceral level. Sitting right at water level, there is an immediacy to the whole experience that just can’t be replicated in a bigger boat, as though you are meeting nature close to its own terms. There is the purity of propelling yourself forward under your own steam. And the Zen-like repetition of strokes combines with the stillness (no motor noise or vibration) to induce an uncommon level of introspection. In a sea-kayak you are part of the scene, not merely viewing it.

Hugging the rocky shore for a couple of hours, we stopped for lunch at a broad beach of pebbles turning into rocks then tangles of tree trunks before ending at an almost impenetrable back wall of trees. The kayaks were hauled up to await the climbing tide. Then we set off again, more at ease now with the motion and, for those paddlers in the rear cockpit, the foot pedals that controlled the rudder. In the long shadows of late afternoon we arrived at our campsite on Little Kaikash Beach and made camp. Dinner was served in the thickening light and we sat on the immense trunks of sea-bleached trees looking out across the empty water. So far, no killers.

KILLER WHALE 101

The next morning, we broke camp, re-stuffed the kayaks and paddled away from the mountain-backed, pine-walled shore of Vancouver Island, crossing the Strait to Hanson Island. And it was here, in the shadow of the island’s rocky cliff, that we met up with Cracroft, Plumper and Kaikash, and Terry shared his knowledge of dinosaur dental work.

Despite his measured tone, Google’s reassurance and the killers’ pet names, all I could think of were those TBS specials. The ones with killers launching themselves up a beach to snap a sea lion like a sweet pickle, or exploding an ice floe from underneath and gulping down its cargo of seals in a blood-stained sea. “Today it’s killers who rule the oceans,” Terry continued, unreassuringly. One of our guides, he’s also a co-owner of SKA, and our expert on all things from sea mammals to volcanic lava tubes and native lore. “They are the largest member of the dolphin family, growing up to 30 feet and 12,000 pounds, making them easily the world’s largest predator. And their appetites are proportionate. Big guys like these three eat around 550 pounds of food a day.” That’s equivalent to three of my fellow kayakers, stripped of their fiberglass shells.

The killers surfaced in unison, and turned, this time swimming directly toward our cluster of kayaks. That’s OK apparently. The local rule of thumb is that nobody can go within 100 yards of a whale, but, if he decides to come to you or swim under your boat, well, that’s considered a bonus. I looked around for signs of flight, but the other two guides, Paul and Sarah, just sat there casually, lowering hydrophones into the water so we could listen to the whales’ highly evolved language of staccato snaps, clicks and pops of echo location. When the pod dived again, Terry returned to Killer Whale 101.

“Equal opportunity eaters, they’re fond of all kinds of seafood from small seabirds on up. Hunting like wolves in synchronized packs up to 40 creatures strong, they’ll even attack 60-foot Blue Whales, the world’s largest animals, herding them into shallow water so they can’t dive out of reach, then darting in to tear off chunks of flesh with their neat rows of three-inch conical teeth.” Sitting in my kayak, I was as close to the water as one can get without swimming. The black, sun-shafted depths below my boat swirled with shadows. “Their name comes from their appetite for other whales. ‘Orca’ sounds better. Unless of course you’re a Latin scholar and you know ‘Orcinus Orca’ means ‘barrel from the land of the dead’.” Thirty feet to my right, the three males broke the glassy surface once more. Unaware of the stir they caused, they headed out into the Strait.

WATER, EARTH & SKY

We had lingered with the whales for half an hour or more and, even here in the great unhurried “now” of nature, we were late. There was a tide to catch. We grabbed a quick lunch on shore, then, just as the current slackened at high tide, darted through narrow Blackney Passage, and skimmed across Parson’s Bay to Red Point Beach, our camping site for the next three nights.

Over the following days, we paddled round West Cracroft and Harbledown islands and through their labyrinth of coves and inlets. The going was easy and, even though we were in the kayaks for five or more hours a day, nobody from the grandmother in the group to the pair of young fresh-out-of-college teachers, showed any signs of fatigue. One day we pulled the kayaks up on the beach of Village Island to stroll through the ruins of Mamalilacula, once a thriving settlement of the Kwakiutl tribe and now deserted, abandoned to the weeds and moss since 1969. After changing out of his blue jeans into ceremonial robes, an elder walked out of the tall grass to tell a creation story in a quavering, echoing voice. Although a paid performance for tourists, it had a sweetness to it, a strange melancholy that came as much from the scene as from the words, from the decaying timbers, the midden (a 10-foot bank of discarded oyster shells) and a ceremonial (totem) pole, left to rot its way back into nature according to custom.

One great advantage of kayaking over, say, hiking, is that the kayaks are big enough to haul great coolers, filled with fresh vegetables, fruit and other foods you wouldn’t expect to find on a beach far, far from the nearest light-bulb. There was an innovative spin to the menus that never gave out. There were fresh eggs for breakfast even on the last morning. Paul turned out fluffy chocolate cakes from the Dutch Oven. Sarah grilled fresh-caught salmon over the campfire using a hand-whittled griddle in the native tribal tradition.

CATCH ME WHILE YOU CAN

One afternoon, after returning early to our campsite on Red Point Beach, we climbed a forest path that wound through shaggy-barked cedars to a lookout point where, judging from fresh scat, a cougar had recently been enjoying the view. Each night, we clambered along the rocky shore to catch the sun dipping in colorful fanfare down into the Pacific. On one occasion the resident humpback breached repeatedly, throwing his leviathan body effortlessly into the air, silhouetted against the gaudy sky. Nature is a lodestone that quickly changes strangers into friends and, after dinner, as the sunset gave way to a small circle of firelight, conversations and sophomoric games delayed the flash-light-stumble to the tents embedded in the darkness of the forest at the back of the beach.

Most memorable of all, we saw over 20 killers in the course of the six-day trip. Several nights, as we sat around the campfire we heard them blow, tantalizingly close in the darkness. And day-by-day, encounter-by-encounter, my preconceptions faded. Despite their name and reputation, killers pose no threat to humans. On the contrary, there have been reports of them saving drowning men and even working in concert with Whalers, herding blubber whales within harpoon range in return for a share of the spoils. They are disturbingly intelligent, the Mensa member of the animal world, with a brain four times the size of ours. They are the only animals other than humans to have dialects in their language.

It turns out the antisocial behavior in the TBS specials comes from “transient” pods that travel unpredictably and great distances. Thanks to research conducted over the last 20 years right here in Johnstone Strait ­ notably by late Dr. Michael Bigg, the Jane Goodhall of the killer world ­ another group has emerged. “Resident” pods return to sheltered waters like Johnstone year in and year out, acting like they’re on try-outs for a remake of those sappy Free Willy movies inflicted on us in the mid-90s. Shunning the transients, they hang around in family groups, nurturing their young until well into maturity and eating nothing larger than fish. Showing a cat-like indifference to humans, they like nothing better than scratching their bellies against the stones of shallow beaches.

Unfortunately, the killer story doesn’t end there. In a strange irony repeated throughout the natural world, we only begin to understand certain species as we begin to lose them. Just 50 years ago, the United States Navy was given instructions to shoot killers with machine guns. Today, despite mounting conservation efforts in Johnstone Strait, the links in the food chain are losing their strength, the water is growing more and more toxic thanks to fish farms and runoff caused by over-logging. The arguments between environmentalists and those who depend on natural resources for their pay packet continue, at best only slowing the inevitable. The Northern Residents are now a firm fixture on the endangered list and, if nothing changes, they will soon have one more thing in common with Tyrannosaurus and Dakosaurus.

By the time we paddled back into Telegraph Cove on the sixth day and climbed out of the kayaks for the last time, I felt changed. Not just by the cleansing power of nature, spending six days close to the earth and sea. Ignorance had given way to understanding, fear to concern. Instead of shouting “glory in my unchanging beauty,” the Strait and its famous residents seem to be whispering “catch me while you can.”