The Seas and Us… a Paddler’s adventures and about how we can stop harming the oceans
1:Introduction/ 2: The Oceans/ 3: Early Encounters/ 4: Chodotka, Russia
5: A Little History/ 6: Comox Harbour Fish Trap/ 7: Back to Chodotka
8: The Fishing Business/ 9: Bottom Trawling/ 10: Drift Nets
ll: Noise/ 12: Cape Horn/ 13: Warming Oceans/ 14: Kyushu/ 15: Jumentos
16: Sea Level Rise/ 17: East Greenland/ 18: West Greenland/ 19: Ocean
Acidification/ 20: French Polynesia/ 21: Ocean Anoxia/ 22: Exumas
23: Oil Sands/ 24: Kagoshima to Okinawa/ 25: Marine Protected Areas
26: Natural Gas/ 27: Okinawa to Miyako-jima 28: Miyako-jima to Ishigaki-
shima/ 29: Plastics/ 30: Microplastics/ 31: Discovery Island/32: Orcas/
33: Bella Bella to Port Hardy/ 34: Signs for all to see/ 35: Smoke/
36: Attempt to Taiwan/ 37: Fisheries: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly/
38: Geoengineering/ 39: Burnaby to Victoria
Doug Simpson, July 29, 2020
1. Introduction
I first started paddling kayaks when I was eight years old. My family had rented a small cabin for the summer on an island near Vancouver. Our neighbour, old Mrs. Sweeney, had two kayaks that she let me use, as long as I stayed within her sight. That was the deal, anyway, but she was near sighted and forgetful and I had more freedom to roam than she imagined. Or maybe she understood that all along and it was I who was fooled.
The kayaks had canvas skins wrapped around wood frames. When you eased into one you heard creaking sounds of wood on wood. The frame seemed like the skeleton of an animal and when it moved within the skin the whole boat came to life. I imagined I was riding some big sea mammal, following the fish and whales to far off lands. The boats moved through the water with very little effort. There was no bashing of waves against hard fiberglass or wood. Just a gentle cleaving of the water as the skin absorbed some of the energy of the sea. This was the intention of the early Inuit who developed and used these boats for their survival. They needed a stealth boat. At the time I thought that these kayaks were original Eskimo hunting kayaks. Maybe I imagined this or maybe somebody put me on. Years later I learned that they were wood and canvas kit boats from England. But I was hooked early on.
During my university years I spent summers in the Canadian Arctic, working for gippo mining exploration companies. If we found some obscure deposit our company would exaggerate and publicize the find in order to run up its share price. Things were wild in the Vancouver stock market back then. Most of the areas that we worked in had been scoured flat by glaciers that had weighed heavily on the land, forming a vast peneplane. The country has almost as much water, in the form of disconnected lakes, as land. We needed a transportable boat. It was during the long days of Arctic summer that I started thinking about folding kayak designs.
The first crude kayaks that were made by Aleuts in the Bering Strait area over 4,000 years ago were likely used just to recover seals, otters or birds speared from shore. Over time hunting kayaks were developed and their use spread across the Arctic as far as Greenland. The Aleuts and Inuits developed sophisticated models designed for various hunting tasks in different conditions and environments. Some of the very best, most beautiful designs were made in West Greenland: long, narrow, low and fast. The earliest commercial fiberglass sea kayaks were modeled after one of these remarkable crafts in the 1970s.
Folding kayaks were developed in the early 1900s. These had heavy wood frames with canvas and rubber skins, were designed for river use, and were considerably shorter and wider than the sleek Greenland boats. My interest was in the sea kayaks. I studied the drawings of Greenland kayaks and was also influenced by the burgeoning development of fiberglass sea kayaks in Britain and North America. Instead of wood I chose aluminum magnesium aircraft tubing for my framework. I had learned a little about the tubing during pilot training I had undertaken in Edmonton, Alberta. I received my first patent on the kayak design in 1977 and began making Feathercraft folding kayaks with my new partner, Larry Zecchel, in 1979, on Granville Island, Vancouver. Although the skins of our kayaks were made of rubberized nylon and later welded urethane-coated nylon, they have always shared the performance characteristics of the early Greenland boats: unlike fiberglass they are silent on the water and paddlers feel the gentle flex of frame and skin gives them a more intimate feeling for the water. Many people experience a lightness of being unattainable in any other craft.
Our timing was good and sea kayaking was starting to take off. Feathercraft Kayaks were the first folding kayaks to be designed specifically for sea touring and they became the standard by which other brands were judged. By 1990 we had a staff of about 20 and were selling our premium folding kayaks all over the world. Our main markets were in North America, Europe and Japan. We continued to make our boats and accessories on Granville Island until we shut down in 2017.
Even before we made our first kayak we had started exploring our local coast in cheap fiberglass river kayaks. We didn’t know much. The journey we took across the Strait of Georgia, across its shipping lanes in dense fog was just plain stupid.
At first we limited our paddling to the local Gulf Islands or the myriad islands just to their north between Vancouver Island and the mainland. We learned our sea lessons slowly, by osmosis. That is the best way. When we later started going to the outer coast we at least knew how to handle our kayaks and set up camp.
The eventual success of the boat business led to a problem for us: we had no time in the summer to go paddling! This led to winter paddling trips and it was during these that we really sharpened our ocean paddling skills. The seas off the west coast of B.C. are relatively benign during the summer months. In winter the Pacific High, which dominates in summer, retreats with the sun and is replaced by large low pressure systems that blow in from the Pacific. Storm winds exceeding 40 to 60 knots are not uncommon. Even hurricane force winds occur occasionally. We spent a lot of time huddled under tarps, sheltered in the forest, in the rain. Learning when to go, and when not to go became key for survival, as did paddling in challenging conditions when we eventually did set off. We rationalized this extravagance on the assumption that the kayaks we were designing and making would become stronger and more seaworthy. And they did. It was lessons learned on these crazy trips that prepared us for paddling in exotic places far from our own coast.
In this book I describe my early paddles along my local coast as I slowly began to realize the effects of humankind’s massive assault on the oceans. I describe how clear cut logging and overfishing affect the health of salmon runs. Following a chapter on our attempted Bering Strait crossing there is an outline of how indigenous people migrated from Asia across the strait and down the Americas, and why their successful maritime culture has long been underestimated by westerners. Chapters on the fishing business are followed by an expedition around Cape Horn where we found a surprising lack of fish. A chapter on sea level rise is followed by paddling trips to West and East Greenland where the ice cap is melting faster than scientists predicted even five years ago. During a crazy adventure in French Polynesia and journeys in the Bahamas and the Okinawan archipelago I witnessed the desolation of coral loss and the scourge of plastic in the near shore and on beaches. I sat through two category 4 typhoons while my partners and I were trying to paddle and sail our kayaks from Japan to Taiwan, grounded by these increasingly intense storms.
There are many things we can do to prevent and in some cases even reverse the worst effects that we have caused. I outline why we must control the great industrial fishing operations that span the globe and also protect 30% of the oceans from fishing and resource extraction. I describe how my home province of B.C. is actually a leader in plastic recycling and how this knowledge could be useful in third world countries. Ocean warming and acidification are two of the most intractable changes that we face and yet there are still things we can do to limit their effects. If we act now.
I have relished my journeys on the ocean but often understood little of the harm that I and the rest of humanity, especially in industrialized countries, have inflicted on it. This must change. Hopefully, in this book you will enjoy some of the adventures that a few friends and I have been lucky enough to experience over the past forty years. You will also learn of the threats that all marine life faces. I’ve included suggestions on how we can repair our relationship to the planet’s diminished oceans. But we cannot wait. More than anything, this book is a call to action.
Today millions of youth all over the world are demanding meaningful change. We must listen, and act. When I started writing this only a small minority of people were alarmed about the climate emergency and even fewer had concerns about the damage to life in the oceans that our actions are causing. Even now most of the talk is about issues on land. And there is still precious little action. The vast seas that cover 70% of earth sustain us. If we truly understand this we can start to heal this blue, watery orb we all call home. Because we can and we must.
Covid-19
It’s June 17, 2020. Evening, 8:40 pm, still light on D’Arcy Island. I left Victoria mid day and paddled here with the current and slight following breeze. 13 nm, just over three hours. Off to Pender Island tomorrow and feeling detached from the ongoing tragedies as I watch a big coal ship glide by the international marker that juts up like an extended finger just offshore from this bay. The global covid-19 virus has stormed humanity and BLM protests have played out mostly peacefully around the world. Most of us have been surprised about how vulnerable we and our societies are. Perhaps we can’t control the natural world after all. Yet, people are pitching in. In Victoria over 200 homeless people have been living in closely packed tents beside one of the main thoroughfares. To their credit, the city and province have bought a couple of older hotels and motels and are now helping many move in. It has taken a raging pandemic for society to finally offer these folks some dignity and a place to live. There has been much kindness and respect offered to front-line health workers and other essential service people. Volunteers are providing food and services to scores of people who have never faced financial ruin and hunger before. I have been keeping busy sewing heavy-duty cloth face masks and donating them to seniors in care homes. They really appreciate them and I have benefited from feeling useful too. It is easy to be virtuous when you have family, a full belly and a secure home.
Pundits are talking about how the economy and, indeed, life can go on from here. How people who have lost family, friends and businesses can possibly recover. Two broad views have been presented. On the one hand governments and most companies will be tapped out of cash and resources. In a classic example of disaster capitalism, corporations will push hard to lower environmental standards while attention is elsewhere. They’ll also work to source more production offshore and introduce more automation in order to cut costs. People will avoid transit and buses and drive more. Fossil fuel companies will demand even higher subsidies. Emissions will rise and the natural world, which has been given a brief respite, will suffer. Climate change will accelerate. Racism will remain unchanged.
On the other hand, people have been surprised that huge money has been found (mostly through government debt) to finance our response to the pandemic. It is likely that the role of states will become more important going forward. Historically politics have moved to the left after wars and large emergencies that required government support. There have been transformative changes in who we think essential workers are: health workers, grocery clerks, truck drivers. Not corporate executives. If these groups get together and organize a new social contract could evolve. The lobbying power of corporations might be dampened. Such a transition could lead to more concern about environmental issues, fewer cars, more bicycle and pedestrian routes, less consumption and a more inclusive society. Certainly, the shocking failure to protect vulnerable seniors in care homes (in Canada 81% of Covis-19 deaths have occurred in care homes) should lead to major changes.
Recent studies have indicated that people who breathe polluted air are more likely to be adversely affected by the virus. This applies especially to people living in poor neighborhoods, including black and indigenous people, and immigrants. These days I can look south from Victoria to Port Angeles on the U.S. Olympic peninsula and see actual buildings- which I’ve never noticed before. I’ve even been able to make out Mount Rainier, on the other side of Seattle, 212 kilometers from here. Cities are expanding cycle and e-scooter networks in order to both minimize bounce-back in air pollution and reduce the number of commuters who have to squeeze into buses and trains. The UK is proposing to invest 250 million pounds on this. Milan is transforming 35 km of road to recreational space and cycle travel, Paris is building a new cycle network, and other cities including New York, Mexico City, Bogota and Barcelona are offering car-free days and planning to open roads for recreation. “All you need is a bit of authority and paint on the road” said Prof Kim Dovey, chair of architecture and urban design at Melbourne University. Quoted in The Guardian.
This authority to slap “paint on the road” was exercised by DC’s mayor Muriel Bowser. To protest against George Floyd’s killing by Minneapolis police she had BLACK LIVES MATTER painted in huge yellow letters on 16th Street. His death has set off big protests in the U.S. and around the world. In Canada the RCMP’s continued overuse of force against indigenous peoples and racial minorities has set off similar protests. The tragedies seem to indicate an unraveling of Western Societies. Or could it be the beginnings of a rebirth?
The fiscal and health challenges governments are experiencing may increase humanity’s impact on the oceans. Already Canada has pulled observers from commercial fishing boats due to corona virus concerns. Having observers on the boats has been of mixed success due to the prevalence of bullying by some skippers. Now they will have a free hand. If, around the globe, governments reduce or eliminate fishing constraints due to financial and food security concerns overfishing will increase. Will strapped governments cease programs to reduce the amount of plastic waste that ends up in the oceans every day? How about CO2: could the pandemic-induced reduction in fossil fuel demand and resulting oil glut signal peak oil and the beginning of long term reductions in emissions? These are interesting questions that will only be answered in the coming years. People are organizing on both sides of the partisan divide and it is important that those concerned about people and the environment, including our oceans, are not sitting on the sidelines. We humans are not good at looking more than five years ahead. We have to do better. Because there is no vaccine for racism. Or climate change.
Some of the locations mentioned have been indicated in decimal degrees of latitude and longitude. You can plug these into Google Maps or Google Earth to follow along.
2. The Oceans
4.5 billion years ago the proto earth was still a seething mass of dust and gas. There probably was a lot of water mixed in because hydrogen is the most common element in space and oxygen is the third most common. (Helium is second). Then, a mere 30 million years later disaster struck big time. A proto-planet the size of Mars rammed into earth, smashing debris into space that later coalesced to form our moon. Any water that had existed near the surface would have been blown away in the blast. So was the atmosphere.
We know that water exists in surprising places. In 2015 the Cassini spacecraft spotted water vapour and frozen particles erupting from the south pole of Enceladus[1], one of Saturn’s many moons.
One theory has it that planet earth’s oceans came from comets or asteroids that rocketed down after the moon coalesced. Early on, there were an awful lot of icy bodies banging around the solar system. The gravity of the large gas giants that were evolving had a tendency to fling smaller bodies such as asteroids and meteorites from outer, icy orbits onto the rocky planets that were forming closer to the sun. Think of a god bowling in 4d, erratically tossing rocks, gasses and ice at earth and other proto-planets. Sometimes strikes were made. Comets or asteroids? The obvious choice would seem to be comets, with their long icy tails that show up easily even to the naked eye. But that theory ran into trouble when it was discovered in the 1980s and 1990s that the deuterium/hydrogen ratio on observed comets did not match that of earth’s oceans. Deuterium is a heavier isotope of hydrogen, and if the oceans were made of comet material the ratios should match.
That leaves asteroids. Or does it? Many asteroids, especially those far out in the solar system, are made of hydrated rocks. Ceres is the largest remaining asteroid in our solar system, at 900 kilometers wide, and probably half of its mass is water. If just five Ceres-size asteroids once collided with earth, all the water in the earth’s oceans would be accounted for.
Unfortunately there is a noble argument against this theory. Xenon and argon are called “noble” gases because they are essentially inert. The proportion of these gases in asteroids is different from that found in oceans on earth. They should be similar. A counter argument to the falling-from-the-skies theory has it that the water was there far below the surface right from the start, in the form of separate hydrogen and oxygen molecules and also as hydrated rocks. Over eons this water was pushed to the surface and formed the oceans. Volcanoes puff out water and CO2 even today. Oceans from rocks. Who knew? It’s a mystery.
An amazing thing — the oceans that cover roughly 70% of the surface of planet earth seem vast, but compared to the volume of the earth they are extremely tiny. Surprisingly, the earth, including all of its oceans, is 100 times dryer than an old bone. Think of a giant ball with a very thin, increasingly fragile, film of water covering its surface. What a film, though. Life on earth began in the oceans with single-celled prokaryotic cells about 3.8 billion years ago. Half of the oxygen that we breathe came from the oceans. The ocean supports a vast variety of life ranging from tiny marine viruses to giant blue whales, the largest creatures that have ever existed on our planet. Millions of people draw their livelihood from the sea and over a billion depend on the oceans as their primary source of protein.
[1] Enceladus (/ɛnˈsɛlədəs/; en-SEL-ə-dəs) is the sixth-largest moon of Saturn. It is about 500 kilometers (310 mi) in diameter, about a tenth of that of Saturn’s largest moon, Titan. Enceladus is mostly covered by fresh, clean ice, making it one of the most reflective bodies of the Solar System.
3. Early Encounters (entered on Aug 31, 2020)
My first inkling that things were not totally fine on the outer coast of south-west B.C. came in February, 1980. A friend and I were paddling our kayaks down Zeballos Inlet, towards Nootka Island located on the west coast of Vancouver Island. We had waited in the Zeballos Hotel for a couple of days, listening to the deafening sound of the rain beating on the metal roof above us and the raspy voices and numbing music of the bar below. Eventually the downpours had seemed less intimidating and we had headed out.
Roughly 400 millimeters (15 inches) of rain fall every winter month in this area and to us it seemed that it was all coming down that very day. The mountains on each side of us were steep and the water was cascading off every rock and mossy outcrop. It was exciting. But, one thing was very odd. When we looked into the water at our white paddle blades we couldn’t see them. The water was muddy. We only had to look at the land to see why.
Much of the coast had recently been stripped of its coastal Douglas fir, hemlock and cedar trees. The blocks of logged clear-cut descended from mountaintop to shoreline and the soil was being washed into the ocean. We were paddling in water that was being muddied by soil that had taken hundreds, if not thousands, of years to accumulate. I would later learn that the next generation of trees might be marginally acceptable to commercial loggers, but by the third generation the soil would be too thin to support much growth. I would also learn that the muddy water affected the life below me in myriad ways. Kelp, which acts as a nursery for fish and crustaceans, grows less slowly in murky water. And when the sediment sinks it smothers benthic sea life.
At the far southeast corner of Nootka Island is the small village of Yuquot, “the land where the wind blows in all directions”. (49.594, –126,617) It is also called Friendly Cove, and is thought to be the site where the first Europeans made landfall on the west coast of North America. Captain Cook apparently received a warm reception. Here in 1778 he entered a small bay looking for fresh water and a place to overhaul his small ships. The local people shouted “Itchme nutka, itchme nutka” to Cook and crew, meaning “go around” to a better anchorage. Cook mistook this and named the island Nutka Island. It was just the beginning of many misunderstandings.
The history of the people who Cook encountered at this place began at least 20,000 years ago. Based on evidence supplied by archeologists, geneticists and linguists, their ancestors came from the headwater regions of the Amur and Lena rivers east of Lake Baikal, in northeastern Asia. These people made their way to the mouths of these rivers and started to establish maritime economies there. By the time the great ice sheets began melting at the end of the Pleistocene, at least 14,000 years ago, it appears that their navigation, boat-building, and fishing skills were already advanced enough to enable them to survive on and off sea and shore.
As the ice melted and the land opened up to them they would have found a bounty of shellfish and finned fish. It is not known exactly when the first salmon appeared, enriching the forest on their upriver migrations, but perhaps the humans and fish evolved together as the ice melted and the land became forested and welcoming.
The First Nation peoples of the north Pacific, from the Ainu and Jomon of Japan across the great arc of the Aleutians and down the coast of North America are some of the oldest pure fishing cultures on the planet. All of the oral traditions of coastal First Nations consider the salmon sacred, always there, and integral to the land. When did indigenous peoples first arrive in North America? Recent discoveries indicate that some of the Americas may have had human occupants 40,000 years ago, or more. Oral histories of First Nations say ‘since time immemorial’. There are outlying places on the west coast of Canada that were never glaciated. This is where the oldest remains have been found. My mother’s ancestors came from Scotland. The oldest human remains there date back about 9,500 years. Before that glaciers covered the whole area. Perhaps the terms “Old Country” and “New Country” need to be reevaluated.
With the arrival of Cook to this village on Nutka Island[1], the intensely spiritual relationship of the people to the land, sea and salmon began to break down. The local Nuu-chah-nulth people, who had lived well at this place for at least 13,000 years, received metal knives and other valuable objects in trade for their sea otter pelts. But, they also succumbed to European diseases, the rule of distant kings, and the eventual loss of their lands, culture and even their children.
Early seafarers made fortunes selling sea otter pelts in China. Sea otters do not rely on fat to stay warm. Instead, they have the densest fir in the animal kingdom. Word of these luxurious pelts got out in Europe, and between 1785 and 1825 three hundred thirty ships converged on Nootka and nearly exterminated the sea otter population. The sustaining, spiritual relationship of indigenous people to the land and sea was broken and was never learned by the newcomers.
In some ways this early paddle in Zeballos Inlet is a story of rejuvenation. Until the 1980s few people knew or cared about logging practices on our coast — except the local indigenous people, and they were ignored. But once recreational sailors, paddlers and others started visiting the coast an outcry was raised. In 1993, 12,000 people showed up in Clayoquot Sound to support the Nuu-chah-nulth First Nations in their protest against industrial scale logging. This became the “War in the Woods”. Logging was halted in Clayoquot Sound and this also led to an agreement to greatly reduce cutting in what became known as The Great Bear Rainforest. (The agreements in place are too restrictive: 80% of old growth on Vancouver Island has been logged and the big companies are rushing to get most of what remains.) Nonetheless, logging practices have improved and the industry’s affects on our sea coasts have been significantly reduced. It shows what can be done and provides some hope.
Although still listed as an endangered species, sea otters have been successfully re-introduced into some of their former range. A small population had managed to survive off the coast of California. Between 1969 and 1972 some of these were captured and released in Queen Charlotte Sound. At the time of this writing they are found in two-thirds of their former range, although they are struggling for survival in some of these areas. This is an important success because these otters are a keystone species. They feed on sea urchins and other creatures that survive on kelp forests, which provide essential cover for herring spawn and other fish. These amazing mammals can dive to 330 feet and use rocks to pry shellfish from the seabed. More otters mean more fish.
Years later, my son, Evan; friend, Dan Elliott and I had a weird and fun experience with a sea otter. In the spring of 2002 we were paddling north up the mainland side of Queen Charlotte Strait. We had camped further south at Shelter Bay, on the mainland, and were headed up towards Cape Caution. I felt a heavy pull on my paddle. When I looked down, there was this big sea otter chewing madly on my paddle. Alarmed, I pushed it off. Then it climbed up on the aft deck on one side of my kayak, dived off the other side and suddenly jumped up onto Dan’s boat. That’s when we understood that this guy wanted to play. He dove from one boat to another, tried sitting on our spray skirts, climbed on our backs, and jumped around for at least an hour. After a while we paddled ahead, as we still had a long way to go. It wasn’t until we stopped at Skull Cove (51.049,-127.563) for lunch and got out of our kayaks that he finally swam away. We never saw him again.
[1] Nutka Island later came to be called Nootka Island.
4. Chukotka Autonomous Okrug 1994 (Entered on Aug 31, 2020)
This trip was planned and organized by Tom, Dick and Louise. Originally there were four involved. They had ordered two double kayaks from my company, but when one person dropped out they had considered cancelling the trip. Their plan was to fly with the kayaks from Boston, Maine to Nome, Alaska and from there to Provideniya, Chukotka, which is on the Chukotka Peninsula, in the Russian Far East. From there they would paddle the 240 miles or so north up to the Bering Strait, cross the Strait to Alaska and then follow the coast south-east back to Nome. Apparently they had permission from the Russian authorities. When I learned of their trip plan I knew right away that I had to go. They were planning to follow the path of peoples who, over 14,000 years ago, had crossed over to North America and foraged all the way down to Patagonia. Our trip would include crossing the Bering Strait from the Russian side to its Big Diomede Island, (also called “Tomorrow Island”, because it lies right beside the International Date Line) 20 nautical miles away, across the date line to Little Diomede Island, in the U.S., just 2 1/4 nm from Diomede, and then over to the North American continent, another 20 kn. The area is hugely prolific, especially once the sea ice melts, which triggers a spring phytoplankton bloom. Thousands of sea lions and walrus compete for salmon, pollock, halibut, sole, and red king crab with beluga, blue, sperm, sei and right whales. There are massive flocks of tufted puffins, short tailed albatross, eider, auklets and kittiwakes. This, too, is where kayaks and their larger cousins, umiaks, were first developed and have been used for thousands of years for travel and for hunting. There are people living on Little Diomede who I would be keen to meet. Wow. I suggested that I join them and supply my own double kayak. I had never met them. They agreed.
I first met my future paddling partner, Louise Masaillo, very briefly on July 14, 1994 at the Boston airport. I was on my way to a three-day kayak symposium at Bangor, Maine, and she came to meet me during my stopover. She had a warm smile and easy-going manner. She was a successful kayak racer in Boston and I could see why. She was a lanky bundle of energy.
I met up with Tom and Dick a few days later at the same airport in Boston. Tom strode through security as if he owned the place. He’s large. Not taller than me, but built up. The man lifts weights. What’s left of his yellow hair was just left straggling around his broad face. One of his eyes is glass. He reminded me of a cross between Hulk Hogan and a pirate. He looked me up and down like some men look at women. I guessed he was checking for muscle mass. I’m slim, scrawny maybe. I think he found me wanting. Although he races kayaks successfully he relies on raw power. My old friend, Ken Fink, once confided in me that if Tom “ever got a real [paddle] stroke he would be unbeatable”.
Then Dick came through. What a curious duo! Whereas Tom was large and muscular; Dick was short and slim. Tom was 34, peak age for this type of trip; Dick was 72. Tom was direct and forceful; Dick was engaging and warm. He was also a competitor. He and Tom had raced double kayaks many times. Dick was an expert ice-boat racer and had competed in the States and Russia. He had run a boat-building and tending business for about 20 years and before that had been in the merchant marine. About 15 years before I met him, he had sold his business, gone back to university, earned a PhD in psychology and started playing the violin. An aging Renaissance Man. Instantly likeable.
I learned on the plane that there were problems with the trip. It seems that the permission to cross the strait had been rescinded, or maybe had been previously issued by the wrong person. Permission not granted.
Once again, Tom and Dick considered abandoning the whole thing. It turned out that my three mates had agreed to raise money for a charity funding epilepsy treatment and just paddling down the Bering Coast wouldn’t be a big enough deal for fundraising.
There was also the cost. Both Louise and Tom had borrowed for this trip.
We pulled all of our bags from the flight to Homer and talked again. I figured, “Hell, we’ve come this far. Let’s go paddling.” Tom wanted to paddle up to the strait, wait for fog and then sneak across. That seemed crazy to me. The Russians have radar. I think that Louise, being more diplomatic, sided with me. Five minutes before the plane took off for Homer we told them to put our gear back on. We hopped over to Homer and then a couple of days later to Provideniya.
Journal, July 22, 1994, Provideniya (64.4,-173.22)
Provideniya, 5am. With all this light we haven’t been sleeping more than 5 to 6 hours each night. Trying to sit on a spring bed that looks like a chain link fence. It has an amazing amount of sag. In same room as Louise. We were going to give her a break from us three guys and sleep 3 guys one room, but she didn’t want to sleep in this place alone.
In N.A. this would definitely be a dive. An underlying scent of poo and must dominates. The rooms are narrow, with faded off-pink wallpaper, brown lino floor, these 2 or 3 spring cots, a radiator, one table with pink cover full of holes, one wood chair. Light bulb hanging from ceiling. That’s it. We thought of putting the mattresses on the floor, but wanted separation from the many cockroaches. I can hear outside the powerful pumping of the central power station that heats this whole town, when it’s working. Beside it is a tall brick chimney surrounded by a huge mound of black coal. Black smoke belches out.
The town has gravel roads, very rocky. There are large chunks of concrete and pieces of steel lying around everywhere amongst the concrete block and pre-formed concrete tenement buildings. No private homes. Because this is not a consumer society there is no plastic litter as we know it. Just monumental state junk. 4000 residents, but seemingly less because they are concentrated in these dilapidated buildings. I suspect, though, that inside these buildings there are some comfortable suites. No one has much here, but it looks as if everyone eats. This place is very sparse, like the land.
Flying in was spectacular. Above the low clouds across the Bering Sea in a Navahoe. The clouds parted as we reached the coast, revealing scenes of raw splendor. Rugged mountains drop precipitously to the sea. Snow in the valleys. Rocky headlands, some beaches. And nobody. We can’t wait to get started.
Getting through customs was O.K. They X-rayed everything. Their machine worked. It found our flare guns, but not Tom’s 3-inch army issue knife. Nor mine, nor my smaller flares. We had eleven 70-pound bags, plus carry-ons. Customs took about 45 minutes.
Oleg met us. Dark hair, 5'10", strong nose and eyes, wiry. We shoved everything into a small bus and bounced to his office. Like all buildings here, no attempt has been made to pretty the place up. His building is wood plank (most are concrete). Inside was O.K., though.
Roman and two other guys came by. We all sat in a small room and discussed our situation. They smoked. Roman is the mover here. He organizes the tour boats, gets his cut. He supplies food and other things brought over from Alaska to local merchants. He broke off our conversation and talked repeatedly on his VHF radio, emergency channel 16, while we were meeting. They all use these things because nothing else works. He and his wife have a part-time store, which they open after working hours, after their regular jobs. He is not to be trusted. Still, he is, we hope, on our side.
Still no clearance to cross the strait and very unlikely to get it. Roman said he will send a telegram to Moscow, over 6,000 km away. Great. He said that there is a new commander here who is taking no initiatives, no chances. Provideniya is the only “official” exit point in the Russian Far East. To leave from any other point such as Uelen, on the Bering Strait, 240 nautical miles north, is an exception. We won’t pay for privilege.
We went to the only bar/restaurant in town with Oleg. It opens at 9pm. Looked like a 1950s party room. Delicious dinner. But first, vodka, multiple times, “here’s to your family, here’s to your ancestors, here’s to friendship, here’s to…”.Bottoms up, pickled cucumbers with mayo. Then smoked salmon with cucumbers rolled up inside, followed by hamburger steak, potatoes, more cucumbers. Smokey place. Russian music, jazzy. Surprise: Leonard Cohen, one of his more depressing songs. Dancing, including men with men. Oleg’s new girlfriend came by. Pretty. Older than Oleg. He’s crazy about her. She has a daughter by another marriage. There was a guy in a suit and black hat at the back of the room who Oleg deferred to. Hard look, just stared at us. A cop? It all got a little blurry.
We never got permission to cross. After much negotiation it was decided that we would paddle from Provideniya around the south end of the peninsula to Mys Chaplino. There we would wait for a small Russian tour ship to pick us up and take us up to Uelen on the Bering Strait. From there we would paddle south back to Provideniya. We would also have to take with us an English-speaking guide.
The next morning we set up our kayaks beside a junkyard, loaded everything and waited all day for our guide. He never arrived.
The following day Gennady Khokhorin did arrive, with a fiberglass kayak. We set off.
It was obvious that Gennady had not kayaked before. Partly it was because of his kayak — something called a McNulty, a British boat, narrow, soft chines, tippy, that had been abandoned nearby.
On the first day his rudder broke and jammed sideways. He couldn’t steer. I was able to dismantle it while we were underway with tools from my fishing gear, but without a rudder he had a lot of difficulty. He almost kept up with us in calm seas, but when the weather came up he fell far behind. This was not the kayak for a beginner.
On the second day we had to surf over a gravel bar and make it into a stream. Louise and I led. Gennady was edgy, missed the entrance and slammed into the rocks onshore. I caught him before he capsized and he was O.K. but we knew that we had to be more careful after that. Soon we realized that he had never been in this area before either. Some guide.
But here’s the thing about Gennady: he’s tough, strong, can fix anything, speaks good English, is great company, is an excellent fire maker and is generous to a fault. He offered us a window into the people, customs and, of course, the bureaucracy that we encountered as we journeyed along the coast.
Journal, July 26, 1994 Mys Chaplino (64.42,-172.36)
On board Fodor Mattison. Small ship. Fog. It’s very hot in this cabin. We leave tomorrow at 6 am or earlier. Tom and I paddled 4 miles up the lake at Chaplino for better water. Paddled hard, in thick fog. Climbed up a beautiful hill above the fog. Exquisite. When we got back Gennady was waiting. The ship was here! Big hurry. More later.
Journal, July 27, 1994 Uelen, (66.16,-169.81)
If you described this town as a face it would be one that only a mother could love. Lonely wood shacks on a windswept gravel bar. It looks as if an angry sea could sweep the whole town away in a moment. Why here? Only for strategic reasons. It’s right at the entrance to the Bering Strait. We saw Chukchi or Yupik people arrive here in a large skin umiak. Not a museum piece like I’ve seen before, but a real, sealskin boat. They didn’t stay long. No local people would live here unless a white Russian told them to.
The ship dropped us off right on time at 6 am. The kayaks and gear were put onto the skiff and we proceeded against pitching waves and strong wind to shore. Water shipped over our faces, we in our dry suits, the three crewmen in increasingly soggy wool. Nobody said anything. 4 uniformed soldiers with large guns met us at the beach and demanded passports. I bought a couple of small ivory pieces from a big jolly Russian woman. Really nice pieces — seals and a round necklace. We set off.
66.119, -169.675
We find ourselves in a curious place. It’s a very small bay with the opening almost blocked with ice pans. A fast stream and boulders. Steep cliffs behind. There’s no flat land. We will be sleeping on the boulders because we have to be here. Coming around an ice flow in 25–30 knot winds Gennady capsized. He was being swept towards the ice, under an overhanging pan. Tom and Dick were closest. Tom righted the kayak and steadied it while Gennady got back in. Dick paddled. Louise and I found this place to pull in. Fortunately, with Tom holding and Dick paddling they were able to get him here. Gennady has a dry suit. He was O.K. No more big winds, please.Gennady and I went up a talus slope onto a ridge for a great panorama. The sweep of the land and sea was vast. We could see the clouds, just above the water, blasting by like a freight train. On the way down I stepped on a large boulder, similar to countless others, except this one started to roll. Over and over, with me climbing like a hamster on a wheel, trying not to get pinned. I couldn’t quite jump clear because other rocks were now being swept down, so I kept climbing. Luckily, the slide ended and I was fine, though scared. Haven’t had a close call like that for a long time. Tom and Louise saw it, said I was rock surfing. Not to be repeated.
We get gusts in this bay. As we were setting up a tent it got away from us and flew up in the air beside the cliff about 50 feet. It hovered there for a while. Gennady and I ran and intercepted it on the way down. So, tomorrow at 4 am we rise and check the wind. We’ve got to get out of here.
Journal July 28, 1994
Up at 4:30, out by 6:30. A little wind from the south greeted us, but as we rounded Mys Petek (southern cape on Mys Dezhneva[1]), the wind abated, the fog cleared and what could we see, incredibly clearly? O. Ratmanova (Big Diomede). There it was, an island in the middle of the Bering Strait, with Little Diomede no doubt just on the other side of it, in the U.S. Still yesterday for them, as it’s on the other side of the date line. It was a beautiful, flat, clear sunny day, perfect for the crossing. No wind, no waves.
We rafted together and had an interesting discussion. A mad dash to Alaska and damn the consequences? Or continue south, against the prevailing winds and current?
Tom would have gone for Alaska. Louise was against. Dick was prevaricating. Gennady wanted to visit his kids, who lived in Alaska, and he seemed to want to go even without a visa. I was against. Crossing the strait: a private goal of five adventurers. We would put Gennady in jeopardy back in mother Russia. What sort of jail would they put him in? Our Russian friend would be punished, the Epileptic foundation would have to disown any connection, the kayaks would be confiscated, etc. etc. Sanity prevailed.
We headed south. Shortly after that a big Russian military helicopter buzzed us. It’s hard to outrun a chopper in a kayak. An hour later we saw two orcas, an adult male and younger male. Then later, grey whales. As fascinating as that morning was, we had no way of knowing at that time what an incredible sight awaited us, just around Dezhneva.
[1]Cape Dezhnev is a cape that forms the eastmost mainland point of Asia
5. A Little History (Entered September 30,2020)
Historians and archaeologists have long thought that the migration of early peoples from Asia to America must have happened when a land bridge connected the two continents. The idea that masses of people could have paddled across in skin or wood boats or even rafts was not given much credence.
Years ago I wondered about this. Didn’t these academics know that travel by boat is much easier than over land? You can even carry your stuff with you. I’m no historian, but I’ve hiked coastlines and paddled them and it sure is easier to paddle.
What I didn’t realize at the time was that there was already a pretty lively debate about this. Proponents of the Bering Land Bridge theory suggested that early migrants walked across the bridge and down an open corridor of ice-free North America, poking sticks at mastodons as they went. Recently, though, this theory has run into trouble. Studies have found that the open corridor was too barren to support much life before 12,600 BP and the date for the earliest arrivals keeps being pushed back.
In April, 2017 it was reported that an ancient village on Triquet Island, 150 miles north of Port Hardy, was found to be over 14,000 years old. This was particularly interesting to me, because I’ve visited that island a few times over the years, and camped on it. It is a small jewel, with two well-protected beaches and lush surrounding forest. There is an obvious shell midden there, but as usual, I was totally ignorant about how old it was. The Heiltsuk have long said that its people have lived on the island for ages. In their stories they tell us that the island remained ice-free during the last ice age. Since much of their land was covered in ice they huddled there. Geological and archeological studies support that.
Just before I first camped there in the fall of 1987, a kayaking acquaintance of mine built a tiny cabin on the beach. Later it was taken over by some fishermen who put in a rug that was soon moldy and left garbage around. Years later my friend said that he wished he had never built the cabin. Triquet Island is now managed under an agreement between the Hakai Luxvbalis Conservancy and the B.C. Provincial Government which allows the Heiltsuk Nation to use the resources on the island. On April 4, 2019 the island was closed to the public.
Early hunters really did poke spears at mastodons on the west coast. In 1977 a farmer named Emanuel Manis discovered a mastodon on his Olympic Peninsula property while digging a hole. He called in an archaeological team that found a spear point made from another mastodon embedded into a rib bone. There was marrow growth over the spear where it entered the bone, indicating that the spear was not the cause of death, nor had it been inserted after the animal died. This point has since been identified positively as being chiseled by human hands, and has been dated at 13,800 years ago. People lived along the coast even during some of the last ice age. Historians have long said that migrants started coming into North America after the ice sheets started melting. But some of the coastlines on the west coast, including the Brooks Peninsula on Vancouver Island and outer islands, including Triquet, were not glaciated. Maybe they were already there.
In 2004, Dr. Albert Goodyear, a highly respected archaeologist, published a report indicating he and his team had found human artifacts in sediments in South Carolina that are at least 50,000 years old. This was long before the last ice age, 20,000 years ago. The finding jibes well with the known date of early habitation of Australia by boat 50,000 to 70,000 years ago, but it upends the theory that humans came to America only about 14,000 years ago. 50,000 years ago there were still Denisovans, an early hominin, as well as our own species, Homo sapiens, wandering Siberia and Tibet. We still have some of their genes. These were early humans. If indigenous people did live along the North American coast during the last ice age their coastal settlements would have been far off present day shores. As the great ice sheets melted the rising waters would have flooded their homes, erasing all signs of their lives. They would have migrated and washed up on the shores of islands such as Triquet. Perhaps their situation was similar to Greenland today, which is melting very rapidly. They would have been boxed in by the rising sea on one side and the ice sheet that weighed heavily on the land just inshore. Maybe they obtained their protein from turbot and seals, just like Greenlanders today. If there were coastal inhabitants living before the ice age perhaps one day archaeologists will find evidence of them at higher elevations, just as our grandchildren and future generations will be forced to move to by rising sea levels. The oral traditions of people native to the West Coast do not speak of migrations down the coast. They say that they have been there “since time immemorial”. Their records have often been verified to be accurate. Perhaps this is what the term means: “Since the beginning”.
The indigenous way of life was based on a marine economy first developed in Asia and since adapted to local environments over thousands of years. Indigenous people understood how to trap fish using the flow of the ocean tides and how to build clam gardens on an industrial scale to harvest shellfish. Remains of these structures have been found in many places along the west coast of North America. These early inhabitants exhibited a profound understanding of dozens of plants used as food and medicine. They never took too much from the sea, which was bountiful. Boats were made from the skins of sea animals and from great logs. They traded widely from Alaska to California.
Even 14,000 years is a long time. Starting from then it would be over 4,600 years before the Egyptians built their pyramids in Giza. The Greek and then the Roman empires rose and fell. Genghis Khan’s broad empire, the Ottoman Empire, the British, French and Russian Empires, Chinese dynasties all peaked and declined. In the “New World” (to the Europeans) the Mayan civilization, the Olmecas, Incas, and Aztecs thrived for a while and then disappeared. During all of this time the many nations on the North Pacific Coast lived and thrived. Surely this is an indicator of remarkable success.
The earliest European explorers depended on the indigenous people for survival in a new (to them) and often harsh climate. In their journals they paid respect to the intimate knowledge of the land that the local people had accumulated over millennia. Then came the fur traders, merchants, and land developers. Imagine what would have happened if this second wave of arrivals had thought “Yes, we’ve got bigger boats, better weapons, the wheel, but these people have prospered here for eons. What can we learn from them about how to live on this land and sea?”
Of course this never happened. If the Europeans had asked, they might have learned that one of the most important keys for long-term survival is preserving the relationship of the people to the land and its life. One term often used is ‘stewardship of the land’ versus the European concept of extraction and exploitation. But it is more than that. There is a spiritual dimension to belonging to the land and surrounding sea and all the life they support. Indigenous people, who have lost so much, are working at reclaiming that spiritual connection and teaching it to the rest of the world.
Back when I was about 16, I read Genesis and other Old Testament stories. I was startled to learn that, according to these stories, the world was created 6,000 years ago just for us. We are not a part of nature. We own it, and have dominion over all the land and animals. This view of nature and land ownership is so ingrained in our culture that we don’t even recognize it. I had spent endless days tramping through the forest and dipping in the ocean. Like children everywhere I didn’t want to dominate. I wanted to belong. When we are children if we are lucky as I was, we get to play in parks and forests and form strong bonds with nature. Then during our working years these bonds become distant memories. I didn’t want this to happen to me and never could accept the story of Genesis. Recently, Pope Francis, in his Laudato Si, insisted that this was the “wrong interpretation”. Maybe nature is back as part of the whole human story, finally, and none too soon.
The Europeans brought this odd concept of land ownership to the “New World”. They divided it up into plots and bought and sold it. The earth is 4 1/2 billion years old, give or take. Humans live for about 80 years. But we claim that we “own” outright the land we stand on — to use or abuse. Can we really own land that is billions of years old and will continue to exist for billions more? Indigenous cultures have a more basic and ultimately more sophisticated approach to land use. It is held in common, as a source of life, both physical and spiritual, and when one generation passes, the next generation will seek nourishment from and sustain it.
The early Europeans were mainly interested in the fur trade. They formed “joint stock companies” in which a small number of grandees controlled companies such as the Hudson’s Bay Company and the Northwest Company in North America and the East India Company in India. None of the high British Lords and proprietors who initially backed “a Speculative Voyage to North America”, including Sir George Carteret and the esteemed scientist, Robert Boyle, had interest in going to the “New World”. They financed the project, bought a boat (Nonesuch) and sent Pierre Radisson and his brother-in-law, Medard Chouart Sieur des Grosseilleres back to Canada in 1668. They returned in October, 1669 with valuable furs and were granted the Royal Charter the following year. These promoters were noblemen who were only interested in profit and the prestige that came with the project. Visits to the New World were optional. Over time these companies evolved into modern corporations that were given the same legal rights as individuals, but lacked any attachment to the land or local people. This is vastly different from the sustainable practices of First Nations developed over 14,000 years. Yes, materially we have made fantastic progress over the last two centuries. But many people, especially those belonging to First Nations have been left out.
While the power and influence of corporations has reached new heights inequality is growing even for the middle classes. Pollution is increasing, the planet is warming and oceans are acidifying. We and the planet are at a tipping point. We can’t go back to pre-industrial times. We must go forward. Perhaps there is a way of combining science and technology with the teachings of First Nations. Here in B.C., First Nation Guardians, including the Heiltsuk, Haida and Kitasoo/Xai’xais have become essential in preserving fisheries. As in other parts of the world the knowledge-keepers are mentoring youth about the land and surrounding seas and reporting on overfishing and pollution. They are re-establishing traditional fishing practices and providing useful knowledge to boaters and other visitors. The Guardians are using traditional knowledge combined with computers, GPS and modern science to make a major contribution to our coast. This is something that we all can benefit from.
In the Gulf Islands, on Russell Island and near Fulford Harbour on Saltspring Island, people from the Hul’q’umi’num’ and WSANEC First Nations, along with Parks Canada, are re-establishing clam gardens that have been lying idle for hundreds of years. It has been only recently that these structures, some quite large, have been re-discovered on diverse coasts from Alaska to California. In the Gulf Islands, Coast Salish elders are teaching younger people how to create these habitats for clams, crabs, urchins, kelp and fish. These habitats can produce up to four times more than the amount of edible marine species that would normally exist.
6. Comox Harbour Fish Trap Complex (Entered September 30, 2020)
K’omoks First Nation, 49.673, -124.976
About 100 kilometers north of B.C.’s Gulf Islands there are remains of a large, industrial-scale fish trap complex.
There were two basic trap designs ranging in age from 1300 years ago until 100 years ago. The ‘Winged Heart’ trap apparently used the falling tides to catch herring. About 800 years ago, during the little Ice Age, it is thought that the colder waters brought salmon to the area. During this time the traps were changed abruptly to a different, ‘Winged Chevron’ trap. 323 individual traps have been identified, which could have been worked individually or networked with other traps. These were seriously large scale. The number of vertical stakes has been conservatively estimated at between 150,000 and 200,000.
When you consider the planning that must have gone into these traps — construction, maintenance and the processing of fish — you have to wonder just how many people were involved? This was an abundant coast inhabited by a prosperous people.
Early estimates of just 80,000 people in B.C. before contact have been disputed. Oral histories of First Nations report that European diseases such as small pox and influenza decimated populations even before the first Europeans appeared on the coast. The diseases, which the locals had no immunity to, had traveled up from more southern regions, including from Central America, through trade and contact. Estimates now put pre-contact populations at between 200,000 and 1 million. This may be conservative. A 1963 study of the !Kung Bushmen in Botswana determined that they “worked” (by hunting or gathering) an average of two and a half days per week. This was in a harsh environment. Life would have been considerably easier in the rich coastal environments of the Pacific Coast. First Nations people had ample time to create art, stories, legends, and these large-scale fish traps which were designed to catch exactly the desired fish. There was minimum by-catch, no ghost nets to be lost at sea and no damage to the environment. Along the great arc stretching from present day Korea and Japan, north up the coast of Asia, across the Bering Strait and south down the North American coast to California, marine societies grew and flourished. Unique cultures developed but they all had one special thing in common: they harvested most of their protein and nutrition from the sea. European settlers didn’t understand this deep physical and spiritual connection to the ocean. Historians have tended to ignore civilizations such as these that hadn’t developed monoculture agriculture on a large scale. But these were successful, long lasting societies. Understanding this may be key to developing more just and sustainable modern societies.
There is a new sea farming concept developed by a company called Greenwave that is very similar to First Nations’ historical practices. It is called ‘vertical ocean farming’ or ‘3D ocean farming’. Vertical ropes are anchored to the seabed. Attached to them are floating horizontal ropes. From these lines seaweed grows down towards the seabed next to scallops and mussels hanging in mesh. Below them are oysters and then clams buried below. The farms can occupy a very small footprint. Greenwave claims that they can grow 25 tons of greens and 250,000 shellfish per acre in five months. Kelp, one of nature’s fastest-growing plants, soaks up prodigious amounts of carbon, nitrogen and phosphorous. Oysters filter nitrogen from the water, which is a leading cause of anoxic waters and fish mortality. Seaweed contains calcium, vitamin C, Omega-3s and many other useful nutrients.
Contrast that to modern fish farms. Open net pens hold up to a million fish. For carnivorous fish such as salmon much of the feed comes from wild fish caught off South America. There are huge concerns about mining the world’s feeder fish stocks in less developed areas in order to provide food for wealthy buyers in richer countries.
In the summer, when salmon are most active and hungry, a large salmon farm can go through 18 tonnes of feed every day. Fish farms are perfect breeding grounds for sea lice, which attach to passing wild juvenile salmon. Infection rates can be vastly increased in wild salmon up to 30 km from open-net pens. Diseases such as Infectious Salmon Anaemia (ISA) and Furunculosis can be endemic in farmed fish pens. Treatment requires vaccines and antibiotics, which can pass into the environment. This is a very controversial way of producing fish that has been embraced in Washington State and B.C. but rejected in Alaska. Now only the Alaskan wild fish stocks are reasonably healthy.
Imagine that instead of these fish farms there were small, community-owned vertical-ocean farms dotted all along the coasts of our blue planet. Some could be in indigenous communities and could provide traditional food sources plus economic benefits. If the farms were kept small, local communities of all types could participate in growing sustainable food and nurturing the oceans at the same time. There is great potential here. A researcher in the Netherlands has calculated that sea farms covering a total area equal to Washington State could provide protein for the entire world population.
Cows emit a lot of methane[1]. A Japanese study found that the production of 1 kg. of beef releases as much CO2 as the average European car emits in 250 kilometers. A recent Australian study found that an addition of less than 2% of a special red algae seaweed, which possibly could be grown in vertical ocean farms, can reduce methane emissions by 99 percent. Methane is at least 28 times more potent than CO2 on a 100 year time scale, so this is important.
The best thing about vertical ocean farming is that large quantities of high-quality food are produced with zero inputs while enhancing the health of the ocean.
In October, 2017 a study was released that measured the decline by volume of insect populations in Germany at 76% over the past 27 years. The decline was even higher at 82% during the productive summer months. These declines were in non- agricultural areas set aside to preserve nature. This shocked researchers.
This decline of insect populations could have massive effects on food production in the future. The collapse of bee populations due to mites and neocon pesticides is in the news these days, but there is a die-off of all insects and birds. During cycle trips across the Canadian prairies and especially through vineyards in France I became aware that there were no bugs and few birds. We enjoyed the sight of beautiful waving wheat fields and green grape vines, but other than people trimming and spraying the crops, no life. Everything is related. If you encounter few bugs on monoculture crops you have to suspect that lots of fertilizers and insecticides have been used, which eventually will leach into rivers and surrounding seas, causing vast dead zones.
When you combine personal memories such as these with what scientists are telling us, the stark message becomes more real, more urgent. Mankind’s monoculture food production is becoming increasingly tenuous and also dangerous for life on the planet. We need to shift towards sustainable farming practices. Ocean farming based on First Nations sustainable principles could help. However, this is assuming that raising shellfish will continue to be viable. Ocean chemistry and temperatures are changing. Already shellfish are dying in some areas due warming water and acidification. We urgently need to cut back CO2 emissions and other pollutants. More on this later.
These changes are already being felt where we had our discussion 25 nautical miles off Big and Little Diomede in the Bering Strait in 1994. Walruses have long hauled their huge bodies up onto the sea ice near the islands to dive and rest and the Inuit on the Diomedes depend on them. However, in 2014 only one animal was taken, and in 2015 just 10. The ice has gone and so have the walruses.
[1] I was surprised to learn that the vast majority of it goes out of their mouths, not their back ends.
7. Back to Chukotka Autonomous Okrug, 1994 (Entered October 31, 2020)
Journal, July 28, 1994 Puoten, 65.857, -170.53
Great day. We had rounded the peninsula, well past Mys Peek. Had been paddling steady for 8 hours. Heading east, the afternoon sun in our eyes, couldn’t make out what looked like a fuzzy rock. We were tired. So we pulled in. Straight in. Louise and I hit the beach first and then we saw what it was: a dead, beached whale with a huge Kodiak bear on top. It seemed to have eaten out a cavity in the whale, gorged itself, and then dozed off.
Startled, the bear heard us, stood on its hind legs, front paws up in the air and roared at us. It was massive. We had been so dumb, and now so vulnerable, maybe 20 feet away. We back-paddled as fast as we could.
The bear went back down on all four legs, turned, jumped off the whale and ran away. Tom managed to shoot a photo of the back of the bear heading over the nearest ridge. Wow.
We got out of there. Oh yah. Earlier we had seen a mother brown bear and three cubs scurrying up the ridge. We should have been more alert. We didn’t camp there.
65.86, -170.538
We ended up at a place that to our untrained eyes looked like an old homestead. But Gennady knew it for what it had been: an old military post. There were trenches for practice, and a sunken bomb shelter. A most beautiful place, with a lagoon out back and a nice stream. My topo map says it is, or was, Puoten.
I was just getting the cooking fire started when we heard a rifle shot, loud, close by. Men coming up the beach. Two close, two following. With the glasses I could see that they were not military, all had rifles. So what next? Turned out they were Chuckchi locals, out fishing. They net migrating fish on the rivers to feed a fox farm out of Uelen. Yikes.
Out of view they had a tracked vehicle. The rifles were for the bears. Did they fire the shot to announce their arrival? Some had on skin jackets with fur lining. Asian faces. Good looking men. We served them tea. They talked in Russian to Gennady. The youngest, about 15, eyed us suspiciously. The other three were more relaxed. The youngest one was most interested in our gear and our kayaks. When they left we cooked up some pasta over a few bricks and a grate. And went to bed content. 37 nautical miles.
July 29, 1994 65.627, -170.847
Headwind, misty, rain, a tough slog. We kept rounding point after point. Confusion as to our location. No visibility. Up to now I hadn’t been involved in navigation because Dick was doing that. But he didn’t know where we were. So I started checking our headings. When we managed to get ashore through some surf at lunch I borrowed Dick’s parallels and calipers and from our headings determined that we were not nearly as far along as we had thought. Now we are going to work out our times and headings each day in advance. We are dealing with a topo map that covers a huge region, including a good chunk of the Alaskan coast, Saint Lawrence Island, all of our route. No details. Further south we have better charts. (of Arakamchechen) Camped just west of Mys Nunyamo, another abandoned military place.
July 30, 1994, Lavrentiya, 65.587, -171.0
Fog cleared, with glasses you could make out Lavrentiya.
The town seemed a little nicer than Provideniya, though it is smaller. Gennady looked in all four shops for things that we couldn’t get in Provideniya.
The shopkeepers were mostly Chinese. He bought a soldering gun. The kids were a lot of fun, they swarmed us. A little girl gave Louise a leather bracelet with beads that she had made. Her brother, Sasha, gave me one, which I will pass on to Evan. The kids made up their own games.
Of course, when we landed on the beach two military types drove up to check our passports. The stores were very sparse. Whole cupboards bare. The town again has big chunks of concrete and steel lying around, junk everywhere, dirt, no pavement. Large apartment buildings, plain, a bust of Lenin.
Yesterday at Nunyamo I had luck. Walking around the deserted village I felt a rusty nail go through the sole of my boots and right between my toes. Not a scratch!
Journal: July 31, 1994, Akani, 65.492, -171.176
We left Lavrentiya, still on the 30th about 6:15 PM, arrived here at Akani at 10 P.M. Another long day.
As we approached the beach of what we thought was another deserted village a couple of people came down near shore and waved us around the point to a more sheltered beach. We were invited to stay in a little portable cabin with a coal fire last night, had tea and dinner and talked until 1:30 am.
Alexander, an old man, and Nina, an old woman, live here full time. Alexander told us that a storm is coming and that we will be here for three days.
The whole village of 50 families had been moved to Lorino about a decade ago. Displacement has been government policy. Alexander and Nina couldn’t stand city life and moved back here three years ago. Their two children are here for the summer. Tatiana went to high school in Leningrad. Rusylan attends school in Lorino, has worked for a while in Provideniya. She teaches school somewhere. Maybe she said Vladivostok. Mom looks wonderful, has a big broad face. They look handsome in their leather and fur. The portable cabin we are in is sometimes hauled overland and used by reindeer herders.
At 6 AM two guards came and demanded passports. Gennady is now walking back to Lavrentiya to pay some fee for passing through this area. Passing through fiefdoms. Three hours each way. It’s blowing south and we are comfortable (except for Gennady) and can use some rest. We are four in the cabin right now. Tom, who, like a predatory animal, is either full on or off, is asleep. I feel I’m more like an herbivore. I need to forage. Dick is writing, Louise cutting off some of the neck of her dry suit (it ripped, was repaired in Lavrentiya by a guy with a motorcycle, but the patch material was too heavy and it tore again beside the patch).
Tom and Louise spar quite a bit. It turns out that maybe they have some history. Now he wants her to paddle harder. Says she’s lily-dipping. She claims she needs to conserve some energy for the next day. Perhaps her racing skills with light weight crafts did not prepare her for our heavily loaded doubles. I’m paddling very hard. As far as I’m concerned, though, she’s my paddling partner, we’re at least keeping up with Gennady and she’s good company. No problem.
Everyone has aches and pains. Dick: quite a blister on his palm, Tom: a swollen wrist from impact during Gennady’s rescue, Louise aches all over. My arms are good. My fingers are tired. They feel aflame, especially in the morning. On my right wrist are several open pus sores. No Band-Aid is possible, so they are not healing. I’m not sure but maybe the dry suit neoprene cuff wore into it. The pain in my neck and shoulder blades stops as soon as the paddling stops. The right wet suit boot has worn off the skin on my foot, so now I wear a sock on that foot. I cut off the end of the other sock and wear the rest of it over my wrist, to cover it and keep the cuff off it. Considering how hard I am paddling, and for how long each day, I think that my body is holding up well. I am in good spirits. Because I am a little faster, I am doing the cooking, morning and evening. Tom takes down the tent and often washes dishes, as does Dick. Louise takes down the other tent. She’s good at that now. I don’t think that she had tented from kayaks before. Dick and I handle the cooking tarp it if is required. Gennady does fire.
Aug. 1, 1994: 3 PM and still wind-bound at Akani
Blowing 30–40 knots from north. Walked today. You cannot see the wind much because there are no trees or large plants to bend over. Just short grass and flowers. If you kneel down, you notice that there is much less wind. In this country it is more windy if you are a human than if you are a ground squirrel. Most of the land is soggy but some of the higher ground dries well. This is ground squirrel country — light brown, quite large animals with a call like a squirrel, except louder, and more aggressive. The tops of most of the hills are rocky.
Through the mist I could sometimes make out the hook extending out around the next bay. Sometimes I could see no more than 10 meters. This encourages you to observe close in. There is a surprising variety of small flowers. My favorite is a small cupped blue flower, like a hooded face. Camas? The most common flower is dark pink, five petals, open like a daisy. There is a stem with a white fluff puff on the top. An interesting purple snap-dragon-style flower with fern-like leaves alternating down the stock (many flowers per stalk). Small yellow daisies, some with blue stamens. Tiny pink, 6-petal flowers. More. Very common: stocks with many pink parts.
Down in the valleys you can watch water ooze out of the moss and head downhill; the beginnings of creeks and rivers. Further down the creek spreads out, reeds indicate more depth than my gumboots can handle. A short distance later the river has become swollen, the water, now brown, flows very quickly. A pile of rocks offers me shelter from the wind. I crouch down and ponder this land and my own ignorance of it. Lots of caribou poo and antlers. Spongy footing. Small flowers. How do the huge brown bears survive? Rusylan says ground squirrels, any dead animals, fish. Those bears looked enormous, healthy, successful. The caribou antlers were old but the droppings fairly fresh. There were a few small kill deer-like birds with brown back, yellow belly, black line above eye, white line below, forked black/white tail feathers.
On a hill were three coffins lying on the land with sides filled in with rocks. A beautifully preserved skull lay beside one. At another, just some bones and an Orthodox cross, written: 1923–1962. I couldn’t read the Russian, of course. Yesterday on another hill I came across a number of mounds. Curved bones and wood curved up over pits dug about 1 ½ to 2 meters deep. Up to 2 meters in length, maybe 1 meter across. I asked Rusylan- these were used by his Chuchchi people to store meat on the permafrost. They covered these pits with sod during summer, dug them up for food in winter. The bones supported the sod.
This family is special. Rusylan is living here full time over the summer. He attended school in Lorene and also Anadir. Tatyana graduated from high school in Leningrad, will be staying here only one more week. Lina and Alexander must have lived through some very difficult times. But what I see in Lina’s broad creased face is radiance and laughter. She makes you feel good.
Alexander is the patriarch. One of his jobs is to count whales for a centre in Barrow, Alaska. You can see him often looking through his glasses. He is also a hunter. This winter he shot a polar bear. One bullet. The skin is now draped over a large, Russian-made ski-doo. I wondered how he paid for it. Then, oh yes. We saw a dead walrus on a beach. It was huge, whale-like. Tusks cut off. The bear skin. China close by. He is very handsome. White hair, sparkle in his eyes, a little shy, but he is warming up to us. When we arrived he invited us up right away.
Gennady has learned that they knew we were coming down the coast. They have a radio telephone and heard the news from the four hunters we met. News travels.
There was a genuine respect amongst all the family members. It was good, spacious. We were their second visitors this year. I hope that we didn’t eat all of their bread. It is not the custom there to bake your own. I tried whale meat. It was good, like bland cold cuts.
Alexander loves this place, couldn’t stand being in a town. Lina calls it home too. Last year she flew to Resolute and Pond Inlet for a native language conference. This September Alexander will be flying to Barrow, Alaska. Tatyana is teaching. Full lives.
I wonder how Rusylan will do? I can’t see the direction yet. He showed me photos of his stay in Provideniya and in the army. His companions were white. He is not like his dad and the other four hunters, his education comes from books, not from the land. I don’t see him staying there.
The wind was still howling. When I returned from my hike my four fellow travelers were asleep. Gennady, Rusylan and Louise are now playing a card game called “Polish Fool”. Dick returned from a walk. Tom hadn’t budged from his bag. He is not a hiker. He was “saving energy, getting ready for tonight’s paddle.” Tom has less interest in the land, keeps his sight on the goal. When we were at Cap Chaplino and hiked into the hills, a fog bank enveloped us. He was very nervous about getting back, even with a compass. All we had to do was walk against the wind and turn left when we hit the water. Perhaps he was more worried about our schedule and missing our pickup.
Aug. 2, 1994
Still stormed in. 20–30 knots. We were starting to be concerned about our schedule. Someone has some pressing engagement, I guess. I was enjoying this stay and getting a glimpse of these people’s lives, and of the land.
Birds on the sea cliffs: gulls, black and/or red-legged kittiwakes, mew gulls, northern fulmar, arctic tern, common eider, pelagic cormorant, double-crested cormorants, common murres (big colonies), pigeon guillemot, crested auklet (I think), horned puffin, tufted puffin, bufflehead. Birds on tundra: semi-palmate plover, sharp-tailed sandpiper. I’m no expert birder, have a bird book with me.
August 3, 1994
We woke to a bright foggy day, no wind. Said good-bye to the family. Many farewells. Rusylan was attracted to Louise, Nina gave her seal mitts.
Last night was amazing. Alexander and Gennady worked hard to wire up a gas generator. At 9:30 they got it going. The lights in the house went on. Alexander sat down and started shaving with an electric razor. Rusylan fired up his reel-to-reel tape deck and we had salty Russian pop music. Rusylan took photos of the group with an old SLR camera with electric flash. Tea, whale meat, crackers. Quite a time. They asked us to stay on.
The next morning, as above, we left in fog towards Lorina, but then decided to set out for a direct, 33 nm crossing to Mys Kalyustkina. As usual, Louise was the only one who didn’t want to go the extra distance, and it was Tom who was pushing for it. As usual, we went anyway.
We projected 11 hours in the boats, but did it in 10, which was decent. Towards the end the wind picked up and we were again concerned for Gennady’s safety. I must admit, that after about 8 hours I started to resent Louise. She was so tired, wasn’t pulling at all and I had to work even harder. And she was whining. I resented it because this was a long slog, I was tired too and hadn’t peed all crossing. But, O.K., when I joined up I expected some tough days. I joined willingly, and have no reason to resent her.
August 4, 1994
Today we paddled only 12 miles into a strong headwind. Gennady finally could take no more of the strong seas. He usually says nothing, but after a number of questions when he was falling far behind, he finally admitted he would rather be on the beach.
We came in at Mys Nygchigen. Surfed in. The beach wasn’t much but we camped up above on the tundra where it was open and green. It was raining. Saw bear poo.
August 8, 1994
Four days since the last entry. The time flew by. Early start on the 5th, good weather, so we paddled to Yanrakynnot (64.91, -172.493, 18 nautical miles in 5 hours) and then on to the north end of Ostrov Arakanchechen.
Yanrakynnot is a mostly indigenous village. A holiday, lots of drinking. I was offered a ride on the side car of a motorcycle by an obviously inebriated Chuckchi and decided, O.K. We sped off over the dirt and gravel roads and tundra. Fast. The suspension on those things is surprisingly good. It was comfortable.
Near here is the island of Arakamchechen. A huge number of Walrus haul themselves up on the beach. We were looking forward to visit, but authorities allow very few onto the island. Unfortunately for us, the Discovery cruise ship had just been by and we were not allowed to visit.
We visited a family living in a yuranga for the summer: a round home with a frame of wood poles and scavenged tubing covered with reindeer skins. The three winter in Yanrakynnot. Tend reindeer and fish and hunt. Basic inside. The man gave me a beautiful, freshly caught salmon after I asked him how the fishing was.
We camped nearby and fed the small boy (maybe 4) four large bowels of pasta, fillet salmon and broccoli. It was a beautiful spot. A corral for herding reindeer appeared to be in working order. A cousin who lives with the family visited our camp. He had lost his reindeer, was hoping to locate them somewhere. Apparently on the other side of Arakamchechen there is a polar bear wandering around. Missed the sea ice, I guess. Wonder about its future.
On the 6th we paddled to the north central coast of Ostrov Yttygran, to a place called Whale Alley. (64.635, -172.605) There are a number of huge whalebones there, from an old village. Only one shack stands now. This site is on the Discovery ship’s itinerary. Some bones standing up, some pits semi-covered where meat was stored. When we arrived at the beach the weather was beautiful and warm. Went for a dip in the dry suits. You float like the Michelin Man.
We decided to paddle farther, to make the next day a short one. Louise wanted to stay put. Tom and Dick were in favor of going on. I could have been persuaded either way.
Going by one lowland the wind was blowing so hard Gennady was forced to go ashore. A very windy place, not too comfortable. We thought about camping. I noticed a fresh bear print. Tom definitely wanted to go on. To relieve Gennady I paddled his kayak. Damned uncomfortable. Once we had rounded the northern point the wind hit hard. Gennady and Louise wanted to quit. We continued to make for this mountain on the mainland, for protection from the wind. 25–30 knot headwind. Very slow going. Took forever. But we made it and set up a good camp with a cheery fire. Louise started screaming at Tom that she hadn’t gotten her way the whole trip (true). They had a good fight.
(Looking back I wish that I had backed Louise more. For her sake, and also, maybe we had no need to hurry so much. I understand that she had a commitment to get back to work at a certain time. But how important was that? We should have talked about that more. We will never go back and could have seen more. I did develop admiration for qualities that Tom brought, though: His single-mindedness, his focus and his physical strength. And I think that he was O.K. with the ocean experience I brought to the group.)
On the seventh we paddled just 6 miles and got picked up at Pilliken’s base camp at Rumilet. (64.57, -172.97) The truck broke down a lot. The driver would get out, lie on his back underneath and pound on something with a sledge hammer. Something about the clutch, I think. This seemed to work, for awhile. “No parts” he said.
We had quite a good ride on the back deck through the mountains. There were a lot of abandoned stone buildings and fox holes and fortifications: all old Soviet military, long gone. On a hill near Provideniya is a large scratching on the rocks: “Hail to the Soviet military men”.
Yesterday while riding into town I noticed a boat that I am familiar with: the Dagmar Aaen. It’s a 52 foot Norwegian sailing vessel captained by Arverd Fuchs. A couple of months ago this boat was tied up at the Maritime Museum in Vancouver. The crew took a tour of Feathercraft and Arverd bought a K1C Expedition kayak, which is now on deck. Last year they sailed from Norway across the N.W. Passage, then south to Vancouver. This year they hope to sail the N.E. Passage across Russia, back to Norway. But just like us, it seems that they can’t get permission to carry on. Soon they will be too late to start. It’s a beautiful boat. Oak construction hull, steel places reinforced, extra beams inside. 180 hp diesel, 1500 litres of fuel, with full barrels on deck they will have enough for the whole passage. They carry an ultra-light plane on board for ice reconnaissance.
8. The Fishing Business. (Entered October 31, 2020)
Of all the effects that our mass consumer society has had on the oceans, over-fishing has inflicted the most damage.
During the early 1980s I used to paddle out to an island up the B.C. coast off Campbell River and visit my friends Margaret and Eric. They were caretakers of a delightful old log cabin overlooking a pristine bay. I don’t know if they liked the term, but most people would have called them hippies. They had few possessions and preferred to live simply. Often Eric would catch a salmon for dinner by dropping a line off his kayak. It was easy for him. One day a seiner fishing boat came into the bay and stayed for a number of weeks. The crew wasn’t friendly; they told us to fuck off if we came close by. They must have been fishing illegally. Years later Eric didn’t bother fishing in the bay because the fish were all gone. This surprised me. I thought the fishing would recover, but it didn’t. It seems a new equilibrium had developed which didn’t include predator fish. This story has been repeated all over the world.
Recently Callum Roberts, an esteemed marine conservation biologist, and his graduate student, Ruth Thurstan, combed through old European fisheries records and compared them to catches being recorded today. They used a methodology developed by a nineteenth-century scientist named Walter Garstang. He divided the catch by the amount of power expended to get an estimate of availability of fish. He estimated that “steam trawlers had more than twice the fishing power of sailing vessels”. More recent developments of sonar and satellite imagery have increased “fishing power” many times more.
Roberts expected a decline, but was astonished that what he found was: “near annihilation”…”a fleet that in the 1880s consisted mostly of sail-powered boats open to the elements was far more successful at wrestling fish from the sea than we are now. For every hour spent fishing today, in boats bristling with the latest fish-finding electronics, fishers land just 6 percent of what they did 120 years ago.” Basically, 90 percent of the world’s fishing stock has been wiped out since industrialized fishing began. This finding has since been verified by other scientists. I remember seeing and catching more fish in my youth than now, so that’s my baseline, but my experience cannot encompass the catches that came before me, going back to pre-industrial times. Scientists call this a moving baseline. A century ago it was a gentle decline of abundance, but now we see it going off a cliff.
Industrial fishing is causing destruction on a massive scale. The biggest fleets are heavily subsidized by national governments and would not be profitable without them. And it’s happening globally. European authorities have ignored their own scientists and approved overfishing for decades. In Japan inshore fisheries are well managed but the offshore fleet is the most heavily subsidized in the world. China has by far the biggest fleet and is the worst offender. During August and September, 2020, 340 boats of China’s vast, 17,000-strong fleet were just offshore from the biodiverse Galapagos Islands. In 2017 Ecuador seized the Chinese reefer Fu Yuan Yu Leng 999 within its Galapagos marine reserve. In its hold were 6,000 frozen sharks, including endangered hammerhead and whale sharks. In just one boat! Often these boats “go dark”. They turn off their transmitters so following them is difficult. Increasing numbers of “ghost” fishing boats from North Korea are washing up on Japanese shores, with bodies of fishermen still onboard. These have been pushed out of their traditional fishing grounds by aggressive Chinese boats and forced to fish illegally in much more exposed and dangerous Russian territories, where they have perished. There are now ways to possibly limit this destruction. Until recently once these fleets “went dark” they could not be traced. But in the past two years satellites have enabled researchers to accurately track all of these boats. If countries can agree on sensible fishing policies they can also follow the movements of all of the world’s fleets and hopefully shame and control the worst offenders.
In B.C., whether it has been hunting sea otters to near extinction or cutting down old growth forests, when large, corporate, for profit enterprises have been ceded control of non-renewable resources, over hunting or over extraction has been sure to follow. This is the case with our west coast fisheries. Until 1991 the vast majority of fishing was done by owner-operators working from their own communities. But then the federal government, in a bid to get increasing returns from a diminishing resource, brought in Individual Transferable Quotas (ITQs). Fishermen were issued or bought quotas which could be sold to the highest bidder. Today the quota for over 90% of halibut and other species has been bought up by local and foreign owned corporations operating through shell companies. Quotas are now more valuable than fish. Fishing communities from White Rock in the south to Bella Bella on the mid coast and up to Prince Rupert in the north have suffered enormously, boats have been left idle and rotting and the fish are disappearing fast. Private fishing corporations benefit only a few company shareholders. For them foregoing harvest for sustainability reasons is money lost, down the drain. Better to get it all now. This systemic problem of running down the resource is happening world-wide. There are better ways to manage fisheries. More about this in later chapters.
The Cod Collapse in Atlantic Canada
In 1497 the English explorers only had to lower baskets into the ocean to pick up cod off Newfoundland’s shores. Local Canadian fishermen using traditional near-shore methods had a bonanza until the 1950s when large international factory ships began fishing off the Grand Banks. In 1976 the U.S. and Canada extended their marine jurisdiction to 200 nautical miles. Canadian factory ships replaced the international ones and continued to fish down the resource. The Canadian government, although warned by local fishermen, and acting on the behest of the large corporate fishing lobby, did not introduce a ban on cod fishing until 1992. By then it was too late. The situation had been worsened by the introduction of trawlers dragging the ocean floor, destroying the underlying eco-system, and catching young cod and other sea life that was a food source for the cod.
It has surprised many that the cod have not recovered. One explanation offered is that the smaller fish that used to be food for the cod have become more numerous and are now feasting on young cod. Another possibility mentioned is that the copepods (tiny crustaceans) that the cod used to feed on have moved north with the colder waters and have been replaced by smaller, less nutritious copepods. It is indicative of how little we know that even after the cod’s demise we cannot explain why they haven’t come back.
Chinooks and orcas on B.C.’s southern coast
The southern resident orcas that swim in my region of B.C. depend almost exclusively on chinook salmon (over 80% of their food intake). Chinook are the biggest salmon on the coast and the most nutritious. They are also in serious decline globally, in diverse areas such as Russia, Alaska, B.C and Washington State. In B.C there is only one population that is considered stable, and that is the Thompson River run. The rest are endangered, threatened, of special concern, or unknown.
There are only 76 whales left in the pods and recent autopsies of dead whales indicate starvation and disease, which is an indicator of malnutrition. Whales off the west coast have some of the highest levels of DDT and PCBs of any animal because they are at the apex of the food chain. When food is scarce and they have to live off their stored fat they begin to metabolize these and other poisons.
Because the decline of chinook salmon is global it has been suggested that they are especially susceptible to changing open sea conditions, such as warmer temperatures, toxic algae blooms and anoxia. Other species, such as pink salmon, which grow faster and return to their natal streams within two years, have not been affected as much.
There are also local contributing conditions. The Fraser River once had the biggest salmon run anywhere. It has long been the largest Canadian producer of chinook salmon. But, salmon need cold water to spawn and the Fraser is getting too warm. This will only become worse. A study by Prof. Garry Clarke in Nature Geoscience predicted that by 2100, 70% of glacier mass in B.C. and Alberta will be gone. Another study noted that before then 90% of glaciers that feed into the Fraser watershed will have disappeared. When water temperatures exceed 20 deg. C, fish have great difficulty reaching spawning grounds. This has already been happening. Without glacier melt chinook will have an increasingly difficult time.
There are things that we can do to give the chinook and the whales that depend on them a chance. A study done by Simon Fraser University found that of the multitude of floodgates along the 1,400 kilometers of salmon habitat in the lower Fraser Valley, only 10% were open, even though there was no threat of flooding at the time. Many were inoperable. It found that the faulty floodgates severely impacted the survival of juvenile salmon. No one has been checking on this for years and no one is accountable. Repairing and opening these floodgates can be done right away. Other habitat issues, such as the destruction of gravel spawning bars and over-development need to be addressed.
Surely one of the most important ways to preserve the chinook and the whales is to reduce the catch of salmon heading into the Fraser River. In 2018 the chinook fishery was finally closed in some areas. But it had little effect. Although the Canadian Federal Government has promised to manage the fishery more conservatively, in one of the most important areas — designated as Area 20 — off the southwest coast of Vancouver Island, the catch has increased from 18,000 in 2014 to 28,000 in 2018. Conservationists have no confidence in how the Department of Fisheries & Oceans (DFO) is managing this crisis.
In October, 2012 the much anticipated Cohen Inquiry on the B.C. salmon fishery was released. The 1,100 page document provided many recommendations to improve the salmon fishery, especially for sockeye, including reminding the Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) that its primary mandate was the conservation of wild fish, not the promotion of open net fish farms. It stated: “I therefore conclude that the potential harm posed to Fraser River sockeye from salmon farms is serious or irreversible. Disease transfer occurs between wild and farmed fish, and I am satisfied that salmon farms along the sockeye migration route have the potential to introduce exotic diseases and to exacerbate endemic diseases that could have a negative impact on Fraser”. Justice Cohen recommended the permanent closure of fish farms in the areas where wild salmon are most exposed to fish farm pens unless the operators can verify their industry is having “minimum impact”.
Most of its recommendations have not been acted on.
The fish farms remain.
However, In May, 2019, in response to massive public concern about the sad plight of the local fish-feeding orca population, the Canadian government issued new rules, including:
; requiring ships to stay 400 meters away from whales
; a voluntary slowdown of commercial vessels through Haro Strait and Boundary Pass, (which are favoured routes for the whales)
; closing some areas to vessel traffic and fishing.
One of the areas to be closed is along some of the Gulf Islands, including my sighting area directly below me, where I have witnessed dozens of boats, large and small, harass the orcas as they make their way west through Swanson Channel. This may be too little too late. Photos captured in early May, 2019 show one of the prime matriarchs, Princess Angeline (or J17) and her youngest daughter, Kiki, are starving. The photos show the telltale “peanut head” that indicates a loss of blubber. Her ten year old son, Moby, still relies on her wisdom for fishing and family matters. No restrictions were indicated for the commercial seine and gill fleet, which includes the largest commercial operator on the coast. The harvest of the last healthy run of herring, which the chinook feed on, was allowed to proceed.
There is a big shift coming in where the fish will be. Fish are adapted to limited temperature ranges. With a 2 degree warming by the end of the century fish stocks will migrate north 236 km along the North Pacific coast and 100 km on the Atlantic coast. If it remains business as usual and climate warms by 4 degrees (which is the path we are on) on the Pacific side fish will migrate 1,500 km north, while on the Atlantic coast it will be 600 km. On the Pacific coast the temperature difference from north to south is smaller, so the fish have to travel farther to find cooler water. Cold water species such as salmon and pollock will have severely limited range.
Chinook salmon migrate up the Yukon River and its tributaries over 3,000 kilometers. This is the longest migration of any salmon. In Teslin, the Elders of the Tlingit Nation were long warning about the decline in size and abundance and over 20 years ago they stopped fishing for them. Today when people of the Tlingit Nation want a salmon for feasting they have to fly it in. Now the Teslin Tlingit Council is working on a novel way to re-start the runs, called in-stream fertilization. Fertilized eggs, sourced from nearby Morley River, are put into Deadman Creek, a tributary of Teslin Lake. It is thought that this will be more effective than hatchery practices which keep fertilized eggs until they grow to fry stage, and then release them. This new process will ensure that only the strongest survive. It may take eight years to see if the chinook salmon return.
Herring
Known as a foundation fish of the West Coast, herring used to be hugely abundant. Until the 1960s they were caught in the hundreds of thousands of tonnes annually and rendered into fishmeal and oil. Then came the great herring collapse.
Most are now caught in gill nets for roe to be used in Kazunoko, a delight for sushi lovers in Japan. The roe is stripped from the female fish with the males and the rest going for fishmeal. Traditionally the Heiltsuk and other First Nations have pulled the roe off sea weed and eel grass. They still do. As they point out, the herring, which live up to 15 years, are not harmed and will be back to lay more eggs the following year. Ironically, the main market for the roe is in Japan, and their tastes are changing. Demand is way down and profits are meagre.
In 2015 the Heiltsuk, realizing that the herring in the Central Coast were in serious decline, stopped their own fishers from fishing with gill nets off Spiller Channel and protested against opening the fishery to others. In a tense standoff the Heiltsuk occupied the Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) office in Bella Bella until the government agreed to a joint management agreement to reduce quota to just 215 tonnes. They also got the right to be on DFO boats during herring season.
Many observers wonder about the justification for fishing herring. So many species, including predatory fish, seals, sea lions, gulls, cormorants and orcas rely on them for food.
In an odd symmetry, 80% of the orcas’ diet is chinook salmon and 80% of the fish chinook eat are herring. There is only one viable herring roe fishery open to seine and gill nets left along the entire coast from Washington State to Alaska. Despite warning from numerous environmental groups the DFO opened this fishery, located between Nanaimo and Comox in March 2019. Roe was removed from the females and most of the rest was ground up for fishmeal and pet food. The DFO allocated 20% of the estimated biomass for the catch. However, such estimates are notoriously difficult to do and they badly overestimated the size of the run.
According to reports from Russia and other cold water areas, herring are in serious decline throughout the North Pacific. This may suggest a common cause. We know that warming waters inhibit the growth of phytoplankton and copepods, on which the herring feed, and reduce the amount of oxygen in the water. The number and size of anoxic dead zones in the North Pacific is increasing. Another cause is the decline of various types of seaweed throughout the Salish Sea and along the west coast to California. Herring lay their eggs on seaweed and eel grass. Clear cut logging may have diminished growth by muddying the waters, reducing photosynthesis. Perhaps the biggest losses besides over-fishing are caused by voracious sea urchins that eat the stems and holdfasts seaweed. Unfortunately the population of sea urchins has exploded lately. In northern California purple sea urchins have increased by 10,000% since 2014 and destroyed 90% of the massive kelp forests. These urchins have expanded up to Oregon where 350 million urchins were estimated on one reef alone. It seems inevitable that they will make their way up the coast to B.C. In Howe Sound, B.C., green urchins have decimated the kelp forest, leaving an “urchin barren”. This explosion in the numbers of urchins was preceded in 2013 by the demise of their main predator, the sunflower sea star. In what has been called one of the worst wildlife die-offs ever recorded, millions of sea stars from California to Alaska succumbed to a “wasting disease” that caused them to rapidly dissolve into goo. Sea otters eat sea urchins too, but they prefer the larger red urchin, which is meatier and has commercial value. Scientists have found that the healthiest kelp forests are in habitats with sea stars, which will eat almost anything, and sea otters.
There is hope. In 2006 members of the Squamish Streamkeepers Society noticed dead herring roe on government pilings near Squamish. They surmised that creosote on the pilings was killing the roe so they started covering the pilings with landscaping cloth, which is safe for the roe. They had no budget and worked on their own time. In 2006 work also began on cleaning up the nearby Brittania copper mine which was one of the largest metal pollution sources in North America. Over 4 billion litres of water were treated and 255,000 kilograms of heavy metals were removed. Also in 2006 the Woodfibre Pulp Mill, which had been contributing to the pollution of Howe Sound, was closed. With these actions the water quality in Howe Sound began to be clean enough for herring to thrive. The following year the streamkeepers were astonished to find nearly 100% of the roe had hatched. By 2014 dolphins were seen in the sound feeding on the herring and in 2019 orcas made a big splash. The Streamkeepers have also installed nets for herring roe in False Creek, in the heart of Vancouver, and the herring are returning there too. John Matsen, one of the members of the Streamkeepers, has said that the herring eat phytoplankton and just about everything else eats herring. He stated that herring need just two things: a protected spawning area (they will lay their eggs on just about any surface, not just seaweed) and a rearing area. I would add to that: unpolluted water.
In March, 2019, after seeing reports that herring were making a comeback, members of the Skwxwu7mesh (Squamish First Nation) anchored hemlock boughs secured to long maple poles in water across from Stawamus Chief. In their language the word for March is “Temlhawt”, which translates as “Herring Time”. It had been a century since they had harvested herring and they had to reach out to elders and members of nations farther north to learn the traditional techniques. About a week later they pulled the boughs out covered in herring roe. They celebrated and feasted right there and then brought the treasured catch to the homes of the elders. Below is a quote from Charlene Joseph:
“This experience highlights the importance of rehabilitating our lands and waters, and shows how resilient our Mother Earth is… In the words of Margret Mead, “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.” (https://www.myseatosky.org/herring_roe_harvest_returns_to_howe_sound)
A few years ago, just as the herring were starting to return to Howe Sound, the Streamkeepers were startled to see commercial fish boats scooping them up. Word of the herring return had reached the DOF and they immediately approved the fishery. Unfortunately, this has been the pattern for years. In March of 2019, DOF approved the herring fishery south of Nanaimo based on catching 20% of a projected population biomass of 122,291 metric tonnes, but only 85,700 tonnes returned. According to First Nation and conservation groups, the biomass has declined 60% since 2016. The DOF also approved the same fishery in 2020, despite a petition signed by a hundred and fifteen thousand people demanding the fishery be closed .
The Department of Fisheries relies on a baseline measurement of populations from the 1950s. Unfortunately, decades of industrial fishing before that had decimated the herring. First Nations and groups such as Pacific Wild, Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, and Conservancy Hornby Island tell us that there used to be major spawn all up and down the coast. Near Victoria, the Gorge, Ross Bay, James Bay, and Odgen point all lost their fisheries by the end of the 1930s. Other areas in the Gulf Islands, including Pender Island, where I like to hang out, were fished out during the 70s and 80s.
The DOF has long favored large corporate fishing interests over communities and individuals. One company, Canfisco, owned by the Jim Pattison Group, has more herring licenses than anyone else and would lobby strenuously against any curtailment of the fishery. Although the company clearly has the ear of government, (its chief operating officer was once Premier of B.C.) it does not have history or science on its side. The first step to bring back herring, the main food source for Chinook salmon and ultimately sea lions, orcas, and people, is to stop the killing.
Other steps would include making the environment safe for herring roe by covering creosote and pressure treated pilings and installing nets for roe in areas where herring used to spawn. It is really exciting that this worked so well in Howe Sound. In addition, I wonder: if some hemlock boughs or netting were anchored in the waters off Denman and Hornby Islands just before the March spawn (as the Squamish people did) and then a very small portion of the spawn was transported and immersed in other parts of the coast, could these areas be effectively re-seeded? Could traditional knowledge help us recover our Eden? This could be a true path of reconciliation if members of First Nations, local communities and marine biologists worked together and succeeded in helping nature restore lost abundance.
Herring Whisperers
In early 2020 I got the bright idea that maybe herring could be enticed back to Victoria’s inner harbour, a bay that once had a big population. Most of the spawning grounds, including eel grass and seaweed, have been ripped up or built over. I teamed up with Jim Shortreed and another guy. The other guy disappeared once real work had to be done but Jim turned out to be golden. He lives full time with his girlfriend on a sailboat, whom he met while sailing in the South Pacific, and is used to hard work on the ocean. I sewed seventy-six, 8-foot long nets that hang from aluminum rods and are weighted down with rocks in a sleeve sewn onto the base. The idea is that if herring happen by they might spawn on your nets. This program did work in False Creek, Vancouver. However, much like a spider on its web there are no guarantees. Jim figured out where to put the nets and we installed most of them at four locations. We even got some funding for the nets from Joachim Carolsfeld of World Fisheries Trust. Unfortunately, Jim, who is a helicopter mechanic, and claims to be retired, got called to B.C.’s hot, dry interior to service choppers used for fighting forest fires just as the Covid-19 pandemic started. That left just me and my long-suffering wife to clean the nets. Guck grows on the nets and this inhibits herring from spawning so each net has to be cleaned at least once a week. Every other day, for two months we spent hours bending over docks and brushing off the green slime. Theresa says that next year she will definitely not be playing. One location for our nets was the Harbour Air Seaplane Base. As the pandemic worsened they closed their Victoria operation and dock access to the nets was barred. This meant that to service the nets I had to paddle over on one of our sit-on-top kayaks (a Java). I didn’t ask for permission. One day a guy wandered down the dock and started watching me cleaning from the other side of the strong glass barricade. He introduced himself as the CEO of Harbour Air. “Oh, oh,” I thought to myself as I envisioned what he must be looking at: a skinny old guy bending over the dock, covered in green slime. But he said that I must be one of the herring guys and thanked me for our work, which he supported wholeheartedly. This is also the company that is pioneering the use of electric motors on its float planes and hopes to convert the whole, short-range fleet to electricity. I like this company! (More on this later). Although we call ourselves the Herring Whisperers we have yet to whisper in a single herring. Jim is now busy looking into new initiatives that might improve our chances. Maybe next year.
Reverence, Resilience, Rejuvenation
In our mass consumption society we have lost our reverence: for this incredible blue planet we call home and all of its life within. Hopefully, there are signs that we are regaining this. Environmental groups everywhere are teaming up with governments, industry and First Nations to chart new, beneficial ways to organize our societies. Despite the harm that we have done to the oceans there have been few extinctions. In many areas once a Marine Protected Area (MPA) has been created and enforced, abundant and diverse life has returned and flourished. Along foreshores marshes have been re-introduced. Clam and oyster beds have been cultured and increased. Even coral reefs are starting to be re-seeded. There still is time and hope but we must act quickly.
9. Bottom Trawling (Entered December 1, 2020)
For over 25 years I commuted to work three days a week in my kayak. Rain or shine, all seasons. This is the perfect way to start the day. If it was a calm day I’d just ease into the kayak and push offshore. Slowly the susurration of the sea would tell me what currents lurk beneath, and smells wafting in the air would indicate what seabirds and other creatures are nearby. This information would drift in without any conscious thought. I would often be mesmerized by the feel of the water pushing quietly against the soft skin of my kayak. A very gentle awakening. On stormy days I would have to be instantly mindful of the waves buffeting me, and the wind pushing against me one way or another. In both cases I would feel energized and alive by the time I reached the narrow inlet that separated the open bay from False Creek. But often, as I was approaching the bridge, a fishing boat would come towards me and disrupt my reverie. It wasn’t the rough, unpainted ugliness of the boat that upset me, nor the black smoke funneling out of its never-tuned diesel engine, which made me choke, nor even that it would often come at me on the wrong side of the channel, forcing me against the pilings. No, it was what was on the deck: a large pole running diagonally from above the wheelhouse down over the transom. It was a bottom trawling fish boat and it was off to do a day’s serious bottom-dragging.
A bottom trawl is a large, funnel shaped net held open at the large end by a beam or rectangular shaped “otter boards” that are dragged along the sea bed. The trawl digs up to 15 cm of the seabed, creating a turbid cloud, which attracts fish. The fish tire at the front of the trawl and end up at the small, or “cod end” of the net. The trawl scars and damages the seabed. 90% of the fish caught may be “by-catch” and are thrown away. Trawling along the sea bed destroys the complex environment that nourishes marine plants and fauna, leaving the bottom smooth and lifeless. This doesn’t just damage the bottom, benthic layer of the sea. The whole water column up to the surface is affected. Studies have shown that after a few years of a moratorium on bottom trawling in a defined area, the overall catch there increases substantially as the sea bed starts to recover. (Callum Roberts, The Ocean of Life, pg. 295) That is not always the case. A deep sea study off the west coast of U.S. found almost no recovery after several years because the sea floor had been permanently damaged. (“Ploughing the deep sea floor”, Nature, September 5, 2012) The UN estimates that up to 95% of global ocean damage is due to bottom trawling while landing just 27% of the world’s fish catch.
The following is a quote about bottom trawling:
During the reign of Edward 111…a petition was presented to Parliament in 1376 calling for the prohibition of a “subtlety contrived instrument called the wondyrchoum”. This was an early beam trawl with a wooden beam, and consisted of a net 6 m (18 ft.) long and 3 m (10 ft.) wide,”of so small a mesh, no manner of fish, however small, entering within it can pass out and is compelled to remain therein and be taken…by means of which instrument the fishermen aforesaid take so great abundance of small fish aforesaid, that they know not what to do with them, but feed and fatten the pigs with them, to the great damage of the whole commons of the kingdom, and the destruction of the fisheries in like places, for which they pray remedy.”
Footnote: Collins, J.W. (1887) “The Beam Trawl Fishery of Great Britain with notes on Beam-Trawling in other Countries”.
Even in medieval times, the effects of trawling (as well as small net size, and feeding fish to livestock) were understood by people connected to the sea. Yet, industrial-scale trawling has been expanded worldwide. Callum Roberts[1] considers industrial fishing to be the most destructive activity done by man, and bottom trawling to be the worst of the lot.
Progress is being made in some countries. In Norway, where trawling has been estimated to have damaged or destroyed 30% to 50% of the lophelia coral, the Sula and Rost reefs are now closed to trawling. In the U.S., the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has banned bottom trawling off most of its Pacific coast as well as restricting it off its other coasts. (In New England the Trump government has since reversed some of these closures.) There are restrictions in sensitive areas in Scotland, Australia and New Zealand, and in Palau all trawling is banned. Kiribati announced in 2006 the formation of the world’s first deep sea marine reserve area, but the country only has one patrol vessel. Chile recently announced a ban on trawling over seamounts. Hong Kong and Belize recently enacted a ban. Although some progress has been made in these and other countries, a proposal by Palau and other South Pacific nations for a UN ban on all trawling in 2006 failed to gain sufficient support and was blocked by nations with large industrial fleets, including Canada.
West Africa’s coast has long been one of the world’s richest fisheries. Traditionally, fishing has produced up to a quarter of the jobs and two-thirds of all animal protein in the region. But these days giant Asian and Russian trawlers routinely catch 250 tonnes of fish a day while ripping up the sea bed. This is more than 50 local pirogues[2] would catch in a year. Local leaders are easily corrupted by the fishing companies and traditional fishing is dying out. It is contributing to the mass exodus and migration of people from this area and to the refugee crisis in the Mediterranean. Trawlers routinely under-report their catch by 50%.
Bottom trawls represented 26% of the catch in BC and 28 per cent of the total landed value of fisheries in eastern Canada, about $500-million, in 2001.(April 23/18, Globe)
It began in B.C. in the 1990s, initially in fairly shallow water. But, as the fishing declined due to seabed disturbances the fishers moved farther offshore. Here is a quote from a study published by Ocean Networks Canada in 2016:
“Bottom trawling represents the most pervasive human impact on the world’s continental margins, even when compared to oil and gas exploration, waste and litter disposal, and mining. As fish stocks become depleted in coastal areas, its footprint is steadily descending into deeper waters. Direct effects of bottom trawling have been extensively reviewed in scientific literature and include scraping and ploughing of the seafloor, sediment resuspension with a smothering impact on the seafloor fauna (benthos), destruction of non-target species, and organic loading from the dumping of waste from at-sea processing. Indirect effects include post-fishing mortality and long-term, trawl-induced changes in the benthos, such as reduced diversity and biomass, and changes in ecosystem structure and habitat heterogeneity.”
In response to this and other studies, a voluntary agreement, based on European standards, was reached with the trawlers association in 2012 to limit the maximum trawling depth to 800 meters and ban it from impacting coral and sponge reefs. (Ocean Networks Canada, “The cumulative effects of bottom trawling and low oxygen on marine life”, Jan 30, 2017). This is difficult to enforce. A better strategy would be to just ban all bottom dragging.
A UBC study found that globally trawling accounts for 60% of all discarded bycatch. It also noted that bottom trawlers are expensive to operate and generally receive generous government subsidies to survive. On the other hand, small scale fisheries employing traps have a higher landed value, do not require subsidies and employ far more people.
Footnote:
(UBC, Science Direct, Fisheries Research
Volume 206, October 2018, Pages 57–64
“Reconstructing global marine fishing gear use: Catches and landed values by gear type and sector”)
Dredging. A fishing dredge is similar to a bottom trawl in that it is dragged along the sea bed. Although it generally covers a smaller area than a trawl it digs deeper. It is constructed of heavy steel in the form of a scoop, often with teeth on the leading edge and is especially effective at catching clams, although also used on oysters, scallops and other bottom dwellers. In some cases hydraulic jets are used to create a slurry of sand and clams which can be scooped up with a metal mesh container or brought to the surface continuously with a type of escalator. Damage to the ocean floor can be even worse than that of trawlers.
The scientific case against bottom trawling and dredging is overwhelming. Scraping clean the ocean floor impacts the whole water column above it. This effect is hard to measure and is often conveniently ignored by supporters. Trawling is hugely destructive and fisheries would be healthier if it was banned. This one act, although difficult to achieve given corporate and national interests in short term profit, would, over time, be hugely beneficial to sea life worldwide. It is an issue that should be demanded regionally, nationally and internationally. Where is the UN on this? Or Canada?
[1] Callum Michael Roberts is a marine conservation biologist, oceanographer, author, research scholar at the University of York, England.
[2] In French West Africa, pirogues refer to handcrafted banana-shaped boats used by traditional fishermen. In Madagascar, it also includes the more elaborate Austronesian lakana outrigger canoe. Pirogues are usually propelled by paddles that have one blade (as opposed to a kayak paddle, which has two).
10. Drift Nets (Entered December 1, 2020)
Drift nets are long (up to 90 km) free-floating nets supported by floats at the surface and weights below that cause the nets to hang vertically for up to 30 meters. All sorts of marine life, from fish and birds to sea mammals such as sea lions, seals, dolphins and sperm whales get caught up in these massive nets. Up to 90% of the catches are viewed as by-catch and thrown dead back into the sea, hence the term “walls of death”.
In 1987 the U.S. placed a limit of 1.5 nm (nautical miles) on net length, and in the early 1990s the European Union and UN banned nets longer than 2.5 km (1.35 NM). Mainly as a result of Japanese drift net fishing in the north Pacific in the 1980s, in 1992 the UN banned drift net fishing in the high seas (international waters). However, in the open ocean there is little or no enforcement and many countries continue to deploy massive nets.
Economics plays a big role in this slaughter. As countries become wealthier their populations demand more and better protein, in this case, from the sea. Countries expand their fishing fleets to cover the globe. This happened in the Atlantic as European countries prospered from the industrial revolution, in Japan after the 1970s, and is happening in China and other Asian countries now. China has a huge fleet that plunders the waters off its client states in West Africa. The industrial drift net industry is still mining the Mediterranean Sea of its marine bounty, although with diminishing returns. It is common for drift nets to be abandoned or lost at sea due to inclement weather. These nets, which are made of synthetic, non-biodegradable materials, are known as “ghost nets” and continue trapping and killing animals for decades or longer.
A recent study calls for a complete ban on fishing outside of nations’ exclusive economic zones (EEZ): “Only about 0.1 percent of fish live exclusively beyond the 200 km boundaries. Fishing stocks would benefit from the replenishment gained in non-fishing zones. Banning high seas fishing would especially benefit tuna, swordfish and many species of sharks, which roam widely. [1]
In 2014 The European Commission proposed to prohibit all types of driftnets in European waters. This proposal met with disagreement from individual countries and fishing organizations such as Britain’s National Federation of Fishermen’s Organizations, which pointed out that local, small-scale fishers using drift nets would be caught up in the ban and actually are no more harmful than fishing with other fishing techniques. It seems that the main problem, and the one that the Commission should be trying to address, is the scale of the fishery, which is increasingly industrial, corporate, and driven by short-term profit.
The Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN (FAO) has issued a “Code of Conduct” concerning fishing, but it is too often ignored. Many countries do not regulate properly boats carrying their flag. About 30% of fish caught worldwide are thought to be by illegal fisheries. 30% of pirated fish are from one country: Indonesia. However, most of the boats there are from other countries. The fish they catch can end up in the supply chain of North American supermarkets.
Recently, Associated Press has reported that thousands of fishermen in Indonesia are slaves, mostly Myanmar citizens taken by Thai syndicates. About a quarter of these slaves are locked up in the town of Benjina and forced to live and work in cruel conditions.
When you look at the problems associated with industrial fishing, such as bottom trawling, drift nets, and the capture of regulating bodies, it is easy to see that they stem from a common cause: big corporations together with corrupt governments are pursuing short-term profits at the expense of long-term sustainability. Until these operations are reined in, the plunder will continue.
[1] “(Scientific Reports, Feb 12/15)
11. Noise (Entered December 1, 2020)
When I was 17 my sister got a job greeting people at the local Pacific National Exhibition (PNE) for a real estate firm that was promoting building lots on one of the southern Gulf islands situated close to the south east shore of Vancouver Island. My dad became interested and the company flew us in a float plane to Pender Island. There he paid about $2,800 for a small, but spectacular, property on a cliff overlooking Swanson Channel to the south. They had a tiny cabin built and made plans for a real home but things were falling apart for our family and money was tight. They kept the property though. Years later my sisters and I pooled our resources built a small house here.
Below the cabin rocky terraces that support Gary oak, arbutus, Douglas fir and grand fir trees are connected by steep deer trails to the sea 80 meters below and it’s ever changing tidal currents, birds, otters, seals and whales. In spring the walled terraces that the deer cannot get to are covered in purple camas flowers which are one of the 91 plants and animals that live in this unique ecosystem that are on the province’s species at risk list. This whole Gary oak ecosystem is rare and blessed with a mild, almost Mediterranean climate with the longest frost-free season in Canada. Although you can take a ferry and drive to our place, I like to paddle my kayak. In summer when the weather is good and north westerlies prevail I can paddle right up to the rocks below our place, haul my kayak up onto some logs and hike up. In winter, which is when I tend to come more, I put in at a nearby cove because our shore is totally exposed to a south east fetch, which is where the storms come from, and the winds can be severe. For over 50 years I’ve marvelled how fir trees once small sprouted up way above my head. I’ve witnessed arbutus trees turn pale and fall, moss brighten from brown to iridescent green with the coming of winter, guillemots and cormorants paint the steep conglomerate cliffs white with their guano and seals alternatively thrive and almost disappear. People of the Tsawout First Nation lived on the island for at least 5,000 years. Then European diseases decimated their numbers. For them the smallpox epidemic was much, much worse than Covid-19. They had no defence. There may not be a record of how many people perished, but in other communities the death toll exceeded 80%. The fractured community moved with survivors of other villages to nearby Sannich Peninsula. When I think back about my sister having that obscure job one summer and my father buying the property on a whim, I realize that this was one of the luckiest things that ever happened to me and my family, and it is still ongoing. Although I don’t live here full time I am grounded here. I do wonder how much more connected to this land and surrounding sea the Tsawout people must have been living entirely off the bounty that exists here.
Swanson Channel — Journal, August, 2016
I am sitting on a bench on a bluff high above the south-facing shore of Pender Island, B.C. Looking south, across Swanson Channel, I can see the low, symmetrical hill on Moresby Island, which is in Canada. To the southeast, across Boundary Pass, I see Stuart Island, which lies within the American San Juan Islands Group. On a clear summer day I can spy through my telescope and watch Americans sitting around a picnic table at the lighthouse at Turn Point, eating lunch. This is where the big south-bound tankers and freighters turn to enter Haro Straight.
Below me, on terraces stretching down to the water are gnarled Garry oak trees, Douglas firs and arbutus trees with ever-peeling red bark that reveals smooth, creamy surfaces underneath. You cannot walk by an arbutus tree without running your hand over these luxurious, cool, polished surfaces. I often see deer: so many, in fact, they are threatening the growth of arbutus trees in many places. They enjoy munching on the young shoots.
With my telescope I check for orca (killer) whales. The orcas that I am looking for are part of the J,K, or L pod members that frequent Georgia Strait in the summer months. They often head westward from Stuart Island across Haro Strait, along Swanson Channel and around the south west end of Pender. It is easy to spot them. You don’t look for fins or spouts. No, just look for a huddle of power boats, which reminds me of a flock of seagulls zeroing in on a boil of herring or patch of garbage. The whales will be amongst them. Professional whale chasers and amateurs alike claim that their activities are not harmful to the whales. But, how do they know that? They seem to be loving them to death.
There are presently 76 whales, including two babies. (Note: as of Oct., 2019, there are 73). Biologists say this is not enough to be sustainable, especially since there are few breeding females left. These orcas hunt salmon, especially chinook, which are the largest and have the richest meat. How could these whales hunt the diminishing number of chinook amidst the racket put out by the power boats?
I have noticed that when the Orcas are being tailed by a swarm of boats they tend to swim in a pretty straight line, like in a procession, and not dive much. Sometimes, though, one or a few laggards come closer to shore and are unnoticed by the boats. These ones often behave differently. They pause more, dive more and change directions. I don’t know if this is a deliberate strategy on the whales’ part to spring a few hungry members, or just chance. You wouldn’t even notice this behaviour if you were not situated above the fray.
Brain scientists (or is it brainy scientists?) regard a high degree of folding in the cerebral cortex to be an indication of high intelligence. The only animals to have more folds in their cortexes than humans are dolphins. Orcas belong to the dolphin family and are their largest member. So, what, with their big, folded brains, do they think about?
They communicate and hunt with sound, which travels much faster and farther in water than in air. It is thought that at certain depths whales can communicate for over a thousand miles using SOFAR (Sound Fixing and Ranging) channels. Each orca pod has its own style of call and also individual member calls. They can problem-solve, engage in abstract thought and remember details of their environment over long distances and time. Their communities are complex and supportive, with old mom, the matriarch, leading the way. They hunt as a group using echolocation. Orcas process sound as visual images and can readily identify family members and prey. What their thoughts are is anybody’s guess, (I can’t even surmise my wife’s thoughts) but surely they must be at least thinking about family, their marine environment, and hunting. One thing for sure, is that because they rely on sound for everything from hunting to vast distance communication, they must be extremely sensitive to loud noises. There is a rare condition called hyperacusis in which humans experience intense ear pain whenever there is any loud noise. These people can become so isolated they become hermits. There is no known cure. It may be that dolphins and whales, with their highly evolved, acute hearing, are suffering from a form of mass hyperacusis.
Seismic testing is done to prospect for offshore oil. During these tests exceedingly loud, 200 to 300 decibel air guns are shot off simultaneously every 20 to 30 seconds. The tests can last for months. Shortly after a series of seismic survey tests were done in January 2015, off Farewell Spit, on the north shore of New Zealand, 110 pilot whales beached and at least 59 died. Symptoms reported by BlueVoice.org of sound damage on whales beached off Peru included bleeding in the middle ear, fracture and cracks in mandibular fat, air bubble invasions, pulmonary emphysema and massive destruction of lung tissue.
According to a study published in Nature, international journal of science, in order to meet the target of global temperatures not exceeding 2 degrees C above the average before the industrial era and thereby reduce the chances of disastrous global warming (and, incidentally, ocean acidification) most coal, oil and gas reserves and all unconventional reserves must stay in the ground. This includes all oil and gas that might be found under the sea. Since all proven reserves amount to three times more than what can be safely burned (and a study by The Carbon Tracker Initiative indicates that it is five times more, and a safer goal would be 1.5 degree C.), it is reasonable to ask “Why are the oil companies still seeking new reserves?”[1]
It’s all about profits and share price. The values of coal, oil, and gas company shares are still dependent on the size of their strategic reserves, even though it would be collective suicide for us to burn more than a fifth of them. Since the easily extractable fuels have already been found, the fossil fuel companies are going after the hard-to-get ones, such as deposits under the sea. They have to increase their primary assets in order to justify their high salaries and “enhance shareholder value”. This is what managers of these corporations are paid to do and no amount of public relations campaigning or lobbying will change that. Should fish, whales and dolphins die so that the fossil fuel companies can keep exploring for fuels, which, if burned, will speed up global warming and acidify the oceans?
There is some progress on this and it concerns respecting indigenous peoples’ rights to traditional practices. On July 23, 2010 a judge in Iqaluit, NWT ruled in favour of the Qikiqtani Inuit Association and granted an injunction against seismic testing in Lancaster Sound, the gateway to the Northwest Passage and home to prolific sea life, including beluga whales and narwhals. In August 2017 an agreement was made establishing the Tallurutiup Imanga/Lancaster Sound Marine Protected Area. It covers an area twice the size of the Province of Nova Scotia and is Canada’s largest marine protected area.
How did this agreement come about? In the 1960s Canada’s federal government granted 14 million offshore acres in Lancaster Sound to 12 oil companies, without consulting local Inuit. They protested against this for years. Finally, in 2015 Shell signed off on their claims. The agreement calls for a special federal cabinet to work with their Inuit counterparts in a “whole-of-government approach”. A key part of this success is that there has never been a large-scale commercial fishery in the area, because of the sea ice. So, there are no well-funded fishery lobbyists straining to catch the ear of government. And searching for and extracting oil and gas in the high arctic can be prohibitively expensive. In other parts of Canada, and indeed all over the world, there are competing interests for ocean resources. By far the richest and most powerful are the fossil fuel and fishing lobbies. And that is the problem. These companies are bound by their charters to produce maximum profit for their owners and shareholders on a one, two or five year time table. They fish down the resource. They pay to influence governments to work in their favour. They pay to elect malleable politicians and to influence media. Today that power is directly opposed to the health of life in the oceans. 90% of predator species have been eliminated and these large companies are going after the rest. Only by breaking this power can we start on a path of regeneration. The great regional and global fishing corporations must be brought to heel.
[1] (Christophe McGlade & Paul Ekins, Nature Journals, 517, 187–190, 08 January 2015
12. A No Fish Story: Cape Horn (Entered January 1, 2021)
In the fall of 1969 I took a year off university studies and hitchhiked to South America. I had been spending my summers working as a prospector for small, gypo mining exploration companies in northern Canada and had managed to put aside enough money for an eleven-month trip. While in bush camp I had also been able to study elementary Spanish, just enough to get by on.
My most southerly journey was to Puerto Montt in Chile. It was a frontier town and reminded me of places I had worked out of in Canada, such as Whitehorse and Yellowknife. It was also the jumping-off point to Patagonia, that great wilderness of mountains, glaciers, deep bays, islands and seas. Over time the place called me back. For me, a return visit would be a chance to compare my own beautiful coast, although scarred by many logging clearcuts, to a more pristine, forgotten land with many strange, endemic species.
The southern tip of South America juts into the southern ocean like a great extended middle finger. It impinges the western flow of seas that pass between it and the Antarctic Peninsula across Drake Passage. The incessant westerlies force the seas up over shallow ground and against unseen currents moving in the opposite direction. Huge waves are not uncommon, with some over 30 meters (100 ft.) high.
In 1994 in the Bering Strait Tom, Dick and I had talked about my idea of “rounding the Horn” by kayak. We had discussed scenes from Mutiny on The Bounty where the ship, after a month of trying to round the horn from the east in terrible seas, had been forced to turn back and go all the way around Cape Hope in Africa. Captain Bligh had worried about being too late in the season to make the passage, and I wondered about the actual conditions off Cape Horn in summer months. At any given time there are perhaps four storm systems generating very large wave formations zooming in a clockwise direction around the Antarctic. If your timing is unlucky and you run into one of these systems you will fare no better than Captain Bligh, and perhaps much worse. The key to success is to be as close as possible to the Horn and wait for an opening in the weather conditions. This sort of planning is easy to contemplate sitting in front of a computer or chart. It is much different when you are camped on an open slope in a land with 278 days of rainfall, 120 inches a year, in a tent that is in danger of being blown away. But, compared to being offshore on a wooden sailing ship, it is better. Since you are traveling by kayak you have the unique ability to haul your craft ashore and wait near the action in relative safety (if not comfort). When you judge it is the right time you go fast and hard. Things change really quickly at the Horn.
When I outlined to Gerry, my new paddling partner, my proposed trip around Cape Horn, and the conditions we would likely encounter, he jumped right in. He had gone on some coastal kayaking trips but this would be his first open ocean experience. What he brought to our team was enthusiasm and a lot of diverse skills based on his hiking and climbing experiences, including first aid. He also offered to cook! As a professional photographer for a major newspaper he would be able to document our progress. I designed a special frame for holding his waterproof Pelican case so he could mount his cameras on the deck of our double kayak. He wasn’t going to be a powerhouse up in the bow cockpit, but I knew that he was fit, knowledgeable in a lot of areas, articulate, and would be a good partner.
Gerry and I met up with our teammates at the Santiago airport, Chile on January 1, 1997. First out of the gate, as expected, strode Tom. He greeted us with a wide smile and extended his big paw out for a crunching handshake. Dick followed. He was the same gregarious, warm guy I remembered.
The next day Dick and I headed to Chile’s main port, Valparaiso, to get charts for south Patagonia. Following instructions from our hotel staff we first took a subway to the Universidad de Chile and then walked down a fine, tree-lined street to a nice, modern bus depot. There we got on a bus for the coast. We passed by some estancias, some shacks, with much of the land too dry for anything. As the bus came down through the barren hills we could see numerous navy ships out past the docks, tidy houses and old colonial buildings.
We started asking around for the address of the Servicio Hydrografico y Oceanografic de la Armada de Chile. We had no address number.
Eventually an attractive, middle aged woman overheard us and told us to take the Rioja (red bus). Tequalda was so friendly, she decided to go with us. We went up the steep hills (like “San Francisco”, she said, although she had never been there). All this time she talked nonstop, which was music to my ears, because I was trying to resuscitate my rusty Spanish.
The Servicio at the top of the hill was the wrong place, but we were given another address back down to where we had started. We actually did find the charts. Success. To celebrate, Tequalda wanted to take us to her home for lunch, but we insisted on treating her in a restaurant. She led us to a fine, swank place on the water above the docks. She talked to Dick, who was loving this, even though he didn’t understand a word. They both used the old technique of talking louder and louder to make someone understand, but this didn’t work this time.
After lunch she invited us to take a collectivo up the hill to her home, and there we met her number three husband, also a collectivo driver. The first two husbands had been navy men, “gone eight months a year” she said, and the marriages hadn’t prospered. This guy, who treated her with great respect, was golden.
After the visit he dropped us off at the bus depot and we purchased a ticket for Santiago. “Santiago” was printed on the ticket, but also “Cholloum”, which I interpreted as a stop along the way. We arrived at an old station surrounded by low, dilapidated buildings, none of which looked familiar. We stayed on the bus. More people got on. The bus pulled out, and only when the conductor came to ask us for tickets did we realize that we had entered the same bus depot, but by a very different route. Embarrassed, we jumped out of the bus, found the University de Santiago subway, bought tickets, and went through the turnstiles before realizing that we had left the charts in the bus. We went back to the bus depot, reported our loss and were told to come back the next day.
When we got back to our hotel we found Gerry and Tom packaging up a mountain of food for the trip. It had to last up to five weeks. At least they had been successful. The next morning we returned to the bus depot but nobody seemed to have been notified, or cared, about the charts. In broken Spanish I managed finally to get through to the supervisor who phoned Valparaiso and found out the bus number. We came back two more times, and to our astonishment, on the third visit in late evening the charts were handed to us.
That night we went out for dinner at a possibly sketchy restaurant. Dick, Tom and I had fish and meat while Gerry had the best looking dinner: a juicy salad full of ripe tomatoes and cucumbers. After dinner we were strolling down a main tourist avenue when a guy whispered to us that the beer was good “down below”. He led us down some stairs and into a subterranean grotto.
As soon as we got to the entrance a number of heavily painted, short-skirted women escorted each of us past a bar full of other women. I will always remember Dick, in his 75th year, being led by his women, one on each arm, to a seating area.
Gerry came to his senses first. In his usual articulate way he said: “This is going to cost us big time just to ogle some tits”. Unfortunately, by this time Tom was already sitting between two women with their arms on his lap, being served beer and grinning from ear to ear. You might be able to separate Tom from two hookers, but not from two beers. To our great shame we left him there to his own devices. I feared the worst.
Fortunately, he came back late that night. He said that they tried to charge him 40,000 pesos for two beers. When he balked he said the biggest bouncer he had ever seen suddenly appeared and became quite persuasive. Tom just gave them all of the money he had — 17,000 pesos — and managed to get out of there.
That night Gerry became very ill. He had diarrhea, was heaving, sweating, groaning, vomiting, and looked ghostly pale. We suspected it was the salad. The next morning after booking a van that never came we managed to get ourselves and our ten large bags, (totaling 320 kg.) including two double kayaks, food and gear to the airport in three taxis. I have a photo of all our gear sitting outside the terminal and poor Gerry lying on top it.
When we got on the plane he was so sick that the stewardess asked us what was the matter with him. I was worried that they might kick us off as health risks and told her that he was scared sick of flying. Too hard to explain about the salad. That seemed to work, as soon we were in the air, heading for the southern town of Puerto Montt.
Puerto Montt had that frontier look and feel of the northern towns that I used to work out of, but with a decidedly Spanish influence. We didn’t want to hang around there, though. Gerry was still ill and I thought that maybe our best option was to fly directly to the Chilean town of Puerto Williams, on the Beagle Channel and rest up until Gerry recovered.
However, the airline and the ferry were both heavily booked, so we went to the bus depot. There we were told that they wouldn’t take our baggage. At the tourist office we explained our predicament and they told us of another bus company operating out of the Hotel Cabot de Horno. There, the young ticket guy, in true bureaucratic fashion, said no, they couldn’t handle our stuff. Fortunately, after more enquiries, the woman who actually ran the office and even spoke English with a deep, masculine voice and a twinkle in her eye, said we could load the bags ourselves if we purchased three extra seats for our gear. Each seat needed an occupant, so we named ours Susy, Marie and Isabel (para las mujeres). We loaded our bags and the still mostly comatose (when not erupting) Gerry into the bus and motored off for the Argentine town of Ushuaia.
Our route took us to the Straits of Magellan, where all the passengers got out as the bus drove onto a small ferry with loading ramps at each end. There were no piers or docks. Perhaps the wind is just too strong to justify maintaining them. The gusty, 35 knot westerlies that we encountered during the crossing reminded me of how remarkable the early, upwind passages through this unmarked channel by Magellan must have been, and for those who followed.
As late as 1900, when Captain Joshua Slocum sailed through these passages on the first solo circumnavigation of the globe, there were still locals paddling canoes with fires blazing both as a source of heat and for signalling. Hence the name: “land of fire”. When he dropped anchor and slept here he was advised to put tacks on his deck to ward off the local Yahgan people. He did so, writing: “now, it is well known that one cannot step on a tack without saying something about it”. One night locals did try to board his Spray while he was asleep, but howled when they stamped on the tacks and fled into the water and to their canoes[1] .
Unfortunately for the Yahgan people, whose ancestors had lived in this unforgiving land for 10,000 years off fish, sea lions and wild plants, they did not survive the onslaught of European diseases and greed. There are apparently very few Yahgans living today.
As we headed south on the gravel road towards San Sebastian, at the border with Argentina, the soil appeared to become tenuous, the land more rocky and barren.
In Ushuaia we stayed at “The Casita” which was a dumpy, separate cabin with three rooms and its own entrance to the street through a falling-down gate and a door with no knob. It had character and suited us perfectly. There was a large table in the kitchen where we could organize our huge pile of food and gear. Our hostess, Senora Fernandez, had character too, much like a communal mother. She was very helpful with our organizing, although frugal — and especially not generous with the TP. I think that she had housed numerous climbing expeditions around here, although ours was the first kayaking event for her.
We left Ushuaia heading east down the Beagle Channel towards Puerto Williams, with a 35 to 40 knot tailwind. Gerry, being only slightly recovered, could offer little help in the paddling. The following seas were tricky for me to handle the big double kayak on my own. Bare knuckle paddling.
When we got to Puerto Williams, back in Chile, we went straight to the Port Authority and presented our letter of permission for traveling around Cape Horn. “No, this is not possible,” said the superintendent. “You cannot go to the “Wollaston Group” (“Cabo de Horno” is in the Wollaston group of islands). He suggested that just maybe we would be permitted to go to Punto Guanaco, at the south east end of Navarino Island, and that then maybe they would change their minds. We did not know how to interpret that. Perhaps he did not want to approve our plans because something might go wrong and he would be held responsible? Did he expect money? We didn’t think that. If we went to Guanaco and just kept going, would they send the navy after us? Hard to say. I just decided to stay in his office during working hours and sit across from him. Mostly it was just me, because I could at least talk to him or at him, but Tom and Dick relieved me from my vigil when I needed food and bathroom breaks. I stayed there in that office for two and a half days. Finally he said that our “permission has arrived”. I think that he was getting tired of me. The agreement offered was that we would call in on our VHF radio every day and report our position and condition. We both knew that there was no way they would be able to pick up a VHF signal, with its short range, during most of our trip. I agreed readily. We made surprisingly good time early on.
Journal, January 26, 1997, East Side of Pto. Eugenia, Isla Navarino, -54.936, -67.29
Paddling down the east side of Isla Navarino: “Left camp just E. of Pto. Eugenia, light westerlies. These grew to strong 25 knot northerlies. We had a direct tailwind till Pto. Toro. But pressure falling: 1010 to 989 in a few minutes. Flat calm after a downpour. Lunch. Then 180 deg. reversal, strong 20 to 30 kn wind from the south, against us. Smokin’ out in the Strait. Evening now, pressure still 994. Clouds from the west, winds moderate.”
We could never make a connection between pressure and weather. Both were all over the place, and not in sync. Mainly this was topography: sometimes the prevailing westerlies would blow around the north end of the island and we would have northerlies, sometimes around the south end, especially as we traveled south and sometimes right over the hills and mountains, treating us, for our pleasure, to strong katabatic[2] westerlies that seemed capable of blowing our tents into the sea and our kayaks out to nowhere. The land changed too, passing from attractive beech and conifer forests in the Beagle Channel down to Magellanic mooreland at the south end of Navarino Island, featuring Magellans’ peat moss and poor drainage for the 5000 or so millimeters of rain a year that inundates this rocky land.
This was a desperate place, populated by few animals, although midway down the island we did see one of Canada’s famed national animals, a beaver, fifty of which were imported to this area back in the 1940s in an attempt to foster a fur trade. With no natural predators such as wolves or bears, these animals have flourished, while busying themselves, as only beavers can, decimating forests and causing widespread flooding.
We still had some problems. Gerry was still weak. If it was normal food poisoning he should have been getting better. We decided, somewhat belatedly, that he was the reason that he, the medical guy, had brought along a course of antibiotics. He started taking them.
I was suffering too, from tendonitis on my left wrist, which was swollen and sore. It had started on my first day when I was trying to handle the double kayak by myself in big following seas. According to my expert, Ken Fink, who has raced kayaks successfully for years off the coast of Maine, tendonitis occurs when you are holding the paddle too tightly. Perhaps I was. Fortunately, we had a solution at hand. Dick had brought along a bent shaft paddle, which was new at that time, and he generously lent it to me. It allows you to paddle with your wrist in a more open, natural position. Surprisingly, it worked incredibly well. As I used it each day my pain and swelling eased. When I tried going back to my straight shaft paddle, even with a loose grip, the pain returned.
We managed to make Guanaco Point, southeast corner of Navarino Island, (-53.322, -67.23) without too much difficulty. From there looking south across the Bahia Nassau we could see the hills of the Wollaston group of islands. Bahia Nassau is only 15.5 kn. across, but it looked formidable. There was a 30-knot wind blowing south down the east side of Isla Navarino colliding with westerlies barreling down Bahia Nassau. Roiling, difficult seas. At times like these I often think of an old song by a great gal, blues singer Ernestine Anderson’s “Never Make Your Move Too Soon”. We needed to see how this body of water ahead of us behaved. We stayed there for three days, just wandering around the bogs and moors, studying how the wind and waves behaved on the strait, and waiting for a weather opening.
It became clear to us that some of the wind was created by daytime temperature differences between land and sea. The wind never stopped, but it did pick up in the afternoon.
On our fourth day we were up at midnight and on the water by 2:30 am. It worked. The crossing took just four hours and soon we were closing in on Alcamar Wollaston, which is a small weather station at the northeast corner of the Wollaston Group. (-55.5855, -67.366)
We wondered why nobody answered our VHF request to land and soon found out why when we knocked on the door. Nobody was awake. Once they got up and shared their coffee with us, though, they were very friendly and seemed happy to see us. It was a relief for us to be welcomed by these men. There were five young navy guys there on some sort of training mission as well as the three regulars. We left after an hour or so and made our way to Hately Bay, another 4 nautical miles south.
In Hatley Bay (-55.629, -67.3765) I finally managed to land a fish. Its head looked like a rock fish, which generally have a large, dangerous looking head. But this evacuated fellow had no body, just a cavity. I threw it back and wished for it better times. Although I dropped a line at various times, this was the only fish I caught.
The next morning we got up at 4 am, were off by 6:45, crossed Franklin Channel to the Hermite Islands and made it to the south end of Isla Herschel (-55.8795, -67.199) opposite Isla Deceit. We had made 17 NM in pretty good weather, although Franklin Channel was a bit hairy. We had intended to stay the night on Herschel at the abandoned navy camp left over from the Beagle Conflict that had brought Chile and Argentina to the brink of war in 1978 over Isla Picton, Isla Lennox and Isla Nueva, just east of Isla Navarino.
We pulled in to the beach, didn’t like the look of the mildewed buildings and thought, what the hell, the weather is good now, let’s go. You go when you can.
It was exciting to round Isla Herschel and see our destination, the steep cliffs of Cabo de Hornos, just 6 NM away. We paddled the crossing in failing light, made the beach (-55.9624, -67.2241) and climbed the steep stairways up to the lighthouse.
January 31, 1997, Cabo Hornos,
We earned our official “Isla Hornos Correos-Chile” stamp, signed by our three hosts, in our journals today by paddling around Isla Hornos. We left at 6:45 AM, paddled hard and finished the 15 nautical miles by 10:35. Good paddle. It started off pretty easy, heading counter-clockwise up the east side of the island, but by the time we reached the north end and paddled into the Pacific, the wind had picked up and we had some real swells coming up and crashing on the cliffs rising up out of the very cold waters. Rounding the south end we were favoured by a strong current that took us back to the lighthouse. We were very lucky with the conditions.
That night we had a grand party, celebrating with our hosts’ pisco, Tom’s vodka, and the Johnny Walker whiskey that we expressly brought for the occasion. As Tom was our “designated drinker” he stayed up much later with our Chilean hosts than Gerry, Dick and I. All night, in fact: I have a photo of him laid out the next morning, half on, half off the couch, and still in his dry suit.
The next day we were late getting down to the beach. The tide was too high on the tight beach for us to launch into the big swells that were now coming into the bay.
Gerry, who by now was feeling better, and I decided to go for a hike. We couldn’t hike up the nearest hill because a sign indicated that there were still unexploded mines left over from the Beagle Conflict. Instead we went down towards a nearby beach. It was difficult to get around. We had to dance from one high, 2 meter hummock to another, while avoiding all the channels in between where dozens of Magellanic penguins lurked. Unfortunately, Bovey, the camp dog, had followed us and promptly started attacking the penguins. We got out of there and went up another hill instead. The trees were all bent sideways from the incredible wind. Sometimes it was easier to crawl on the top branches from tree to tree.
Occasionally we would fall through and end up crawling through the thicket. I had to wonder, how did Darwin get around? He must have gone somewhere else. I also had another question. By now I had thrown my fishing line in the water a few times, with different lures, and had just the one bite. What was the penguins’ secret?
We woke up the next day to strong westerlies, rising seas, and indications of more to come. By the time we got down to the launching bay the tide was high and the seas were washing right over the beach. We put off going.
The next few days were consumed with getting up early and rushing down to the beach, only to find that it would be impossible to set off. This gave us a chance to explore the island and watch the penguins, from a distance, without Bovey the hunter. They would slide down amongst the sheltering hummocks, waddle a few steps and then hurl themselves into the sea. I sat and watched them for hours and never saw them chomping on any substantial fish. Again I wondered how they could look so robust and well fed when I couldn’t get a bite? Later I learned that these birds feed mostly on krill, squid and small crustaceans. Not fish. This seemed like a great place to be for a penguin. No natural predators, good cover amongst the hummocks. Could penguins have evolved in places such as this and then headed south across Drake Passage to Antarctica?
One evening our hosts were getting hammered and a call came in from the captain of a freighter, “Request permission to come within two miles of the horn”. For some reason this stern request from an American sea captain caused confusion, so I was given the job. “Permission granted!” I shouted into the mike as firmly as I could.
Although our hosts seemed to genuinely enjoy our company, we didn’t want to overstay our welcome. One morning we left in very sketchy conditions. David, who was the head guy at Cabo, stayed on the beach and watched us patiently as we loaded our kayaks while surf was dumping on us. After Gerry and I helped Tom and Dick get off the steep beach, David steadied our boat as we got in. It was rough and he wondered why we were so eager to go. “Didn’t you sleep well in the house?” he said (in Spanish) and told us that “the sea doesn’t want you to go”. I loved that gentle, friendly statement and wondered at the time what the hell we were doing.
Often in climbing expeditions, summiting isn’t the most dangerous part. It’s getting back down that’s the problem. Our trip was like that.
In big seas we made it back to Hatley Bay. But then we had to camp for several days as storms swept in. Wind whistled down off the mountains and threatened to flatten our fly and tents. Seas were grey and ominous. We set off a couple of times in driving wind and rain, but returned to camp.
Tom was reluctant to paddle in these seas because Dick, who had been strong a couple of years earlier on the Bering Sea trip, was having trouble keeping up. We did get off finally and made it back to the beach off Estacion Cabot Ross on February 4. There was big surf blasting onto the beach.
Gerry and I went in first and made it in O.K. between wave sets. We dragged our boat up as far as we could and waited for Tom and Dick. With a big loaded double it’s best to try and time it to come in between waves, not straight down them. This was no place for surfing adventures. But after Tom missed his first chance the next set came in much bigger and suddenly they were riding down a monster. I remember looking at that big wave and saying to Gerry, with a lump in my throat: “Damn, that wave is bigger than their kayak.” And their kayak was 20 feet long. The wave broke, Tom and Dick braced and somehow they managed to stay upright, but they slammed violently onto shore. They made it out all right and so did the kayak and we all breathed more easily. However, they never had a chance to raise their rudder so the fin was bent sideways and the pin that extends out of the main rudder block was torn off.
I wrestled with that rudder for two days before deciding that there was a better than 50% chance that my repairs would last for the rest of the trip. And they did, thanks to bailing wire, duct tape and a large bolt supplied by the crew at the estacion. When we got home I was able to improve on the design and strength of the rudder, lessening the chance of future failures.
The group at Estacion Cabot Ross was less disciplined than at Cabo Horno. They drank pisco very late and got up late too. It was no wonder that they never responded to our radio calls, both heading south and returning north. It was also very hot inside, and noisy with the generator and radio.
We were pinned down by bad weather for days and I found myself going for long hikes. Most of the bush was dense, like our windswept west coast. My hiking style, which combined crawling on hands and knees as well as scrambling over the tops of trees, proved to be unpopular with the others. So I was usually by myself. Only once did I glimpse an animal, which looked like an otter. There was also little in the way of animal droppings, which you tend to notice when you are on your hands and knees. The moss was luxurious and soft to the touch, though, and beautiful.
Journal entry, February 8, 1997:
“Sunny, NW 25 kn, morning
Got up at 2:00 am, checked wind. Didn’t look too bad, S.W. 15 kn,
but too much for night crossing. Got up again at 3:30 am, got dressed. Waited for light, 5:00. Paddled to point, wind had shifted to NW 25 kn,, returned here. It’s smokin’ out there now. Sitting on point, looking north. Old dog, blond mongrel, panting beside me. Waiting. Others sleeping in house. Too hot and noisy. Forecast tomorrow: 30 to 40 kn headwind. Not a lot of food left.”
Finally we made the crossing to Navarino Island on February 10. Gerry and I stopped for a quick snack mid-way across. Tom didn’t like that and berated us for stopping. With the wind and current pushing us offshore he wanted to get across quickly. Gerry said: “I’m not choking on my Snickers for nobody”. I said: “These kayaks can cross oceans”. Tom said: “But I don’t want to cross an ocean”.[3]
This was a hard trip for Gerry. First he was awfully sick. He got over that. But he was also having to deal with a pending divorce. When we were in Puerto Williams he was on the phone with his wife a couple of times and came back feeling very sad. I heard his story and commiserated with him. Damn woman.[4]
[1] Sailing Alone Around the World, By Captain Joshua Slocum, 1900
[2] A katabatic wind is the technical name for a wind that carries air from a hill or mountain down a slope under the force of gravity.
[3] In 2001 Tom rowed with a partner from the Canary Islands across the Atlantic to Barbados.
[4] I had no inkling that years later I would marry her. She’s outside raking leaves right now.
13. Warming Oceans (Entered January 1, 2021)
Kerama, 26.186, 127.348
I first snorkeled off the shores of Kerama, a small group of islands in the Okinawa Archipelago in October, 1997. With me were my wife, Susan, and two kids: my son Evan, who was 8 and his nine-year-old friend, Jenna. They were hardy kids and spent most of their time floating in the water, entranced by the colours and astonishing beauty of the coral that stretched in all directions. It was awesome.
There used to be a feeling that when you see something in nature that is beautiful and bright you would be able to return sometime and be thrilled and uplifted again. Not anymore. When I returned to the area a few years later, the framework of the coral was still there, but the life within and the colours were all gone. Instead there was a vast expanse of brown and ghostly white. The devastation had happened in 1998, the year after our visit. A confluence of El Nino and high ocean temperatures caused the largest global coral bleaching ever recorded.
Coral reefs are home to roughly a quarter of the ocean’s 250,000 known species (there are perhaps 2 million unknown species) and are the genesis of much of ocean life. They are also endangered by ocean warming and acidification. The reefs are composed of coral polyps, which build the calcium carbonate structures and zooxanthellae (tiny algae), which provide food. It is the algae that give the coral its rich colors. Although coral is tough it requires water temperatures that do not fluctuate much. When temperatures rise by as little as 1C for one week the polyps expel the algae and the reefs starve, turn white and die.
Until the 1980s incidents of large-scale coral bleaching occurred once every 25 to 30 years. The intervals allowed enough time for recovery. In 1998 parts of the Great Barrier Reef off Australia and other reef systems off Madagascar, Belize and the Maldives bleached. Most recovered, but 15% died. Research from James Cook University found that in the Seychelles 40% of reefs bleached in 1998 have been replaced by weed and algae. This is “regime change” that is likely permanent. Reefs need about 15 years for recovery and only then if protected from pollution and fishing. However, since then there have been so many bleaching events the coral has not had time to recover. The worst happened in 2016 and 2017. The Great Barrier Reef lost half of its corals and 93% of the reef was affected. (Despite this the Queensland government continues to support the expansion of its coal mining industry).
In 2014 the World Resources Institute estimated that 75% of the coral reefs in the Caribbean were in danger, and 95% in South-east Asia. Today the situation would be worse. Baseline sea temperatures have been raised by climate change. Combined with the natural temperature variability that occurs, especially during El Nino events, safe temperature thresholds will be exceeded repeatedly in the future.
Phytoplankton are tiny microscopic plants that form the base of the marine food chain. Every other plant and creature that lives in the ocean depends on them. They grow faster in cold water and slower in warm water. Phytoplankton live in the euphotic zone of the ocean, which is the 80 meter or more strata of the ocean that receives sunlight. They depend on nutrients that come up from lower levels of the ocean, including the bottom benthic zone. In warmer waters this mixing does not take place as effectively, due to density differences between layers, so the planktons receive fewer nutrients. This one feature explains a great danger facing all sea life.
The oceans are getting warmer, caused by massive emissions of greenhouse gases. Effects of this warming have been verified in a NASA-funded study using the OrbView-2 spacecraft, which measured marine biological activity over many years. The effect is greatest in the polar regions. According to a NOAA[1]-sponsored study, in August, 2016 the surface ocean temperatures in the Barents and Chukchi seas, and off both coasts of Greenland, (places I have visited and cherished) were an astonishing 5 degrees Celsius (9 degrees Fahrenheit) above the average for 1982 to 2010. This is extreme, but effects are being felt in all regions of the oceans. Hot waters affect mollusks too. Subtidal areas in the eastern Mediterranean, off the coast of Israel, which are some of the fastest warming areas, have been described as deserts, totally devoid of cockles, whelks and other species.
There is natural variability year to year. During El Nino events, when surface ocean temperatures rise, the total heat held by the oceans falls as heat is dissipated into the atmosphere. The opposite happens during El Nina times, when surface temperatures are cooler. Year over year temperatures show a steady increase since pre-industrial times, however. In a recent Chinese study researchers measured temperatures over many parts of the globe for the first 2000 meters of ocean depth. They found that 2017 had by far the highest temperatures. The next highest was 2015, followed by 2016, 2014 and 2013. The five highest global ocean temperatures were all in the last five years. The IPCC reports that the oceans have absorbed 90% of the heat caused by man-made emissions. This amounts to 150 times the amount of electricity produced each year and is 60% higher than earlier estimates.
This warming is not going away. Today global temperatures are about 1 degree C. above those before industrialization began. This is a delayed effect due to the increase in greenhouse gases. Studies indicate that even if all GHGs were to be stopped today the earth will still warm by another .5 deg. C. What does this mean for ocean life? Everything. 25% of sea life is generated on or near coral. This will die off. Warming waters will kill it in the sub tropics and tropics and acidification will cause it to perish in colder zones. It’s already happening on the Great Barrier Reef, in the Caribbean and elsewhere. Warm water holds less oxygen, so anoxia will increase, as will toxic blooms. Mass die-offs and displacement of populations will occur as fish migrate to colder water. Larger fish and predatory mammals such as dolphins and whales will find their food source disappearing.
Circulation of deep ocean waters is driven by differences in ocean density, which is affected by temperature and salinity. Hence thermohaline.[2]
Circulation from deep to surface is very slow. It takes about 1,000 years for a drop of water to rise from the deep to the surface and back again. This process is slowed down when surface temperatures rise because temperature gradients are increased. We are left with the uncomfortable conclusion that surface ocean temperatures are going to continue to increase and will stay higher for at least a 1,000 years and probably longer.
In late 2013 a huge patch of warm water started forming in the Gulf of Alaska. During 2014 and 2015 it morphed into an area larger than the continental U.S., stretching from Alaska down to California. A Washington climatologist named it “The Blob”. It fueled a massive outbreak of toxic algae. Thousands of sea lions, sea otters, whales, fish, and birds died due to the toxicity of the algae. Sea lion pups were left starving as their mothers had unhealthy or no food to feed them. It is likely that major schools of salmon were affected, although this would be difficult to determine. Was the Blob caused by climate change? Aided and abetted, probably. It is impossible to know for sure. But, this will be the future of our oceans: bigger storms, rapid change, warmer water, less oxygen, more phosphorous, more acidity, and fewer large fish.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) met in Paris in 2015. All of the countries in the world agreed that a safe goal would be to limit the rise in global temperatures to 1.5 deg. above pre-industrial times. Since global temperatures have already risen by 1 deg. C. and will warm another .5 degrees due to GHGs already in the atmosphere, this is an almost impossible goal. Experts estimate the possibility of meeting the 2 degrees goal at just 5% — unless carbon is removed from the air. The agreement was voluntary and since then few countries have developed and implemented plausible and enforceable programs to achieve it.
Almost all of the IPCC’s strategies to keep temperature increase below 2 degrees require active carbon capture and storage. This entails scrubbing CO2 from the air and storing it deep underground. Very specific rock formations deep underground are required where there is a porous layer below a non-porous cap.
The best CO2-capturing systems required to neutralize today’s emissions would require roughly 60 million CO2 scrubbers around the world running on an extra 20% of world energy production. This is just removing the CO2 from the air. Most plans require pumping it miles below the surface of the earth and hoping it stays there. There has been little study of the financial and emission costs of manufacturing 60 million sequestering units, 60 million pumps and a few million miles of pipe to shove the CO2 underground and keep it there. Today no government is seriously considering it. Soon it may be too late. (sourced from David MacKay’s remarkably readable: “Sustainable Energy-Without The Hot Air”).
In Canada the federal Liberal government is initiating a comprehensive carbon reduction plan. However, it is also supporting pipeline construction and the expansion of the tar sands, even as major international corporations are retreating from it. Prime Minister Trudeau has stated that no government would leave carbon such as the tar sands in the ground. That is exactly what is required.
No respected independent researchers believe Canada can achieve its CO2 equivalent reduction obligations and grow the tar sands at the same time. Not even close. There is great fanfare, and talk, but no urgency and no action. The Liberal government’s proposal to raise the carbon tax to $170 a tonne by 2030 is a good first step, but unless tar sands emissions are drastically reduced Canada will still fall short of reaching its 2030 emissions-reduction targets.
The story of the world’s largest historical polluter and second greatest current polluter, the U.S., has been an incoherent mess. Coal vs wind and solar. Denial at the very top. At a global conference the U.S. was pushing coal and nuclear power as solutions to the climate emergency. The election of President Biden will change this. If the U.S. becomes a global leader in addressing the climate crisis perhaps we will have a chance at slowing and even reversing some of the worst harm that we are inflicting on this planet. We sure need the U.S. to lead on this.
While the U.S. has been mired in denial and ignorance, China has been publicly trying to assume the role of climate leader. But it currently emits more per person than EU members and is the world’s biggest polluter. It still plans to have its CO2 emissions increase until about 2030, although it may peak earlier. After that, in order to meet its modest reduction objectives, it would have to retire coal power plants at the same rate that it was building them prior to its peak growth phase: 2 to 3 per week. This is unlikely to happen. It is still building more coal plants.
The third biggest contributor historically to climate change is Russia. What is Russia’s biggest and practically only source of export earnings? Oil and gas. Does anyone expect that Russia would willingly cut back? India is a close fourth behind Russia and has now surpassed Russia in annual emissions. It may indeed be the only country of the gang of four to meet its intensity and emissions objectives, but they are very modest. More coal-fired power plants are still planned for both China and India.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) projected global temperatures to rise between 1.5 deg. C and almost 6 deg. C by 2100. Based on the above and more recent projections by Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), it is almost certain that the rise will be closer to 3 or 4 degrees C. Scientists have stated for a long time that we cannot allow CO2 levels to rise above 400 ppm. Currently we are at 415 ppm and rising fast. CO2 levels haven’t been this high in 20 million years. There is great danger that the climate will pass multiple “tipping points”, leading to a mass extinction scenario midway through this century. IPCC’s own scientists have not accounted for this.
So, we have only 10% of large fish stocks left compared to pre-industrial times and ocean conditions are getting worse. What are we to do? There is only one answer. We double down on conservation and try to increase stocks while actively reducing our own GHG emissions. As Callum Roberts states, “we need to protect and increase diversity and abundance.”
[1] National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, U.S. Department of Commerce
[2] Cold water, in general, is denser than warm water. Likewise, water with a high salinity is denser than water that contains less salt. Surface ocean currents are primarily driven by winds. Deep ocean currents, on the other hand, are mainly a result of density differences. The thermohaline circulation often referred to as the ocean’s “conveyor belt”, links major surface and deep water currents in the Atlantic, Indian, Pacific, and Southern Oceans. (https://scied.ucar.edu/ocean-move-thermohaline-circulation)
14. Kyushu Nov, 1996 Izumi, 32.189, 130.104 (Entered Feb 1, 2021)
I first met Rollie in 1987. Noda-san, an adventurer and writer, had invited me to Japan. He had written about paddling the Yukon and other northern rivers and had become interested in my kayaks because the folding kayaks then available in Japan were very breakable. I had no idea what I was getting into when I arrived in Tokyo and was taken to a big ceremony. It turned out that Noda-san was revered and was receiving an award that evening. Later I would paddle with him on a number of rivers, starting with the Shimanto River in Kyushu. This would lead to the annual Feathercraft Owners’ Meetings that took place over the following 25 years. But that evening I was lost. To my surprise a tall white guy with a patch over one eye, wearing a big leather hat came up and introduced himself. As if he knew me. Rollie Innes-Taylor was born and raised in Whitehorse, Yukon. Somehow he had ended up in Japan some 20 years earlier and had married a beautiful Japanese woman. A motorcycle accident had left him with the loss of one eye and a severely damaged hip, causing him to walk with a cane. But this didn’t slow Rollie down in a kayak. In that society Rollie always stuck out, which didn’t bother him at all. He traded on his Yukon notoriety and was at his best sitting around a camp fire on a beach with a bunch of people telling dirty jokes in both languages. Always, he kept us in stitches. Rollie was a successful adventure travel writer as well as an advisor to Honda for car ads. His job was to take rough English translations and make them acceptable to North Americans. He even posed, as an outdoors guy, with a kayak on the roof of a car, for promotions in Japan. A couple of years earlier he had started on a multi-year endeavor with his good pal Masa Umeda-san. They would paddle a leg of the journey whenever they could get the time off and then leave their two-person Feathercraft at a nearby car dealership.
Umeda-san is a gentle soul and so soft spoken you have to lean in close to hear what he is saying. Quite a contrast to Rollie. He is a professional photographer and very successful in the outdoor world.
Like Rollie, he has kids and has to juggle work, family and his passion for travelling Japan by kayak with Rollie.
They had started a couple of years before from, I think, Rollie’s town of Kamakura and headed south, with the hope of circumnavigating, in a clockwise direction, all the islands of Japan. When I met up with them they were on the south coast of the south island of Kyushu. We paddled from possibly Izumi, around the south end of Kyushu to Fukuoka. (I was just paddling along with them, almost as a guest. Looking back I wished that I had taken more note of our route).
This was a whole new experience for me. They were not in a hurry. At each major point they would stop for a smoke break, and often a laugh, too. We carried a minimum of gear. At night we would usually pull in to a “gyoko”, (protected harbour for small fishing boats) and forage for food. If the village or town was sizable we might eat at a sushi or ramen bar. If not we’d find a small store and buy some rice balls and soup packages to heat up on our gas stove. We’d sleep right beside the fish boats on the concrete wharfs. There would be a wash room for the fishermen. Nobody minded us and we felt like hobos.
One afternoon we were looking at the chart and Rollie was wondering where to pull in for the night. I noticed a town called Kayaki and said lets go there. Then I asked Umeda-san what it meant and he said, well, literally: “Burning mosquitoes”. When we started pulling up our kayaks an elderly couple asked us what we were up to. Rollie and Umeda-san explained. They invited us in to their home for the night. We didn’t want to impose ourselves, but they were insistent. The woman didn’t say much but she served us a delicious meal and favored us with a beautiful smile. We learned that the man was a doctor. Nagasaki was quite close by and he had spent his whole career healing survivors of the nuclear bomb blast that had devastated the community in 1945. Early on he treated severe burns, broken bodies and radiation sickness. Then heart and liver diseases and leukemia and other cancers. Many people, maybe most, would have become hardened with all this tragedy. But it was obvious that Hiroyuki Fujinaga-san had opened up his heart and soul, offering up compassion instead of hate. His deep humanity touched me. They were two of the most remarkable, generous people I have ever met.
Umeda-san and Rollie eventually made their way as far as the northern island of Hokkaido. But by then Rollie had become quite ill. Eventually he succumbed to cancer, leaving behind his wife, Akiko, and his two young sons, Chris and Ian. Years later I ran into Umeda-san in Tokyo. I was glad to see that he was the same quiet, thoughtful guy. But he misses his great friend Rollie.
15. Jumentos, Bahamas, May June 1999 (Entered Feb 1, 2021)
May, 1999: Jumentos: Long Island, 23.34, -75.123 to Duncan Town on Ragged Island, 22.198, -75.727 about 95 nautical miles.
May 18, 1999
On board the Bahamas mail boat: the “Sherice M” bound from Nassau to Long Island. Joining me was my old paddling buddy, Willi. He and I have made a number of journeys together up the mid-coast of B.C. Our plan was to paddle from Long Island over to the Jumento Cays and follow them south to Duncan Town on Ragged Island.
On this trip we found a fair abundance of small fish milling about amongst the coral. We carried spears which enabled us to supplement our meagre food supplies with fresh fish. As we neared our destination we did encounter increasing amounts of plastic, mainly bags floating in the water. Seven years later we paddled out of the same location and then toured northward along the Exumas. In just those seven years life had diminished in an astonishing way. Most of the coral was dead and there were so few fish we thought that it would have been criminal to catch any of them. Many of the beaches were soiled with plastic. It was hard to believe that conditions could have deteriorated so quickly.
The Jumentos are a chain of small dry cays that stretch about 90 nautical miles from the south end of the Exumas to within about 40 miles of Cuba. Most of the islands are uninhabited, fairly pristine, and not more than 15 nautical miles apart. Ideal, it seemed to me, for kayaking. If you are going, don’t depend on finding water at “Water Cay”. You will be disappointed. We took along a hand operated water desalinator for making fresh water.
Willi, especially, had to drink a lot of water to maintain hydration in the high humid, 35 C. days. He’s stocky, blond hair, blond beard, looks like a Viking. Doesn’t like the heat. Born and raised poor in Georgia, U.S. Was studying art, but the Vietnam War put an end to that and he exited rather hurriedly to Canada. He “paints” mostly with just coloured pencil crayons, in such complex detail that it’s hard to decipher how he does it. Like moss.
He never sells his work. I traded the kayak that he is in for one of his works and I think that we are both happy with the deal. It’s an amazing work on quite a large canvas. There is an old, bearded man with scruffy hair. He has a wild look about him. Above and about his head hover small children’s drawings of goofy animals and dreamy images, as if emanating from his fertile, though possibly deranged, brain. Willi is not that man, but I think that those thoughts are his own.
When Willi is up he is really up and the whole world seems to laugh along, and when he is down, look out. These mood swings have got him into some bother in the past. Moody man. He’s a great one for stringing long lines of puns together and it’s terrible when he does that. He is also passionate about plants. During our trips along the BC coast he would often dig up some obscure bog plants and carry them home in his kayak. His garden, on public land, is special.
I’m including comments from some of the cays we visited.
“Journeying about 10 knots. The Sherice is loaded. There is a sailing regatta this weekend somewhere. On board is a sailboat that will be in the race and the skipper and a few of his crew (of the “Barbarian”). Wilfred Bain is who I am talking to. Everybody calls him Uncle Willy. Lives now in Nassau, retired from taxi driving. Owns his boat, pretty contented, I’d say. Does the odd plumbing job on the side.
Just talked to the captain, who also owns this 120-foot boat. Apparently his contract to carry the mail and stuff is worth $10,000/week. Local call is “Batelco, Ragged Island”, on VHF 16.
Big Lady (really big) is going to run a concession booth at the regatta. Her first time, went to Nassau to get some of the supplies, the rest from Miami. “Booth #1”. She’s proud of this. Cuffs her 3-year-old quite a bit, he seems used to it. Worked for others at booths before. I gave her and the old lady there some graham wafers. She had to see the box, she liked them so much. From Deadman’s Cay.
Stocky guy in coveralls with the salesman’s smile: works during week as a prison guard. Says after work he does construction jobs. Flies to Cuba on Fridays, buys cigars “out the back door” for $40/box of 20. Sells them in Nassau for $28 each, cheerfully no doubt. In customs in Cuba, puts a $20 bill in his passport. “They don’t bother me”.
We’re nearing the southern, tail end of the Exumas, over shallower water, must be a light sandy bottom because the water is that gorgeous tropical blue. The Exumas are low, as we knew, and not treed much, mostly bush, as we suspected. Yes, I can see blurred details of the bottom. Houses dotted here and there.
The old lady in the galley hasn’t moved since yesterday. Lives in Freeport with family in Long Island. No supplies, I gave her water and a little food. There’s a big button with a photo of her granddaughter on her chest.
“Letter Fox” has a gruff voice for a woman. Talks with everyone. Lives on “Halfmoon Island” which is owned by Holland Cruise Lines. Used to be called “Little San Salvador Island” but the cruise line changed that. The ships left, last cruise late April, and are now operating out of Vancouver on the Alaska cruises. 10 people live there in the off season. She says it is boring at times, too quiet.
I believe that we are just off William Town.
May 19, 1999
Last night it got a little ugly. Some of the crew clearly doesn’t like Willi or me. Because we are the only white men on board? Or just foreigners? Willi was stopped from sitting in a couple of places and he’s fuming. I was prohibited from even standing in front of one guy’s view of the skiff that he said he was looking at. Lots of booze and tension, nowhere for us to stand or sit. Finally found refuge with a couple of women and a boy in a sort of open area beside the galley. Later the captain indicated that there were bunks for us. Problem solved.
We are going to Salt Pond, not Clarence Town. We might just launch from there. (Did land at Salt Pond, 23.351, -75.1274).
May 21, 1999 Grape Tree Cay, 23.1855, -75.29
This place: It’s gorgeous. Take away the no-see-ums and the truly high-intensity, fly-squishing thunderstorms and this could be your tropical paradise.
Birds: on the other side of the island are two oystercatchers, very beautiful with their long orange beaks, white underbellies and black tops. The white comes up around the front of their wings. Not like in B.C. Inquisitive, followed me around this morning. There is a bird, shaped like a plover, a little bigger. Brown and black with white chevron on the tail feathers. Normally makes a loud click click, click sound. But when they dive they sound like a jet engine-whoosh. Willi thought at the first campsite that it was a donkey braying. Today one started dive bombing me, I was near its nest? Just at the bottom of its dive it curves its wings down, whoosh. There is a pigeon that sounds like an owl. Bonaparte’s gulls, a pair. One screams the usual gull fare, always first. The other squawks as if adding an exclamation. Some pretty, light tan on underbelly, darker on top robin style birds, not shy. Another bird, similar, but with a white strip on the tail. Two herons, a little smaller than our great blues. One grey, the other white. Who are these strangers? Should have brought a bird book.
Yesterday, a hot heat hummer. We finally arrived here, boats on the beach. I looked out to sea and saw it coming towards us. A twister. We scampered away from the boats. It swept up the beach about 10 meters from us, went straight on, about 20 kn travelling speed and hammered the bushes beyond. Branches flying everywhere. About 6 meters in diameter, pulled up debris from the beach. Would have laid waste to our tent flies if they had been up. The day before, at Salt Pond, we saw a large water spout away a bit. Lasted maybe 20 minutes. Dangerous.
May 23, 1999
Last night at Pear Cay. A true seabird rookery. Bonaparte’s gulls, one tern, one Fulmar?” (note: on one of the early cays, I think this one, there was no beach. We had to lay down our storage bags over the coral and haul our loaded kayaks up over overhanging ledges, on the bags. Seas were calm. This would have been extremely difficult in rough weather.)
May 25, 1999
Interrupted my journal on the 23rd by the arrival on our beach of Christopher, Blue and his four other buddies from Spanish Wells. We first saw them out on the water: two in a skiff diving with a compressor and line. They came up to us: “Hey man, do you burn?” Of course Willi does, so everything was cool.
They were interested in our boats. Thought it was the neatest thing, all that camping stuff in there, and just taking off. These guys like their freedom. They’re here now because red snappers are supposed to be here in big numbers by full moon. They work from the small skiffs. Throw down a net, then go down with their compressed air lines and loop the net around the fish (It’s all shallow here) and the boat person hauls up.
Blue has Paul Newman brilliant blue eyes. Blond hair. No doubt the ladies love this guy. He described about 8 ways of cooking conch, how to spear grouper, eat whelks, eat eggs from the bird colonies on the coral cays. Although he has two kids, he is out chasing fish and shellfish most of the time, by the season.
They had been spear fishing that day- a grouper, triggerfish, parrot fish and two large crayfish, which they gave us. Men as hunters. The women, no doubt, are back at Spanish Wells holding everything together. Blue said that they are all white on Spanish Wells. It’s on an island just off Eleuthera. The people on Eleuthera are mostly black, he said. Sort of enclaves, it seems. Seems to be some money in all this, the skiffs are modern speed boats with big outboards. Blue showed me his fancy onboard GPS with electronic map. They don’t own the boats, though. At least not the mother ship, about 60 feet, wood. The guys go ashore to smoke weed. Can’t do it onboard.
May 27, 1999 Second day at Flamingo Cay
Beautiful beach facing to windward (to S.E.) Good diving (though not as good as Pear Island). Should catch a Grouper today. We burned the backs of our legs swimming yesterday, will have to wear long pants. Unfortunately too much plastic in the water. Often bags just floating by. It’s blazing hot today, just a small breeze. Speared a parrot fish today and yesterday, off the small island near the point here. Yesterday I saw a huge manta ray. Very beautiful in action, flapping gracefully. The skinks in camp here are very bold. They will even sit on our feet. Looking for snacks.
Water: I pumped 10 litres both today and yesterday with the desalinator. About 2 hours per bag if you include setup. K-1 cockpit is the perfect size. I drop a big rock in the water, out from the beach, tie the kayak to it and hop in. One shock cord up front of the cockpit to hold the intake. Another to hold the water bag. Two shock cords on the same side at rear of cockpit to hold the water maker. With this setup you can pump with one or two hands. And time goes by. Willi drinks a tremendous amount. I’ll be pumping more today. Eating refried beans with triscuit crumbs. There are barracuda in our bay here; we can see them from camp. In the water they look fearsome.
May 28, 1999 Jamaica Cay, 22.719, -75.9068.
We need protein. Hence the fishing. I was just off, on the windward side of the north point here. The fish are small and skittish. I was underwater with my spear, trying to sight a fish. I couldn’t, and looked behind me. A shark, about 6–7 feet long had snuck up behind me. Who was the hunter? I wheeled around with my spear and the shark took off. No way was I going to spear a fish with that around. It was within 10 feet. Let’s have some pasta.
This isn’t like Kerama. Lots of brown and white coral, not much colour. Not so many fish.
We were met here by Percy Wilson’s son, Ramon, and his younger brother, who basically ignored us. Ramon was friendly, thoughtful. 26 years. Talked about following a dream, which is Jamaica Cay, which he has been associated with for 8 years. They want to build a whole bunch of single and double cottages. They have cleared a little land, landscaped it. Built a few rudimentary buildings. Two huge tanker trailers are near the beach. One never got driven up to high ground, and is rusting from the sea. They don’t have any more money to proceed. Looks like a bottomless pit. Who would come? What about the hurricanes? The situation reminds me of the book, Mosquito Coast. Strong intelligence. Great mechanical aptitude. Wrong dream. Anyway, Ramon is smart, says he’s just learning. Wants to fly planes. Dreams a lot, has confidence.
May 31, 1999 E. Side of Nurse Island
Yesterday we did our final crossing over open sea. About 20 knots on the beam. Breakers too. Not dangerous, though. I liked those cays.
When we finally got to this beach, surfing, unfortunately, onto coral, I felt a sense of let-down. The open passages are over and now — garbage. So much of it on the beach. Innocence passes.
When we left Jamaica Cay Ramon handed us 4 mangoes and wished us well. Wow, are they ever good. Way better than in Vancouver. They reminded me of my travels in Latin America.
Its still morning. My morning shower is rapidly approaching. It’s been quite a few days since it rained. So we will be glad to wash. I will step out naked into the downpour and wash!
The aftermath: just enough rain came to put the soap on, but not enough to get it off. Still sticky.
Since then I’ve read my book in a sea cave, out of the sun for quite a while. Finally went out and caught two fish for dinner. Not a great dive. A depressing amount of garbage is in the water and I’m swimming in it. Mostly plastic bags. Also, it’s blowing, surf’s up, so the visibility is poor. We got a decent dinner. But the sea — how can we as humans survive if the ocean dies? Perhaps the plastic isn’t so bad, just unsightly. But, a reminder.
June 3, 1999 Hotel Perseus Maycock, Duncan Town, Ragged Island
Old Perseus, downstairs, who owns this joint, must be pretty deaf. Latin music is throbbing, incredibly loud. At first unfriendly, he’s eased up a bit. We helped him fix his window, but what really made a difference — we offered to put on the sheets. He has nobody to help him and I think that old Cepheus regards bed-making as woman’s work.
This little town is full of cute black kids and trash. Emphasis on the trash. People around here complain about the noise but he doesn’t listen. So says Sheila, who made us dinner last night and breakfast this morning. You find her at home or by a neighbour and arrange to meet her at the empty restaurant at a specified time. The system works. Sheila is 57, short and stocky. Her dead husband used to captain the mail boat but Cepheus was the head honcho (councilman, or something) and he got it for his sons. She has the restaurant and her sister is starting to let an in-home suite. Hates Perseus.
I’m upstairs, facing east, under a balcony. A breeze is blowing, it’s not too hot. I see that the elderly (57?) drive everywhere on golf carts. The music is blaring.
Across the lot with the run-down shack, still suffering from the most recent hurricane, and past the rubble of concrete, is a tree, a “sea grape”. All the kids stop and eat some grapes before going on. The adults don’t. A little sour, but tangy. The music is blaring still. The mail boat, which is supposed to come today, isn’t in sight, can’t be seen down the long channel between mangroves. According to local information it is supposed to leave at 5 pm, but it’s always late.
June 4, 1999 Aboard Etienne & Cepheus’s 85' mail boat to Nassau. The milk run, maybe 28 hours.
A different and much better experience than the trip to Long Island. These guys, including crew, are fine. Generally a little older. Such an accent these guys have, a lot of the time it’s a foreign language to me. These guys are, in sentiment, time honoured, freedom-loving sailors. On the boat they feel free, though I guess they don’t count the hierarchy of the boat itself.
The big tall guy beside me with the full bushy black beard told me this, as did the cook, he of the deep gruff voice but with a twinkle in his eye. Mr. Tall just left his old girlfriend because she wanted him to stay home while she worked. His new one is cool to his work, he says. The cook is married, sees the family every weekend and obviously relishes it. He seems to be the most grounded of the bunch. Told Mr. Tall to not worry about what a certain guy thinks of him. He’s a philosopher of the down-to-earth.
The cook’s brother is a friend of the Captain. While we were waiting for the tide at Ragged Island (the tide determines when and where you move — it’s barely deep enough in some of our ports of call, as we scraped bottom every once in a while), the Captain and the big bro. went off in a skiff, all the way to our last campsite on Racoon Cay, and shot a couple of wild sheep. Then, while we set off, he skinned and butchered them where we sat, stern cockpit. That was last night.
Tonight we just dined on, of course, fresh mutton. We are more accepted on this boat. These guys know we paddled from Long Island. They think we’re crazy, but not in a bad way. For dessert tonight: soursop. A fruit, good cooled, thick, white, fresh, lots of pits. Lunch: conch, steamed, and rice, of course, the staple. Not seen pasta.
I just finished my “Murther” book by Robertson Davies. His characters are often so literate; they quote favourite classical authors, even in their own thoughts. This can give your own thought processes a bit of a dressing down. Should I have aspired for more sophistication, more learning? I’m certainly proud of my accomplishments at Feathercraft and of my family. But has my focus been too narrow? Is it?
I often feel intensely spiritual during kayak trips, including this one. A cleansing of the soul. The land and seas wash into me. But, should I aspire for more? More literacy? Let’s face it. My most intense moment, and the one that I relish, was when I had to face off that large shark. Also, when I was spearing fish, I was totally alert, conscious, cunning. A hunter. Is this a spiritual action, killing fish? I’m rambling here. But I wonder if I’m yet “grown up” and even what that means. “Get serious, man, and hey man, do you burn?” Should I be able to plumb some obscure line from Shakespeare to express this sentiment? Or Browning? A journey into literature and reflection. I’d have to learn to read in bed without falling asleep.
June 6, 1999 Towne Hotel, Nassau
Louie was on the mail boat from Ragged Island. I had noticed him before, as his appearance was different from the rest. A Cuban. His father, a train conductor, owns a small “farm” with some cows and pigs. You are not allowed to kill a cow there, they are just for milk. Louie’s family was hungry, so he killed and slaughtered a cow. A neighbour squealed. Louie got 17 years in the slammer for this.
After about six months he was allowed to go visit his dad for the weekend, with a guard. They got the guard drunk and Louie jumped in a small row boat and made it to Ragged Island. He was thrown in Bahamian jail for eight months, but finally released, to be sent back to Cuba. But he immediately married a Bahamian girl, so he got to stay. A pact with the devil.
She is short, obese, and apparently totally devoid of humour. She never set foot out of her room except to go to the head, scowl and bark orders at Louie. It was hard to hear.[1]. They have a cute baby girl whom he adores. He is exactly her opposite. Strong, extremely fit looking, gregarious, a free spirit who couldn’t be bottled up. Like Papillon. Charming too. In the course of five years he has managed to buy two boats, fishes with locals, and makes a good living at it, he says.
I’m sitting in a courtyard at the hotel across from two parrots who say “Hello, hello, hello” from time to time. They wake up Willi in the early morning and he curses them.
One floor above, the old workman is washing the floors on the verandas in front of the rooms. The water pours down onto the umbrellas that poke up from the round picnic tables. And that is why the umbrellas are so filthy. I had wondered why.
[1] When I re-read this I wonder if I was being too harsh. Maybe she has a fear of boats or was seasick.
16. Sea Level Rise (Entered Feb 1, 2021)
A report in 2014 by the UN Environment Program indicated that “Small Island Developing States” (SDI States) are at immediate risk of sea level rise. The island of Kosrae (5.3, 163 deg.) and other tropical Western Pacific small islands have been experiencing a sea level rise of about 12 mm per year: “about four times the global average.” In 2005 the UN declared that the 100 inhabitants of Tegua (-13.25, 166.62 deg.) to be the world’s first climate change refugees. With their island slowly sinking and the ocean rising they were forced to flee to another island
On a larger scale, the entire 113,000 population of Kiribati (1.9, -157.4), to the north west of the Tuamotos, will soon have to be evacuated: “This is the last resort, there’s no way out of this one,” Anote Tong (president of Kiribati) said. “Our people will have to move as the tides have reached our homes and villages.” Mr. Tong is in negotiation with the Fijian military to buy 5,000 acres on the island of Vanua Levu.(-16.7, 179 deg.) Some of Kiribati’s 32 island atolls are already disappearing, as are islands throughout the south Pacific. (The Telegraph, March 7, 2012) These island people are the first to experience the effects of sea level rise.
Probably the first extinction caused by sea level rise is the Bramble Cay melomys, which is a small rodent that lived on a small island between Australia and Papua New Guinea. It was last seen in 2009 and was likely driven to extinction by rising seas. There will be many other coastal animals that will suffer the same fate in the future. It is humans who may suffer the most, especially in the large coastal cities.
In February, 2006, my wife, Theresa, and I hooked up with Ken Fink in southern Florida. I wanted to test a new sail rig system and thought that the prevailing trade winds would push us down the Florida Keys from Key Largo to Key West. This time I was right.
We started down the windy gulf side of the keys on water too shallow for motor boats. We had the place to ourselves. With the Florida Reef just offshore providing protection, the ocean swell was minimal and the seas were easy. The upper keys are too developed for camping but there were lots of small, mom-and-pop motels along the way. I had entered their locations and phone numbers on my GPS. When it was time to go in for the night we just called the nearest one on my cell phone.
Once we had passed the Seven Mile Bridge we put away the sails and paddled north through the lower keys. We passed from sandy shore barrier islands facing the Gulf of Mexico to sheltered channels amongst coral islands thick with mangroves and beautiful frigate birds, pelicans and warblers.
On the upper keys two things were noticeable right away. First, there was far more traffic on the Overseas Highway connecting the keys than we anticipated, considering that once you drove to Key West you had to turn around and come back. Sometimes it was difficult just to cross the highway, which made walking to restaurants at night a bit strange.
The other thing was also a surprise. In many areas there were all sorts of furniture pieces, stoves, fridges and whatever floating around the keys, stranded onshore, and beside the highway. Just four months before, Hurricane Wilma, a category 3 storm, had hit the keys with a vengeance. A mandatory evacuation of all residents had been ordered. It was obvious that the storm had swept right over the low-lying keys. With rising sea levels and increasingly intense storms, how long will the Florida Keys remain habitable? More recently, on September 10, 2017, Hurricane Irma, a category 4 storm when it came ashore, devastated the entire chain of keys.
2007 estimates from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) suggest that global sea level will increase 8 to 16 inches above 1990 levels by 2090. The National Academy of Sciences predictions from 2009 suggest that by 2100 sea level could increase by anywhere from 16 inches to 56 inches, depending how the Earth responds to changing climate. Both of these estimates are probably way off because neither accurately studied the effects of ice melt in Greenland and Antarctica.[1]
NASA has been measuring Greenland ice cap for 11 years using satellite and laser altimetry data. The IPCC computer simulation models underestimate the rate of melt. Their model measures just 4 glaciers in Greenland, but the actual situation is more complicated. There are “superglacial lakes” — lakes that have been migrating inland, and the dark water is accelerating the melting. The water can also act as a lubricant, causing the ice to slide into the ocean. The UN study did not allow for this or for the different rates of glacier melting. If the whole ice cap melts, the sea level will rise over 20 ft. (7.2 meters). The team estimates a doubling of the 8.7 inches that IPCC estimated for Greenland contributing to global sea level rise this century. Whole countries, such as Bangladesh, and cities, such as Miami and Shanghai, will be inundated. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon flew to Greenland and declared that this threat is the greatest that faces mankind. In the last ten years the equivalent of 10 billion tons of ice have melted.
A similar situation is playing out in Antarctica.
On May 12, 2014 The Guardian reported:
“The collapse of the west Antarctic ice sheet has already started. It will be complete within 200 to 500 years. It would cause a sea-level rise of up to 4 metres (13 ft.) Most of the sea level rise we’ve seen so far is from thermal expansion [ocean warming and therefore expanding] and alpine glaciers melting.
“The collapse of the Western Antarctica ice sheet is already under way and is unstoppable, two separate teams (from NASA and Univ. of Washington) of scientists said on Monday.”
“The sea level rise caused by west Antarctica collapsing will change the coastline of the whole world. The rise won’t be even around the world — the coast of north-eastern US and along the south of China will see particularly high increases.”
“The study honed in on the Thwaites glacier — a broad glacier that is part of the Amundsen Sea. Scientists have known for years that the Thwaites glacier is the soft underbelly of the Antarctic ice sheet, and first found that it was unstable decades ago.”
A more recent study presented by Richard B. Alley in the February 2019 issue of Scientific American enlarged on the Thwaites glacier. This and the adjoining Pine Island glacier are massive ice sheets, extending one mile above sea level and jammed 1 1/2 miles deep onto the Bentley Subglacial Trench said to be “Earth’s deepest place not under an ocean”.
Floating ice shelves that occur at the foot of glaciers in protected bays slow down the flow of ice as it is propelled into the ocean. Warm air can cause lakes to form on these shelves. These lakes can cause the shelves to break up rapidly. When these shelves break up, the flow of the glaciers behind them can speed up.
In West Greenland I was able to observe the Jackobshavn glacier near Illulissat where it runs into the sea. It is a sight that sticks in my mind for its vastness and also its strangeness. Before its ice shelf broke up it was a fast moving glacier, but since then it has more than doubled its speed and become the fastest flowing glacier and one of the largest contributors to sea level rise on the planet. But compared to the Thwaites glacier it is a mere trickle.
There are signs that the Thwaites ice shelf is starting to come apart and could completely disappear within a few decades. Then it could start to melt rapidly. Alley could not say how long this might take but he compared predicting such a thing to dropping cups on a floor. You can tell on average how many cups might fracture a bit, or shatter or not be broken at all, but you wouldn’t want to bet your paycheck on what happens to the next cup. The report did indicate that the glacier could break up within a hundred years once the ice shelf is gone and that would raise sea levels by 11 feet. But he also said that they might be underestimating the rate of ice melt.
Last night my wife and I were admiring a flower and she took a picture of it. It was a gerbera daisy with beautiful, robust petals emanating from a long stock shaped like a sine curve on its side. Perhaps she will make a painting of it. She is very good at that. This morning the stock was barren and all of the petals were lying on the counter. It may seem strange to be comparing a glacier to a flower, but it’s no stranger than comparing it to falling crockery. It is a difference in time scale. Like flowers, glaciers have a beginning and an end. It can be difficult to predict when petals will suddenly fall off a flower. Perhaps by knowing how long the flower has been in bloom, or measuring the moisture in the petals and checking whether it has been pollinated or infected with thrips might help. Similarly, scientists have been studying the physics of ice fractures and the history of glacier melting to create computer models of how the great glaciers might melt under different climate scenarios.
Apparently it may take a few decades before the Thwaites loses its ice shelf. But then again it could happen faster. Just to the north of Thwaites, the much smaller Larsen B Ice Shelf astonished scientists by disintegrating almost completely in just five weeks. Like our gerbera daisy.
The report did not look into how a sea level rise of up to 11 meters from this one source would lead to knock-on effects on other glaciers in Antarctica and the Arctic, nor at the effects of increased permafrost melting as rising waters swamp low-lying areas. The whole process is driven by warming seas.
A research team from the University of New South Wales reported in 2020 that during the last interglacial period, between 129,000 and 116,000 years ago, the melting of the West Antarctic ice sheet caused a sea-level rise of more than three meters. This was caused by a rise of less than 2C of ocean warming.
In a CBC radio news interview on September 9, 2017, Harold Wanless, University of Miami’s Geological Sciences Chairs stated in his deep voice: “a two-metre rise in sea level by 2100 is likely, but it’s also plausible it could be as much as five metres by the end of the century, and it will continue rising for centuries after that.” Such a rise would submerge vast coastal areas. Wanless’s warnings are higher than most predictions. However, a study published on January 25, 2021 in the journal The Cryosphere found that the rate of global ice loss is in line with the worst-case scenarios of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. It has accelerated by 65% between 1994 and 2017.
In 2008 the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) outlined the effect of just a 0.5 sea level rise by 2070 on highly populated areas. Calcutta, India, headed the list, with 14 million people and $2.0 trillion in assets at risk. Gangzhou, China, was next, followed in order by: Mumbai, Miami, Shanghai, Bangkok, Tianjin, New York, Ho Chi Minh City, Dhaka, Ningbo, Tokyo, Alexandria, Haiphong, and Amsterdam. The last on the list, Amsterdam, would still have an estimated 1.4 million people and $843 billion in assets at risk if sea levels rise by just 0.5 meters by 2070. Overall, at least 275 million people live in vulnerable areas, with 4 out of 5 living in Asia.
Rising seas will displace hundreds of millions people by 2100 or soon after. These effects are baked in — the glaciers will continue to melt for hundreds of years. But the effects on life in the oceans will also be dramatic. As the seas rise and overtake the land, many of mankind’s “assets” will be submerged, likely causing massive pollution. This will include agricultural land inundated with fertilizers, chemical plants, oil and gas refineries and nuclear power stations. Many of these facilities are built right at water’s edge in order to facilitate cooling and also shipping. A look at just a few of these can be helpful in understanding the scope of the threat.
In the U.S., the Port Arthur Refinery (29.88, -93.96) and the Marathon refinery near Galveston Bay (29.37, -94.92) are both sitting on flat land beside the sea, elevation about 2 meters.
An example in South Korea is the GS Caltex, Refinery (34.834, 127.67), also at sea level. Those are just two of many examples.
It might be comfortable to think that these facilities are owned by mighty corporations and when the time comes they will decommission them. But, by the time they are pressured to act they may not have the resources. Once the liabilities of the big oil and gas companies are known to exceed their assets, and there are profit warnings, money will flow rapidly out to shareholders. Nobody wants to be left holding the bag.
On a smaller scale this scenario is playing out right now in Alberta. There are thousands of abandoned and orphaned wells in the province. The big oil and gas companies have been selling off these wells to smaller companies. Many of these are underfinanced and cannot afford to close off these turkeys. Some have declared bankruptcy. A recent ruling has indicated that these companies are still liable, but how do you collect from a shell?
There is a considerable number of nuclear power stations positioned right at water’s edge. One in France is the large Gravelines Nuclear Power Station ((51.01, 2.13). Some of it appears to be on about 1 to 2 meters of land. The image on Google Earth has been scrambled, so it is difficult to determine where the actual reactors are. This is not reassuring.
In China most of the more modern reactors on the coast have been built on mounds 14 meters or more high. Two exceptions are the Quinshan Nuclear Power Plant (30.436, 120.958), which has a Canadian-designed CANDU-6 reactor, built in 2003, and the Russian-designed Tianwan Nuclear Power Plant (34.687, 119.458), which is right at water level.
Japan, of course, has a difficult history with nuclear power. As early as 1969 the Hamaoka Nuclear Power Plant (364.623, 138.141) was considered to be the most dangerous due to its low elevation and exposure to earthquakes. It was finally closed down in 2011 after the Fukushima tragedy.
On March 11, 2011 a huge 6.9 earthquake did not initially damage the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant, but it sent a 14-meter tsunami wave that disabled its cooling system. Three of the cores largely melted and high radioactive releases happened in the air and also in the sea. Remediation is ongoing. TEPCO, the operator of the plant, has indicated that it will take between 30 and 40 years to decommission the plant. Radioactivity is still leaking into surrounding seas. Rising sea levels and powerful storms will put many nuclear, oil and gas and coal power plants at risk of failure, causing an unknowable amount of ocean pollution.
Miami could have 4.8 million people and $3.5 trillion in assets at risk. Even so, the Florida Power and Light utility is proposing to expand the aptly named Turkey Point twin atomic power plants. On May 12, 2014, Howard Wanless was quoted by the Sun Sentinel as saying that Turkey Point will possibly be: “sitting out in the middle of Biscayne-Florida Bay” if sea levels rise by 4 feet to 6 feet by the end of the century, as some studies project. South Miami Mayor Phillip Stoddard added, “You’d be hard-pressed to find a worse place to build a nuclear power plant than between two national parks on a hurricane-swept coastline, subject to storm surge and sea-level rise.” There is no guarantee that these concerns will be considered seriously.
Wanless in Miami points out that no amount of pumping can save large areas of southern Florida because the sea is intruding into the low-lying porous sand and limestone. You can’t pump out the sea forever. $100 million has already been spent on pumping and they are heading towards $300 million. He notes: “This is what global warming looks like. If you live in south Florida and you’re not building a boat, you’re not facing reality.” [2]
In a few years there will likely be water shortages in this region due to salt water intrusion. A similar situation exists in an area where I have paddled in Shanghai. The area is crisscrossed with canals. Some of the bridges that we passed under are beautiful stone structures up to 1600 years old. Fresh water is being pumped out of the ground to supply the region’s 24 million inhabitants, drawing ever more salt water into the area.
Most of the melting ice in Greenland has been on the west coast, and the rate of melt has increased dramatically in the last ten years. I saw that firsthand during two trips.
[1] Business Insider, Oct 12, 20012
[2] Huffington Post, January 24, 2015
17. East Greenland (Entered March 1, 2021)
In 1996 I paddled with a Black Feather tour group, capably led by company cofounder Wendy Grater, in the Kong Oscar Fjord region on the east coast of Greenland. The scenery is spectacular, with glaciers pushing down from the vast ice cap through craggy mountains down to the coast. Although we saw remnant rings of ancient stone dwellings, no one currently lives permanently in this area or in the rest of the huge park that covers most of northeast and central Greenland.
All along the coast we encountered herds of musk ox. Usually they eyed us carefully as we were hiking, and kept above us, on higher ground. On one occasion, though, I almost stumbled onto a couple sleeping as I came over a ledge. I was very close and could see that they were breathing heavily, perhaps due to the heat of the summer day.
One day a polar bear came into our camp, perhaps drawn by our lunch preparations. It pawed at our tents, testing them. I fired some flares at it while Wendy banged off a few from a badly rusted, borrowed shotgun that we were afraid to fire. The bear was curious about the flares, opened its mouth for a better whiff (polar bears have a special organ in the roof of their mouths that enhances their sense of smell) and pawed the phosphorous smoke from the flare. Perhaps the smell was unpleasant. It then sauntered by our camp, lay down on some boulders and went to sleep. The bang from the flares did not startle it at all. These bears are used to the boom and crack of giant icebergs breaking apart. Some time later it woke up, slipped into the water and swam away. We left too, in the opposite direction. The gun problem: in order to paddle into this big park that covers so much of Greenland, you must carry a gun, for bears. But, you can’t take one on an airplane. So, we borrowed that rusty thing.
Wendy had been using our double kayaks for quite a few years. I had the opportunity to work a bit on the old kayak frames during set-up. Originally she had suggested that I might help with her paying customers, but then her friend and guide Sally came along and I was left free to wander. As agreed I left the group for a couple of days and set off on my own. I didn’t have a tent. I had no concerns about the weather but after encountering the bear I did have some misgivings. While attempting to sleep in my bag I kept having thoughts about a cartoon that I had seen in a newspaper. Two bears are looking down a hill and spy a couple of people sleeping in bags. One bear says to the other: ‘Yum, yum, sandwiches. Soft on the outside, crunchy in the inside”. By the time I rejoined the group Wendy remarked slyly that I looked tired.
On this trip we had easy access to glaciers and some good hikes on them. The days were long and warm. There was melting ice all along the sides and tongues of glaciers, with no shortage of drinking water. This will only increase as the permafrost continues to melt, the sea water temperature rises, and the whole arctic continues to warm up twice as fast as the rest of the planet.
18. West Greenland July, 2000 (Entered March 1, 2021)
About 4,500 years ago some hunters in what is now the Bering Strait region made crude skin crafts to retrieve seals harpooned from shore. Over time these crafts evolved into sophisticated kayaks.
The Inuit kayaks in the Bering Strait region feature seven or more longitudinal stringers secured in place to numerous crosspieces. These boats have rounded hulls and are proper seagoing craft. Farther east, in Central Canada, the kayaks are light weight and used mainly for hunting near shore. These have five longitudinal stringers. With just five bars the resulting cross section created is angular and allows a competent paddler to lean and turn very sharp corners when hunting. The kayaks in Western Greenland are of this style, but are in many ways more advanced in terms of performance and seaworthiness. They are also especially beautiful. Today Greenlanders no longer use these kayaks for hunting, but paddling and rolling activities have evolved as a sport and the building of these remarkable kayaks is flourishing.
When I started my first folding kayak design in the mid-1970s I had just a few basic ideas about what I wanted to do. I needed something transportable, preferably small enough when folded to fit into a large backpack. I had paddled a skin kayak as a young boy and loved the intimacy that you feel with the ocean as the soft skin reacts to every wave and ripple. Paul Theroux, who has one of our kayaks, has compared the skeleton and skin of folding kayaks to sea mammals. There is a sense of belonging with the sea that is lost with rigid hull boats. I had also learned to fly small planes and became familiar with the aluminum tubing used in their construction and realized that these tubes would be idea for my frames.
After building and paddling early boats with five bars and some cross pieces and then covering the frame with 6 ml poly I began to realize that I had no idea what cross section shape I wanted. They paddled terribly. Then I got the idea of having adjustable crossribs. I fixed the gunwales to establish overall beam width. I could move the keel up or down. The two chines on either side of the keel were totally adjustable. I was able to not only adjust the shape and then paddle the kayak but also look through the clear polyethylene sheet and see how the water flowed past. With these discoveries and many other developments we started making our first kayaks. Shortly after that my pal Eric gave me some pages that he had printed in the library from Chapelle’s drawings of West Greenland kayaks: “The Bark Canoes and Skin Boats of North America”, by Edwin Tappan Adney and Howard Chapelle. I was surprised to find that although my cross sections were larger, the positioning and angles of my bars were very similar to most of Chapelle’s frame drawings. I had blundered on to the right track. These cross section shapes are still central to all of the kayaks that we have made.
It slowly dawned on me how important these Inuit kayaks are. I can be a little slow on the uptake. But I came to realize that there are few, if any, current products that have such a direct connection to indigenous designs. After introducing our first K-1 in 1980 we went on to produce a number of different models, designed for different purposes. Then in 1995 I felt ready to make a Greenland kayak based on a drawing by kayak historian, H.C. Petersen. (Just the shape. My construction technique was completely different.) I was surprised that the first boat didn’t meet my expectations at all, but after considerable tweeking the kayak worked well. I used these kayaks during both trips to Greenland.
I feel totally in debt to the astonishing Inuit kayaks, especially those from Greenland. This trip was my big chance to visit the “motherland” of skin-on-frame kayaks and maybe meet with some of the current builders. I was also going through some tough personal problems at the time and thought that I might be able to sort things out with time on the land and sea.
Eric, aka Migratory Man, is always on the move. Since visiting him on Reid Island, we had done a few trips together, including hiking in the Nahanni National Park in the Yukon and ski traversing in the Rockies. When I suggested that we paddle together somewhere off the coast of Greenland he jumped at the chance. On the west coast of Greenland a “polynya”, or open water, forms due to the warming effects of the upwelling Gulf Stream waters combined with high pressure winds streaming off the Greenland Ice Cap, which push the sea ice offshore. My plan was to paddle from Upernavik to Uummannaq and do a lot of hiking along the way. Then, if we had time, take a boat to Kangerlussuaq and hike to the Greenland Ice Sheet. We ended up doing just that.
The climate in West Greenland in summer is surprisingly moderate. Temperatures remain well above freezing and the high pressure system that hangs over the massive ice cap usually keeps stormy low pressure fronts at bay. The arctic is changing, however. We had the pleasure of experiencing unusually wet, cool weather. During the summer a huge amount of melt water drains off the massive Greenland Ice Cap. As the arctic warms and the melting season expands this is increasing exponentially. We saw massive outflows coming off the glaciers and impassible rivers separated us from the main ice cap.
July 6, 2000, Uummannaq, 70.675, -52.126
Up at 4:30 am, flew Dash 7 to Qaarsut, then Sikorsky chopper, 10 minutes to here. Beautiful. Rugged land. This morning: T –shirt, hot. Bergs floating by. Brightly painted houses plopped on the rocks, backed by the spired mountain. A wonder, this place. We hiked quite a bit, after we were told that we couldn’t chopper to Upernavik today, it’s foggy there. Went past Santa Clause’s house on West side. Sod covered, very tight and comfy inside. The Danes tell their kids that this is where Santa lives.
Got put up here in school rooms by the airline Gronlandsfly. Also dinner at the fancy Uummannaq Hotel. Talked with Dane who has dogsledded from Ilulissat to Qanaaq (Thule) 2–3 months on sea ice, works for fish brokers.
Some insights- why few large fish boats here? They are all off in the fjords near the glaciers, where the fish are. Turbots (like small halibut- “Black Halibut”). We see them hanging to dry all over the place. Smell them too. Main cash generator.
This town started as an Inuit hunting village. Fishing is much more recent. 3 fish processors in town and 2 factory ships in the fjords. The air is super clear. I thought that the island across the way was maybe a nautical mile off. Its four NM away, looks so close.
Today blundered into a shed where a guy was making traditional style kayaks, canvas or nylon skins. His paddles were functional but a little rough. Very small volume boats, well made. Great for rolling. About 9 or so outside on a rack. They used to have to hang them high because the dogs ate the seal skins. I brought two of my Khatsalano kayaks, Greenland style boats for this trip, but higher volume. Traditionally, Greenland kayaks were for hunting. Ours have to carry our stuff. Later, after dinner a few people went out in them and did some rolls. Beautiful to see. White boats and black ones.
Dogs- they all look the same here. Chained. Dirty ones and dirtier. You are only allowed to keep sled dogs from Disko Bay north, no other dogs. Keep the breed pure. South: other dogs only, no teams.
Off to Upernavik: “place of springtime” small plane tomorrow if fog lifts. 72.787, -56.147.
July 9, 2000, north end of Iperaq Island, 72.534, -55.684
This place is fantastic. The rocks, shear pink or grey cliffs, vistas out of storyland.
Left Upernavik day before yesterday at 7 PM. Paddled 8 knots or so. It was hot. Eric wasn’t used to the drysuit and left it half on. When the wind came up he got wet and cold. No complaints, though.
As I said to Eric: “if this place were accessible, this would be a classic route”. It’s so beautiful. So far, paddling conditions have been good. Maybe lulled us a bit?
Upernavik museum had some perfectly preserved kayaks, paddles and tuiliks. For me, like the second coming. Spent all day there. Gorgeous and inspiring. Crazy that I’m a student of these designs. I owe so much. Met Harvey Golden there, who is a keen student of Inuit kayaks. He was measuring all of the kayaks on display.
+You get a breeze in the evening, about 8 or so? Not sure exactly when because I’ve put away the watch. Just use it for the date. Till now we have had sun. Fog rolled in last night, it’s just above our heads.
Walking around last night, up the hill to watch the fog roll in. A few picturesque little lakes sculpted into the rock, amongst all the glacial erractics. They are warm! If they don’t have snow around them they have warmed up — we may find more for swimming/bathing. Murre and guillemot colonies, cormorants too. No seals. Some mosquitoes. I’ve been sleeping in the tent without fly. Eric outside with his bag over his head.
Last night the mist swirling around the crags reminded me of Wagner’s Valhalla. Based on Nordic myths, after all. The cliffs are massive, go right up from the beach. The first day we camped on the south end of Qaersorssuaq.. So, breakfast is over, off into the mists we go.
July 10, 2000
The realization is that we have too little time here. Too much to see, do and admire.
Today we left the fog behind a couple of hours in. Entered Proven (72.379, -55.55) and were immediately surrounded by curious children, all very young. “Qajak, Qajak”. Super looking kids. One had on a tie-very curious, but he was an urchin like the rest.
The store was closed so we had no reason to stay. Eric needs a new cup — his has split, and I thought that we would buy some fish or something to leave some money in their village. Just a bunch of colorful huts perched on a hill. A number of guys standing on the pier, doing nothing, some older gents sitting in front of a house, doing nothing. One couple playing, kissing, laughing.
Dinner: couscous flavored with beef stock, onion powder, dill, dried mushrooms, butter.
July 11, 2000 Just outside of Sondre Upernavik 72.168, -55.55
Breakfast: 12 tbsp. cornmeal, b.s.[brown sugar], coconut, pumpkin seed, butter, whole milk powder.
Lunch: nil
Dinner: Dried bell (red) pepper, dropped pkg Knorr spaghetti sauce mix into 1/4 cup powdered milk, onion powder, garlic, basil, butter, onto pasta.
Paddled a fair while today. Some wind at first, then calm. Colder, Overcast. Now rain and moskies. Were visited by about 7 people. 2 young boys, 1 girl, 2 women, 2 men. Again, most interested in our kayaks and gear. Short on teeth they were.
July 12, 2000
Still just outside Sondre Upernavik. Too windy to paddle.
Got up late, walked into town, saw a few people. Potato chips and apples, ate up a hill, in lee of boulder.
I mentioned to Eric the feeling of restlessness that we seem to share, him especially. Our ancestors were immigrants, do we feel less rooted because of that? Realizing that migrations of people have occurred since the beginning. What about indigenous people of NA? Do they feel restless? He answered that it is in his genes. I wondered: how would roaming through Scotland feel? Lousy weather, but it’s ancestral for me.
Sitting with my back to a tiny dilapidated shack, leaning towards the beach. The only shelter from the wind except for the fly, which is noisy. View of the small peninsula the other side of which is the village. The only evidence we see of it is the dirt track, the house where the trash is burnt plus the trash on the beach. The trash isn’t too bad, though, not nearly as bad as the Bahamas.
In the distance, the first point of Narsaq, I think. In between, a lot of waves that would be almost broadside, and the wind. I wish I had remembered the skegs, especially for Eric. I remember that by the time I got to know him and Margaret well they had already paddled around Vancouver Island, in skinny “Eskie” kayaks. Someone had made a bunch of these early kayaks from a mold. Too much rocker, round hull, not really suited for touring. They demanded a lot of skill.
But that was a long time ago. Since then he has spent his time as a guide in the mountains and worked a minimum number of hours doing odd jobs to support his spartan lifestyle. He doesn’t know how to roll a kayak, though, and it shows.
This place sparkles. We’re off up the nearest peak.
July 12, 2000 East side of Skalo Island. 71.87, -55.44
Last night at Sondre Upernavik was amazing. An older guy in his 60’s (looked older) a young woman, and two young men walked down the beach. Obviously to see the kayaks.
Allan spoke some English, as did the newly graduated teacher, Josef. The old guy was really taken with the kayaks, looked at them in great detail, also the paddle. He asked through Allan, “Where can I get one?” He laughed a lot. Pretended to offer a coin as payment. Turns out he has instructed the kids at Sondre Upernavik how to make skin kayaks.
Allan was interested too. He mentioned that European tourists pay big money to ride on a dog sled on the ice cap for one hour. I said that they were crazy and when the woman laughed, I realized that she had some English too, but was shy. Her grandad made the best preserved skin kayak in the first floor of the museum in Upernavik. It’s a beauty.
Allan has pretty good English, probably has something to do with tourism in Upernavik. Said he would contact me. I offered to trade a Khatsalano for a skin boat the old guy makes. He was delighted. He demonstrated some strokes with my paddle. I was thrilled by all of this. Contact.
This happened at around 11:30 PM, the wind was blowing, and we were all cold. Finally Allan said that he was freezing and he and his date left. The older guy chuckled at this, as he inspected the boat again. Then he and a strange looking short man left. That left the teacher and us. Tall, quiet spoken, not bad English, his third language.
Sondre Upernavik has just lost its economic underpinning. The state company, “Royal Greenland”, which buys all the fish, had built a fish processing plant. In 1988 the fishers got together and bought it. But earlier this year inspectors found bacteria in the building. Apparently nothing can be done about it. Perhaps the fish are in decline so there is no point. Anyway, the guys are all off fishing out of Upernavik or Uummannaq. We were told that the place is full of lonely women.
The teacher starts teaching his first class in Upernavik in the fall. He asked us if Canada has ice bears, and then: “Do you eat them?”
Dinner: soup: Knorr’s Hot and Sour. Delicious. Main: 1 cup bulgur, pkg tomato soup, heaping tsp chili powder, hand full of greasy dried fried onions, salt, butter, veg. bacon bits. Hot chocolate: Dutch cocoa powder, b.s., milk powder. 2 Hobnobs each.
Eric is a fantastic bush cook.
July 13, 2000 pressure 1020, 4 deg., rain, hail
The wind continues, S.E., in our face, stormy. I doubt the barometer on the watch.
Later in the day: Eric mentioned that when you start a walk here you seem to get drawn into it. Without time constraints you keep going. No flashlight in your pack, it’s endless. We started up the valley. As I had found on my before-breakfast hike, the ground is spongy, which slows you down.
Up we went, for hours, until we were on the island plateau. In some places the ground is rocky; there are terraces of jumbled rock, reddish often. Some places have thick mud, watch out! One sucked my leaky boot right off. I’m in my bag, drying the socks. On the plateau you have a grand choice of directions to go, perhaps depending on what view you want. Unfortunately when we were there we had driving rain and hail so we couldn’t see much. But you still had this feeling of expansiveness. Buttercups, arctic cotton, sedges, heather in bloom, a mother arctic ptarmigan protecting her chicks, drawing us away with her wounded wing dance. Rodent poo, probably lemming. Lots of wind. Rain in squalls, All 400 meters up.
Still in tent, no rain, fly open, watching clouds, the luxury of time. I sometimes permit work thoughts. This is one of those times. First, I’m amazed at what I’ve accomplished, but also at how insignificant it all is in the grander scheme. Paradoxical. The designs, the incredible fabric welding technology I’ve dreamed up and organized. The people at F.C., really good people who appreciate their jobs. Happy customers with heart- warming stories. The boats themselves. Wow. None of this will be remembered. But what fun.
July 14, 2000 evening about 11 pm. Svartenhaven 71.665, -55.65
This morning a boat came into our camp., E. side of Skalo Island. One of three jumped out. An old Inuit, the true round face. Gave me a trout. We had trouble communicating. Maybe he said that he was from a place starting with Mack… They had been heading north up the channel, first boat we’ve seen. Must have noticed our tarp. Gum boots. He asked the much younger man to help him back aboard the boat by pushing on his butt. The old woman waved, smiled a bit and off they went.
July 15, 2000 71.566, -55.6
Oh, oh, seriously stormed in. West side of Narssaq, 14 mi. north of end of peninsula.
This morning looked O.K., but a strong S.W. developed. Now wind and rain, cold.
We had thought that we might stop early, go to bed and try to take advantage of the evening calm, but tonight? This won’t go away soon. Writing difficult, under fly.
Yesterday evening Eric suggested that I go on ahead, as he was moving slowly. I declined. Shortly after he told me that his shoulder was really hurting. We shouldn’t go any further. Good thing I didn’t go on. No place to land. Had to go into the bay, very slowly.
Today he is much better, and we had to pull very hard just to make small progress. I hope that this weather changes.
This land is flat, with a gravel berm along shore for miles, lakes inshore of berm. We made soup with the water: quite brackish.
Yesterday Eric saw a fox moving up a hill. We both saw a dead one. There is Muskox poo on this peninsula, the odd whale skeleton, small. But the land is mostly empty. There appears to be enough vegetation to support a lot of muskox. With their fish livelihood diminishing I wonder whether the Greenlanders would consider managing muskox or reindeer, like the Chukchi? Maybe it’s too remote.
July 16, 2000 6.85 nm N.W. of Qinqniviup (s. end of Narssaq Penin.)
Got up early for a change, 6 AM. No wind, ate, left. Bugs galore. Wind came up around noon, so we pulled in here.
Eric’s shoulder is O.K, he’s paddling well. We call our paddling “isometrics” because we paddle close to the beach into a head wind without going anywhere.
Sitting in the kayak today, thinking of what could be, what might be. Contemplating a change fraught with difficulties. On a trip like this you have time for consideration. I often note to myself, “Oh, you’re thinking about things again. You should be in the here and now, enjoying the scenery”. But, part of the value of these trips is the introspection that you inevitably undergo. For now, I’m a husband. But later? Oh, how people change over time, or is it that they just more reveal their true selves? But drift we do. As I sit under this leaky tarp I can look at my other life as if removed.
July 19, 2000, still NW of Qingniviup on Narssaq 71.446, -55.457
Its morning, the wind still blows from S.E., about 35 knots. Had a long hike yesterday, we got up to some new snow at around 500 meters. The wind dropped for about one hour last night around 2 AM, a sucker drop. Then up she goes. We have food, but might run out before we reach Uummannaq. Eric’s boot fell apart yesterday: the sole came completely off from the mid-step back to the heel. He’s got it tied on with a webbing strap, is off hiking now. We do that to get warm, as well as for the enjoyment. The wind chills.
July 20, 2000 Tartussap, gagai. 71.374, -54.56
Wow. Was hiking alone yesterday when the wind dropped. Eric was waiting at camp. We left with almost no wind and clearing skies. Then a following sea pushed us towards the line of icebergs and then into it. The most fantastic array of shapes and sizes. About the most dramatic scenery I’ve ever paddled into. Just offshore there are hundreds of bergs. I can see them through my bug hood because this is also the most mosquito-infested place we’ve visited. Unfortunately the breeze has shifted back to S.E., in our face. What’s in store? But the gates of paradise opened and we got pushed through. In the distance are majestic snowy peaks. Closer is Ubekendt Island, which we want to head for once we’re down the coast a ways.
July 21, 2000 Kugssangassoq, near south end of Upernivik Island 71.188,-53.055
Yesterday at Tartussaq we hiked in the morning and early afternoon. The winds calmed and we left. Paddled directly across to north end of Ubekendt Island. About 20 miles. Didn’t arrive until 2:30 AM. Long day. 71.305, -53.666
Through another fantastic assortment of icebergs. Second half we had quartering seas that really tired Eric. Desperately tired. Then he didn’t sleep the rest of the morning. (I got 5 hours.) He was peeved about getting tired, but is fine now.
Today we dropped in on Igdlorssuit for some groceries. (not necessary-a reason to go to the store in the village). Very small community. On the way in a middle age Inuit couple in a skiff stopped. They had a dead seal draped over the gunwale. He just wanted to show us. Very proud. We had seen about 10 seals earlier. They travel together, more like our sea lions.
The scenery here is incredible. Tall mountains rising straight up from the sea with glaciers spilling off them. We are camped just below the tongue of a glacier now.
July 22, 2000 same place
We got our camp down and, of course, changed our minds and decided to walk up to get on the glacier. It just sucked us up. With our stuff lying scattered on the beach we followed the tongue. Eventually we got to too many covered crevices. With fearless Eric in the lead we headed up a very unstable, steep scree slope, then a snow gulley. Anyway, it was beautiful and we got down for lunch many hours later, a super hike.
Windy down here at the beach, N.W., which would have blown us the 20 miles to our next camp. But we’ll stay until mañana.
Eric has said a few times, especially since the weather changed, that he must come back; this is the most impressive place that he’s ever been to. Where else can you paddle up to an immense glacier and have an awesome climb? And to the south, dominating, is the spire of Uummannaq. Such a place. Wild pink flowers, glaciers, mountains, bergs, seas. Bugs too.
Eric’s machismo: he wears the minimum amount of clothing to just get by. He has a down jacket with him, but he’s never worn it. “They’re for wussies” he said. I’ve seen him cold, huddled under the fly.
Tues. July 25, 2000. S.W. corner of Storen Island, just 4 miles east of Uummannaq. 70.657, -51.885
On 23rd paddled to Qasigissat group just north of Qeqertat Island. I was thinking of just stopping and then going on to Agpat, but there was a big berg grounded just off shore and it looked so great we camped here. 71.0215, -52.33
Then we discovered that this island is a penal colony: for dogs. Very hungry, we hung our food from a rock overhang. Real wolfish features, beautiful. Felt a little exposed to them, sleeping on my mat out in the open.
Granite outcrops, different from the gneiss and shales across the bay. Very hot crossing, no wind, over-dressed. Every campsite is so different, each has been special.
The village of Qeqertat does not exist anymore. Where were the owners of the dogs, which seemed to be on most of these islands?
On the 24th paddled here, through the strait between Sagdleq and Agpat Islands first. Choked with bergs and ice, had to pick a tortured route. Agpat abandoned long ago as well, one sod-covered hut, one wood cabin, serviceable. Graveyard, vicious bugs. Left hurriedly. Main ice cap visible, calling us.
Had a good hike on my own today, and a sit with a majestic view of the boot called Uummannak, the sea, bergs everywhere, and the remarkable pink cliffs of this island. Soaring stone ramparts. Thought about my situation, what’s liable to come, with a clear mind. We’re supposed to get the ferry tomorrow at 23:59.
July 26, 2000 Uummannaq 70.68, -52.12
The sun just came out. We’re drying our stuff, out on the grass in front of the church. No one takes notice, not even the dogs stapled to the rocks. Lots of people sitting out front of the grill, with coffee and ice cream. Guys in trucks are moving loads of rocks around. They do a lot of that here.
July 27, 2000
On board the Sarfak Ittuk. We’ve got a “cochetta” which means a small cubby-hole for 4 in the bowels of the hold. Hot, no air, hard to sleep. I’m in my bag on deck, hoping it doesn’t rain. We heard that the bad weather we experienced is quite unusual. Normally Uummannaq may get 60 cm of rain annually. During that week they got over 50. Apparently no one remembers a storm of that duration in summer. Things are changing. We left Ilulissat in drizzle, so it continues a bit. Saw a soccer game there, men’s. Good level of play. 2–1, tight game, 2 goals on penalty kicks. Sand field.
A trail runs from Ilulissat to a view of the galloping Jakobshavn glacier. It’s retreating at a dizzying rate for a glacier. It was drizzly and foggy and you couldn’t see all the way across it but it was still spectacular. All sorts of shapes, a jumble of ice forms breaking off into the sea.
July 28, 2000
Docked at Sisimiut, bigger than the other towns, more stores, and active kayak clubhouse with quite a few skin kayaks on the rack. The people show a lot of civility towards one another. No apparent aggression. Not a lot of displays of affection either. They don’t casually greet someone who is walking by, even though in most cases they must know who it is. They seem Japanese, almost, except they spit a lot. The men march around in coveralls. They are tied to the fish trade, at the plant or on the water. The store clerks are all women. But this whole scene seems to me to be precariously balanced on a fragile fish economy and subsidies from Denmark. Gas and groceries are much cheaper than in northern Canada. Is the place being over fished? They don’t get that much for their Turbot.
I just met an older guy from Denmark. He said Denmark sends a subsidy of 3 billion Krones per year. Quite a haul. Maybe $5000 to $6,000 per person per year. He also said that Greenlandic is now being pushed in schools, so the kids aren’t learning as much Danish. But to go to university you must go to Denmark. He thinks, from his Danish viewpoint, that this is unwise. Surely, though, learning your own language is a good thing. What about more schools here?
Greenlanders are Danish citizens and can move there at any time. I read a journal by an American woman traveling with her Canadian husband by boat up the coast of Greenland during the 50s. One point she made was the lack of racism by the Danes. She pointed out that quite a few Danish women chose Greenlandic men as mates. Usually only the men intermarry if prejudice exists on a large scale. I don’t know. But it seems that there is less racism here than in Canada. Greenlanders seem to be running the show here more.
The Sarfak Ittuk took us all the way up a long inlet to Kangerlussuaq and its big airport runway. The airport was built by the Americans during WW2, in 1941 and handed over to Greenland in 1992. It was used for transatlantic flights before airliners had enough range to cross the Atlantic. It is still the main hub for Greenland traffic, although the permafrost is melting underneath it and there are plans to build another airport closer to Nuuk, the capital.
We had a few days so we decided to go for a hike. On my previous trip in Kong Oscar Fjord on the east side of Greenland we were able to hike up some stunning glaciers that shunted down from the ice cap. It was breathtakingly beautiful. Eric and I had just paddled down a remarkable coast from Upernavik, but had missed the fjords with glaciers that connect to the ice. We had learned that a road was being built by a contractor for Volkswagen that connected Kangerlussuaq with the ice cap, about 22 miles away.
The road was off limits to visitors, so we walked beside it rather than right on it. We left most of our gear, including rain clothes and rain fly and set out. The views were simply spectacular. A major river rushed off the melting ice cap and prevented us from approaching the massive ice cliffs. On the far side of the river we spotted some muskox and on our side there were plenty of caribou with huge antlers feeding on surprisingly lush meadows of grass and moss. However, by the time we got up on the ice cap and passed a guard who looked at us suspiciously, it was blowing and raining hard. Everything under foot was pooled water. Everything was melting. Oh, the memory of blue skies and gorgeous white ice!
We spent a very wet and cold night and then high-tailed it out of there. (67.1522, -50.047) Greenland definitely is melting.
19. Ocean Acidification (Entered March 1, 2021)
It was during the lead up to the year 2000 that I learned about a potential threat to our well-being. This was not the massively hyped “Y2K bug” in which computers around the world were predicted to fail. This was far more complex. I learned that the oceans of the world were becoming less alkaline and the growth of shell fish could be severely compromised. I bought a couple of pH meters from a store where the main business was supporting the growing marijuana industry, and started measuring the acid/alkali ratios of the ocean in places where I regularly paddled. I was surprised to find that the level of acidity varied in different locations, and that in some it was far higher than what was considered normal or healthy.
A recent study published in “Nature Change” found that 80% of Britons have never heard of ocean acidification. Probably in the U.S., where a whole industry is devoted to keeping citizens in the dark about climate change, the percentage is even worse. But this is the issue that ocean scientists say keeps them up at night.
Since the dawn of the industrial revolution in the nineteenth century, the oceans have absorbed almost half of the CO2 that has been spewed into the atmosphere. This year alone the oceans will absorb approximately two and a half billion tonnes of carbon. For us land-based air-breathers this could be seen as a good thing, for otherwise we would be really feeling the heat. However, this absorption of CO2 has resulted in the oceans becoming warmer and approximately 30% more acidic.
The most common measure of the acid/alkali ratio of seawater is the pH scale in which 7.0 is neutral, more than 7.0 is alkaline, and less than 7.0 is acidic. It is a logarithmic scale, which means that a change is multiplied by some factor. For example, a decrease in pH from 8.3, (which was the level of seawater before the industrial revolution began), to 8.2 (the average today) is an increase in acidity of 30%. Actually the change is a decrease in alkalinity, but Ken Caleira and Michael Wickett, the two scientists who first coined the term “ocean acidification” wanted to alert us to what is happening. By 2100, unless emissions are reduced from current levels, an increase of 150% is predicted.
Ocean life has not experienced such a rapid shift in the last 20 million years. The biggest shift in acidity occurred about 250 million years ago during the Permian-Triassic Extinction Event, also known as the Great Dying. The latest findings reported by Stanford University in 2010, indicate large volcanic eruptions spewed out lava flows that caused massive coal deposits to burn uncontrollably, releasing huge quantities of CO2. This may have also triggered a sudden release of methane gas from the sea floor. The situation today has some parallels to that event, although it is thought that the increase in GHGs today is happening much faster than 250 million years ago. During that period approximately 96% of all marine species perished.
The chemistry of “acidification” goes like this. As CO2 is absorbed in the water it combines with hydrogen to form a weak acid, carbonic acid, which you can find in Coke. (H2CO3). This readily breaks down into bicarbonate (HCO3) plus free H+ ions, which causes the increased acidity. Organisms that form shells need to combine carbonate (C03) with calcium to form calcium carbonate (CaCO3). However, because bicarbonate is more stable than carbonate these organisms experience a dearth of carbonate. The amount of calcium remains constant, but the process of combining calcium with carbonate slows down or stops. When this happens shells either stop forming or begin to corrode.
The plasma in our blood (the watery part) is similar in its concentration of salt and other ions to seawater. Imagine if we were subjected to a slow infusion of acid into our blood plasma while at the same time our red and white blood cells were reduced so that less oxygen could be transported to our various organs and our immune system became compromised. All of this is happening to life in our planet’s oceans. CO2 is increasing acidity, anoxic zones are expanding and we are mining vast quantities of marine organisms and fish. If the poison were introduced gradually we might not at first feel the symptoms. Then, when we did start to suffer we might not understand the cause. But we would know we were not feeling well. We might put off seeing the doctor or perhaps not bother to take the prescribed medicines. If left untreated there would come a time when we would become really ill and in danger of dying. Even then we likely wouldn’t know for sure whether we had passed that point of no return. This is our situation today. The Arctic is melting rapidly, forests are burning and exposing permafrost. 90% of predator fish have been eliminated. Are we past the point of no return? When some people find themselves in this situation they give up. Others fight to live. The choice is ours.
The most obvious victims of acidification are shell-forming organisms such as oysters, sea urchins, sea cucumbers, crabs, scallops and coral. Because cold water absorbs CO2 more readily than warm water, the Arctic and Antarctic areas are most severely affected.
In 2009 French oceanographer, Professor Jean-Pierre Gattuso, of the Centre national de la recherche scientifique, told an international oceanography conference concerning acidification of the Arctic, “This carbon dioxide dissolves and is turned into carbonic acid, causing the oceans to become more acidic. We knew the Arctic would be particularly badly affected when we started our studies, but I did not anticipate the extent of the problem”. His research suggested that 10% of the Arctic Ocean would be corrosively acidic by 2018; 50% by 2050; and 100% by 2100. “Over the whole planet, there will be a threefold increase in the average acidity of the oceans, which is unprecedented during the past 20 million years. That level of acidification will cause immense damage to the ecosystem and the food chain, particularly in the Arctic,” he added. [1]
It is unlikely that ocean life will have time to adapt to acidification, because it is happening “100 times faster than any changes in prior millennia”.[2]
Fin fish are affected too. In Sweden, British researcher, Jonathan Havenhand, has demonstrated that ocean changes “could impede the most fundamental strategy of survival: sex.” That is because acidity causes sperm to swim slower, reducing the number of fertilized eggs. Other effects include behavioral problems such as young cod swimming towards prey, rather than away from it. Most fish can withstand some change in pH levels, but this requires energy that is not available for survival and reproduction. Fish may attempt to buffer low pH with their gills. Very young fish do not yet have gills, and they are particularly susceptible. Some species are more susceptible to temperature changes with increased acidity.
Higher acidity also disrupts marine organisms’ ability to grow, reproduce and respire. The Census of Marine Life reported that phytoplankton, the microscopic plants producing most of the oxygen from the oceans, have been declining by around 1% a year since 1900.
Castello Aragonese,Italy 40.731, 16.965
Castello Aragonese is a tiny island off the west coast of Italy. There is a castle there with a display of medieval torture equipment.
Just offshore there are undersea vents that splay out almost 100% carbon dioxide. In her excellent book, “The Sixth Extinction”, Elizabeth Kolbert describes her dive there with researchers, Hall-Spencer and Buia.
“The water is frigid. Hall-Spencer is carrying a knife. He pries some sea urchins from a rock and holds them out to me. Their spines are an inky black. We swim on, along the southern shore of the island, toward the vents. Hall-Spencer and Buia keep pausing to gather samples-corals, snails, seaweeds, mussels-which they place in mesh sacs that drag behind them in the water. When we get close enough, I start to see bubbles rising from the sea floor, like beads of quicksilver. Beds of seagrass wave beneath us. The blades are a peculiarly vivid green. This, I later learn, is because the tiny organisms that usually coat them, dulling their color, are missing. The closer we get to the vents, the less there is to collect. The sea urchins drop away, and so, too do the mussels and the barnacles. Buia finds some hapless limpets attached to the cliff. Their shells have wasted away almost to the point of transparency. Swarms of jellyfish waft by, just a shade paler than the sea. “Watch out”, Hall-Spencer warns, “They sting.”
The researchers note that these vents have been spewing CO2 for hundreds of years, and there is no indication that any organisms have adapted to the acid conditions. When the pH gets as low as 7.8 the number and variety of species declines markedly and the ecosystem starts to crash. Until recently this was expected to happen around 2100. Now we realize that it is happening much sooner.
Netarts Bay,WA 45.421, -123.936
My interest was further piqued in 2007 when I read about a disturbing loss of oysters along the west coast of North America. In that year two oyster farmers at their Whiskey Creek Shellfish Hatchery in Tillamook, Oregon found that their oysters were dying. Mark Wiegardt and Sue Cudd at first didn’t know what was wrong. Could it be bacterial infection? Water temperature? All they knew was that their oysters started dying in mass. Desperate, they turned to oceanographer Burke Hales and his team from Oregon State University. They learned that the Pacific water piped into their tanks from Netarts Bay was too acidic, and the young larvae were unable to grow shells. Without shells they died. This phenomenon was soon reported along the coast, including Dabob Bay, Puget Sound in Washington State and Canada’s Baynes Sound, off the east coast of Vancouver Island. The oyster farmers learned that they had to measure the pH of the water before piping it into their tanks and either wait until the acid level dropped or remove excess CO2 from the water.
At that time there was very little information on ocean acidification, so I started collecting articles and information on it and its causes. I learned that during the summer, the strong westerly winds that push against the west coast cause strong upwellings of ocean water. This deeper, colder water is more acidic than surface waters. The upwellings occur just as oyster and other shellfish larvae are hatching. Since 2007 the number of severe die-offs of shellfish has been increasing markedly.
Tatoosh Island, WA 48.392, -124.738
Over the last 20 years two biologists, Cathy Pfister and her husband, Tim Wootton, have been traveling to Tatoosh Island off the northwestern tip of Washington State and studying the marine life there, as well as measuring pH levels.
In 2008 they published findings that showed that pH levels were declining at a rate 10 times faster than predicted. They have since published findings showing acid levels went from pH 8.3 in 2000 to 7.8 in 2010. This is a very serious drop which they attributed to increased ocean absorption of CO2 from the air.
After they published these findings some scientists suggested other causes for such an extreme drop. Among these were changing currents that could flush Fraser River water out to Tatoosh Island; changing ocean currents causing more upwelling; increased rainfall, and eutrophication[3] caused by an increase of nutrients. Pfister and Wootton could find no evidence to support any of these explanations.
As a side note, my readings with my two pH meters in the Canadian Gulf Islands have shown a pH as low as 7.8, especially in summer. Certain areas average lower than others. During this time the Canadian federal government was very hostile to climate research and closed down many marine studies while throttling scientists who dared to speak out. This was a very dark time for Canadian science and we had to rely on U.S. studies to try to understand acidification. Then during the Trump years the situation was reversed and the fossils in Washington were doing their best to hold back ocean climate science. If seems that the scientists are making a comeback now.
Pteropods are tiny snail-like creatures measuring from 3mm to 12mm that grow shells to protect their bodies. Also known as sea butterflies because of their beautiful shape, these creatures are an important part of the marine food chain. They make up an estimated 60% of the diet of pink salmon in the first year of their life. Because pteropods grow shells they are sensitive to acidic water. It was thought that we might see evidence of dissolving pteropod shells sometime around 2038. However, it is already happening off the west coast of North America, and in the Antarctic.
Nina Bednarsek, who first found corrosion in pteropod shells in Antarctica, and who was affiliated with the British Antarctic Survey, has led a study that has found significant corrosion of the shells of pteropods off the west coast of North America. The damage so far wasn’t enough to kill the animals, but it did weaken them and made them vulnerable: “From a combined survey of physical and chemical water properties and biological sampling along the Washington-Oregon-California coast in August 2011, we show that large portions of the shelf waters are corrosive to pteropods in the natural environment.”[4]
“What we found was just amazing to us, said Richard Feely, a scientist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory. We did the most extensive analysis”[5]. These copepods are “a great example of some tiny non-charismatic creature that is incredibly important,” said Gretchen Hofmann, a biologist and ocean-acidification expert at the University of California at Santa Barbara. “They’re small, but carry an enormous amount of nutrition and are eaten even by very big fish. If you’re in the Antarctic and see a beautiful emperor penguin, it exists by eating fish under the sea ice. And those fish eat pteropods.”[6]
A similar result was found off the coast of California. “Habitat suitability for pteropods in the coastal California Current Ecosystem (CCE) is declining. We found 53% of onshore individuals and 24% of offshore individuals on average to have severe dissolution damage.”[7]
In the summer of 2015 pink salmon returning to the Pacific Northwest were much smaller than normal, and few in number. It was a disastrous return that was not expected. No one can say for sure why. In the past it has been thought that sea lice and viral infections from fish farms may be the cause. This remains a concern. However, this would not explain the sudden, precipitous drop.
Tests on pink salmon indicate that the young are not fearful of threats in acidic water. There is a reduction in olfactory response which affects their ability to detect predators. The harm to their olfactory senses may also affect their ability to recognize their natal streams.
There was a massive algae bloom off the coast for much of 2015. Imagine an undersized salmon that returns to its natal water but dies before it can spawn. Perhaps it got infected with a couple of extra sea lice on its way past the numerous salmon farms it must pass on its way out to the open sea. Then it had trouble finding enough of its main food source, the pteropods, due to acidification. It also had to expend extra energy buffering the effects of the acidic water. Later, it encountered a huge algae bloom caused by warming waters and runoff nutrients that depletes the amount of oxygen in the water and is poisonous to the small forage fish it feeds off. Finally, because of reduced snow melt from glaciers in full retreat, in a weakened state it encountered water that is too warm. What killed this fish?
The corrosive effect of acidic water on pteropods was first noticed, quite by accident, by Victoria Fabry, an oceanographer at California State University at San Marcos. She began collecting pteropods for study in one litre jars in 1985. When she put more than just two or three in the same jar she noticed that the shells became opaque. It was some years later, however, when she went back to her samples and examined them under a microscope, that she found their shells were pitted and in some places worn away. Like all animals, the pteropods take in oxygen and expel CO2. When she overpopulated her glass jars, the water became more acidic and began corroding the shells of the tiny creatures. At the time no one realized that the chemistry of the whole ocean could be impaired by human activity, but we sure do now. It still amazes me that we humans are changing the chemistry of all of the world’s oceans, and indeed polluting them, at an unprecedented rate, at least in the past 300 million years, and that this rate is far too fast for most marine organisms to adapt. It will take tens of thousands of years just for the oceans to return to a chemical state similar to that before industrial times. Even if we were to stop carbon pollution today the oceans will continue to absorb CO2 from the atmosphere until a new balance is achieved.
In 2008, Dr. Kawaguchi, a marine biologist who works for the Australian government’s Antarctic Division, conducted similar experiments to those Victoria Fabry had done in 1985, except that his jar was filled with krill eggs immersed in CO2-laden seawater. He found that the CO2 killed the eggs. He was surprised at such a clear result and had thought that the krill might have been more robust.
Kawaguchi has been studying krill for more than 25 years and has the only research tanks in the world dedicated to breed and study krill. Dr. Kawaguchi predicts a 20% to 70% reduction in krill by 2100. Dr. Kawaguchi was the lead author in a study titled “Risk maps for Antarctic krill under projected Southern Ocean acidification” published by Nature Journals.
Krill are shrimp-like crustaceans from 1 to 15 cm in length that “are essentially the fuel that runs the engine of the Earth’s marine ecosystems.” (National Geographic) Such a decrease in the krill population would be a disaster for all of the fish and their predators, such as penguins, seals and whales, dolphins, seabirds and human fishers.
Recent studies show that Antarctic krill stocks may have dropped by 80% since the 1970s. Part of the loss may be explained by the loss of sea ice and hence, ice algae, due to global warming. Krill feed mainly on phytoplankton, microscopic, single-celled plants. In polar regions, to avoid predators, they often feed on the ice algae that congregate directly under the sea ice.
Young salmon are quite susceptible to acidification. In Norway, 18 stocks of Atlantic salmon are extinct and another 8 are threatened due to acid rain. The Norwegians have been spreading lime on 21 rivers and have had some success, although one study concluded that 20 years of liming is required to restore stocks.
Coral reefs are composed of diverse colonies of tiny polyps that secrete a form of calcium carbonate called aragonite to form the shell structure. Each polyp is a complete individual, but thousands and thousands are joined together over the skeleton to make a reef. They are the most diverse of all marine ecosystems and are home to an estimated 25% of all marine fish species. It has been estimated that there are from one million to nine million species that live on or near coral reefs. It is amazing that this estimate is so broad, that a guess on the number could miss by several million. Since each species would have multiple relationships with other reef members, there must be millions and millions of contacts, alliances and predations that we know nothing about.
Coral reefs have been dying in record numbers over the last few years. Charlie Veron[8] has discovered more than 20% of the world’s coral species and has lived and worked on the Great Barrier Reef, the world’s largest coral system, for most of his life. He “finds himself in the agonizing position of having to be a prophet of its extinction.” We cannot wonder that he feels “very very sad. It’s real, day in, day out, and I work on this, day in, day out. It’s like seeing a house on fire in slow motion…and you have been for years.” [9]
The Great Barrier Reef off the east coast of Australia has lost one half of its cover in the last 27 years, with a yearly loss of 3.4%. Causes listed are crown of thorn starfish that eat coral, increased agricultural runoff from massive storms, tropical cyclones of increasing frequency and ferocity, and ocean warming and acidification. Some experts believe that if the starfish can be eliminated the reef could be rejuvenated over the next two or three generations. Recently an underwater drone has been developed that can autonomously recognize crown-of-thorn starfish and inject poison into them. However, this is seen as just a temporary holding measure.
Les Kaufman is a biologist at Boston University and is part of an international consensus statement on climate change and coral reefs. In order to save the reef, or what’s left of it, he states, “International efforts to cap and reduce CO2 emissions are equally critical and must occur at the same time as cleaning up local impacts.” He continues, “There is absolutely no excuse for failure to do this, and if we do fail, our generation will forever be remembered for unimaginable, unforgivable stupidity and sloth.”[10]
It is difficult to imagine a more disastrous threat to life in the oceans than the extinction of shell fish, pteropods and krill due to ocean warming and acidification. Many scientists think that we are in, or about to enter, the sixth mass extinction, which parallels the Great Dying, 250 million years ago. One of the biggest concerns is that the oceans are acidifying faster than at any time in history and marine stocks simply will not be able to adjust. The other concern is that the ocean will continue to absorb CO2 from the atmosphere long after we stop polluting the air. “Alarmingly, the pH drop observed is 100 times faster than any changes in prior millennia. Left unchecked, CO2 levels will create a very different ocean, one never experienced by modern species.” [11]
There is a time lag. By the time we experience the full impact of marine extinction it may well be too late. This acidification is ongoing, relentless, undeniable, and, even if we stop releasing GHG gases, unstoppable. There may be still time, though, to reduce the negative effects of acidification. We have to try. A lot of political and industry leaders say we can continue building pipelines and expanding fossil fuel production while “caring” for the environment. But there is no such middle ground. This is an emergency situation that requires an emergency response.
[1] (Robin McKie, science editor, the guardian, October 4/2009) http://www.theguardian.com/world/2009/oct/04/arctic-seas-turn-to-acid
[2] Scientific American, August, 2010
[3] Excessive nutrients in a lake or other body of water, usually caused by runoff of nutrients (animal waste, fertilizers, sewage) from the land, which causes a dense growth of plant life; the decomposition of the plants depletes the supply of oxygen, leading to the death of animal life. (Vocabulary.com Dictionary)
[4] NOAA study reported in the Proceedings of the Royal Society, May 1, 2014
[5] reported in the Vancouver Sun, May 1, 2014
[6] Seattle Times, Nov 25, 2012.
[7] NOAA study reported in the Proceedings of the Royal Society, May 1, 2014
[8] Dr. Charlie Veron is a prominent marine scientist known as the ‘Godfather of Coral,’ having discovered 20 percent of all coral species in the world. He has worked in all the major coral reef regions of the world, participating in 66 expeditions and spending 7,000 hours scuba diving. Veron was formerly the Chief Scientist of the Australian Institute of Marine Science and has authored over 100 scientific articles, including 14 books and monographs. He has been the recipient of the Darwin Medal, the Silver Jubilee Pin of the Australian Marine Sciences Association, the Australasian Science Prize, the Whitley Medal and received special mention in the Eureka Awards. Today he continues to work in many different fields although he concentrates on conservation and the effects of climate change on coral reefs. He predicts that if humanity continues to produce carbon dioxide at present rates, coral reefs will vanish in the next few decades. (http://therevolutionmovie.com/index.php/biography/dr-john-charlie-veron/)
[9] (Scientific American, May, 2014)
[10] Katharine Gammon, LiveScience Contributor, Oct 1/2012, LiveScience
[11] (Scientific American, August, 2010)
20. French Polynesia (Entered April 1, 2021)
Before he wrote his iconic Moby Dick, Herman Melville worked on a whaling boat. In 1842 he jumped ship to escape a tyrannical captain and later wrote about living amongst the Taipis, on the island of Nuku Hiva, Marqueses, who were said to be the fiercest of the cannibal tribes in the South Pacific. Melville defended the Taipis and their strange ways (although he became concerned that he was being fattened up for the cook stove) and was critical of Western colonialism and empire building. Robert Louise Stevenson also landed on Nuku Hiva 46 years later and went on to write his famous Treasure Island. Thor Heyerdahl lived with his first wife on nearby Fatu Hiva in 1937 and 1938 until, again, some of the locals became inhospitable, forcing them to live in a cave before escaping. He learned there that the prevailing winds and currents came from the east, from the direction of South America. That, together with discussions with some of the local old men, suggested to him that the original inhabitants of the Marqueses and also Easter Island came from South America. In 1947 he completed his famous Kon-Tiki raft expedition from South America when he crashed onto the Raroia Atoll in the Tuamotus. He certainly proved that he was right about the direction of the winds and current, but it turned out that he was wrong about where the Polynesian people came from. Linguistic and DNA studies have confirmed that they somehow managed to sail against current and wind from South East Asia and Taiwan. They must have undertaken some of the most impressive voyages never recorded.
During my teen years I read everything I could find about these three authors. As time went by I mostly forgot about them. But, years later, once Feathercraft kayaks was humming along, and I was looking for a challenging trip during our winter off-season that required folding kayaks, I remembered: ya, those warm places and those guys. I think that it was Heyerdahl’s choice of craft, the balsam raft that led me to begin designing what eventually became our two-person folding catamarans with four masts and sails. There is an old song that Frank Sinatra made famous with the lines: “regrets, I’ve had a few, but then again, too few to mention”. Well, I do have one big regret in the boat design department that I’ll dare to mention: If I had just kept to our tested and strong large folding double kayak and added an outrigger designed for open ocean travel, as I did after this misadventure, our journey might have been a lot more enjoyable. But, here’s the thing: when I ask my fellow voyagers what was the best trip they ever went on, they always insist that it was this one.
July 6, 2005 -11, -139 deg.
How could the tropics be so cold? I was lying in my hammock with a sodden fleece blanket draped around me. I had long ago cast aside my clothing as being too wet, too cold to be of any use. Somehow I had managed to get some sleep. But now the hammock was bouncing violently and every few seconds a fresh blast of salt water washed over me.
It was night-time and pitch black. The only light that I could see was from the LED lamp on the top of one our four tiny masts (two for the sails, two for the single hammock) and the red glow of the compass on the other pontoon of our two-person folding catamaran.
I heard Evan say something, but the storm drowned out his words. “Say louder,” I screamed. “I can’t handle it anymore!” he shouted.
I flicked on my headlamp. “Holy shit.” The water was coming at us from above, below and sideways. The boom of one of our two sails had broken off, and the other was swinging wildly. I stepped carefully onto the netting that was strung between our two pontoons and attempted to lash down our sails. There was a clear danger of being swept into the abyss by the storm winds and raging seas. Evan looked at me with his headlamp. All I could hear him say was, “Dad, put your pants on!”
I didn’t. Instead I started wrestling with the lines that were flailing wildly around us. As I grabbed one, a violent gust snapped a sail tight and pulled the line into a noose around my baby finger. I felt a rush of pain as the line dug deep to the bone. There was no time to worry about that now.
We hauled the sails down, lashed them to the masts and carried on bare-bones. Sometime later Dan and Ken pulled up beside us in their catamaran and shouted if we were O.K. Evan just said, “My dad won’t put his pants on.”
By the time Evan finished his four-hour shift steering the wind had abated somewhat and I had managed to bandage my hand. Keeping it dry was out of the question.
On both boats we managed to raise a small reefed sail. Although during my day-shift the finger started throbbing, I was still able to follow the compass and keep us on course by checking our position with the GPS. While running downwind we just had to stay on the purple line.
By nightfall my left pinky wasn’t pink, it was bright red and curled down, with large black splotches oozing with pus. The rest of my hand was bright and puffed up, like with a bee sting. I became feverish and started hallucinating about the stars flailing about madly and diving into the sea. (There were no stars out that night). When Evan relieved me, I climbed into the hammock, took a couple of Tylenols and some antibiotics and passed out.
Woke up some 24 hours later. Fever mostly gone and head fairly clear (or so I thought. This was debated later by Dan and Evan). However, my finger was black, the skin was coming off the bone and my hand was huge. Dan screamed more bad news. Something had broken inside one of his pontoons during the storm and he was having trouble keeping afloat. He and Ken had to pump continuously.
By noon they decided to scupper the boat. Ken jumped onto our craft first. Dan passed some of their essential gear, including an inflatable dingy. He tied the rest to the boat, opened up all of the valves, knifed the hulls and jumped off as she went down.
With four people plus gear on an open pontoon boat built for two our bums were awash and we were continuously soaked. My hand was in rough shape and endangering my overall health. On the good side, though, we had a fine following 15 knot breeze, food and water. Plus, I was traveling with the best group I could have asked for.
Somehow, Evan, who was only 16, had managed to steer our boat for 24 hours straight while I had passed out. He never panicked. Maybe all of those nights playing Warcraft online had prepared him. Of course he had been on kayak trips up and down our coast almost every year since he was 3 years old.
He’s gone through various names: “Treeboy” on this trip because of his gangly height. “HINO” came next, for “high input, no output”. This was during the time he was still filling out his large frame. Now, at 6 ft. 5 inches and 240 lbs., he is “Lurch”. He isn’t the fastest mover out there, but he sure is steady. Despite his size and appearance I have never seen him act in a physically aggressive way. He says that his bulk keeps him out of trouble. I think that it is more than that. His long training as a violinist and his love of music and nature maybe offer more insight into him than his size does.
If Dan had grown into his current 6 ft. height and filled out earlier he would likely have made the NHL, being very fast on his skates and with super quick reflexes. He also loves a good brawl at center ice. But, like so many Canadian guys, his aggression ends at the rink. Recently Dan and his wife Katherine had their first baby: a healthy girl weighing almost 11 pounds. Her nickname is Porkchop. Dan is a full service dad: diapers, playing, cooing, giggling, and staying up all night. He’s even cut his hockey from five nights to two. Just don’t mess with Porkchop.
Ken Fink has been combining power with paddling technique to win kayak races at his home state of Maine since before our two young guys were born. His specialty as a professor of oceanography was the formation and dissolution of beaches. He likes to talk about that.
Actually, he likes to talk about anything. But, he also listens. He is one of those people who gets on well with everyone because he is curious about people and their stories.
The summer before, in 2004, the four of us paddled and sailed an earlier version of our catamarans down the length of Moresby Island in Haida Gwaii (formerly the Queen Charlotte Islands) in northwest B.C. That trip had been an opportunity to test the new crafts and also ourselves, as a team.
On our first day in Haida Gwaii there was very little wind. Ken and I started off paddling hard. The two young guys in their catamaran repeatedly fell far behind and started singing loudly. Then they stopped completely, although with full sails up. I knew that they were goading us, but Ken was new to this and found it frustrating. “What are you guys doing?” he shouted. “We’re practicing our light wind sailing” came the reply. And they continued singing and sitting there. At that Ken just started laughing. He got their humor and also our desire just to explore the islands.
During our two weeks we talked to many local “watchmen” at important First Nation sites, and marveled at the totem poles and the moss, the ancient Sitka Spruce trees, the huge black bears, the ducks, coots, eagles and hawks. It was so much more than just paddling down a coast as quickly as possible. Ken got right into it.
By the end we were a team. Each night we would pull up to a beach and set up our hammocks and flies right on the boats. No campsite or tent required. We wanted to be able to sleep on the boats, whether on land or sea. The only problem was that Ken had trouble getting in and out of the hammock. But here, in Polynesia, we had much bigger troubles than just getting out of a hammock.
I figured that we could still get to Napuka, our original destination. But once there, what would we be able to do? I would still have to be evacuated to a hospital or clinic. I thought about our trip so far.
We had flown to Hiva Oa, the largest town in the southern Marquesas group. Our plan, which we had forwarded to the French authorities well in advance of our arrival, was to assemble our two crafts in Hiva Oa, paddle/sail the 45 nautical mile upwind passage to Fatu Hiva and then sail downwind the 270 nautical mile route to Napuka, the first atoll. It was on this crossing that we had come to grief. From there we had hoped to wind our way through many of the atolls making up the Tuamotus, and end up in Tahiti. Our route would take us about 885 NM, all in. Easy.
The gendarmes in Hiva Oa didn’t know what to make of us and delayed our departure for several days. This gave us the opportunity to explore the village of Atuouna and hike the trails above. One morning, after walking up through narrow alleys and over a hill we came to a small cemetery. This was Gauguin’s final resting place. I could imagine him coming up there, to a peaceful place with a stunning view of the harbour and the open ocean beyond. I have always found his paintings of the Marquesans mysterious. Who were these people? Did he know them well? Intimately? Or was he more an observer? After trekking around the island I came to realize how his paintings had not just depicted the people. The landscape, with all of its lush greens punctuated by tropical colours was captured beautifully.
The Marquesas are completely different geologically from the Tuamotu atolls further south. These islands are volcanic basalt. The tall hills capture enough rain to enable lush tropical forests to flourish. (Apparently the rains sometimes fail, but the forest was gorgeous when we were there). The light is soft and rich. On the other hand, the Tuamotu atolls are remnants of sunken volcanoes and are mostly coral, with an elevation of a few meters at most. We expected that the light would be harsher, and the plants and people more weathered, not at all the way we think of Gauguin’s paintings. Because atolls are low-lying rings of coral built up over sunken volcanoes, they are particularly susceptible to rising sea levels and ocean acidification. Most will likely be submerged, or at least washed over to be uninhabitable, within a few decades. I have long wanted to visit these atolls before they disappear. I wonder if Dan and Evan will be able to return here some day, or will they be gone.
When the gendarmes finally gave us permission to go on our trip, they insisted that we had to leave right away, just before nightfall. It would have been really nice to have left in daylight, but we adjusted, sort of, and after two nights of heavy buffeting and one lost paddle, we arrived in Fatu Hiva. We passed from the Bay of Virgins through a narrow opening to enter the small harbour at Hanavave, on the northwest coast of Fatu Hiva. Islanders helped us carry our strange crafts onto the concrete platform where they store their canoes and boats. There is no dock.
Instantly kids swarmed our boats. Men and women milled about. Where did you come from? What sort of boat is this? People were so friendly that Dan was soon invited to share a meal of goat and vegetables with a local family. Unfortunately, he became awfully sick. We had to stay in paradise for a few extra days until he recovered.
There is a waterfall spilling out of the jungle a few kilometers from the bay, which we visited daily. On the way we passed bundles of noni fruit. The noni has been revived here since an American company started making extravagant health food claims about its noni juice. In Polynesia it has long been used as a cure for stonefish sting, sore throat, diabetes and other ailments. It smells like rotten cheese.
In the evenings I would quietly watch as all of the villagers got together to practice their tamure dance. They would line up in rows and dance to just a drum and flute. The women swayed gently and rhythmically with their hips while the men pranced around them with their legs gyrating as fast as a drummer’s hands, like scissors gone mad. All of the adults took part. I was told that they were practicing for a dance contest with the group from Omoa, the only other village on the island. Some of the dancers were awkward, others had beautiful fluid movements. There was one couple that was simply stunning. She was beautiful and sensuous while he was strong and his legs vibrated so fast you could hardly see them. They held each other’s gaze while they moved, and, wow, the only electricity on the island burned bright.
One morning about a dozen men eased into the water in the small harbour. After swimming out to the breakwater they spread out and then pulled a net amongst them. Suddenly, they all started slapping the water and slowly guiding the net to shore. By the time they reached shore and pulled up their net they had trapped dozens of small fish. I marveled at the simplicity of this.
Each morning I would hike up a local hill behind the village and try to receive a text message on my satellite phone from my wife, Theresa, about the weather forecast from Atuouna. We finally left Fatu Hiva with a favorable weather report and cheers of good sailing from our new friends. But now, awash with four people on an open catamaran built for two and a serious medical problem, a decision had to be made. In hindsight, it seems brutally obvious: It’s an emergency; you’ve got a sat phone. Use it. But, damn it, I wanted to see those atolls! Nonetheless, after we talked it over, everyone agreed. We phoned first the authorities in Tahiti and then my unfortunate wife.
The authorities wanted us to keep our phone turned on and I said no way, we didn’t have enough battery for that. It was easier for me to talk briefly with Theresa and have her deal with them.
They didn’t have a boat anywhere near us. “Did we need a life raft dropped from the air?” Actually, we had two small two-man inflatable rafts on board. We didn’t need another. We asked if any fishing boats were nearby. No, there weren’t, or, if there were, none of them wanted to bother going out of their way.
Hours later we received a report through Theresa that a fishing boat had been contacted and was heading for us. “Yay!” I asked from which direction, thinking that we might head for them, but never received an answer. We kept heading for Napuka and gave them our GPS location occasionally.
July 8, 2005
Rescued. Aboard the Viny Viny V11. Fate has thrown 5 Marquesans, three Canadians and one American together in this fine tuna long-liner, helmed by Captain Bruno.
The Captain wears a black pearl and a cell phone around his neck, even though cell coverage is more than a hundred miles away. He’s dark, strongly built, super-confident and, damn it, you have to say: swashbuckling. He tells us stories of going to Vegas with loads of cash earned from his fishing and black pearl interests and being met with open arms reserved for big spenders. He owns three speed boats with 200 plus HP, 10 pearl divers, a mansion in Papeete. He barks his orders, is obeyed instantly; fixes the engine; is a trained chef in France; a gambler; dad of two boys; and, no doubt, lover of many. Our saviour. He’s a character. He also now owns, as part of the rescue deal, our catamaran, inflatable boats, reverse osmosis water-maker, tents, paddles and gear. Except for personal effects that’s everything. Why not? They have come out of their way for two days and given up lucrative fishing income and we got rescued. Plus I’m going to send him an inflatable kayak.
The other crew:
Brue: large, belly, long hair, a real traditional-looking guy tattooed, 30s.
Tuoe: 18 years, mustache, sloping shoulders, into rock music, still forming. Nice smile.
Macki: Broad shoulders, powerfully built, quiet, what’s he about?
Kaddie: the only smoker, first time aboard, the others say he is a little crazy, because of his grin? Offered us dope, for a price.
I feel responsible. I managed to put a lot of people, both on and off the boat, through some trying times. As for my left hand, my pinky isn’t pink; it’s bright red and curled down, with large black splotches where pus has oozed out. The rest of the hand is bright and puffed up, like with a bee sting; most of the swelling stops at the wrist. Of course it hurts — a lot. We are all suffering from sea sores.
Those 4–5 nights at sea were difficult, but, boy, will I remember them. The stars; the water washing over us; trying to stay awake; keeping course on a star; checking occasionally with the compass; checking that periodically with the G.P.S. In the end it would have been better if we had been going in the opposite direction, the Vinny Vinny V11 would have reached us sooner, because they were coming from the north. But the people at Papeete Affaires Maritimes didn’t tell us that. So, I bring home some great memories, some pain, design for a new sail rig, and good friends made and kept. Not bad for a failed trip.
The fish boat took us back to Hiva Oa, where we had started from. I received excellent medical attention there, and yet more and stronger antibiotics. The doctor there didn’t think that I would get to keep my finger. After later going through another round of antibiotics to deal with the c. difficile that I got after the first batch, I fully recovered. I even still have my little finger, although it is stiff and bent out of shape.
21. Ocean Anoxia (Entered April 1, 2021)
The term anoxia means lack of oxygen. In our own bodies it can lead to organ failure and death. In marine systems the results are similar. Fish and other organisms cannot breathe and die off. Studies have found that widespread anoxia was associated with at least four of the “big five” mass extinctions in the past. Today anoxic dead zones have quadrupled since 1950. Sharks, tuna and other large fish species that need more oxygen to survive are at particular risk with oxygen levels reported to be dangerously low in over 700 areas globally.
There are naturally occurring areas in the open ocean that have low oxygen levels. This is particularly true off the west coast of continents due to how the rotation of the earth affects currents. Global warming during the past few decades has amplified this, causing the large expansion of dead zones in the north east Pacific, off the west coast of North America. Our fisheries have suffered. Following is a quote by Maya Elrick, at The University of New Mexico, lead author of a study of marine animal and plant fossils taken from Anticosti Island in the St. Lawrence seaway: “We are warming and acidifying the oceans today and warmer oceans hold less and less oxygen. Some marine organisms can handle the heat and the acidity, but not the lack of oxygen” Elrick said. “All these things are happening today and the results from the Late Ordovician study indicate the potential severity of marine anoxia as an extinction driver for many of the past and ongoing biologic extinction events.” “Abrupt global-ocean anoxia during Late Ordovician-early Silurian detected using uranium isotopes of marine carbonates,” was published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), May 22, 2018. The only way to avert further catastrophic damage is to reduce and then reverse our human-caused GHG pollution in the seas and atmosphere.
The other main cause of anoxia is pollution flowing into coastal waters. Monoculture farming, such as massive soy, corn and wheat production, causes depletion of nitrogen in the soil. To make up for this, farmers apply nitrogen fertilizers to their crops. Researchers have found that only 17% of the nitrogen is absorbed by crops. Most of the rest makes its way to rivers and eventually to the sea. (Fowler, 2013; Ribaudo, 2011) Industrial meat production leads to even greater quantities of nitrogen in manure leaching out via rivers to the sea.[1] Scientists have blamed meat production for the world’s largest dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico. The U.S. industrial meat industry is huge. Just five companies produce most of the meat in the U.S. The biggest, Tyson, “slaughters 125,000 head of cattle, 35 million chickens, and 415,000 hogs every week.”29 They say that people can help the situation by cutting back on meat. This is one of the most effective actions an individual can do to both lower personal GHG emissions and help the sea recover. “The scale and environmental impact of the meat industry is enormous: more than a third of all land in the continental U.S. is dedicated to growing feed crops and providing the pastures to raise meat.”29 Blaming individual consumers for the bad practices of the industrial meat industry is the wrong way to attack the problem, though. The whole industry needs to be reformed. Hopefully the fledgling consumer movement to support meat substitutes and lab-grown meat will eventually reduce the meat industry’s powerful hold on public opinion and government policy.
The nitrogen at the mouths of rivers and marine estuaries causes marine algae to bloom. In a healthy system the algae feed off the nutrients and release oxygen through photosynthesis. As the algae die their bodies sink to the ocean floor and are consumed by bacteria. This process consumes oxygen, but plants on the ocean floor benefit and provide oxygen to the water. However, when too much nitrogen enters the water, column algae proliferate until sunlight cannot reach the ocean floor. Photosynthesis stops and oxygen levels can fall disastrously. This process is called eutrophication and the resulting lack of oxygen is called hypoxia.
Since 1950 ocean dead zones starved of oxygen have quadrupled. The number of oxygen-starved sites near coasts has increased tenfold to over 400 documented globally. The dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico that has resulted from agricultural runoff had expanded to 6,400 square miles according to the EPA in 2016, and it has grown since then. The Po River flow has been staunched to a trickle after dams, cities, and crops have drunk their fill. Its estuary holds water long enough for dead, anoxic zones to form, choking life in the Adriatic Sea for thousands of square miles. Similarly, the Loire River in France and the Minjiang River Estuary in the Fujian, the southeast province in China, experience severe hypoxia. India may have the most polluted rivers due to its massive growth in population over the last 40 years to 1.35 billion people. The urban rivers are especially polluted, with 63% of sewage flowing into rivers untreated. There are large dead zones associated with the Ulhas, Mithi, Cooum, Yamuna and Ganges rivers. Since major extinction events, such as the Ordovician-Silurian extinction event (when nearly 85% of all marine species disappeared) experienced high levels of oxygen depletion, this is something that we should be very concerned about.
There has been some success in cleaning up dead zones in estuaries. I’ll briefly discuss two: one in a rich country, the other a developing country.
The Chesapeake Bay
The Chesapeake is by far the largest estuary in the U.S., covering 64,000 square miles with drainage from more than 150 rivers and streams. Its second biggest tributary, the Potomac, flows through Washington, DC. This was once one of the most biologically productive marine areas in the world, with over 300 species of fish, shellfish and crab species. The estuary absorbs the waste of nearly 18 million people, millions of acres of farms, and polluted air from coal-burning power plants in the Midwest (about a third of the pollution in Chesapeake Bay is caused by air pollution from cars, industry and power plants). By 1983 there were massive dead zones with toxic algae blooms and lost sea grass habitats.
Conservation began after that, with programs coordinated amongst federal, state, and municipal governments and agencies. Federal agencies provided more than half a billion dollars a year and billions more were spent by the six surrounding states and District of Columbia. Goals are to plant 8,000 miles of forests and grassy buffers along waterways and rebuild miles of oyster reefs. Oysters, which filter pollution from the water, are now at less than one percent of historical numbers. Water sampling by the U.S. Geological Survey shows that water quality is slowly improving and the estuary is gradually being brought back to past abundance. As this example demonstrates, restoration in a heavily populated area with large industrial farms and a reliance on fossil fuel power plants takes lots of time and big money. All of this is at risk. And none of this restoration should be necessary. A study by the UN human rights council in 2017 found that it is a myth that pesticides are necessary to feed the world. It accused the global manufacturers of pesticides of “systematic denial of harms”, aggressive unethical marketing tactics” and heavy lobbying of governments which has “obstructed reforms and paralysed global pesticide restrictions”. (Damian Carrington, Guardian, Tue, Mar 7, 2017)
One thing that stands out in all of this is that big, monoculture agri-business, as well as fossil fuel power plants, create big, expensive environmental problems. Either the environment suffers or taxpayers are forced to pay large amounts for cleanup. In this case, both.
Cuba and The Bahamas
Before the Cuban Revolution seventy percent of its agriculture was made up of sugar cane and coffee. Most of its exports went to the Soviet Union. This monoculture system was very vulnerable and during the revolution there were severe food shortages.
After the revolution, in order to increase the food supply, the government promoted even stronger monoculture farming with a tenfold increase in fertilizers. This led to polluted waterways and marine dead zones. The Cuban government somehow recognized that the way to deal with this was to break up the large state-owned farms and to promote sustainable farming practices while growing a wide variety of crops. Green manure instead of fertilizers was used with the resulting improvement in soil quality and reduced agricultural runoff. Food production is up and the marine environment has benefited. An article from the University of Illinois describes this and suggests that lessons learned in Cuba could be applied in the Bahamas as it seeks to increase its food security while preserving its unique coastal treasures.
The Bahamas (known officially as the Commonwealth of the Bahamas) imports 85% of its food supply. Relying on a monoculture system with heavy reliance on fertilizers would be a disaster for a country with so little land and so many beautiful marine areas. Sustainable farming practices, such as hydroponics, aquaponics[2] and green manure could increase crop yields greatly, without harming tourism and fisheries (mainly conch and spiny lobster).
[1] http://www.mightyearth.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/Meat-Pollution-in-America.pdf
[2] The most simple definition of Aquaponics is the combination of aquaculture (raising fish) and hydroponics (the soil-less growing of plants) that grows fish and plants together in one integrated system. The fish waste provides an organic food source for the plants, and the plants naturally filter the water for the fish.( https://www.theaquaponicsource.com/what-is-aquaponics/)
22. Exumas (Entered May 1, 2021)
August 1, 2006 On board the Island Link, bound, again, from Nassau to Salt Pond on Long Island (23.3404, -75.123).
Everyone onboard has a favorite conch recipe. This is Conch Salad: Hit with hammer, break hole. Cut out with knife. Cut off bubba. Cut up real fine. Dice: onion, tomato, sweet pepper, celery, hot pepper. Combine in bowl. Squeeze lemons, salt. Mix up! Bahamian style.
There will be no fishing with a pole spear this time. I’m not expecting many fish and those that remain should stay. We have bigger kayaks this time and can afford to carry lots of food. Plus conch.
After our fiasco in French Polynesia I wanted to treat my two young pals to an easier trip. This seems made to order. With our new outrigger sail rigs we will ride the dominant summer trade winds from Long Island west across the 20 NM distance to the southern tip of the Exumas, north up the Exumas to the north tip and then take the 35 NM crossing back to Nassau. If the trades hold we will be heading mostly downwind the whole time. Easy. It will be hot in the summer sun, but that’s when the trades blow. This will also be a chance for me to see any changes in sea life in the area since my last visit to Long Island and the Jumentos seven years ago.
This will be our second trip with the new sail rig. Theresa, Ken Fink and I paddle/sailed the Florida Keys from Key Largo to Key West earlier this year in February without serious mishap, other than jammed amas and one broken mast off Matacumbe Key. I had been flying too big a jib. (Amazingly, UPS delivered another to us from HQ the next morning.) Ama is a Polynesian word for outrigger. In Florida we tried inflatable amas that were attached to tubes extending from the kayak (akas). This had been done before, but we found that extra-large waves could cause the amas to rotate 90 degrees to the water and cause the boat to stall. We wanted to be able to sail well offshore in the big waves. The solution was to join two separate amas together, above and below, and run the tube between them so that the ama could rotate when impacted by a large wave. Jam proof.
We loved sailing alongshore over waters too shallow for regular sail or power boats. The trades held and blew us most of the way to Key West. We were hoping for the same conditions in the Exumas, although without the motels.
Thursday, August 4, 2006 South End of Stocking Island, 23.5086, -75.736
Today: Sandy (White) Cay to here. About 20 miles. Got in about 2 PM, left about 9. that’s about 4 kn avg., we had a period of light winds. Mostly 8 to 10 knots. easterly wind. Temp. kind of hot, over 30. There has been this storm brewing S. of here. It was supposed to come here, but it veered to Cuba. We would have stayed another day on Sandy Cay, it was so gorgeous- yes, sandy, but some good shallow-water diving, coral, on its southern shore. There must have been 30 different species of little fish lounging in the coral.
The crossing from Salt Pond was uneventful, except when my rudder fell off. I was able to get back there in the water and re-install it, but it still rode up and I had to use my paddle to steer. I fixed it temporarily with duct tape. Today it was fine. I did learn that you can alter the steering by having one leeboard up, one down. Generally the boat wants to turn to windward. So, keep the board down on the leeward side.
Today we initiated using the spinnakers. I’m in the K-1 and boy, does it scoot. I reached 7.2 knots, which is quite fast. The spinnaker flops around a lot, but when it fills, it pulls well.
The boys were blown away by Sandy Cay. As soon as we landed we were all in the water. Coral island, long, totally white spit, big land iguanas, cacti, fish. Paradise. Too bad we didn’t stay longer.
This trip is fun. We’re in the water a lot, cooling off, just gazing at beauty. Forecast is for up to 26 knots next week. We should be trucking. I’m reading Joshua Slocum’s book: “Sailing Alone Around the World”. This is so tame in comparison.
Sunday, August 7, 2006 Glass Cay, 17 NM N. of George Town. 23.7027, -75.9935
We had quite a run today. Probably close to 25 knots. At least 20. Easterlies continue. I have to steer with the paddle as aid, hooked under my arm pit. Especially when we went around Ocean Bight, which was open to the Atlantic and deep. After rounding it we had to cross a shallow reef. Surf’s up. Dan and Evan in the big double caught a big one, broached and scraped bottom. The thru bracket that holds the leeboard broke at the rivet. We’re always breaking stuff. Never did when we were just using kayaks. They said that the wave towered above them. You are not supposed to surf in sail boats. I managed to find a line through the coral, no mishap.
However, perhaps an hour before that, I made a much dumber move. I noticed that my upwind ama was quite flat. I’ve practiced this before — I took it off to orally inflate it. I guess I was rocking too much because I was over before I could say whoa. Perhaps the waves were just too chaotic. It was easy to right it, re-install the aka and ama, pump out and carry on. Good lessons — both incidents.
We’ve been going 4 to 6 knots today, just fine. No plunging bows. A bit hairy. No coral around here. Few fish. I keep looking. Sometimes I had my mask and snorkel on while sailing. I could lean over and keep my head underwater and follow the bottom as we scooted along while steering with my feet on the rudder pedals. No matter how hard I tried, though, I ended up sailing way off course. This reminds me of when I was being trained to fly planes. The instructor would put a helmet on you so that you could not see the land below. Unless you trusted your flight instruments you would put that plane in a suicidal dive in just a blink. Unlike birds, we humans are not equipped mentally to fly without referencing the land below. I had to learn to trust my instruments. What saddened me now was that what I saw was acres and acres of dead coral. We don’t seem to be equipped to deal with long range tragedies either. All of our observations and instruments point to a deepening crisis: a suicidal dive. We have to learn to trust these warnings.
August 8, 2006 Staniel Cay, Lavender cottage #4. 24.1724, -76.445
Evan doesn’t like sharks, at all. I saw one a couple of days ago and today there are 3 dark 5-footers lounging around the marina docks. People feed them. I hope that he’ll change his mind because Brad’s Reef is just a short day north of here and it is supposed to have coral. They say Thunderball Grotto near here is good.
We just popped in here, not expecting to stay, but the place looks great and we could use a couple of days out of the sun, in luxury. Our cute little cottage cost $148 for the three of us. I guess that’s O.K. One king-size bed; Dan on the floor. The bigger cost will be the meals. Oh well, last night it rained like hell, thunder and lightning too. It will be good to have cover tonight. The winds recently have been strong. A yachtie said yesterday 25 to 30 knots. I’d say maybe up to 25. We didn’t break anything.
August 9, 2006 Staniel Cay
Yes, Thunderball Grotto was great. We dived off of the kayaks. The little island is hollowed out. You dive down and inside are hundreds of fish that encompass you. Beautiful. Like swimming into the past. Lots of different people here: people who have their own boats, or rent them or are on a mini cruise. Others flew here to stay in one of the cabins. And us. Everyone dines together, the food is good and people are friendly. Glad for the splurge. This is a beautiful place. Do we have to leave?
August 13, 2006 Hawksbill Cay 24.476, -76.764
The most remarkable cay so far, with a mile-long white sand beach backed by Casuarina trees, spaced apart as if planted for a park. I’m under one now. Its morning, but already the sun is becoming fierce. These trees are an import from Australia. Biologists here don’t like these intruders because they drop long needles, making a thick bed, and nothing can grow through them. Too acidic. We’re thankful for them.
We have a meter or two depth out front here, for miles. Beautiful turquoise water. Lots of small fish and some coral. There is a steel wreck stuck on a reef out about 1/2 mile. Size: between a boat and a ship. Getting here yesterday from Warderick Wells was so slow. No wind. We got really hot. We couldn’t stay cool enough to power the boats efficiently. I got to thinking about how different peoples adapt to their climate. Years ago, back in the 70s, my old pal Larry and I spent a month hauling sleds over the sea ice north of Tuktoyuktuk in late winter. After a while the cold seemed O.K. with us and we thought we had acclimatized pretty well. But when we returned south to Inuvik we saw lots of local Inuit kids blasting around on skidoos in -25 F. with no gloves on and no hat. That was impossible for us. Another example happened at the beginning of this trip. As we stumbled through the streets of Nassau, humbled by the heat and humidity, we came across an outdoor court. There, in mid-day, in the blazing sun, were a bunch of dark skinned guys playing a lively game of pickup basketball. “What?” we thought, “No way”.
There is a limit, though to this adaptability. As we found yesterday there is a certain temperature/humidity combination in which sweat doesn’t have any cooling effect on the body, even for people superbly adapted to the climate. (which we are not). Yesterday was blazing hot and damp and the three of us hit that limit. The best we could do was to keep dishing sea water onto our heads with our hats. As the planet warms increasing areas are going to become uninhabitable. There have been mass migrations recently from Africa to Europe and from Latin America to the U.S. But, unfortunately, this is likely to be just the beginning.
At Warderick Wells we camped at the Pirate’s Lair, which is where pirates hid out and waited for ships to attack. We didn’t sleep well because a family was moored just offshore in a powerboat. A woman, who sounded quite drunk, screamed at her kids for hours. It must have been awful for them, in that small, hot enclosure.
Warderwick is the centre of the Exumas Park. It is a terrific place where no fishing is allowed. We saw more fish and more coral than anywhere else. Probably that is why there were fish at Staniel, which is just out of the park. We also passed living stromatolites, which are rare. We talked to the people at the centre on the way up, who were friendly and informative.
August 14, 2006 Highborne Cay, 24.7063, -76.8195
This is a place for yachts. When we pulled in yesterday to buy water and groceries some big rain storms started to come through. We got soaked. Stood around for a couple of hours actually being cold. Then four Spaniards from a huge rented yacht went prancing by us in the downpour into the water. The two gorgeous women wore bikinis so small they hardly mattered. One of the guys took off his trunks and started flinging it with his buddy. This lasted quite a while until finally the girls ran off with it back to their yacht. The guys sauntered back a little later, past a stuffy American yachtsman, the naked guy holding his crotch. As we were cold, I suggested that we follow their example (though with trunks) and it was warmer lounging in the sea with the sky still opening up on us.
That night there was no wind at our camp and the bugs were swarming, but we enjoyed hanging out on the lawn chairs at the marina. We were just tolerated, like us with the bugs.
Somehow Dan had left behind his stove. My spare one was plugged with sand, so Evan and I shared an emergency can of Spam that we had bought at George Town and ate cereal with powdered milk. Dan got a bit sick on Gatorade and potato chips and didn’t eat anything more.
Everything is better now. We had a lot of pancakes for breakfast. The weather is looking good for our crossing in a few days. I called my sister and wished her happy birthday.
August 17, 2006 N.E. beach, Ship Channel Cay, 24.815, -76.8214
As we approached the south end of this island, one of the “Power Boat Adventure” boats was leaving with about 50 passengers. It looks like an overgrown speedboat, cruises at 30 knots, making the journey from Nassau in a little over an hour.
We went to their camp. It looks like something out of Gilligan’s Island. There is a ramshackle-looking hut on stilts and an open bar at a dock.
We were greeted by Kevin, maybe close to my age, grisly. He does the video and photo recording of the day’s “adventure”. He has an Apple computer and a stock burner so he can have the customers’ CD ready when they leave. They feed sharks, snorkel (not in the same place, I hope) and drink at the bar. 50 to 80 per day. First they visit the Iguanas at Allen Cays, then come back to Ship Channel for a snorkel with life jackets on. They didn’t, of course, mind us camping a mile or so north of here; they don’t own this place. Kevin’s girlfriend (Zee?) is pregnant, wants to have an underwater birth here. Early 20s, red hair, hippie-ish. The “caretaker” is an Haitian guy, didn’t say too much. The barmaid works just for tips, is on a sailboat with Brian. Brian wanted to do his PhD in philosophy at UBC, loved the place, the inter-disciplinary approach. Wasn’t accepted. They have been here 1 1/2 months. Plan to go down to Venezuela, then Mediterranean. Searching.
We left them for this beach north of there. I didn’t want to have 50 people swarming around us. Good call, except for the incredible amount of plastic garbage on this beach, at this hook, which seems to be a trap. Otherwise, the place would be awesome. Good shade trees. Coral is in rough shape, though, just brown.
Towards evening Kevin, two young women and two boys came over in a skiff and invited us for dinner. Lobster, conch, rice. I wondered how we were going to get back, so at least I put a small flashlight in my pocket and carried my sandals before wading out to the skiff. Also at dinner were 3 local guys, a father and two grown sons. They played dominoes with big white pieces, which they slammed down on the table. All the pieces bounced. It became dark, we all talked for a long time.
When it became time to go, Kevin announced that the tide had gone out; he couldn’t take us back, too shallow. Dan and Evan had no shoes for walking in the dark over coral. It was decided that the three fisher guys would take us back, but first they had to get to their 28-foot boat, moored nearby. Very shallow, I was the only one with a light, so they used it, and bumped over the coral (mostly dead anyway) and rocks to their boat. The young guys got off; an older guy with a flashlight got on. So now we had Smokey holding the light and Dr. No steering the boat. Smokey kept saying: “Over derr. Go over derr!” Dr. No kept saying: “Shine da light on da wata.” Smokey said: “Paddlin’ in kayak in Georgia, saw this big fuckin’ gator, thought he was comin’ for me, so I started paddlin’ the fuck outta there. Then had a few beer and fogot about it!” Smokey said he had taken in 1400 conch in the last few days. (Did I get this right? They have heavy accents) Plus some lobster. I asked him if this could last and he said “Oh ya”. But he also mentioned that there are no conch near Nassau. He’s training his two sons in this. His boat was seven years underwater before he got it, took two years to clean it up, put on a new upper deck. He bought a 250 hp outboard for $14,000(?) Got a boat. Sells conch at about $2 each. We got off in chest high water and had to use my little flashlight to wade in and around the dead coral. Tomorrow we sail to Nassau, hopefully.
August 18, 2006 Ship Channel Cay
Waiting for better winds. Except for the garbage, great place to hang out. Before dusk the three of us have been sitting on the beach, sipping a little rum and watching the sun go down. I often finish off the day by pouring a cup or two of fresh water over me to wash the salt off. If there is a breeze we’ll stay out as night falls. With no breeze the bugs drive us into our tents and we read for a while. Last night we finished off the rum. It was overcast and dark and Dan ended up in the wrong tent.
August 19, 2006 Ship Channel Cay
Last night I had my tent fly off, as usual. Dan woke Evan and me up. It was pouring rain and thunder. We battened down our tents and went out naked with our soap for a good wash. Man, that felt good. These are days to remember.
August 20, 2006 Nassau 25.0745, -77.313
The 30 nautical mile crossing was uneventful until about half way to Nassau. A line of thunderstorms swept across us. One opened up on me and I was suddenly very busy with the sail. The guys in the double said that the storm hit me first and I just disappeared in the wall of water while they were still dry. Then it hit them.
We had big wind but not big waves, so we went fast. Once I had control I checked my GPS and found that I was doing 11.5 knots. That’s fast for a little kayak. The longer double outstripped me.
After the storm passed I was worried that the winds would die or go against us, which would mean a long, overnight paddle. They did slacken for a little while, but then picked up again. By then we were maybe 12 nautical miles off Nassau and we could see the big-shouldered Atlantis casino way off in the distance. An easy mark to steer to. We slid into Nassau at dusk, just fine.
23. Oil Sands (Entered May 1, 2021)
Thirty years previous to the Nassau expedition I was living with my girlfriend in Edmonton, Alberta. My ambition at the time was to fly commercially. To afford lessons I worked for Amoco Canada Petroleum Company (since acquired by BP). It was not much of a job, but I managed to get long breaks at mid-day and would whip over to the nearby Industrial Airport for flying lessons. Mostly I worked in the office, but I did get sent over to the Swan Hills oil and gas area to learn a little about production. I came back with a lot of respect for the guys who worked in the field. (It was all guys back then).
I remember one time a bunch of us were standing in a circle in a field of mud, discussing the work and how to improve operations. I was brought to heel for using a crescent wrench instead of a spanner to tighten a bolt on a piece of equipment. Over time the crescent wrench could round the corners of the bolts. I didn’t see the point of that. Maybe they were just trying to keep a kid with a degree who didn’t know nothing in line. It was a minor point. But they really did care about the details and they insisted on following protocol. I found these guys really solid. They talked about hockey and hunting and fishing and families. Most were older than me, so are retired now or gone for good. Sometimes I wonder about them and their families. Alberta has long been a boom-and-bust province. That makes it hard.
The last few years at Feathercraft Kayaks were pretty rough: falling sales, increasing costs, a large shipment of expensive skin fabric was received that was faulty. Our big dealer in Germany dumped us. In response we downsized the shop and cut staff and costs. I had no time for design as I buried myself in production while trying not to worry about our mounting losses. Without any salary I started eating away at our savings. Meanwhile Theresa, my wife, and business partner, tried to hold the office together. It was up to her to juggle who to pay, who to delay, how to reassure the bank. Finally my partner, wife, love of my life, suffered a complete breakdown. We should have acted sooner. It was a shock to the remaining crew when I told them we had to end production after 47 years and to cover our debts we had to sell off our equipment. We had decades together. They could have walked right then. But they stuck around and together we shut down the factory. We had to tear down a wall of the RF welding room and then watch as the two big machines were forklifted out. We looked on as people came and helped themselves to our clicker press, sewing machines, bar tackers and hot air welders, sold at bargain prices, from our sewing shop. Our dreams went with them. We stripped our machine shop of our big CNC machine, cut off saws, tube bender, band saws, drill presses, milling machine, hand tools. Theresa got rid of the office equipment. Then we scrubbed the whole empty place down. No one complained. Theresa and I sold our home in Vancouver (the city had outgrown us anyway) and moved to a home in Victoria with a workshop in the basement where I now make replacement parts. Occasionally I meet up with the guys in Vancouver and share a few beers. They are good men. The Feathercraft family was strong but their own family attachments were stronger. It has been difficult for them but they have found jobs and are supporting their loved ones. The guys all have daughters. They are raising beautiful, strong, talented girls. I love these guys. Change sucks, but you adapt and move on.
The world is nearing the day when oil demand will peak and then fall. Some say this could happen as early as 2025 while others say it will be sometime shortly after 2030. But it is coming. Already investment is drying up in the oilsands and oilrigs are moving south to the U.S. where oil production is less expensive. There are signs that the shale oil boom there is cooling off too. Even Mohammed bin Salman is trying to diversify the Saudi economy and wants to float shares of Aramco, the largest oil company in the world. Aramco’s average cost of sucking a barrel of oil out of the ground is stated at U.S. $2.80. A 2015 study by Stanford University compared the breakeven price in various countries for new production of oil based on a 10% return. In Saudi Arabia the cost even after tax was $31. Canada’s rate was the highest in the world at $71.45. The transition to electric vehicles is happening faster than most industry observers predicted and auto companies are spending billions on their development. Today renewable power has become cheaper than coal and it is fast overtaking oil and gas. Tesla and other companies are developing massive, cost effective battery units for storing energy when the wind doesn’t blow or the sun doesn’t shine. As the price of fossil fuels drops the Saudis and other petro states will drive the higher cost producers down to ground. From a global environmental perspective this is not a bad thing. An earlier Stanford study found that the average carbon intensity of both Venezuelan and Canadian crude was more than three times that of Saudi light oil. The IPCC has stated that the most carbon intensive fossil fuels must remain in the ground as we transition to renewables and possibly nuclear. In 2010 MIT did a study on the Alberta oil sands. The conclusion was that “the niche for the oil sands industry seems fairly narrow and mostly involves hoping that climate policy will fail.” (M.I.T. Report №183, Canada’s Bitumen Industry Under CO2 Constraints January, 2010).
As the western oil and gas industry falters, government and industry leaders are raging against the federal government, other provinces, and environmentalists. Talk about western alienation and separatism is growing. Even after the Calgary flood in 2013, the massive forest fires in B.C., Alberta and the Arctic and melting sea ice, they claim more pipelines must be built and the oilsands industry must be expanded by 40%. So far their bullying tactics have been successful. But reporting in the mainstream media is starting to change. It has been made quite clear in the national, although not provincial, press that tar sands production must be cut back. In 2005 Canada’s emissions totalled 739 megatonnes (MT). By 2018 they had declined only 1.2%, mainly because of oil and gas extraction, which INCREASED by two thirds to 105 MT. Canada cannot reach the federal government’s stated goal of 40 to 45% reductions by 2030 unless oil and gas, and especially the tar sands emissions, are reduced massively. Expanding tar sands production makes no sense. Shrinking production at a planned, orderly rate does.
It is a form of insanity to believe that the solution to the climate crisis and falling demand for oil is to pump more of it. “If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it.” Possibly authored by Goebbels.
In order to “compromise” and agree to a carbon tax, the oil execs in Alberta have insisted on being able to expand emissions to a cap of 100 megatonnes by 2050. Were Canada to meet its modest GHG targets by then, 100 MT would represent more than two-thirds of Canada’s allowable emissions. The rest of Canada, including Ontario’s massive manufacturing base and agriculture across the country, would suffer enormously trying to reduce emissions to almost zero so that Alberta’s oil patch, which accounts for about 7% of Canada’s economy, could continue to pollute. And yet, there are options.
Alberta has plans to generate 30% of its power needs with renewables and it could do much more. It has received bids for energy averaging just $37 per megawatt-hour for four wind power projects totaling 600 MW. This is the cheapest power in Canada. There is huge potential here for local use and for export.
Southern Alberta enjoys more hours of sunlight than any place in Canada. There is expanding opportunity for renewable solar energy, which the International Energy Agency says is now the cheapest energy the world has ever seen. Perhaps even the panels themselves, which are primarily made in China, with big pollution costs, could be manufactured in the province.
The electrification of power grids and transport systems will require massive amounts of copper, cobalt, lithium, nickel and rare earth minerals. There are polymetallic black shale deposits in northern, northeastern, and southwestern Alberta that have these metals and minerals. Lithium can be found in the Leduc Formation, the site of Alberta’s first oil boom, and also extracted with vanadium from brine created during bitumen production. The high proportion of carbon atoms makes bitumen a poor feedstock for fuel production but very promising for the expanding carbon fibre industry, used in everything from windmills to textiles, nanotubes and bicycle frames. None of these have been fully explored or developed.
The warming climate may even offer opportunities for farming in more northern regions. As southern regions become too parched and hot for agriculture there will be an increasing demand for sustainably grown food.
Alberta is a wealthy province and its youthful citizens have been paying more than the Canadian average into the Canada Pension Plan. Instead of complaining, consider this an investment in the future. Like all big sovereign wealth funds the CPP is always looking for long-term investments. These big funds are actively divesting out of fossil fuels because they don’t want to hold stranded assets in the future. The CPP is huge, with over $400 billion in assets. Partner with them and local communities, including, especially, indigenous, to build massive wind power in the north and along the eastern side of the Rockies and large scale solar in the sunny south. Build out the electric power grid to join them all together. Harden buildings against climate change and invest in roof-top solar power. Become a green super power. There is lots to do.
Of course the biggest resource in the prairie provinces is the people. Alberta boasts the youngest population with the most university degrees per capita, and a highly skilled workforce with the highest incomes in Canada. It is hard to understand why intelligent people cannot accept that the world is in climate crisis and the demand for high cost, carbon intensive fossil fuels is set to fall off a cliff. It is not just Alberta. Across Canada people are in denial about the severity of the climate emergency. The IPCC has said that we now have about 11 years to get our emissions well down below today’s levels. That doesn’t mean that we can start in 11 years. There are over a billion trucks and cars worldwide today, there are fossil fueled power plants, cement production plants and methane-belching cows. Most of them will still be around in 11 years. To avoid massive environmental catastrophe and society breakdown we have to start reducing right now. This will lead to big job losses and a need for retraining. It is no time to down tools. There are huge challenges ahead, but also opportunities as we transition to a low carbon society. Change is difficult, but you have to move on.
I learned a few hard lessons during my own experience with disruption. The first is to learn the causes of your problems. Can you affect them or are they market changes that are beyond your control? You have to look beyond your immediate environment and not play the blame game. The second is to react as quickly as possible. The longer you procrastinate the harder your adjustment will be. I waited too long. The third is that change is difficult, often painful, but absolutely necessary. Finally, you must have a solid plan and act on it. Unfortunately, the leaders of Alberta and Saskatchewan are not even past stage one. They are actively fighting attempts to meet the GHG targets that the Trudeau has proposed in response to President Biden’s climate initiatives. Neither is the rest of Canada for passively accepting and acceding to their rants.
John Horgan was elected Premier of B.C. partly on the promise to use all the “tools in the toolbox” to stop the construction of the Kinder Morgan raw bitumen pipeline. Groups such as Coast Protectors are angry that their voices have not been heard concerning a project that is being rammed through their territories. They have vowed to stop the pipeline by any means. Construction continues and Horgan seems to have lost his enthusiasm for opposing it.
In May, 2016 I thought that I could add to the boating protests against the Kinder Morgan, (now Trans Mountain) Pipeline at their Burnaby Mountain shipping terminal. We welded a giant black sausage out of kayak hull fabric which I towed behind my kayak. It did not go over too well. There was a breeze and the big bag pulled me around like a tail wagging a dog. I mostly just managed to get in the way of people. The protests spooked Kinder Morgan and they later sold the pipeline project to the Trudeau government. Now the People’s Pipeline is over budget but still under construction behind a wall of secrecy that even withholds the name of the company that is insuring it.
What Horgan initially did to so anger the Premier of Alberta was to insist on studies examining the effect of dilbit[1] on the marine environment. A review by concerned scientists found only four papers that reviewed direct impacts of bitumen on oceans. Not much is known.
On Sunday July 25, 2010 an Enbridge Energy pipeline burst spilling in excess of one million gallons of dilbit into the Kalamazoo River in Michigan. The volatile hydrocarbon diluents evaporated and the heavier bitumen sank to the river bottom. The cleanup did not go well. A large area surrounding the spill site had to be evacuated due to the toxicity of the diluent. The U.S. National Transportation Safety Board chair, Deborah Hersman likened the responders to the “Keystone Kops”. The river was closed and in 2013 additional dredging was ordered.
That event was in fresh water. Would dilbit sink in saltwater? It depends. For one thing, the exact chemistry of the diluent is proprietary and differs amongst producers. For what it’s worth, investigators think that it may float unless there is sediment in the water, or wave action, or upwelling or wind or organic matter in the water, or the water is warm. Then, who knows?
The past government officials in B.C. liked to talk about “world class spill response”. So far, the best that has been achieved in real world emergencies is about 15% to 30% recovery. Retired Commander Frederick E. Moxey, who once commanded the Kitsilano Coast Guard Station, said in his experience “usually you recover 30 per cent at most, more like 10, and that’s with an immediate response and a trained crew with sponges and straw pulling the oil out by hand.” A dilbit spill could be much harder to deal with because the diluent would be toxic and unapproachable until it evaporated. Once it had, if the bitumen sank due to any number of conditions it would be impossible to recover.
If the pipeline goes ahead, 408 Aframax tankers a year, each 245 meters long and carrying 750,000 barrels of bitumen, could depart from Burnaby’s Westridge Marine Terminal only at high tide and sail through the Second Narrows and First Narrows, past Stanley Park, the Fraser River Estuary (still with one of the largest salmon runs in the world) out through the Strait of Georgia and Haro Strait and along surprisingly pristine marine areas that support an astonishing variety and abundance of life.
While claiming the moral high ground by standing up to the Kinder Morgan Pipeline, Premier Horgan is also backing a massive LNG terminal being constructed in Kitimat. Alberta’s former premier, Rachel Notley has called this “environmental hypocrisy”. She has a point. If the project goes ahead, B.C. will be unlikely to meet its own GHG targets, just like Alberta. You can’t have it both ways. (More on LNG later).
There is nothing hypocritical about the stand of all of the First Nations that have territory near the ocean. They are dead against it. (107 First Nations in Alberta and B.C. impacted by the pipeline are opposed, 43 inland groups are in support.) The Tseil-Waututh Nation’s lands include territory directly across from the terminal where the tankers will dock. They conducted a study of the probabilities of different spill scenarios using Kinder Morgan’s own data. According to their report, over a fifty-year period there is a 79- 87% likelihood of a spill, a 37% chance of a spill larger than 10,000 barrels and a 29% likelihood of a worst-case spill over 100,000 barrels. They consider these probabilities unacceptable. They are leading protests, and will continue until the project is stopped. Perhaps now is the time that we should be listening to these voices.
Leaders and oil execs in a number of provinces are still opposing the carbon levy, even though economists call it the most cost effective way to reduce emissions. It is helpful to remember that the former premier of B.C., Christie Clarke, froze the B.C. carbon tax that had been instituted by her own party. Tax policies come and go with changes of governments and even changes of leadership within the same party. This is another reason why it is especially important that we do not build pipelines that enable increased oil sands production. Pipelines last for 45 years. Already fires have burned across the whole Arctic, creating a cloud of smoke greater than Europe. Calgary has been inundated by floods and Fort McMurray has burned. Australia in 2019 and 2020 experienced truly horrendous bushfires and millions of animals died. We are becoming pariahs amongst the millions of young people around the globe who are looking for climate leadership.
[1] Dilbit (diluted bitumen) is a bitumen diluted with one or more lighter petroleum products, typically natural-gas condensates such as naphtha. Diluting bitumen makes it much easier to transport, for example in pipelines. Per the Alberta Oil Sands Bitumen Valuation Methodology, “Dilbit Blends” means “Blends made from heavy crudes and/or bitumens and a diluent, usually natural-gas condensate, for the purpose of meeting pipeline viscosity and density specifications, where the density of the diluent included in the blend is less than 800 kg/m3.”[1] If the diluent density is greater than or equal to 800 kg/m3, the diluent is typically synthetic crude and accordingly the blend is called synbit.
24. Kagoshima to Okinawa (Entered June 1, 2021)
The archipelago that extends from the main Japanese island of Kyushu in a southwesterly arc all the way to Yonaguni Island, just 60NM from Taiwan, covers a distance of 650 nautical miles. From the 15th to the 19th century it was part of the Ryukyu Kingdom. Although the Ryukyuan people once fended off a demand by Kublai Khan to submit to Mongol suzerainty, over time they became increasingly under the influence of China. This changed in 1609 when the Shimazu clan from Satsuma, Kyushu, successfully invaded the islands. Throughout all of this, people successfully travelled and traded back and forth amongst the islands. A strong current flows north along the coast of Taiwan and then peels off north east and flows along the island chain and past the east side of Kyushu. This is called the Kuroshio, or black current, and is the second strongest current on the planet, after the Gulf Stream. A few years ago I was paddling off the coast of Okinawa, which is the largest island in the archipelago, with a number of Japanese friends and we were talking about the Ryukyuan people. I wondered how they had managed to sail south, against the current. It was during fall and there was a strong northerly blowing at the time. I think that it was Kasahara-san who said something like “well, the wind blows north east for most of the year but reverses in the fall and blows to the south west, like this. We could do it.” For centuries and centuries the Chinese, Japanese, Ryukyuan and all the other people in the area used this knowledge. Sail north in summer, south in winter. And that is how the idea was born that we would sail and paddle all the way from Kyushu to Taiwan in the fall, with the wind, hopefully, but always against the current.
October 8, 2007, Camp 1, Ohama Beach, east side of Kagoshima Bay
Daisuke Akatsu dropped us off here from the airport. It’s been a whirlwind. Literally too, as Typhoon Krosa is supposed to be bouncing off China and heading our way. Category 4 or 5, could delay us quite some time. Matsomoto-san and Okusan drove here from Fukuoka with Shiro-Ose. Dan is still raving about his yakisoba. Today we drove to Sata and walked to the lighthouse in driving wind and rain. Looks typhoon-ish.
October 11, 2007
Still here. Matsamoto’s dog, Rocky, is such a horny dog. He tries to mount all of our legs, but Shiro is his true love. Incessant, unstoppable. Today we packed the kayaks, organized, threw the disc in the water, swam, ate a great lunch at Taka’s family restaurant buffet. Right now Rocky is trying to mount Taka’s arm.
Plans change. Nakamura-san’s mom is getting better and he will be joining us with Jun Saito on the 13th. This made me happy. I first met Nakamura-san ten years ago in Kerama, Okinawa. He is a compact man with a quiet, almost saintly disposition. For years he has run a popular kayak touring business out of Naha, including with our double kayaks and sail rigs. He is also a master Sabani sailor. Sabani is a small paddling/sailing craft developed in the Okinawa Prefecture consisting of a thick timber bottom scraped out of a single log, and cedar side planking. With its curved, rockered bottom and high stern it handles large following swells with ease. It can be tippy and tricky to sail. If fitted with an outrigger a large sail can be deployed. These are based on Chinese junk designs and are both efficient and elegant. For his Feathercraft fleet Nakamura-san had designed and sewn by hand some smaller junk sails. I had brought a batwing-style sail designed by a Vancouver sail maker and was interested in comparing its performance with Naky’s. I learned early in Kerama that this gentle man was deadly with a fish spear. He never missed.
Everyone is talking about the Kuroshio (black current that swoops up in a north easterly direction from Taiwan, past Kagoshima and north up the coast of Japan) but nobody seems to know how strong it is.
October 13, 2007
Campsite beside highway near Nagasaki Hana. Oddly quiet beside the road, we are not supposed to be here, so we pitched tents after dark. Commando camping.
This is our first night without hearing the fake happy tones emanating from speakers all over the place. At our first campsite at Ohama it was Edelweiss every 6 am. Also bright lights in campsite all night long. That’s why sleeping near the highway is better.
A few nights ago a Canadian (Derek), who owns an English school in, I think, Taramizu (sounds like the dessert) and two Americans came up to our camp to visit, at night. One of the Americans is renting a 150-year-old wood house near the campsite. He talked about the bugs in the house, about spiders, bigger than an open hand, bigger than Tarantulas (true, I think) and about foot-long centipedes, big suckers (also true). He carried on. “They bite. It’s the most painful thing you could (hopefully) endure. They are the most agile insect, they attack birds.” On and on. (Mukade wari des)
Meanwhile Evan was drinking this in, as well as his beer, imagination in overdrive. The visitors left and Evan and Dan went back to our cabin. When Evan picked up a bag an 8-inch-long centipede squirted out. I arrived to find him swinging furiously but ineffectively with a mop while Dan was laughing uproariously. I managed to impale it repeatedly with the mop handle against the log wall of the cabin and after a while it stopped writhing. Whew. What timing. The guy also said that when you kill one, its mate comes looking for revenge. Evan had to be reassured about that.
During that night Shiro shared a story about when he was in Mongolia. He has a strong, broad forehead and powerful, stocky body. He told us that when he was riding a horse there people kept asking him for directions. They thought he was a local. He is Japanese but jokes that he is Mongolian. He’s a character and natural born leader. (I first met him years ago when he worked for our distributor in Tokyo, but once he was married he and his wife bought a 150 year old traditional house near Lake Biwa. It has cedar sides that are burnt to preserve them and an original inside area for farm animals. Now he has a thriving business selling, fixing and touring with our kayaks.)
October 14, 2007 At sea at last!
We’ve been out from Kaimon Mountain for all of a couple of hours, left at 7:25 am, up at 5, good for us. Light, 8-knot breeze, down from 12 knots. Still moving over 3 kn, feels slow compared to the 4.8 we were doing initially. Mondanai. I’m scribbling these notes in the bow, Nakamura-san is steering, running before the breeze with Sabani sail, a junk design that Nakamura-san downsized to fit with our little boats.
This morning Naky was raring to go, we shot off the beach like a cannon. So here we have the only guy in the group who doesn’t know how to use a GPS in the lead. But with me using my GPS and him setting a corresponding compass course we actually set a pretty straight line. I think, also, that Naky could find his way to our destination, though sight unseen, without any of these aids, just like the old days. He’s a really good sailor.
Dan’s now ahead, he’s thrown up a spinnaker, always wants to be ahead. We are gaining on him now with a jib up. I think that our junk sail may be faster than his bat sail type that we’ve been using up till now. You can also reef it to any size you want.
I like Jun Saito, the new guy (to me). 40, looks younger, short, fit, fairly big arms, a writer/journalist. He’s hiked around Shikoku two times, visiting all of the Buddhist temples along the way, it’s a classic hike. He’s also hiked a lot along the west side of South America, from Peru to Patagonia.
October 15, 2007 Io shima
Yesterday we had a fair breeze for about three hours and then it died. As we paddled we kept hoping that the wind would pick up and eventually it did, but in the wrong direction, directly in our faces. We paddled for another seven hours. We were slowed down by a current averaging maybe 1.9 knots, not good. At that rate we would have arrived here at around 11 PM. But slowly the wind backed until it was westerly, on our beam and we were flying. I reefed the sail one bar and this seemed to work better. Shiro was out of control some of the time, his sail seemed hauled in too close. When we finally rounded the west cape on Io shima, in the final twilight of the day a flood tide surged out to greet our incoming wind and created huge waves, which threatened to swallow us whole. Shiro said later that he thought he was going to die! Naky and I cut the point too close, I think that we had language issues on what to do. In the pitch black we had to make our way through a bunch of reefs. I hate arriving in the dark. Better to leave in the dark and arrive in the morning.
Now I know why these guys wanted to come here, despite the longer crossing. This place is a jewel. Big smoking volcano, we had a great swim and bath at the Higashi Hotsprings overlooking the sea, and dived into the sea to cool off. Tremendous. Roads through bamboo forests.
Our camp is right at the foot of a great cliff face, with the ubiquitous highway stapled to the top, going: nowhere? To the cape for a view, I guess, from a town of just 30 at present. All the young ones gone.
This was, 200 years ago, a penal place for samurai. Many famous warriors were interned here as the government increasingly broke the old guard down. It was also a fishing village, but most of the fish are gone and with high fuel costs, casting a line or net is uneconomic. There are a few lonely fishing boats here, but they catch mostly for local consumption.
Now it is 5:33 pm, the sun has been below the west cliff for some time, it’s just on the volcano. We have toilets, a shower, a cooking area, it’s total.
Our group posed for a photo for a Kagoshima newspaper. The coast guard saw it and have become very concerned, phoning Shiro many times. They are warning us that the Kuroshio is very strong right now, running at 4 knots. A fisherman who went to an island near here couldn’t get back against it, they said. On the other hand, there was supposed to be a lesser Kuroshio yesterday and wasn’t. Certainly our Japanese hosts are conservative and tend to mull over these things endlessly.
My question to my Japanese friends was always: how, without motors, did the Ryukyuan people do this? And why not just try? My point was that if the current is too strong, you’ll just end up pretty close to where you started. O.K. Maybe a little farther east. As long as you avoid the tropical storms and typhoons that pop up with increasing regularity, what’s the problem? Read the weather forecasts and go. They didn’t see it that way.
For thousands of years seafarers along Asia’s eastern shores have known that prevailing winds blow north in summer and turn south sometime in September or October. Sure, we were trying, as planned, to go against the north-flowing Kuroshio current. And we knew that if we had strong winds from the north filling our sails we would likely encounter some big seas as the wind worked against the current. But that is what I thought we signed up for.
Of course, I didn’t, as a gaishin (foreigner) have the coast guard breathing down my neck. And I was ignorant of local conditions. In the end we paddled to Kuchinoerabu shima and then over to Yaku shima where we took a ferry first back to Kagoshima and then on to Amami shima. Then we paddled to the big island of Okinawa.
At Kuchinoerabu we were invited aboard a research ship by the captain. The crew offered us a great feast and endless shochu and whisky. They just kept pouring. While the young guys were doing their thing, I asked the captain about the Kuroshio. He took me up to the bridge and showed me a graph of the currents that they had recently logged. Finally, some real data. I took a photo of his screen. Not so strong, these currents.
Meanwhile my two boys got drunk. Really plastered. As we were leaving, Dan tried to steady Evan as they staggered along the gangplank. I stood, helplessly, below the gangplank, meaning to catch Evan if he fell off. All 240 pounds of him. As if.
At Yaku Shima we landed at a gyoku (fishermen’s wharf). These have concrete ramps for pulling up your boats that are as slippery as a sheet of ice. I fell as soon as I stepped out of the kayak and smashed my groin against the kayak cockpit rim. My crocs were useless so I took them off. That’s when I cut the balls of my feet as I slid down into the water over shells. Shiro has found that the only effective footwear for this are neoprene boots with felt soles. He sells these. They are not particularly good for rocks, mud or wet grass, though.
My cuts are healing, which is a sign of good health, as are Dan’s. Evan remains, as always, unscathed.
Some of the locals at Yaku Shima told me that the coral is surviving locally much better than at Kerama, where I have been before. The water is a little cooler and hasn’t been inundated repeatedly yet with super warm water. Maybe there is hope for coral at slightly higher latitudes, at least until rising acidity gets it. It is wonderful to be paddling this beautiful water, but we haven’t seen any sharks, whales or fish yet. Barren. It is easy to not notice what you don’t see.
October 20, 2007 Near Ukejima 28.04, 129.3
Left Amami, approaching Ukejima, sailing today for Tokunoshima, about 24 NM. Naky steering. I can see the other two Sabani sails, behind. Do they ever look great! Sailing in a double folding kayak of my own design quite similar in shape to the large Aleut baidarkas of old. Polynesian style outriggers. Chinese junk sail adapted by Tadaki Nakamura-san. Beautiful fusion.
Amami is much more tropical. Evan is concerned about the extremely poisonous snakes, and yes, a bite will kill you if left untreated. They have sticks placed against the shell rock walls in case you come across one. Better not to hike in tall grass.
It’s cloudy, but the water still has a more azure tinge, even when it is deep, as it now is. Seems actually to run purple. Yes, that’s closer.
On the ferry from Kagoshima the wind was strong-predicted NW 25, gusts above that. Pretty good seas, we all wondered how our new rigs would take that. Tadaki said that his Sabani wood mast would have broken. Why did I find that reassuring? In any event, we would run up a small jib with a backstay and hope to ride it out.
10:22: Shiro and Jun are some ways behind us. They’ve thrown up their spinnaker, good idea, we’ll see if they can close in on us. Better to be together. Dan and Evan are just a little ways back, Evan steering. Dan is paddling, to catch up. Naky’s the best sailor in our group.
October 22, 2007 Okino-erabu-shima 27.37, 128.6
17:44: getting dark. Gyoko. good day today. Yesterday Tadaki Nakamura steered, today my turn. About 30 NM in moderate winds with some gusts to near 20. Main and spinnakers most of the way.
October 23, 2007
Approaching Yoron-jima. 27.08, 128.43. 2 NM. This morning, leaving, we met heavy chop rounding the jetty. Broke the leeside leeboard, screws pulled out of wood, which split. We were able to fix it using 5 yen coins, which have holes, as washers. Most of today running off wind with junk main sail and small yellow jib. Very helpful, the jib makes for easier steering.
At Tokuno-shima a guy who owns a Chinese restaurant saw us come into the gyoko, offered us his tatami room above the restaurant. That evening, all smiling in his dirty white cook outfit, he brought up some beer and sashimi: mackerel caught that same day. Dan, who doesn’t really like fish remarked that this was one of the very best parts of the journey: meeting local people, enjoying food and beer together. Even fish.
October 26, 2007 Izena-shima 26.913, 127.94
Yesterday was quite a ride. Winds forecast to be 17 NE were actually east at 20, gusts to 30. Reported 3.5 m seas. Shiro steered, as did Evan most of the way. Dan puked, poor guy. Our foot pedals slip, so Shiro steered with Sabani steering oar. We maxed out at 9.8 kn, averaged over 5. Good handling with the Sabani oars for steering, not possible with just rudder. Nakamura-san and Saito-san took a ferry from Yoron on to Naha. Maybe see them soon.
It is morning. I am sitting beneath a large outcropped rock, in the shade, at this beautiful beach. On one side of me is a large rock towering over the beach. It is called Riku Gita ra, or “landrock” in the traditional Ryukyuan language. On the other side is the Uume Gita ra, or “searock”. In the old days, before even the Shinto Shrine came, there were gods in these rocks.
Good talk in the blazing sun with Shiro. For him it’s been a good trip so far, he’s impressed with the reality of sailing kayaks. He would rather do the longer crossings on another trip. He’s learned so much so far, as have I. Dan also needs to get a grip on his seasickness before we go on. He’s been puking his brains out. Yellow bile, dehydrated.
Now the water has drained from our beautiful world, no diving, reefs dry. But then I saw Shiro heading out, walking on the dead coral, so I followed, though I was able to swim through the channels, sandals on my hands, wearing flippers and mask. Lots of depth past the first reefs, cavernous. Sadly, most of the coral is dead. Still a few fish, but how many more there would be if the coral was alive!
The cicadas buzz loud here, just like the Bahamas. It’s incessant. In the distance I can see the big island of Okinawa. Nearest, Bise, is 12.5 kn away. Looks farther. Strong winds blowing across our path.
October 27, 2007 Izena Shima
Followed a whole raft of butterflies up a trail. Lots of different kinds. Took some photos. At the road saw cyclists and joggers practicing for tomorrow’s triathlon. Then I found myself wandering along old lanes, amongst Chinese graves with distinctively shaped curved tombs. Eventually down one particularly obscure lane I stumbled onto a cave opening that had been partially protected by a coral rock wall. Inside were human bones, a number of generations of family, I guess.
October 30, 2007 At Nakamura-san’s home, Naha
The day before yesterday, from Izena Shima to Bise, was calm, hot and a lot of work for just 13 NM.
We toured the Okinawa Churaumi Aquarium at Motobu. It was an amazing place with huge, 2 storey tanks full of an astounding variety of fish, big and small. All of this is at great risk with the decline of coral. I was hoping to see something on the death of so much coral right outside the aquarium, but nothing. I asked Shiro if I had missed something, I couldn’t read much of the displays after all, but “no”, he said, “There’s nothing about that here.” “How could that be?” I asked a number of people. I was met by a wall of polite agreeableness.
Here we have threats to this vast orchestra of fish, coral, crustaceans, mammals, plankton and plants, an underwater symphony of interconnected organisms in danger of coming crashing down, and the answer was calm silence. I’m ranting. No apologies.
Yesterday we were all, of course, hoping for a favorable wind. It was our last day on the water, it was hot, and the energy seemed to have been sucked out of us. The day started with a fine breeze and it lasted all morning, building momentum at Zanpa Point. There the tide turned against us and big slurpy waves came at us just as we surged over the dead, but still dangerous coral reefs. Once past the reefs, coming towards the beach, we could see Naky 4000 and his van. Dan immediately dove into the water and started shaking and trying to swamp our boat so I dove and got into his. Then we both swam ashore.
Once ashore Dan and Shiro did what they do best: they wrestled. It was Shiro’s savvy judo technique against Dan’s brawn. They went at it hard, straining, rolling on the sand over and over. After a while two people dressed immaculately in white tuxedos came down and politely asked the two sand-encrusted pugilists to please stop. There was a formal wedding going on in a building overlooking the beach directly above us.
During the trip Nakamura-san became known as the Naky 4000 paddling robot. He was the most up-to-date paddling robot available, the one that never looks back. He and I were almost always in the lead, whether paddling or sailing. We were moving along as only two older guys who have lost a lot of brain cells to the sun and sea can do. We were known as kuso jijis (fogies is a polite description) and the others were Kuso gakis (punks).
25. Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) (Entered June 1, 2021)
Perhaps the most beautiful and prolific of all seascapes are the warm waters that surround the Bird’s Head Peninsula of Papua New Guinea. The area includes more than 2,500 islands and 760,000 Indonesians live on its shores. There are more species of fish, corals and crustaceans than anywhere else on the planet. Scientists believe that most tropical species originated there in the “cauldron of evolution” and then migrated to other areas. You will find much more complexity and diversity than, say, in the Caribbean. By the 1990s this area had been devastated by large commercial fisheries, including illegal dynamite fishing, trawling and poaching. Some fisheries were reporting a 90% decline in catches.
Things starting changing for the better in 2004 when a number of environmental organizations, including Conservation International, The Nature Conservancy, the WWF, and the government of Indonesia, got together with local people and established a network of 12 marine protected areas (MPAs) covering more than 5.2 million hectares. Today, in those areas, fish, sharks, whales, and rays have returned, coral is recovering somewhat, poaching is way down and tourism is flourishing.
In the 1970’s the villagers on the island of Sumilon[1], in the province of Cebu, Philippines, troubled by the growing scarcity of fish, sought help from academics from Silliman University and James Cook University. They established a small MPA on their western shore (9.431, 123.387). The fish and coral life came back. After a change in leadership in 1984 reopened the reserve for fishing, stocks dropped by half within a year. Once the area was re-protected, the fishery bounced back, establishing the connection between protection and marine stocks. On the nearby island of Apo (9.08, 123.27) the villagers have kept their reserve area for over 25 years and increased stocks over eleven times.
Japanese eat an incredible amount of seafood. Although they are certainly decimating stocks of tuna and other large migratory fish caught overseas, a lot of what they eat is caught locally. I have wondered how they maintain stocks. A 2010 study provides some of the answers. (“Coastal Marine Protected Areas in Japan and Their Institutional Characteristics”, Noboyuki Yagi, Yukiko Takada, Hisashi Kurokura, all from the Univ. of Tokyo). They noted that informal marine protection areas, managed from the bottom up, have been in place for some 250 years. Tenured fishing areas have been awarded to individuals who have vested interests in monitoring their own activities and others in their communities. There are over 1,000 MPAs structured this way. In addition, there are some government-imposed MPAs structured from the top down. There are 1,003 no-take zones. This system seems to work quite well. It depends on the government awarding tenure rights to fishing areas combined with the fishers’ accumulated knowledge on how to best manage the fishery. MPAs are an important part of this management strategy.
Many of the most spectacularly successful marine reserves have been initiated by local people, with the help of expert advisors. This is one of the key requirements for success. Locals must be included and in fact are often best at monitoring and nurturing fisheries. Experts need to study the current situation, plan where best to situate the reserve and establish measurable goals. Although most of these early reserves are very small, size does matter. Scientists agree that a minimum size of 100 km2 is required to truly protect an area. Fish need space. A minimum of 30% of a marine bioregion is required.
An article in Scientific American (February, 2018) warned against lax MPAs. Many reserves are in name only and allow industrial fishing and resource extraction. Today only 1.8% of the earth’s seas are in protected areas where either no fishing or only artisanal fishing for local consumption is accepted. In coastal U.S. waters only .03% are no-take. The figure for Australia and Canada was less than 1% in 2016. In over one-third of Canada’s MPAs, oil and gas activities are permitted.
It is important that MPAs are set up to protect marine species. This may seem obvious, but it is often not the case. A study by Dalhousie University looked at 727 MPAs in Europe. (Boris Worm, senior author: “Elevated trawling inside protected areas undermines conservation outcomes in a global fishing hotspot,” Science, Dec. 21, 2018) It found that industrial fishing was present in at least 59% of the areas and trawling was 38% higher in “protected” areas than in non-protected areas. Half of the MPAs had no management plan and 99% had no information on no-take zones. The study also noted that critically endangered species such as sharks and rays were five times more abundant in non-MPA areas. No management plan, no no-take zones, no enforcement because there is nothing to enforce. Often industrial fishing is done in these zones because the fishing is known to be good (so far) and it has also been suggested that they are fishing ruthlessly now because fishing might be reduced in the future. A study in 2020 by Oceana, a conservation NGO, found that bottom trawling and dredging, the most destructive forms of fishing, were been done in 71 of 73 off shore MPAs around the UK, covering 97% of the protected areas.
There have been some very large reserves established lately. Britain has created vast no-take reserves around Pitcairn Island in the Pacific. U.S. President Barrack Obama expanded the Papahanaumokuakea Marine Monument, which surrounds the northwestern Hawaiian island, to twice the size of Texas. But there is little fishing in these areas. Even so, the recently defeated President of the U.S. had plans to open this and other national monuments to commercial fishing. The U.S. is the only U.N. member state to not ratify the Convention on Biological Diversity. Today 86% of MPAs globally are tied up in just 21 reserves in mostly tropical waters, away from populations and where there is little fishing.
Canada has the world’s longest coastline and one of the worst records of protecting its ocean heritage. The current federal government has stated that it will create MPAs covering a U.N.-mandated 10% of territorial waters, so far with mixed results.
The proposed Laurentian Channel MPA was originally planned by marine biologists to be a template for future MPAs that the government hoped to create. But then the fossil fuel lobbyists started talking to the politicians. The area was reduced by one-third to 11,619 square kilometers and offshore drilling is now to be allowed in over 80% of the territory. Climate scientists insist that the fossil fuel companies are sitting on far more reserves than they can burn, so offshore exploration for more is pointless. Fake news? Now we have fake MPAs.
By all accounts the marine conservation area being established in Tallurutiup Imanga/Lancaster Sound is going to be spectacular. It’s huge: 110,00 square kilometers. The region has been called the Serengeti of the north. It is home to 75% of the world’s narwhals in summer, polar bears, walruses, seals and many bird species. Shell Global has relinquished its exploration permits in the area and management will be based on Inuit traditional knowledge. No commercial fisheries or oil and gas exploration will be allowed. Other matters, such as artisanal fisheries and hunting are still being worked out. Wow. This has all the hallmarks of success: local input and management, traditional Inuit and scientific knowledge, huge area, no large scale fishery, no oil and gas, and apparently minimal political interference. It’s an area I’ve dreamed of going to.
The one time Eric and I were planning on going there was an unusually large ice pack. Everything was iced tight and we went to West Greenland instead. Maybe someday.
In 1984 a bottom-dredging expedition accidentally stumbled across some unusual specimens two kilometers down off the coast of Vancouver Island. A submersible was sent down with two scientists and to their astonishment they saw six-story tall spires, teaming with life. These were huge chimneys spewing volcanic heat and sulphur gases. A dozen of the species especially adapted to sulphides in the gas are found nowhere else. The volume of creatures is comparable to what is found in tropical rainforests.
In 2003 the federal government designated “the Endeavour Hydrothermal Vents” as Canada’s first MPA. It covers 97 square kilometers and the water column above it. Now there are plans to expand the area to 139,700 square kilometers, or four and a half times the size of Vancouver Island. Dredging, mining and oil drilling would be prohibited, although not surface fishing. There are numerous seamounts in the area that would be included in the MPA. (source: Jimmy Thomson, The Narwhal, June 27, 2019)
One technically advanced area where MPAs have been effectively planned and supported is California. The state insisted their MPAs be subject to expert scientific input. Not politics. Rigorous baseline data was first collected and areas established. Long-term monitoring is conducted statewide. A network of 124 stakeholder-driven MPAs covering 16% of the state, excluding San Francisco Bay, has been established. Three fifths are no-take. Already, after 10 years, fish are bigger and more numerous and spreading out into non-protected zones. As in many areas, California is leading the way, balancing conservation with commercial development.
The seas surrounding the Seychelles Islands have long been a diving and tourist mecca. But industrial overfishing and the recent effects of climate change have threatened the corals, tuna, dolphins, turtles, sharks and fish that the area is famous for. The mass bleaching events of 1998 and more recently in 2016 have devastated corals around several of the islands, especially Curieuse Island.
According to Damian Carrington writing in The Guardian, the Seychelles are planning to finance two large MPAs in an innovative way. The most spectacular area is the Aldabra archipelago (-9.4, 46.3). Huge colonies of seabirds soar above while 100,000 rare giant tortoises roam the island. In the surrounding waters swim spinner dolphins, humpback whales, lemon, nurse and tiger sharks, manta rays and the endangered dugongs, or sea cows. In exchange for creating an MPA surrounding Aldabra that is 74,000 km, almost the size of Scotland, and another around the main island of Mahe that is 134,000 square kilometers, the Nature Conservancy bought $22 million of national debt owed to the UK, France, Belgium and Italy. $5 million more is being raised from donors, including $1 million from Leonardo DiCaprio. $12 million has been set aside for managing the area over the next 20 years. This first ever debt swap for marine protection is a model that other developing countries, such as Grenada and Mauritius may be interested in pursuing.
To understand why establishing MPAs is so vitally important it is helpful to understand the scale of industrial fishing worldwide. A study of satellite data from 70,000 large and small fishing vessels published in the journal Science, led by David Kroodsma, research and development director for U.S.-based charity Global Fishing Watch, stunned the researchers when they looked at the map and saw the extent of industrial fishing. It covers most of the world’s oceans. The study was partly funded by actor Leonardo DiCaprio, with input from academics from the universities of Stanford, California, Dalhousie, National Geographic and Google. The data showed that “five countries account for 85% of commercial fishing measured by hours at sea. Half of that is China; other large-scale operators include Spain, Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan- which is smaller than Switzerland, and with a population of just 23 million.” (Juliette Jowit, Guardian, February 22, 2018)
Another study published in Scientific American led by Daniel Pauly, UBC, compared China’s reported catch from 2000 to 2011 of 368,000 tons a year with an actual catch estimated at around 4.6 million tons a year, more than 12 times the reported figure. Of that, the authors estimated 2.9 million tons came from West Africa. Fishing is under-reported worldwide and treasured marine areas must be protected.
Pauly is promoting a global ban on high-seas fishing. He has noted that as a result of overfishing, less than 10 percent of global fisheries comes from the open ocean. Such a policy would enable smaller, coastal nations to increase their catch. The big, open-ocean fleets are currently massively subsidized by their host countries. Japan has the biggest subsidies, followed by China, which takes the most fish. Pauly points out: “If the catch were not being made by these foreign fleets, it would be made by coastal countries [in Africa or Southeast Asia]…All these species [like cod and tuna] would benefit from being left alone in the high seas…If high-seas fishing were banned, fishermen would actually catch more.” (Richard Schiffman, September 27, 2018, Yale Environment 360) Another study by researchers in USA, Canada and Australia found that as much “as 54% of the high seas fishing industry would be unprofitable at its existing scale without big government studies.” (Zhuang Pinghui, South China Post, June 7, 2018)
In 2002 the UN declared an aspirational goal of preserving 10% of the oceans in marine protected zones by 2010. By 2016, since the creation of five mega MPAs off the coasts of St. Helena’s, Chile, Hawaii, Palau and the Pitcairn Islands, 5% of the oceans were protected. It’s a start. However, as noted, these five regions are not where most of the fish are. More importantly, many marine scientists, including Callum Roberts, insist that 30% is the minimum area that should be protected, and that the areas should be large and inter-connected.
Needed: places of refuge for distressed marine species, worldwide. Also: it’s not enough to declare a protected marine area. You have to enforce it. Strong satellite surveillance and coast guard and navy enforcement is required. A great help for developing countries such as those in West Africa might be investments in MPAs by environmental organizations and other nations, using the Seychelles MPAs as an inspiration. There is a lot of good work that needs to be done.
In November, 2018 delegates from 22 countries met in Tasmania to create the world’s biggest sanctuary in Antarctica. This was a golden opportunity to protect species including whales, leopard seals and penguins. It would also have been important in combating climate change, as the area soaks up large quantities of CO2 from the atmosphere. Unfortunately unanimous agreement was needed to pass and China, Russia and Norway ensured the plan was rejected.
Hopefully an ambitious program for protecting 30% of the world’s oceans by 2030 will be more successful. There has been intensive negotiations amongst nations for the past two years and a vote on the UN Ocean Treaty was scheduled for 2020. This vote was postponed due to the Covid 19 pandemic. Dr. Sandra Schoettner, from Greenpeace’s global ocean sanctuaries campaign, who is involved in the negotiations, said: “This is a blueprint for ocean protection that would safeguard the full spectrum of marine life, help tackle the crisis facing our oceans and enable their recovery.” (Matthew Taylor, “Campaign to save oceans maps out global network of sanctuaries”, April 3, 2019, The Guardian) There is hope.
Canada’s liberal government has recently added some large MPAs in arctic waters. This is praiseworthy. However, most of the “protected areas” are sparsely populated, not all of them prohibit oil, gas and commercial fishing activities, and there is the big question of enforcement.
The amazing thing is that according to numerous studies, the incredible life of the world’s oceans could be restored within a generation if MPAs were properly designed and restrictions enforced, fishing was regulated and pollution reduced. Researchers have also learned that seaweed and shell fish farms, mangroves and salt marshes soak up huge amounts of CO2 and bolster shorelines against rising sea levels. Jacques Cousteau said it in 1979: “We must plant the sea…using the ocean as farmers instead of hunters. That is what civilization is all about-farming replacing hunting.”
[1] A long-term, spatially replicated experimental test of the effect of marine reserves on local fish yields Angel C. Alcala, Garry R. Russ, Aileen P. Maypa, and Hilconida P. Calumpong, https://researchonline.jcu.edu.au/6055/1/6055_Alcala_et_al_2005.pdf
26. Natural Gas and the Pin Cushion Effect (Entered July 1, 2021)
April 7, 2018
It is true that burning natural gas produces fewer GHGs than burning smelly, dirty coal or oil. But that’s just half the story. Gas’s reputation took a major hit in 2011 when Cornell professor, Robert Howarth, published a study arguing that the upstream emissions during drilling, transporting and processing were much higher than those claimed by the oil and gas industry. This was especially true for the hydraulic fracturing of shale gas where, he said, drilling took much longer with more time for fugitive gas to escape and “blowbacks” occurred as gas rushed to the surface before the well could be capped. He pointed out that prior studies had used estimates of fugitive gas emissions of conventional gas wells provided by oil and gas executives dating back to 1996. His was the first peer-reviewed study to look at unconventional gas using hydraulic fracturing. He estimated that 8% of the methane in shale gas wells leaks into the atmosphere.
If this is true, fracked gas has total emissions the same as, or worse than, coal or oil. He noted that he did not have complete data and wanted to do “micrometeorological fluxes of methane at the time of venting and get a real number on this, which has never been done.”[1]
While attacks from industry came quickly, most commentators seem to be either unaware of the problem or choose to ignore it. It’s not going away because now some measurements are being done. A study published in Elementa and noted in an Environmental Defense blog by Dale Marshall, Mar 22, 2018, found that the total methane gas emissions in 60 study areas of light oil and natural gas sites around Red Deer, Alberta, were 15 times higher than reported levels. The authors called for much more stringent standards and practices. The Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers (CAPP) disputes the findings and claims that on-site measuring would be prohibitively expensive. Instead they rely on outdated computer models.
A different study by GreenPath energy found that “95% of pneumatic devices at conventional oil and gas facilities vented methane and other gases such as benzene.” (GreenPath 2016 Alberta Fugitive and Vented Emissions Inventory Study). There are over 300,000 oil and gas wells in Alberta and 25,000 in B.C., with more on the way, plus, in Alberta, over 200,000 abandoned wells. No one knows how many are leaking but estimates range from 10% to a majority. Nor do they know how much methane, benzene and xylene is going up to the atmosphere because no one is counting. The land is like a giant inflated pin cushion blowing out toxins every minute, every hour, every day.
All of this matters a great deal, to the land and to the sea. Methane, the main constituent of natural gas, doesn’t last as long as CO2 in the atmosphere, but its effect is devastating. The Global Warming Potential (GWP) of methane traps up to 100 times more heat in the atmosphere over a five year period than CO2, more than 72 times over a 20 year period and more than 21 times over a hundred year time frame.
Because changes such as melting Arctic and Antarctic ice caps are happening so quickly, the 20-year time period of over 72 times CO2 is commonly used. According to the U.S. EPA data, CO2 accounts for approximately 76% of total greenhouse gas emissions and methane accounts for 16%. Natural gas is not a “bridge fuel” that will help us adapt to a cleaner energy society. It is a dangerous fossil fuel.
(Note: on a Saturday evening in April (big social night for me) as I was reading the EPA data and thinking that it was a good thing that, given the President’s scorn for climate science, the information was still available, the screen suddenly flashed and a message appeared: “We are currently updating our website to reflect EPA’s priorities under the leadership of President Trump and Administrator Pruitt”. The information I just mentioned completely disappeared and is no longer available on that site.)
Since methane lasts for a much shorter time in the atmosphere and is so potent a greenhouse gas, reducing it can be the fastest way to limit the rise in global temperatures. The first step is to measure it. Modern technology can help. The Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) has announced that it is going to launch a satellite called MethaneSAT by 2021 that will be able to measure hotspots of methane leaks all over the world. The global oil and gas industry has been extremely reluctant to measure its emissions. This could be a great tool. Potentially disruptive too.
The other major source of methane is agriculture. By some estimates it is responsible for 15% of all GHG emissions and for almost half of anthropogenic releases of methane. It is impossible to get an accurate figure given that so much of methane pollution is not monitored. Cows are the main culprit. I referred earlier to a study that indicated the production of one kilogram of beef emits as much CO2 equivalent as an average European car emits in 250 kilometers. One expert said that eating less red meat would be a better way for people to cut carbon emissions than giving up their cars. Another study submitted to Scientific American claimed that feeding a large dog beef caused as much GHG pollution as driving an SUV. This seemed so counter-intuitive the publication staff had other experts look into it. The claim was justified. Of course, people who have large dogs usually also have large SUVs, so the impact is greater still.
Cows are ruminants that digest food in their four stomachs, rather than in their intestines, as most mammals, including humans, do. The bacteria that aid in digestion cause a lot of methane which the cow belches out. One suggested solution I’ve mentioned is the addition of red seaweed to the cows’ diet. English scientists are also experimenting with other food additives, including garlic. In addition to creating five times more GHGs, raising cows also requires 28 times more land and 11 times more water than pork or chicken, and 160 times more land than growing food staples such as potatoes, wheat or rice. A third of the continental land mass in the U.S. is devoted to growing grains or pasture for raising livestock. Again, the most obvious solution would be to include these environmental costs. If they were, beef would become a luxury item. Unfortunately, beef consumption is rising rapidly in developing countries as more people are able to afford it. We need a true global carbon price fast.
About the dogs: there have been recent developments in the raising of insects for fish and human consumption. Great protein. Two billion people, mostly in Africa and South East Asia, eat insects as part of their diet. Bug bars and bug burgers are now being offered in Germany and France. I’m not yet a big fan of eating bugs, but I love fish and four-legged animals. Feed ’em to the dogs! And to the fish!
In northern B.C. a massive LNG plant led by Royal Dutch Shell, Petronas and PetroChina has been approved, thanks to over $6 billion in handouts to LNG Canada by the B.C. and federal governments. The plant will be built by U.S. construction giant, Fluor, which has never constructed a project of this type, is in financial difficulties and having to sell assets. Its share price has dropped over 70% in the last year. Over the past decade globally only 10% of LNG projects have come in under budget. This new LNG plant will blow a massive hole in B.C.’s carbon budget of reducing GHGs by 40 percent by 2030 and 80 percent by 2050. According to Marc Lee of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, “LNG Canada alone would consume between 23% and 31% of B.C.’s allowable emissions by 2030, rising to between 69% and 92% by 2050.” This doesn’t even take into account the pollution created when the fuel is burned. This is not sustainable and indicates a conscious plan on the part of the provincial government to abandon its stated climate goals. It also is in probable violation of Indigenous rights concerning land access and water safety. Governments promoting fossil fuel projects often claim that it’s about “jobs”. But it is not about “jobs” or having to choose between jobs and the environment. It’s about specific, fossil jobs, and politics and party funding. Even the 10,000 construction jobs boasted about by the federal government is completely misleading. 5,500 of those jobs will be in Zhuhai, China, which is where the huge LNG modules will be built, thanks to billions of subsidies from the B.C. and federal governments. Without government subsidies, this project would not be economically successful: Ted Nace is executive director of Global Energy Monitor: “In terms of displacing coal, economically LNG is not competitive with renewable power in Asian markets.”[2] In order to transition to renewable energy and energy efficiency we will require bold investments in emerging technologies such as wind, solar, tide, and energy storage. We will also need to invest massively in training people in these fields. This is where the energy jobs of the future will be. This project makes me very sad. And also angry. My home province was showing some leadership on climate matters. Although the carbon tax that was introduced in 2008 was modest, it was innovative, and did demonstrate that a tax could help bring down emissions without damaging the economy. Now, with LNG going ahead, B.C. will become a climate outlier, and future generations will look back on us very harshly. It seems that because it burns cleaner than oil and coal, LNG has a better reputation than it deserves, one enhanced by the oil and gas companies. People just look the other way. By far the best thing the B.C. government could do with this project is abandon it instead of its climate objectives and put the money into sustainable development and jobs training.
[1] (Cornell Chronicle, Natural gas from fracking could be ‘dirtier’ than coal, Cornell professors find, by Stacey Shackford, Aprill 11, 2011)s
[2] Ted Nace, Lydia Plante,k James Browning, “The New Gas Boom”, June, 2019
27. Okinawa to Miyako-jima (Entered July 1, 2021)
Friday, October 1, 2010
What great hosts Tak and company are. Yesterday in Tokyo: lunch in department store, katsu-don. Last night, okinomiaki in Harajaku. Tak seems to take a special delight in hosting us. Does he do the same for everyone? I think so.
Dan, Evan and I have a lot of stuff: 5 humungous bags, checked. Boat, camping gear, food. Carry-ons with the heaviest stuff to keep the big bags to 22.5 kg. Carrying the 5 big bags plus carry-ons through the strange Kabukicho red light district of Shinjuku in the rain was quite something: the boys loaded down with two of the big bags, one strapped over each shoulder and me, the old guy, leading the way through known streets with just one big bag and pack. People hawking snack bars (girl talk) and soap baths. We could have used the baths.
We saw Jun last night at dinner. He gave us all sorts of reasons not to go. High, steep waves, etc. Not to mention the current running against us the whole way. But, he said if we get to Ichigaki shima he may meet us there.
My plan, such as it is, is to wait for a good wave and weather window before leaving from either Naha or Kerma, whichever works. The 150 nautical mile open run from Kerama to Miyako-jima should be interesting. According to Fleet Numerical weather we do not have a window of opportunity for the long passage within the next 8 days, although we could go to Kerama on the third and wait.
October 5, 2010, Ginowan, Naha
No, we haven’t got our feet wet yet. But, finally, we tented last night. Best sleep by far, not stuffy heat. A strong north wind breezing through. At marina for mostly pleasure power boats, on a little grass, beneath a small tree. Our shade from the very hot sun. Tomorrow a N.E. is supposed to blow, more moderately. It’s 25 NM to Kerama. Important not to underestimate this first leg. It will take all of our daylight to get there. Shiro forgot the sails twice, we had to go back to Naky’s for them.
October 8, 2010 Zama-jima, Kerama
Paddled here on the 6th. Just before we set off from the boat ramp Shiro’s friend, the artist’ came by with a terrific breakfast which we all shared. Then Naky 4000 came too. They both wished us a good journey. These guys are great.
When we paddled away I looked back and there was Naky, peering through the chain link fence, looking forlorn. He stood there for a long time. He wanted to come, but now he is a bee keeper with 300 hives and he can’t get away. He’s such a good paddling companion, I’ll miss him.
The paddle here was easy. Eight hours. Dan isn’t sick this time, thanks to Gravol, and Evan has grown into his big body. He’s strong. And yah, times have changed, the young guys are faster than the old dudes this year. It had to happen. Proud of these guys.
Camping here under a fly in heavy rain, first on the trip. There are sea turtles off the beach here, they come in at high tide to eat sea grass, usually with those green and black striped algae-eating feeder fish close underneath, as if suspended. The coral has made a modest comeback since the last bleaching. There is stag coral east of here. My waterproof camera leaked when I was shooting the turtles. Kaput.
These islands may have been part of the “China family” 300 years ago, but the feeling is Japanese wrapped around a Ryukyu heart, like Okinawa rice balls with spam musubi stuffed inside nori. The language is Japanese, but the pace is slow and easy.
October 15, 2010 Ikema-jima, 24.925, 125.253
Looking back, it’s all a blur. The wind turned from the south somewhere before Ker-Miy4. About 70 NM from Zamami-jima. The rest we paddled against the current. 70 NM sailed. 80 paddled. 94 hours. 3 nights. And it’s all a muddle.
We had just left shore off Kerama when I realized that I had left an LED light hanging from a tree back at camp. We use these lights as beacons on our mast so we can be seen and keep together at night. We mount one on the mast and have another that we can raise with our jib sheet if the mast one burns out. So Shiro and I went back in our double for our spare. Dan decided to go ashore so he ran his and Evan’s sailing double up onto a small beach. They can be tough on gear. Then the four of us set off.
By the time we cleared the islands with a nice following breeze the boys discovered that their boat was filling up with water. It was interesting. Because they were sitting in sea socks that fit around the cockpit rims and with gear stuffed around them, they could not feel the water coming up until it impacted their thighs. By then the boats were about half full. It took a long time to pump out. They must have punched a hole on the coral when they stopped.
We had a little meeting and decided to carry on. With the breeze they could sail and pump at the same time. But then the breeze stopped. We were hoping that it would start up again and it did, but it turned against us. Every twenty minutes or so they had to stop and pump out for ten minutes. While they were stopped the current took us backwards. It was a lot of work. I was glad it was them and not Shiro and me. Yes, they were stronger than us but maybe not yet smarter. That will come too.
Approaching Ker-Miy 6 on the third day was just fantastic.
Ker-Miy 6 is just one of a number of waypoints that I had marked on our GPS map. My GPS points were like a road. There were waypoints marking a centre line and others running down either side, like borders of a road. We could tack to the outside waypoints, but the course was down the middle. Normally to conserve battery, we ran a compass course to a waypoint and checked course every half hour or so with the GPS. I am in total awe of early Polynesians and Micronesians who could navigate without compass over hundreds of miles using wave sets, birds, stars and cloud formations.
Huge cloud banks on either side. Unlike our coast, the clouds are heavy and squat down on the sea. As the light disappeared, the clouds assumed the appearance of land. It seemed to my severely overtired brain that we were traveling down a channel and that the clouds offered shelter and safety. Except for the sparks coming out of them occasionally. Before this, the most fabulous sunset-driven light band took over the entire sky. Fan-shaped shafts, similar to some of the block shafts in cubist works. We were four insignificant guys in two ridiculously small crafts way out to sea, on a 150 nautical mile crossing, essentially at the mercy of the sea gods. I found this especially spiritual and uplifting.
On our last night we had thought we might make it all of the way to Miyako-jima, but soon realized we were way too late for that. As we approached the reefs guarding Miyako-jima, one of the many thunderclouds overtook us and suddenly we were in a storm. It was black, and then lightning hit very close and we could see how big the waves were. Sometimes it’s better not to know. We were surfing down some big ones as it all opened up on us. I tried not to think about that big aluminum lightning rod stepped between my legs.
I was trying to navigate on the GPS course but we were swerving all over the place. I had to be mindful of the reefs ahead of us and also Evan tailgating us close behind. Our GPS map for Miyako-jima was none too accurate. We were flying blind.
My paper chart showed almost no lights marked on the reefs, Shiro’s had maybe three, as did my GPS. But there were lights everywhere. What to steer for?
We headed north of the lights and tried to slow down as much as we could, bare bones, until daylight when we would hopefully thread our way through the reefs. I could only paddle for a few minutes without nodding off. Shiro was asleep as was Dan in the other boat. Evan was awake: All those late night video games.
I nodded off briefly. I don’t know for how long. Shiro took over for a while. By the time an incredible sunrise came up and the seas were flat calm, we were all more or less functioning. At 7:15 AM we arrived at Ikema-jima, a small island connected by a long bridge to Miyako-jima. I thought that the camping might be better there.
A guy named Kogee greeted us at the local gyoko and brought us some canned tea and a key for the water tap. Welcoming guy. We organized and then took a bus over the bridge into town. Four groggy guys wandering around a very hot Miyako. Ate an incredible ton katsu. Looked at a local beach, not good for camping. Nodded off in the air-conditioned ferry terminal. Wandered around more, nodded off. Walked to a restaurant that is owned by a friend of Shiro’s. She offered us some special noodle soup and bento, then drove us back to Ikema. She wouldn’t take any money from us. Two great moms. Great food.
We tented last night at the Gyoko. Maybe about midnight Dan wakened me. “It’s raining.” Put up fly. After that, thunder, lightning and downpour, just like when we were on the water. By morning Evan had moved his tent because, as usual, he had pitched in a future lagoon. Mine was a little dryer, Dan’s better still. I was getting seepage, though, because the ground was totally saturated.
Shiro’s tent was a joke. All of his stakes had floated out and the only thing holding down his tent was him. He must have been sleeping on his side because that was the footprint of his tent. All curled up. He’s a masterful sleeper and we let him be.
Dan, Evan and I got up. By the time one of the locals pulled up there were three gaijin dancing around under a boat shelter in knee deep water. The guy was a friend of Shiro’s friend. He put us up in a traditional tatami house. There is a typhoon coming. We are typhoon-waiting.
Shiro has a very sore back and can hardly stand. Perhaps we shouldn’t have let him sleep so long in his personal swamp. I have him on an ice pack (bag of peanuts from the freezer) and gave him some Ibuprofen.
Downstairs are four photos of the original family. The patriarch: taut, handsome, traditional dark blue robe. His lovely younger wife. Shiro says they both look mainland Japanese. The younger couple have rounder, softer faces. Their offspring? The younger man lived an easier life, an office guy. The patriarch made a lot of money fishing. This was the family home, but he also built one in town, in Hirar, for his mistress. Now the Hirar house is lived in full time and this is a guesthouse.
He fished far away, to Palau and other places. I suspect that even in his time the big fish were already gone from around here. We never saw so much as one dolphin or shark on our journey here. This town is only old folks. The old guys sit around silently looking out to sea and the women seem to be at home. In ten years, who will be left?
Typhoon Megi is coming, but maybe will veer to the west tomorrow and smash into Taiwan. Talked on the Sat. phone today with T. She says seas are 7 to 17 feet for at least a week. Too bad. My plan is no plan: wait 5 days, until Oct 21, then see.
To behave like ancient seamen and wait! In our “busy, important lives” we are not used to that. Nonetheless, it costs us big time in lost Feathercraft production to be hanging around here. We need to make boats.
On the southern point here is an old lookout and fire lighthouse established by the Satsuma clan of Kagoshima in 1644. They controlled travel, and the fire was an aide to shipping. Somebody’s job day and night. Smoke and fire. These are coral islands, almost no elevation. Sugar cane, fishing, tourism, diving. They won’t talk about coral decline too much. Bad for business.
28. Miyako-jima to Ishigaki-shima (Entered July 31, 2021)
October 1, 2012
We have been holing up in the Miyakojima Guest House near Maehama Beach while Category 4 Typhoon Jelawat roared through.
Just before the storm hit we went down to the beach with the three young women who were also staying in the guest house. They had come to scuba dive but were stranded with us. The rain was crashing down, the wind threatened to carry away the small women who huddled together onshore and the seas were raging. We had to be very careful when we took our dip to stay very close to shore as the currents created by the storm threatened to sweep us away. I was especially worried when Evan went around and past the small spit of sand that protected us from the currents. Would he be stupid enough to jump into the seas on the wild side? I was relieved when I saw him loping back in his curious gait, safe.
The storm howled for three days. Occasionally one of us would venture out briefly, but things like metal roofs were being flung about and we needed to keep our heads.
After the storm passed all of the sugar cane crop had been flattened. There was no power for a while. But I was surprised at how little damage was done. This is not the Philippines where people live in fragile wood enclosures. The buildings here are low cement block structures with small, protected windows. The power and phone cables are underground. Here in typhoon alley people get on with it after the storms sweep through. But do they have crop insurance?
October 2, 2012,Tarama Island, 24.676, 124.705
We left Miyako-jima at 7:11 PM last night. Shiro was in the bow and I was steering, in the stern cockpit. The plan was to leave in the evening so we would arrive at Tarama-jima in the morning. This usually works.
We had to sail and paddle from Maehama Beach against the wind for three hours to reach our first GPS waypoint, Miya-26. This was near a reef that we were keen to avoid. As we headed northwest we encountered a fast current coming at us from between Miyako-jima and nearby Irabu-jima. This was colliding with strong swells still left over from the typhoon.
I noticed an unusual rolling motion that I hadn’t experienced before. It was as if the two wave sets were harmonizing and creating something entirely new and different. Our mast began swinging in unison with the waves. Except for the light blinking on and off on the reef, it was pitch black. As we neared the reef the mast broke right at the mast mount where it protrudes through our deck and the sail came tumbling down on top of us. For a while we were helpless. I had to pull the mast and sail off of Shiro and me. He then tried to keep us off the reef with his paddle while I removed the broken mast piece, jammed the rest of it back onto the mast step and raised the sail again, although reefed small. Meanwhile we were drifting perilously close to the reef.
We got away in time. When we talked about it later, I said that the whole operation had taken only 10 minutes. It seemed that way. Dan and Evan figured it took a little over half an hour. A few hours later Evan was steering and their mast broke and landed on Dan’s head, who had been sort of sleeping. Sailing with light gear in heavy seas can be tough. We need to reef our sails more.
October 3, 2012, Tarama-jima
This may be an out of the way island, but there is so much plastic garbage on this beach. All I could see was plastic. It was as if the sea had everywhere been covered with plastic, with no space for fish or seaweed, and one giant tide had come up, gone down and left this astonishing assembly of human ingenuity and carelessness behind. Of course, when you looked more closely, you could see that some deposits had arrived quite recently and others were much older. The new plastic was shiny. Its edges were smooth and sure and, if it had printing, was still legible and bright. The older pieces were rougher and spotted, having already started the slow, inevitable dissolution into noxious chemicals.
There is no way you can walk along here without stepping on it. Shiro and I found bottles from China, Japan, Malaysia, Thailand, all over. As usual, people are very neat. They screw the caps on the bottles before chucking them. The people here are tidy too. Yesterday there was a gang of older people sweeping off the sand that the typhoon had deposited on the road above the beach with home-made brooms. Swish, swish. But no one seems interested in cleaning up this beach. Odd.
October 5, 2012, Ishigaki Harbour, 24.345, 124.148
Arrived yesterday morning at 9 AM. We managed to make the eastern shore of Ishigaki three hours before dawn and had to wait until daylight before making our way around the reefs. Good thing, too, as the reefs extended out further than my chart indicated.
Now we are camped on the slope that the fishermen use. We had a good meeting with the Coast Guard, who were helpful. They even wanted their photo with us beside the boats. However, the weather till the 12th shows high north winds, which we can’t use to get to Yonaguni-shima.
October 10, 2012, Iriomote.
Yesterday we paddled up the Nakama gawa to its headwaters. We climbed up the river of cascades, relishing the cool water in pools and falls. Incredibly verdant vegetation. While we were paddling upriver in the heat, Shiro remarked that he really wanted a shower. I remembered the headwaters from years before and it didn’t disappoint.
Things aren’t going too well at Feathercraft without us. We can’t wait around for weather. Have to go back.
29. Plastics (Entered July 31, 2021)
July 29, 2018
In June, 2018, five of the seven G7 countries — Canada, France, Germany, Italy and Britain — and the European Union endorsed a plan to cut down on plastic waste, such as single-use plastics, straws, bottles, grocery bags and cups. Although the agreement is only voluntary, and not enforceable, it would at least be a small first step in limiting the huge amount of plastics that enter the oceans every year. Of the nine billion tonnes produced so far, it is estimated that only 9% has been recycled, 12% incinerated and 79% has ended up in landfill sites or the environment. A staggering 11 million metric tonnes wind up in the oceans every year. A study in 2020 led by the Pew Charitable Trusts and Stemiq estimated that by 2040 that figure will grow to 29 million tonnes, equivalent to 50 kg for every metre of coastline in the world. That study did not take into account the enormous increase of PEP products caused by the Covid pandemic.
The two countries that declined to endorse the agreement were the U.S. and Japan. It is not surprising that the U.S. would not agree. They were pulling out of all sorts of international agreements, especially environmental ones. The fossil companies were in control of the White House and denial is a Republican thing. And Coca-Cola, which produces an estimated 108 billion plastic bottles per year, would have great interest in this plan. It is unlikely that President Biden will have much success with this considering Republican intransigence. But Japan? This is disappointing. I have paddled almost annually in Japan for over 30 years and have visited and camped on its beaches. They are tragically trashed. No doubt a lot of the plastic bottles, nets, floats and garbage come from other countries. According to a study reported in Scientific American, of the ten rivers that carry 93% of the trash, 8 are in Asia, and two are in Africa. The Yangtze alone carries 1.5 million tons of plastic into the Yellow Sea every year. Across the world plastics make up 85% to 95% of beach litter. But on Tarama Island and on other Japanese beaches I have visited, a lot of the plastic was of Japanese origin. It seems in a supremely tidy country where there is almost no litter on the streets and recycling is a way of life, no one cares about what is on the beaches and in the water. Again, this seems odd. Japan does not have a big petrochemical industry which extracts large profits from plastic resin production as in the US, Canada and elsewhere. It does, though, consume the second most plastic per person in the world, behind only the U.S. Perhaps its addiction to bento boxes and its tradition of intricate gift wrapping is contributing to this.
Henderson Island is one of the most obscure islands in the world, located in the South Pacific west of Easter Island. Researchers have recently stated that it has the highest density of plastic debris found anywhere in the world. They found 38 million pieces. In one report the most common items found were Suntory single use bottles. Suntory bottles, from the third largest brewery in the world, have been found everywhere in the Pacific. You can’t help but wonder what power this and other large beverage producers have in Japanese politics. Add to this the reluctance of Japanese people to rock the boat, to challenge the status quo, and the magnitude of the problem (where to even start?), you can begin to understand how it came to this.
It has been reported widely in the news that by 2050 there will be more plastic trash in the oceans, by weight, than fish. Sales are expected to grow worldwide by at least 4% a year. Plastic production has become cheap due to the boom in shale oil and gas in the U.S. and this has spurred production companies to invest over $180 billion in plastic factories. They plan to increase production by 40%. The same companies, such as Exxon and Shell, that are responsible for much of the climate crisis, are backing this explosion in plastic waste. In Canada the petrochemical companies produced $10 billion worth of virgin resin in 2016.
In a 2015 study published in “Science” and in a testimony before Congress in 2016, environmental engineer Jenna Jambeck found that the amount of plastic in the oceans is the equivalent of 5 grocery-size shopping bags filled with plastics placed along every foot of coastline around the world. By 2025 she expects that number to be 10. A 2018 study found that there were traces of plastic in 83% of tap water world-wide and 94% in the U.S. Over time plastic builds up in animal and human tissues. (“The New Yorker”, February 4, 2019)
Plastic kills an estimated one million seabirds and 100,000 marine animals each year. Whales, sea turtles, birds and other animals gorge themselves on plastic bags and die of starvation. Plastic chemicals kill additional unknown quantities of sea animals. Plastic has been found in 90% of seabirds and has been discovered in creatures living seven miles beneath the sea. Abandoned or lost fishing gear is the single largest source of plastic pollution. Seals, sea lions, dolphins, fish and whales get caught up in fishing nets, which are made from plastic and may last for 600 years, and drown or starve. Mussels lose their grip when exposed to plastic toxins and many marine organisms become more vulnerable to predators.
A major new study examined 125,000 corals in the Asia-Pacific region, or half the world’s total, and found that 89% of those fouled with 11 billion pieces of plastic were suffering diseases. This compares to only 4% on corals where no plastic was present. Add that to the list of human-caused damage to corals.
Annual consumption of plastic bottles is set to rise to over half a trillion by 2021, creating an almost insurmountable problem for poor people and marine areas around the world.
Bodies of water where the problem is largest include:
In Asia:
Yangtze, East China Sea; Indus; Arabian Sea, Yellow River; Yellow Sea, Hai He; Yellow Sea, Ganges; Bay of Bengal, Pearl River; South China Sea, Amur; Sea of Okhotsk, Mekong; South China Sea
In Africa:
Nile; Mediterranean, Niger; Gulf of Guinea.
No wonder Japan has been inundated. In addition to its own garbage, waste is washing up on its shores from the Sea of Okhotsk to the north, the Yellow Sea directly west and the South China Sea down current to the south west.
We are all involved in this. Before casting an accusing eye on the poor folks in Asia, we might check the labels on our clothing. Where does it come from? China, Vietnam, Indonesian, Philippines, India, Pakistan, Nigeria.
British researcher and author David MacKay has calculated that more energy and pollution is embedded in the products that Great Britain imports than is created in the country itself. This is a huge byproduct of globalization and the outsourcing of production to those countries with the cheapest labour, worst working conditions and non-existent environmental protection enforcement. Two billion people in the poorest countries have absolutely no access to garbage or recycling services. And this is where our stuff gets made. How many trade agreements that so heavily favor large corporations even mention the staggering amounts of plastic that are being dumped onto land, and into rivers and oceans every day? How many fishing agreements even mention lost plastic gear?
Dealing with Plastic
Sometimes it is easy to take for granted success at home. It’s not that the shorelines around Vancouver and surrounding areas are pristine. If you look around you can find pieces of plastic on just about any beach. Even our outer exposed beaches have plastic litter on them. But compared to those surrounding Asian cities that I have visited, they are remarkably free of plastic waste. B.C. enacted the oldest deposit-return system in North America in 1970 and began operations in 1998. The system is administered by Encorp, a not-for-profit company that charges a transparent recycling fee on many aluminum cans, plastic, glass and some drink box products.
Encore claims that in B.C. more than 80% of cans are returned, baled, melted and back on the shelf within 6 weeks, saving 95% of the energy required to make new cans and considerable raw materials.
Over 75% of plastic bottles are returned. They are power-washed and shredded. The raw material is sold to companies that make new bottles and other plastic items, using 1/3 less energy than manufacturing from new material.
93% of glass bottles are returned and ground into small pieces for re-use in items as diverse as road-making, fibreglass production and sandblasting.
About 60% of drink boxes are returned and pulped for re-use in paper products and boxes.
This is one reason Vancouver beaches look as good as they do. It is not because the people of Greater Vancouver are particularly tidy. Just go to Kits Beach or English Bay after a mid-summer fireworks show. It is astonishing how much trash people simply leave behind. They manage to carry it in, but don’t have the energy to pack it out. There is a small army of people who make all or part of their income from collecting and returning recyclable items. They get busy. These people are true, under-appreciated urban heroes. That leaves city staff just the real stinky garbage to clean up early the next morning. They do it well.
When I used to paddle to work in Vancouver, the most common, by far, drink container that I would see floating on the water in summer would be Starbucks iced coffee cups. These were made from polypropylene and, as Starbucks stated on their recycle website, “many curbside programs won’t accept this type of plastic”. There weren’t many other containers because the army of recyclers made money from them. Evidence, again that this type of program works.
B.C. has an Extended-Producer Responsibility program
(EPR), in which recycling costs are borne by the multinational packaged goods companies. Plastic in Greater Vancouver’s waste stream actually decreased in the last two years. BC does not have a large petrochemical industry churning out plastics and lobbying against proper recycling, which undoubtedly contributes to its success. In the fall of 2020 Victoria placed 25 three-bin disposal units in well-trafficked areas around the city. There are swinging doors on the recycling bins so that people who collect cans and bottles for deposit can get refunds. This has been effective at reducing waste and more bins are on the way.
Statistics from different sources can be difficult to compare. One study found that the average person in Canada consumes roughly four times their body weight in throw-away plastic every year. Only 9% of that is recycled. It is hard to reconcile this with the recycling success reported in BC., but it is apparent that there has been less progress in other provinces and that programs developed in B.C. could be adapted elsewhere. Still to come: more programs encouraging less use of plastic in the first place and “closed-loop” systems in which plastics are continuously recycled and remade into new products at much lower levels of carbon emission.
China has long received mountains of plastic every year from first world countries. This has been profitable because their container ships would return empty without the plastic, and labour for recycling was cheap. But, that has changed and the plastic has become more complex, harder to sort and the amount of garbage shipped with the plastic has increased. China now refuses almost all waste plastic and its imports are down over 90%. Many countries moved to off load their plastic waste to poorer countries such as Indonesia, Thailand and Malaysia. They have been described as huge dumpsites. Recently nearly all countries in the world (187 in total, except the U.S.) have agreed to an amendment to the Basel Convention on a deal restricting shipments of plastic to these poorer countries. So now countries will have to deal with their plastic at home. Sometimes what is seen as a problem can be recognized as an opportunity. North America is responsible for only about 0.9% of the plastic trash that ends up in the oceans. Meanwhile the US is peddling backwards on environmental programs, especially those involving fossil fuels. If communities in other developed countries such as ours can learn to consume less plastic initially and create circular systems in which plastic is designed to be recycled and reused many times, great progress can be made and this knowledge can be shared and exported. Annual consumption of plastic bottles is set to rise to over half a trillion by 2021, creating an almost insurmountable problem for poor people and marine areas around the world.
If we in Canada really want to make an impact on this enormous plastic pollution of the oceans that is clearly originating in less developed countries in Asia and Africa, we have to help them. The expertise is being developed right here at home. Perhaps a public/private partnership could be created. We could start right away, even as we are developing new programs and improving existing ones. One of the very first steps is to set up a EPR program. Make the producers pay. Don’t let them buy off the politicians.
In an article in The Guardian (Sandra Laville, Recife, Brazil, April 11, 2018), Maria das Gracas saw the body of her neighbour floating past her house in Coqueiral, a poor neighbourhood in the city of Recife. She thought about the plastic pollution that had contributed to the deadly flooding that was ravishing her community and contributing to this death. She started gathering up her plastic bottles and those near her and taking them to the local storage skip where a collector pays her two reals for 50 plastic bottles. Not much, but she is in it more to stop the avalanche of plastic trash threatening her community.
As more communities become a bit more prosperous, the use of plastic skyrockets and most of the waste gets dumped in poorer communities such as Maria’s. Now imagine what would happen if the producers and sellers of all this trash were forced to pay 5 or 10 cents for every container. Use would decrease, while people such as Maria could make decent change by recycling.
Some of the funding for the Recife campaign is supported by Tearfund, an international NGO. Maria can sometimes make a tiny profit from selling her plastic to makers of handbags, jewellery and toys. Imagine if funding became available through the sale of every disposable plastic bottle or container. What a difference that would make.
Maria’s story shows the difficulties many poor communities face when trying to cope with an avalanche of plastics and also the determination and resourcefulness of people when trying to deal with it. But you can only make so many handbags and toys from waste plastic and some of the toys could be harmful to children. The problem is complex and unique to each community, and so must be the solutions. Canada could be a leader in this. The oceans know no boundaries and the need is great.
30. Microplastics (Entered July 31, 2021)
It’s not just the visible plastic that is threatening life in the oceans and, increasingly, us. Microplastics are so small as to be invisible to the naked eye. They are found in many personal care products such as facial scrubs, and are too small to be filtered out in most wastewater treatment plants. Small fish and other creatures mistake these fibres for plankton and consume them. They then get passed up the food chain. These microplastics ought to be banned, and increasingly many personal care products are advertised without them. There are lots of substitutes.
However, there might be a much bigger source of microplastic pollution. Ecologist Mark Browne published a study in 2011 that found that 85% of the fibres he collected on beaches sampled from 18 sites worldwide came from synthetic clothing. He found that a single piece of synthetic clothing can release about 1,900 microfibres each time it’s washed. Considering the amount of synthetic clothing washed every day around the world that is a huge number of fibres.
During interviews he complained about not being able to receive funding for his studies and noted that even Patagonia, the outdoor clothing company, would not contribute, even though it profited from a huge volume of fleece garments sold worldwide. Apparently the folks at Patagonia did change their minds because in 2016 they commissioned a study that found that the number of microfibres released from a single fleece jacket was as high as 250,000 and the average was 81,317.
Another study reported by the Plastic Soup Foundation[1] found half a million to a million fibres released per wash. They suggest that the best way to wash synthetic clothing is to wash at low temperature with liquid, not powder soap, with fabric softener. Another hint: fill up your washing machine. A full load decreases the friction between clothes.
Two products are now coming onto the market. Cora Ball is a ball that you simply put into your washer. It collects fibres while it is bouncing around with your wash. The Guppy Friend is a synthetic bag that you put your synthetic clothes into. Tests show that it collects 99% of the synthetic fibres. It now sells at some Patagonia stores, although not in the one near me. It’s available online for Cdn $40, including international shipping. Unfortunately, this is another of those voluntary measures that most people are unlikely to even know about.
A longer-term solution would be for municipal waste systems to filter out these fibres. Apparently Los Angeles has started doing this. Is this effective? Can it be installed elsewhere? Otherwise: avoid fleece for future purchases and wear what you have dirty, or wash in bag. Maybe wash by hand?
We need long-term solutions, such as degradable plastics made from non-petroleum products, quickly. Until then, if you can afford it, buy cotton, linen or wool. This might not be a long-term solution, because growing cotton and raising sheep are energy and water intensive farming practices that are not sustainable for clothing billions of people.
Hopefully, more ecologically benign fibres will be designed. Perhaps as marijuana becomes more mainstream hemp clothing may evolve to fill some of the gap. It doesn’t have to be just for hippies. Hemp is basically a weed that chokes out other plants, so no herbicides are needed to grow it. It is also gentle on the earth and requires very little water.
Microplastics are now everywhere, including in our tap water and bottled water. They are in the food we eat. In the Strait of Georgia, near my home in B.C., scientists found 3,000 plastic microparticles per cubic metre of water. Returning B.C. salmon ingest up to 90 plastic particles a day. These are staggering numbers and a threat to us all. An Austrian study in 2018 examined, in minute detail, the stools of eight volunteers from around the globe and found microplastics in everyone. Plastics found included polypropylene, PET, and polystyrene.
Microplastics affect marine creatures in a myriad of ways. Mussels lose their grip and plastics suppress the ability of shellfish to detect and avoid predators. Coral becomes susceptible to disease.
Plastics have been found ingested by organisms in the Mariana trench, the deepest canyon in the ocean.
Earlier when I mentioned seeing plastics on a beach, I said that it could take 600 years to “break down to natural substances.” Now I have my doubts. Do these plastics ever “break down” or do they simply “break up” into smaller particles and life-destroying chemicals? We humans are mounting a cruel assault on life forms over the whole planet. And we don’t even realize it. The easiest and cheapest way to deal with plastics is to limit their use in the first place.
Here is a to-do list:
- Change the public perception of how plastics are used in society. Start in the school system. Develop sustainable habits.
- Support research to create plastic used for single-use containers that is quickly bio-degradable in land and water environments. Mandate its use. Research plastic-eating enzymes.
- Ban single use containers including water bottles in areas where tap water is safe. (Safe tap water is not available in many developing countries.)
- Regulate clothing fabrics, especially, but not only, synthetic fleece.
- Ban the use of plastics in cosmetics.
- Mount a worldwide campaign to recover ghost fishing nets.
- Research and install filters for trapping micro-plastic in home laundries and in larger waste management systems.
- Eliminate the huge subsidies and tax benefits that the fossil fuel companies receive worldwide. (in 2015 that amounted to $5.3tn.)
- Design plastics to be used in closed-loop, circular systems in which products are repeatedly remade into new products.
- Tax carbon.
- Share our knowledge abroad.
[1]The mission of Plastic Soup Foundation is: ‘No plastic waste in our water!’ We do not take plastic out of the water; instead, we want to put an end to the increasing amount of plastic polluting the ocean by tackling the issue at its sources. We have been working towards this goal since 2011. (http://www.plasticsoupfoundation.org)
31. Discovery Island, (Entered August 29, 2021)
August 31, 2017, 48.4236, -123.2326
I’m sitting beneath a small Douglas-fir tree. Its branches are laden with cones hanging down and the scent is sweet and welcoming. Out from the beach, past my blue kayak and just offshore, a seal is asleep on a small reef. If I were a wolf I’d be thinking dinner. That’s just what has been happening.
About 6 years ago Chief Robert Sam of the Songhee Wolf Clan, died. Soon after, a lone adult male wolf appeared on this and the adjoining Chatham islands. The shortest distance from Vancouver Island is across Baynes Channel (which is a distance of one and one quarter kilometers.) The currents that flow around the south end of Vancouver Island are very strong. Maximum flow rates during ebb and flood across this channel run to 6 knots. The wolf may have timed his crossing perfectly between ebb and flood, either due to luck or clever observation. You would think that his would be a lonely life, but perhaps the memory of that desperate swim keeps him on the islands. Or maybe he is just meant to be living here.
The Songhee people see the wolf’s current residence as very significant. Maybe they put him here? There are no wild wolves anywhere near Victoria. For the first few years there were no problems, even though half of Discovery Island is a park. But, last summer the wolf started tailing a family with children and a dog — for mating? For food? Just curious? In any event, the family felt cornered, called for help and was chaperoned out. After that the park was closed over the winter months.
Authorities said that they wanted to assess how the wolf interacted with people. How they did that I don’t know. Whenever I ventured over here I was the only one on the island. Now the park is open again, but just for day use, and there are signs warning about the big, bad wolf.
I’ve heard the wolf, somewhere between a yelp and a howl, but have never seen it. Its scat has been analyzed — 80% seal meat. This makes sense. If you paddle through the reefs on the way over here you will probably see over a hundred seals. Near here there is some recent wolf scat. It is dark- black, actually, and very dense. Some of the older, drier stuff has some vegetation in it, including a few berries. It looks as if recently the wolf has been successful and is dining well on seal.
Now the tide has come up to the seal’s snout. Oh- it snorted and allowed itself to be floated away.
I am lucky. This is a beautiful and wild island. I can get here from my new home in Victoria by rolling my kayak through a cemetery to the beach and paddling over in under 2 hours, if I plan the currents correctly. If the wind kicks up, of course, that’s another matter. Sometimes three hours to return. On my way I may see seals, otters, geese, cormorants, too many gulls, and a number of duck species. My favorites are the harlequins. Beautiful colours and friendly chirps. The mallards are beautiful, too, but they quack like Donald Duck. It’s hard to take them seriously.
This island has Douglas firs and pine trees as well as healthy arbutus-which need to be near the sea, for the salt air. On many of the Gulf Islands near here the deer population has exploded. They eat the young arbutus trees, which are becoming harder to find. Here there are no deer (too bad for the wolf) and young arbutus shoots are sprouting up all over the place. There are very few Garry oak, though, which surprises me, as they are native to this place. There are invasives: Himalayan blackberry, broom and ivy are the obvious. I don’t like to see ivy swarming up the trunks of beautiful trees, weakening them. This morning, in some dense bush I pulled a bunch off of some of the more handsome trees. To do more, though, I need long pants, gloves, shoes, clippers and saw. I left some skin in there. I ask myself: “Is this all you’ve got to do, just pick apart poo, pull vines off trees and scribble notes?” And well, I guess the answer is yes.
Note: In mid-April, 2019 as I was pulling in to the same beach on Discovery Island I heard a loud grunt. There was Takaya, the wolf, in plain view. Grey, tall, majestic. It’s deep “woof woof” sounded like a dog. I decided to paddle along shore a bit and then came back to the same place. As I was headed to shore, the wolf, unseen, barked twice and then howled. He repeated this as I sat just offshore in my kayak. O.K. he didn’t want me to come ashore. Perhaps he had pulled a seal carcass up into the bush and was protecting it. I paddled on to another beach. I saw the wolf again in early July and he howled even more emphatically, this time in plain sight. His fur is a lustrous grey and black, he stands tall and looks formidable, especially when howling. A couple of months later I came back to the same place and there he was again, barking and howling, defending his turf.
Note: In January, 2020, Takaya managed to swim across the channels separating Discovery Island from Vancouver Island, and was seen scurrying through the Victoria neighborhood of James Bay in the early morning. He may have gone right by our home. Later he was tranquilized by conservation officers and then moved to the outer coast near Port Renfrew and set free. The officials thought that the environment was similar to Discovery Island and that the wolf would have a good chance at survival and maybe even finally find a mate. But tragedy struck for Takaya, and for our increasingly desperate need for wilderness, as he was shot by a hunter just a couple of months later.
32. Orcas (Entered August 29, 2021)
February 6, 2018
Yesterday morning Theresa and I had our French lesson. There are five women and me. Three of the women have already mastered more than I am aiming to achieve. They are my goal. When pressed, I inevitably respond to a question in broken Spanish.
After class Theresa drove me in our li’l electric car and dropped me off at Swartz Bay where I assembled my kayak and headed over to Pender Island. I stopped off at Portland Island to stretch, have a snack and loiter, guilt-free.
Winter moss. In summer, moss grows in shades of dull green, yellow and brown. In winter it dazzles in iridescent greens, ambers and yellows and displays an astounding complexity of texture and form. On Portland there are tracts of soft, thick, luxurious moss that invite you to lie down. I lay there in my kayak clothes for a while, staring up at the clouds and felt the cool winter wet ooze into my bones. Then I ate some chocolate for energy, jumped into my kayak and paddled like hell to warm up.
Leaving the island I passed by the usual suspects: there were black oyster catchers poking away with their long orange beaks at barnacles. I could see one sucking up some fresh meat. Then I glided by some Harlequin ducks, my favorite. Next I saw what looked like a sanderling, very light colouring. There was an eagle perched on Canoe Rock. I passed by a few reefs that seemed overcrowded with a few dozen seals hauled up. As I started across Swanson Channel, I was lost in thought about seals. I’ve been paddling this channel for forty years now. There didn’t used to be nearly as many seals. But I was also thinking about memory. Maybe there were, but I just didn’t pay as much attention then?
Memories about seals. One summer about 40 seals tailed Theresa and I all the way from those same reefs across Swanson right up to the cliffs on Pender. Seals are curious and like to pop up and tag along at your stern. A trick of mine is to turn around and paddle backwards. When they pop up they look quite surprised to see you staring right back at them. Sentient beings, they are. Years earlier Jan, another woman (whose name I forget) and I were scuba diving off Pender when we were joined by a friendly seal. Every time we surfaced so did the seal. It joined us and mirrored our every move until we pulled ourselves out of the water. They are indeed wonderfully curious.
Another time I was snorkeling in my wetsuit below our place and I approached the underwater entrance to their rocky lair. Two seals turned tight circles in front of the entrance, barring me from going further. But not threatening me. I was wondering, though, if I do remember correctly and there are more seals now, as there seems to be, then why? Certainly there are fewer large fish now. The fact that Orcas are starving for Chinooks attests to that.
Nature abhors a vacuum. I’ve noticed that seals tend to catch small fish, like hake, not large salmon. Perhaps now, in the absence of predators, there are more small feeder fish. This is what happened on the east coast after the cod were wiped out. Greenlings took over. It’s also possible that because decades ago there was a government sponsored cull and their numbers were at a nadir they have now returned to normal. Seals are extraordinary fishers. Their finely tuned whiskers let them feel disturbances in the water from great distances so they can feed even in the murkiest of waters.
I was thinking about these things and not paying much attention. I was heading more or less north, in the middle of the channel. A northwestern breeze blew on the left side of my face at about 12 knots. I thought maybe I heard something to port. But no, nothing. When I turned my head back I saw, holy shit, a big, bright orange freighter bearing down on me from my starboard side, aft. I hadn’t heard it because of the breeze to port and I hadn’t been paying attention. A large, Panamax freighter in the middle of a two-nautical-mile-wide channel with great visibility and I hadn’t seen it? Really? I called them on emergency channel 16 on my VHF radio and they actually answered. Eventually the local pilot, who was guiding the ship, saw me and I waited while the Bahia Blanca, registered in Panama, trundled by. They thanked me for alerting them as they continued on.
It was new, unusually quiet and even when it passed by I could not see or smell the expected diesel exhaust. Strangely, I smell more on my bicycle when a badly-tuned diesel pickup truck passes me. It must have been burning the low-sulphur fuel that is now required within 200 nautical miles of shore.
This is good news for the Arctic, too, because higher quality fuels burn cleaner and release much less black carbon. Black carbon is a major cause of global warming in the Arctic and elsewhere. It reduces the albedo (reflecting surface) of snow or ice, hastening melting. In the atmosphere it absorbs other chemicals that are harmful to health and climate. Too bad low-sulphur fuel isn’t burned in all ships everywhere at sea until cleaner fuel systems are developed.
The bulk freighter passed. Suddenly four fins popped up, right on my bow — three large male Orcas and a smaller female. I heard the familiar ‘whoosh’ as they exhaled and I could smell their spray. I waited as they passed by me, heading from port to starboard, away from the freighter.
Then the wind died. Flat calm. The sun, which had been hiding all day, shone from under low clouds. More ‘whoosh’ sounds, more spray visible. I found that I was in their midst. There were no other boats. They were moving around, some right up close to shore, some out near me. Fishing, I guess.
I hung out there for an hour or so until the sun was quite low. I didn’t want to scale the cliff in the dark. When I resumed paddling three whales swam along parallel to me on my port side. They escorted me to shore. Only when I reached the rocky shore at the base of the cliffs and hauled my boat out did they carry on along the shore to the east. When I was beginning my climb up the cliff, two large females passed underwater right beside shore.
The next morning before sunrise I could hear the heavy breathing down below. At least one was still there, but it was gone by the time it was light enough to venture down to the water. I’ve seen Orcas a lot in summer, but not at this time of year. Also, when there are a bunch of whale-chasing boats around, the Orcas seem to travel in a straight line and don’t hang around. Is this chance, or is their fishing affected by the noise of the boats? As I’ve mentioned, are we loving these creatures to death? Obviously, the lack of salmon is the main cause of their demise, as well as the pollutants in the water. But, I wonder.
33. Bella Bella to Port Hardy (Entered September 30, 2021)
May 17, 2018 Comfort Inn, Campbell River
The new Bolt is plugged in after the drive up from Victoria. 7 hours of AC-charging to come, (no fast charge here yet); hence the stay over. The juice is free but the hotel will set us back. My frugalist nature is being challenged. Early days. Campbell River is one of those places where there are far more cars visible than people. No centre, lots of malls, the Vancouver Island way. The best looking buildings belong to the Wei Wai Kum First Nations. The car was so full: 2 folding kayaks, gear for three weeks, us (T. and me). We traveled 275 km, some at 120 km/hr., and had 94 km range left.
May 18, 2018 Port Hardy
Scenic drive, cruise control at 91 km/hr. kept the actual distance to Hardy ratio to the indicated car range about even. Re-assuring. Well over a hundred left. Man, what a great, modern car. It’s probably the most advanced car Chevy has ever made. We’ve stretched our finances and jumped quite a few generations from our ’95 Ford Escort wagon that we junked for the Bolt. Just like the old wagon, we can put our kayaks or bicycles on the roof rack above, or,if we want, store them folded inside. Nobody is mounting strong racks on cars with glass roofs or gull wing doors. Take that Tesla.
Hardy is a more interesting town with good local restaurants, well-made local crafts. Good place. We’ll take the ferry to Bella Bella with Evan tomorrow, leave the car here and T. will make her way back later on her own.
May 20, 2018 Bella Bella
Great little cabin. There are three, small pre-fab cabins, clean and comfortable. I’m glad Theresa came with Evan and me on the ferry here. I’ve always just come up on the ferry and taken off same day. But we arrived at 1:30 in the morning on this schedule and I wanted to hang out here with T. and Evan for a couple of full days to get a feel for the place. People are friendly; they wave with one hand still on the steering wheel as they drive by in their big shiny pickups.
May 22, 2018,
Entrance to Gale Passage, Athlone Island side. 52.234, -128.378
I wanted to talk to someone about Gale Passage. I have never been down this channel before. It’s near where the Nathan E Stewart tug went down in October 13, 2016, after a crew member had fallen asleep, spilling 110,000 litres of diesel fuel and lubricants. It took 31 days before the tug was finally lifted off the reef just north of the passage. Oil flowed into the passage, polluting shellfish beds important to the Heiltsuk First Nation of Bella Bella and surrounding areas. The area also has sensitive archeological sites, including ancient fish traps and an old village site known as Qvuqa. In addition to clams, the Heiltsuk harvest roe on kelp, salmon, sea cucumbers and edible seaweed nearby. There is a sea otter colony about 100 meters away, on the shore of Athlone Island. I was told by local people that tests are still ongoing and that no one knows if the clams and oysters are safe to eat. In a report in the Globe and Mail, July 29, 19, Kirby Corp., of Houston, Texas, was fined $2.9 million for polluting Gale Passage with oil. This is just a slap on the wrist for the largest fuel-barge company on the west coast. Marilyn Slett, of the Heiltsuk Nation points out that maritime laws developed during the reign of King Louis XIV of France in the 17th century were designed to limit the liability of ship owners. This law still stands and is in opposition to the indigenous practice of good stewardship and respect for the land. Only strictly financial claims are allowed. There is nothing for environmental impairment.
There is a tidal falls in the passage. No one I talked to could verify which way it flowed: north or south during flood? They didn’t mind us camping here. As it came about, we’ve camped on the opposite side of the channel from their clam beds.
In Bella Bella there is a good grocery store, a very handsome community school and a new longhouse community centre planned, with a foundation in place. No restaurant. There are lots of small boats in the marina, but salmon and other fish are in steep decline, even up here. And all the fishing quota has been bought by the big fishing corporations.
Theresa and I couldn’t figure out what people there do a lot of the time, especially during the dark days of winter. We know of two couples who either have moved or are going to move to bigger centers in order for their children to attend school. On the other hand, as I was sitting on the veranda of the grocery store waiting either for the rain to stop or the store to open I got to talking with a young man. He volunteered that he loved this place and wouldn’t want to live anywhere else. A young woman mentioned excitedly that now is the season to collect a certain black seaweed and dry it. Yummy, she said.
There is a lot of screeching about town. Not from people, though. It’s the many ravens vying for the good perches with the eagles.
Across the channel is where the Heiltsuk dig their clams. There is a small cabin mostly hidden in the trees there, and the forest underbrush has been cleared out. It looks park-like. We didn’t go in. Over here we found a beautiful sheltered camping area in the forest. The smears on this page are squished no-see-ums. It’s 7 PM and they’re out in force. There is no sign of the oil spill. Not on the rocks nor weed, nor in the air. They are not harvesting, though.
Yesterday we took a water taxi to nearby Shearwater fishing resort. We met Anderson, from Ghana, on the boat over and shared a meal with him in the pub restaurant. So here’s this really engaging African guy studying waste management at the University in Manitoba and he’s in Bella Bella studying how they handle their shit.
Apparently for a small community Bella Bella is very advanced, way better than similar communities in Manitoba. Not perfect, though. When T. and I walked to the airport last night we passed the sewage plant. Man did it stink. I mentioned this to Anderson. He said that there is some mechanism that is broken. It used to be almost odor-free. The guy who installed the system and maintained it moved away and nobody knows how to fix it.
Otherwise they are organized. Compost pick-up one day, recycle another, then garbage. The garbage truck stays in town and people can put stuff in it during the week. But, when it is time to take it to Hardy on the ferry someone flies into Bella Bella to do the job because no one there has a class 1 license. Odd. Anderson said that people are open for him to do his study. They want his data. I’ve had to stop, find some twigs and moss and make a smudge fire. Now, no bugs.
Wednesday, May 23, 2018 small island campsite
This is a campsite I’ve been to quite a few times. It’s changed. There is a float off the beach for a power boat, plastic stored on the beach and some canned food. Not pristine anymore.
Evan and I rode the tide south through Gale tidal rapids, fun. Then we had to paddle furiously against an incoming tide the rest of the way. We had left at 7:10 AM, high tide predicted for 8:37. I had noticed, to my surprise, that at least at the north end of Gale it floods south, unusual. I wonder if it comes in from both ends? It was gorgeous, though, and we got here before noon.
Evan is teaching himself to juggle three rocks right now and I just cleaned a couple of rockfish caught while jigging. I think I’ll join him.
Friday, May 25, 2018 Triquet Island 51.808, -128.249
Not a long distance today, but a hard paddle, strong 20 kn southerly. Got water, with difficulty, on east shore of Spider Island. Almost invisible location. May be here 2 days or so, according to forecast southerlies 20–30 knots. 2 tarps up, it is sheltered here facing north, out of the wind.
Special, this place, 14,000 years of successful occupation by Indigenous people. Their stories tell of a time when glaciers covered most of the land but these islands were spared. Tales dismissed by many. But recent discoveries here by researchers from the Hakai Institute have revealed artifacts dating back that long ago and 13,000-year-old footprints were found on Calvert Island. There were probably many more sites, but back then the oceans were much lower and many sites would have been inundated. According to the latest findings people started filtering down the coast between 15,000 and 18,000 years ago, or more. The number keeps getting pushed back.
We are near Randel’s rotting cabin, which is now filled up with plastic junk. Otherwise, almost pristine. Except, of course, what you find on almost every beach: colorful fishing net half buried in the sand or pinned under logs that clog the upper tide level. Just starting their 500 plus year decomposition process. Unlike Asian beaches, though, which are the worst, not many plastic bottles and other plastic. It seems a little desolate in the rain and wind, but I just heard a hummingbird, and like yesterday’s camp, there is a resident mink that is not afraid to trot across the beach close by. A young eagle seems to prefer a perch on a tall dead fir tree overhead.
Saturday, May 26, 2018 Triquet Island
This place is enchanting, rain or no. Two love birds on a rock offshore: male and female mergansers, the female just as attractive as the male. Found a mink skull, beautiful shape. There are lots of wildflowers in cracks and crevices over on the south exposed side of the island. The view offshore: islands and more islands, exotic. There is a suggestion proposed by a leading environmentalist that with increasing urbanization, half of the planet be set aside for humanity, half for wildlife. This place is already there for the second half. Just occasional interlopers, like Evan and me.
I’m at a tiny beach facing roughly S.W. A 40 knot wind is racing by, pushing seas I’m glad I’m not out on. It’s smoking out there. It’s late May, I have multiple layers on, but I’m not warm.
The trail here from camp winds through thick salal, past sword ferns and red cedar, hemlock, and Sitka spruce trees, old man’s beard hanging over thick luxurious moss, soft underfoot. One turn is marked by an abalone shell dropped by some furry hunter. As the trail nears this beach, the trees get smaller. Small cedars give way to windblown dwarf pine. Nature’s own bonsai. In the little valley at the head of the beach all of the taller trees have died. At their feet lie large logs tossed impossibly high and large foam blocks even higher. Could the salt water have killed them? Or perhaps the extremely dry summers we have been having dried out the soil on the south facing rocky slopes. Higher up on either side, the hemlocks look fine. Below the dead trees though, and in crevices between exposed rocks grow wild flowers, like in an alpine zone. They look delicate, but are anything but.
Sunday, May 27, 2018 Still here at Triquet
Puddle in tent, it’s an old one, coating shot, tape gone. Fortunately, my bag stayed on the air mattress.
What we eat: so far it’s working.
Breakfast: porridge on camp days (makes you pee), All Bran buds paddle days, with powdered milk. Cranberries both days, we’ve got lots.
Lunch: gorp (nuts, seeds dried fruit), bannock made the night before, pepperoni sticks (not my usual fare, mostly vegetarian. Evan swears by them. Makes gas, you could fuel a methane pump off us.)
Doug’s bannock: 1 cup flour, 1 Tbsp. brown sugar, 1 Tbsp. baking powder, 2 tsp cinnamon, 1 tsp salt, 1/2 cup water. Save a little water while mixing. The dough needs to be dry or it sticks to you. Squeeze, break into 4 pcs., flatten, fry with veg. oil. It’s filling. Option: throw in a handful of cranberries. Even better.
Dinner: a few freeze-dried prepped. Pasta with bought little pkgs of sauce, doubled. Lots of rice, spices, nuts, fresh beets and cabbage, they keep. Cook the beets first, use the water for the rest, those dinners are red. Protein drink made from brown rice. According to nutrition lists, Evan, at 240 pounds…should be getting 4,000 calories/day when we paddle. I doubt that’s happening but he seems happy enough. Salt. Fish. Mussels. Veg and olive oil. Oh yes, we have a few cans of Spam for emergencies. An emergency is when Evan is especially hungry. It is better for both of us if he eats right away.
These stormy, camp-bound days are golden. They force you out in the rain onto the beach and in the trees. Walking can be treacherous. The slick-sided trees with no bark, left over from the bad old days of logging everywhere, are super slippery when wet. (Logging practices are much improved now. Some things do get better). Then there are the tidal rocks, boulders and outcrops. Small barnacles on the granite are good. Rockweed is bad, as is bull kelp, alaria, wrack and the imposter, sargassum. The worst is sea lettuce shrouded over boulders. Like ice. Soft steps required; hands too. The forest is safe but the bush is thick. I just take my time and depend on my rain gear to keep me dry. Made from petroleum. It’s much better than cedar clothing.
Monday, May 28, 2018 NW Calvert Island, 51.654, -128.139
3 to 4 meter combined swell wave height created a bumpy ride over, due to the storm that ended last night. Approaching Calvert those waves bouncing off the rocks created chaos. Like bombs going off on all sides. I’d want to be in those conditions with few others besides Evan. He was cool. This reminds me when I used to paddle the double in the stern while Evan hung out in the bow with a stick and string, ‘fishing’. When he progressed to paddling his own boat, I’d find myself looking back constantly, checking on him. Now he’s the one who’s looking back. It’s easy for me, best situation yet.
We visited the Hakai Institute. Last time I was here the place was a luxury fishing lodge. Great location, and they are doing interesting long term ecological research including habitation over the last 15,000 years or so. This island was never glaciated and there is wonderful hiking up above the beaches. There were a lot of high school students wandering around the beach near our camp. A group was instructed to draw their favorite sea life on the sand with sticks. I got this from Matt, from Port Hardy. He drew a big turtle, an octopus and a fish. He knew how smart octopus are. Real problem solvers. He was blown away by the beaches here and said he had no idea about this place. We’re practically in his own back yard. Very enthusiastic guy who says he’ll be back for sure.
May 30, 2018 Grief Bay, 51.425, -127.912
Yesterday I was watching Evan in the kayak as we were heading for Blackney Island. 3 m. seas, so most of the time he was out of sight. When we both came up off a trough there he was, a few sets over, ahead. I was wondering what he was thinking about. One thing for sure, he wasn’t thinking about what I was thinking about. Sons don’t do that. As it turned out his thoughts had been mundane. We hadn’t had much sleep the night before because a bunch of students were playing bocce ball on the beach near our tents. We normally go to bed at dusk and are up at dawn, like 5. He was just thinking about being sleepy. Good grief. We slept well last night and it’s his birthday today, 29. Great way to celebrate it, tired in paradise.
May 31, 2018 Burnett Bay, 51.12, -127.674
On the way over from Calvert we managed to stop at Egg Island and hike up an overgrown trail and falling down stairs to the lighthouse. There we surprised Dave, the Keeper. He said he doesn’t get many visitors. Ocean swell. No access. I climbed those stairs in 1985, 33 years ago, when they were new. We had stopped in just like now, but the weather had crapped out and we had spent the night there. This time the swell was low and we had no problem. Rounding Cape Caution a humpback whale surfaced right beside Evan and startled the hell out of him. Yikes. I’m sure he would have thrown his hands up in the air if he didn’t have to hang on to that paddle.
June 2, 2018 Beach
It’s my birthday today. Now I’m truly a geriatric, with the life expectancy of a dog. How does a 70-year-old paddle down the coast? Not so fast! This morning it was still raining and blowing. I walked down the beach, struggled through underbrush into the forest and had a sit. By the time I came back and made tea the sun was filtering through the clouds and the wind had died down.
Now I’m on a high rock overlooking the Pacific with the whole north end of Vancouver Island laid out before me. Evan approaches with tea. He asks, “What do you want for your 70th?” I say: “Cranberries in my porridge.”
Now he’s juggling again. I’ve noticed that he is picking it up quicker than me. Now, I’m not one to compete against my son, of course not. But I think I’ll go juggle a little.
Taking stock. My body: O.K., I guess. Fit for 70. There’s been some repairs along the way, mostly successful. My mind: forgetful, a long-time problem though I still can remember what happened yesterday and where I’ve parked my bicycle. I can still solve problems by sleeping on them. I’m somewhere between a whining old fart and an Elder. Take your pick.
Right now the sun is drying out the sand, causing what looks like steam to float in above the broad sandy beach. It’s incredible.
My upbringing: I was fortunate to have been brought up in a downwardly mobile middle class family. I got away early and became frugal.
My ancestors: Scottish on my mother’s side: Buchanan. It has been said that the Scots aren’t the brightest of peoples but they suffer well. I have tried to live up to that high ideal.
My income: semi-retired. High by 3rd world standards, modest in the western world. Adequate, for sure. I’ve already got my stuff. I own an expensive rain jacket. No medicines, no debt.
Ugh. When I re-read that I realized: false pride. I have a lot of debts: to society, for the comforts I take for granted, and to the planet. For all the burgers I used to eat, all the flights, the old cars. Our society has a very heavy footprint and I’ve been right in there.
Now the important part: Friends and family. My best male friend has taught me a little about jazz and a lot about friendship. We have different tastes. The only boat he’d consider getting on would be a cruise ship. There are a few others. Some have shared my love of coastal cruising. Dan, who arrived as a young teen and hung around. Now he’s a doting dad of 2 young girls. Feathercraft couldn’t have been successful without him. Some of the people I worked with for many years, including a couple of great dads and a remarkable woman who fled Vietnam during the war, was rescued off an oil drilling platform and made a wonderful life for herself and her family in Canada. Martin, who likes to fly fish, Shiro, Tak and others over in Japan where I have a special connection. A couple of guys from kindergarten and elementary school who I cycle and drink beer with. Some good friends shared with Theresa. I’ve been lucky.
My sisters. Three close siblings of alcoholic parents. We helped each other through it and continue to support each other through our successes and disappointments. “Many a promising life has been ruined by a happy childhood” (Robertson Davies). One, a documentary film maker and chronicler of people’s lives, the other a teacher-librarian, dancer, author, mother. Called the Driven Sisters by one of their exs. They taught me how to live with women, and love them, if not to understand them. Respect.
My violin-playing seaman son, Evan: bigger, stronger, faster than his old man. As a paddling partner, what’s not to like? And he brings me tea.
And then there’s my amazing wife. I should be so lucky. Organizing principle, artist, sweetheart. For the first time in this trip I shaved today, sweetie. Theresa: “I salute you”.
June 3, 2018
Last night we celebrated our birthdays. I had brought along some single malt scotch. Father and son, on a big beach. We got a little drunk.
After our first night here, I went out to see who our neighbors are. Tracks of mink and otter, as expected, but also three deer — 2 adults and a fawn, which hardly left any impression in the sand at all. The deer hadn’t hung around and grazed on seaweed as they sometimes like to do; they had marched right on by.
It occurred to me that you don’t see many deer on these beaches, and also the probable reason. These beaches are clogged with piles of logs. Cattle gates are very effective barriers for hoofed animals. Deer can’t climb over logs. For mink and otters it’s no problem. During past visits here we’ve also seen wolves, big healthy ones. This would be a dangerous place for deer. Perhaps if cornered they would have to swim for it. I was once startled to see a couple of deer arrive here in the surf and then hoof it into the forest where there are no logs. They knew exactly where to go. But that was a rare event.
How many salmon streams have these logs destroyed? I’ve been coming to this beach since the 1980’s and to me they have always been here. That’s my baseline. While it is true that trees near the shore do occasionally fall onto the beach and get carried away, most of this is from the logging industry of the past. I wonder what this place looked like before industrial logging began, and how the streams were pathways into the forest for fish and other animals.
June 4, 2018
This trip has helped me put things in perspective, time-wise. A recent World Wildlife Fund study indicated that by about 2050, due to acidification and rising ocean temperatures, all coral will be gone. That’s 25% of all animal life in the seas. A lot of the shellfish that you find along this coast will be corroded away too. In just over 30 years from now. 33 years ago I was walking up those stairs on Egg Island that are now falling down. In the same time it took those stairs to deteriorate, corals will have corroded away. It’s too late to change that. With the amount of CO2 already in the atmosphere and oceans, and global emissions still rising, those extinctions are already baked in. By then I’ll probably be long gone. I’m not sure I would want to still be here. Despite this, we are still hunting for more oil, gas and coal and still burning increasing amounts of it. It’s appalling.
The other thing of note is how lucky I am to have time and space to be stressed out about this. If you have to worry about what to eat next, or have a job, kids and a mortgage to pay, you really don’t have a lot of energy left over to think about the planet and future generations of people and other critters.
June 5, 2018 Shelter Bay 50.977, -127.46
Many years ago I read some works by a teacher and intellectual working out of Cuernavaca, Mexico. Ivan Illich wrote an interesting analogy about research and development. (I’m pretty sure I’ve got this right, we’ve been far off the grid on this trip). He said that it is like digging a hole. At first when things look promising there’s a lot of activity. Then maybe the mother lode is hit and even more people join in excitedly. Great things are mined. But as they dig deeper there becomes less and less to find. Some people leave to start a hole elsewhere. The exodus increases the farther down they go until finally, at the bottom of the hole remain the experts. This is where the oil and gas people are starting to find themselves now. The coal experts are already there, looking up from the bottom of their hole. Sure, some of these people have, with great expense and manipulation of the media, managed to gain control of the White House and other seats of power, but theirs is a desperate, rear guard action. Their time is almost up. How long it takes before they are forced out will have a direct effect on how much damage they inflict on our planet.
Coming in here was so easy. No ocean swell, no surf. We didn’t have to time wave sets, brace and then jump out and grab our boats. We just stepped out. We are holed up here because the forecast on the VHF indicated a trough approaches with 35 to 40 knot winds.
There is a great camp in the forest. Just before you come in there is a sign: Caution-Cougar in Area. Below the heading sensible advice is given by the BC Conservation Officer Service about not running away, standing tall, defending yourself. The sign is old, probably from last summer, but I found some fresh tracks in the mud close by. These were from a bear, as it turned out, because it romped around beside our camp the next day.
June 7, 2018
Our only equipment failure was something I’ve always trusted to be most dependable. My deck compass didn’t actually break, its dome just fogged up inside so I couldn’t read it. Consequently, we overshot our planned campsite by a couple of nautical miles and decided, what the hell, we’ll go on to Hardy.
Our day was long and hard. Forecast was for 15 to 25 knot headwinds. It didn’t seem much in the morning, so we left. At first the winds were at the low end of the forecast but they picked up. The last 8 or 9 were at the high end. 9 1/2 hours against headwinds, just 17 miles. Crawling or not making headway at all.
Towards the end I was wondering if I was doing serious damage to this old body, but all will recover. I started thinking about LeBron James. What strength, what skill, what determination to shepherd a mediocre team all the way to the NBA finals. There are lots of people doing amazing things, but he’s doing it on prime time TV with millions looking on. “Look, he blocks a shot, runs end to end, bulldozes through the entire Golden State team, leaps right over Curry and throws it down.”
Meanwhile I pull on one side, pull on the other side, arms burning, pull, pull, get the job done. It’s hardly comparable and not at all significant, but it was fun thinking about.
Once we rounded Duval Point and were in sight of the pink hotel above the bus station that we thought we would be staying at, it was the thought of a warm shower, pub food and a bed that lured both of us to harbour.
The hotel turned out to be closed (it’s Hardy, after all) but there was another close by that was open. We were the only guests. We were on record as having stayed there 9 years ago. I hadn’t remembered this, but Evan did. Now this bus will take us all the way back to Victoria in the same time it took us to travel 17 nm. The driver, who seems like a terrific guy, just came on the intercom. The toilet is not functioning on this bus, he explained, “But don’t worry, this is northern Vancouver Island, there are lots of rocks and bushes to crouch behind.” (note: sadly this bus service has since been discontinued. How are the locals going to get around?)
Early this morning I was walking around in front of our hotel with some of our leftover food in a bag carried over my shoulder. I met a guy on an electric cart. He asked me what I was doing and I said that I was trying to get rid of some food and wondered if there was a food bank or somewhere I could ditch it. He said that I’d come to the right place, that he was on disability pension and was having a hard time making ends meet. I was planning on saving some of the freeze-dried rations, but decided, what the hell, I won’t miss them. I gave him everything but the cabbage and he gave me his story.
Wayne, 62, was healthy until 4 years ago. He contracted a rare form of a disease called Sapho from a virus, which ate away at his spinal column. He said for a while he was a quadriplegic. He was treated with drugs including Vancomycin (which I thought was a last resort antibiotic — does it work against viruses, or maybe the virus also inhibits the immune system causing infection?)
After treatment he moved up here away from friends and family in the Cowichan-Comox area because, he said, it was quiet here. This surprised me considering we were to having to shout over the music blaring from his cart. He could stand but not move much and his legs were like tooth picks. He was friendly, though, and appeared happy. It’s amazing how resilient a lot of people are.
When I went back to the hotel I found the main door was locked and nobody around. (It’s Hardy, after all). I had to throw what was left of our cabbage against our window to raise Evan from his bed.
This has been a wonderful trip shared with Evan. Besides the bear we saw many sea otters, seals, a few whales, lots of eagles, ravens, other birds and determined growths of plants and trees. But there was also a shadow. It’s as if a shroud from Mordor has passed over the land. That shroud is the knowledge that the land and sea are in great danger and that future generations will be living in a world far less diverse and abundant. Corals, shell fish, and pteropods will be gone and so will many species of fish. It’s too late to change that. My generation will be vilified. We should have known better and done more. Sometimes I cry. Still, we have to do what we can to minimize the damage. If we change our ways some good can come out of all this.
There is a woman from Ontario on this bus who is studying to become an oceanographer. She’s on the fish boats. It’s her job to record catches, how they are caught, when and where. She has been living out of her backpack since January. She is young, has an open mind, is idealistic and likes adventure. She said that of the 30 who started her recent class, after their first fishing tour only 2 remained. Some get seasick; some don’t like the fishermen who, she says, are always grouchy unless they’ve just hauled in a good tote of fish. She seems fine with all that.
June 10, 2018 Back at home
The news: Golden State swept Cleveland in 4; Pope Francis lectured some oil execs and government people about energy, fossils and climate change (I doubt the faithful were listening); and the Government of Canada has formally committed to buying the Trans Mountain Pipeline for $4.5 billion plus be on the hook for construction costs of anywhere from $7.4 billion to $12 billion.
For crass political reasons our PM is doubling down with our tax money on expanding by 60% the dirtiest and one of the most expensive oil plays on the planet and exposing our coast to potentially devastating oil pollution while signs everywhere point to the deepening climate crisis we are facing. Meanwhile some advanced countries, such as Germany, Scandinavia, New Zealand and Iceland are rapidly weaning themselves from fossils and are pointing a way to the future.
Imagine that if, instead of spending $12 billion on an unnecessary pipeline (most of the bitumen will still go to U.S. refineries) we invested in wind, solar and hydro power and built a smart grid of long-distance transmission lines to carry power across Canada and into the U.S. Canada has all the resources but lacks the vision to become a clean energy superpower. Do we have the capacity to create such a vision?
34. “Signs for all to see” (Leonard Cohen) (Entered September 30, 2021)
I wrote this a couple of years ago. It’s quite depressing, but you can’t quibble with much of it. I’m posting this today, September 30, 2021, which is National Day for Truth and Reconciliation in Canada. It is also called Orange Shirt Day because when Phyllis Webstad, of Dog Creek Reserve, was given a new orange shirt by her mother to attend school she was stripped of all her clothes when she entered. She wrote about that and went on to found this special day. Residential schools, originally created by the Catholic Church, forced First Nation families to give up 150,000 of their children from 1831 until the schools were closed down in 1996. Thousands died and this year hundreds of unmarked graves surrounding the schools have been found. Many suffered sexual predation, medical experimentation, malnutrition and other abuse. I never learned any of this when I was growing up. It is difficult, but important, to face the truth that my ancestors did this. I am just back from the event. There was a large crowd of mostly white folks in orange shirts listening respectfully to the stories and songs presented by residential school survivors and their families. This, to me, is a hopeful sign that reconciliation may be possible. I don’t think that we can deal with the climate emergency without also reconciling with the original stewards of this land. The two are inextricably linked.
There have been a number of climate related issues that have come up recently that are disturbing.
2017 was the hottest year on record without El Nino
Ocean temperatures were the hottest ever recorded.
The next hottest, in order were: 2015, 2016, 2014, 2013. (Lijing Cheng, Jiang Zhu, lead authors published in “Advances in Atmospheric Sciences”, March 2018, Volume 35,issue 3, pp 261–263)
Early 2018 temperatures in the Arctic were the hottest ever recorded and astounded scientists.
In Siberia temperatures were as much as 35C above average, for days. Scientists have called the news “shocking”, “weird”. It is impossible to unpack local aberrations from long-term effects, but scientists are re-examining their computer modeling, which did not predict such extreme swings. There is concern that the ‘polar vortex’, strong winds that circle the arctic and deflect warm air masses to the south, is breaking down. The arctic is warming faster than anywhere else. And Canada is heating up at twice the global average. Meanwhile extreme cold temperatures were recorded in Europe and North America as unconstrained polar air flooded south. In Ontario in April a baseball game had to be cancelled when an ice storm hit and chunks of ice fell from a tall building onto the stadium roof and punctured it. During the same weather event a basketball game was delayed briefly due to leaks on the roof caused by ice. (Horrors).
Greenland is melting faster than predicted: scientists are saying that they thought that the rate of melting ice being recorded in 2019 would not occur for another 50 years.
Antarctic glaciers are melting from below
Previous studies of glacier melt were made from satellite data which showed just the upper surfaces of the ice. This was only part of the story. A team of scientists from the University of Leeds has created an underwater map of Antarctica and found that the glaciers are also melting from below. They found that climate change has increased the rate of melting and that the Antarctic will overtake Greenland as a source of sea level rise. Recently a report from UK and American scientists found that the rate of melting has increased threefold in the last five years and ice is vanishing faster than at any time in history.
The Gulf Stream current is at its weakest in 1,600 years.
When the warm water that flows north up the coast of North America meets the cold Arctic water it cools, sinks and then flows southward. This is called the Meridional Overturning Circulation (Amoc)
The Gulf Stream is the strongest current flow in the world and is one of the great drivers of global climate, affecting everything from the weather in Europe to the monsoons in India. Scientists had thought that it could take centuries for this system to break down. These new measurements cast doubt on that. The Arctic is warming up much faster than other regions and is already 3C above historical norms. Greenland is melting quickly and flooding the area with less dense freshwater which is also weakening the Amoc current.
Canada’s forests are no longer “lungs of the planet”
Due to warming temperatures forests are more susceptible to pests such as the mountain pine beetle and to massive fires, which release huge amounts of CO2. The fire that ravaged Fort McMurray in May, 2016, causing the evacuation of 88,000 people, is a small harbinger of what is to come. These dangerous fires create their own weather system and can be impossible to control. Oddly, the reaction to this fire in Alberta was not to question tar sands production. It was the exact opposite: expand production to cover the financial losses that the fire caused. Let’s just dig ourselves a bigger hole.
Over 600 fires caused so much smoke in B.C. in 2018 that some scientists studied the way it was dispersed around the globe in order to understand how radioactive clouds would travel after a nuclear war. 1.2 million hectares of B.C.’s forests were lost and 200 million tons of carbon dioxide rose into the atmosphere. Then it got worse in the summer of 2019 when the whole of Siberia seemed to be on fire, as well as many parts of Alaska. The fires have been so hot the soil beneath the trees is burning too, sometimes travelling underground, exposing the permafrost to accelerated melting, and leading to a positive feedback loop of more melting, more CO2 and methane emissions, causing more heat and more burning. Scientists say that this amount of fire and smoke has not been seen in the last 10,000 years. I used to think that when the boreal fires start to burn uncontrollably like this it’s game over. But we are still here, we must have hope, but also fear. Hope and fear. And action.
According to a prominent economist who studied the effects of massive logging, the Amazon could be just two years away from being at a tipping point when the rainforest will stop producing enough rain to sustain itself.
At least 30% of the Great Barrier Reef has been destroyed.
Probably more, due mainly to the highest ever recorded sea surface temperatures across the reef.
After three years of continent-wide drought, in the austral summer of 2019 and 2020 Australia experienced the worst bush fires ever recorded causing the death of an estimated one billion animals.
All of these events indicate the climate is changing faster than the ever-conservative IPCC climate scientists predicted. This is a serious, life-threatening crisis. Where is the reaction from our political leaders? From ourselves? We need to increase tarsands production in order to decrease emissions? Does Australia need to increase coal and gas production despite the travesty of their island neighbours having to abandon their homes due to rising seas? What kind of bubble are we all in? (answer: a carbon bubble). I tend to be an optimistic person. (my wife would say overly optimistic). The more I have studied climate change the more I am afraid I have underestimated the danger we are all in. Bill McKibben, co-founder of 350.org., has stated that the situation facing mankind is not like a world war, it is a world war, and we are losing. The IPCC has reported that we have only until 2030 to half our GHG emissions in order to have a 50% chance of holding global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius. But emissions are still rising and there are already a billion fossil fueled cars and trucks in the world and most of them will still be working in 10 years, as will many of the fossil power plants. Buildings will continue to be made from concrete and cows will still be belching methane. Meanwhile the climate is approaching tipping points, such as the loss of Arctic sea ice and melting glaciers in Greenland and Antarctica. Paul Crowley, head of WFF Canada, has noted that the chance of putting the genie back in the bottle after the ice has melted is really slight, in fact beyond any of us being able to do anything about it. No, to avoid catastrophe we have to change how we live and work immediately. That means getting off fossil fuels, eating less meat, consuming less, planting more trees, sequestering carbon and demanding government action.
Last month 70% of private vehicles sold in Canada were SUVs or pickups. Even Germans are now buying more SUVs. There is denial across society. This is especially true for predominantly English speaking places such as the U.S., Canada and Australia, which have the largest GHG emissions per capita of all industrialized countries. According to David MacKay, the average North American consumes energy at a rate of 250 kilowatt hours per day. (250kWh/d). The average European or Japanese consumes 125kWh/d, or half that. Why?
Some of it is due to energy production. The U.S. and Canada have large oil and gas industries and Australia is the world’s largest exporter of coal. Also, these countries are large and not as densely populated as Europe or Japan. But this just accounts for some of it. There are cultural differences as well.
When Europeans first came to the Americas they claimed that most of the land was empty. Except for the people who already lived there. Original estimates of Indigenous populations were ruefully low. Modern estimates are between 300,000 and 500,000 in the Pacific Northwest alone. (Opentextbc.ca./postconfederation/chapter/11–3, also fnha.ca/our history our health) The new occupants cleared the land and established their own towns and villages. A wave of European diseases had decimated Indigenous communities ahead of this expansion. By 1867 the total number of aboriginals across Canada was only about 125,000. Compared to Europe, the Americas seemed to offer wide-open spaces and unlimited opportunities. A new frontier culture developed based on land development, resource extraction and farming. There was ‘freedom’ to move on when the soil became barren or the forest was gone or fish depleted. This ‘freedom’ didn’t exist in older, more densely populated European and Japanese societies that had matured over centuries. And this culture was so successful technically and economically that it became the model for development everywhere. (note: I’m not implying that this model of development originated at this time. Jarred Diamond in his book “Collapse” argues that many, if not all civilization collapses have been caused by or triggered by resource depletion. Many scholars consider that the advent of our extraction-based economic system can be traced all the way back thousands of years ago to the development of large scale agriculture. The new occupants in America brought this model with them and applied it with gusto).
Today the climate is changing ever faster, the oceans are steadily acidifying and we are confused as to how to proceed. I have long been proud of fact that in my country the rule of law prevails. (as if I had anything to do with it). Our legal system, based on English common law developed over centuries, and together with civil law, has proved to be more effective than any other system in protecting individual rights and promoting harmony. I used to think that it would be hard to improve on this system. It was too bad that these rights and privileges didn’t seem to apply to indigenous people and other minorities. I thought that if they did then things would be O.K. I was wrong. There is something missing in our legal system and in our culture.
A comment made by a Chief of a B.C. First Nation has stuck with me. She said that aboriginal laws “come from the land”. There is a new school being set up at the University of Victoria, B.C. It will be the first institution to offer a dual-degree program in Canadian law and Indigenous law. Her comment was in relation to that. Inherent in Indigenous law is that the land and nature are sacred. How this central understanding will develop in this new field is a wonderful, open question. The B.C. government, together with First Nations, has now enshrined the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) into law. These two developments can serve as a path forward, and not just for indigenous people. For all of us. We have much to learn and very little time. We need to conserve more and consume less. This requires a huge shift in culture.
Steve Bannon, of Breitbart Bent News fame made an interesting comment. He said that in order for politics to change you first have to change culture. He’s been very successful. He helped get Brexit passed and the U.S. boy-president elected. First culture must change. Only then will politics follow.
This will get messy. Real social change always is. Could this be the beginning of a cultural shift in a country that has huge fossil reserves (although three times the carbon intensity of Saudi oil and more than twice as expensive)[1], yet begins to limit their extraction and use? Canada has wonderful, peaceful, democratic traditions. If any country can achieve this huge shift it is Canada.
[1] A study by Rystad Energy, a research firm, that was reported in the Nov 2, 2019 issue of The Economist indicated that the breakeven price for new projects at which a company can make a 10% return in Saudi Arabia is U.S. $31.00 per barrel. The price for new Canadian oil was projected at $71.45 and CO2 equivalent/g per megajoule in 2015 was more than three times the Saudi oil.
35: Smoke (Entered November 1, 2021)
August 23, 2018
Yesterday when I was paddling to the Gulf Islands, crossing Swanson Channel, it was so smoky I had to contact a freighter on my VHS radio and explain my position because I could hear it but not see it. When the Japanese coal ship, the Corona Xanadu, finally did come into view I could see that it would pass a little ahead of me. I was O.K. Nonetheless, it was spooky. (It would be ironic if I were to be run down by a ship from Japan, a country I admire and have visited often, on its way to a Canadian port to load American coal for burning in a Japanese power plant because many of that country’s nuclear reactors were shut down and replaced with coal-burning plants after the earthquake and tsunami that hit the Fukushima Daiichi power plant in 2011, which incidentally set off a deluge of plastic garbage that reached B.C.’s shores three years later.)
On last count there were 565 fires burning in B.C. — a record number that exceeds last year’s record. 20,000 people are on evacuation alert or under evacuation order. The place is ablaze. California is burning, too, as are countries in Europe from the Mediterranean to the Arctic Circle, which are experiencing an intense heat wave. Scientists use a concept called “Extreme Event Attribution” to tell us whether an event was likely caused by global warming. They may run 500 simulations and if the event cannot be predicted without human caused greenhouse gases in the atmosphere they can predict with some certainty that climate change was a contributing factor. This is certainly happening near my home.
At what point will people move from just talking about climate change to actually doing something meaningful about it? When will we make changes to our own lifestyles, such as flying less, eliminating or reducing beef from our diets and reducing our gasoline consumption by switching to smaller or electric cars or to riding bicycles? When will we insist that corporations stop polluting? When will citizens in rich, developed countries who have contributed the most to the climate crisis realize that we have a duty to act now as we have suffered the least from climate change while those in less developed countries are suffering most? How bad does it have to get?
These are important questions. After all, there is a time lag between when and if GHGs are reduced globally and whatever benevolent effects this has on the rate of climate change. Even if GHGs were reduced markedly today the oceans will still absorb heat and become more acidic and anoxic for the foreseeable future and many shell fish and other creatures will still become extinct.
The trouble with waiting for the effects of climate change to affect everyone in the nostrils or paycheque is that by the time that happens it may well be too late. How to bump start change? Best answer: listen to the children, and act. They see their futures are increasingly bleak and are calling out to be heard. And elect politicians who listen to them, especially indigenous, other ethnicities, and women.
36. Attempt to Taiwan (Entered November 1, 2021)
September 19, 2018 Tokyo
Yesterday I had tea in Hamaryuku Park. The teahouse is perched on a small pond and is approached over a wooden bridge. Both the roof of the tea house and the water in the pond are bright green. The tea is even greener, and has a creamy texture with small foamy bubbles on the surface. It is incredibly delicious. The tatami mats and narrow red carpet invite you to sit and contemplate the beauty of the pond and even the tall buildings that rise up beyond it. This, for me, was a quiet escape from the crush of locals and foreigners thronging through nearby Tsujiki fish market.
The Tsujiki is the largest fish wholesale trading market in the world by any measure — number of species, Yen, $, by weight. Just as the abundance of large predator fish is in serious decline and about to go off a cliff, the old market is about to be moved to newer, bigger premises. I wonder, as Pacific Blue Fin tuna are close to being completely wiped out, if anyone sees the irony in that. Interestingly, the move has been delayed many times. Most of the old timers don’t want to lose the history of the place. And the new location, having being built on the site of an old chemicals storage plant, was found to be toxic and had to be extensively cleaned and sanitized. Now it has been claimed to be safe, but after Fukushima and other tragedies many people aren’t buying that.
I’m now looking out the window of a Tully’s coffee shop which is attached to my business hotel in Kaubukicho, Shinjuku, just outside the love hotel district. A guy just walked in front of the window. His T-shirt said, “I want myself just the way I am”. Beautiful language. It could apply to societies, especially Japanese. “We are Japanese and we catch and eat fish, no matter”. But also Canadian, “We are Albertans and we pump oil, no question”, or “I am from B.C. and we cut down old growth forests and will continue until they are all gone”. This is a depressing line of thought. Oh, oh. A young guy riding an electric bicycle (there’s lots) on the side walk while on his cell just hit a pigeon. It squawked, stunned, but seems O.K. The guy did stop, briefly. I wonder what kind of shocks will help us change our ways? Or will we just be forced to by events? In B.C. this summer a record 565 fires were burning at the same time. California burned too. Calgary flooded a couple of years ago and, of course, Fort McMurray burned. Japan experienced record rains this year and floods and landslides. Nothing much in the way of public policy has changed.
. I asked Shiro Ose about Japanese interest in environmental matters. He said that it is more due to Japan always following America’s lead. He also said that increasing numbers of people are put off by this. (This, he and Naky claimed, is especially true in the Okinawa Archipelago where the huge U.S. military base is deeply resented.) In this tight, conforming, tidy country do people learn about environmental issues and have a voice? It doesn’t seem so. Shiro said that there is little media coverage and asked me to forward him articles I collect, even though it was difficult for him, with his imperfect grasp of English, to understand them. He was not aware, for example, of deposit programs such as we have in B.C. that pay a nickel for every plastic bottle returned. Such a scheme could make some street people in Japan almost wealthy, as there is such a treasure trove out there on the beaches.
And yet, just now a man walked by. He was old, but walked easily, almost gliding by. He was dressed impeccably in cream-coloured pants and jacket with a bright green vest and carried a long pair of tongs like something you might use to fish a cob of corn from a deep dish of boiling water. There are no public garbage bins here. People wisely carry their garbage and dispose of it at home. How novel. This man picks up the tiny bits that are missed. Such care. Imagine if this fastidious behavior was directed at the beaches that are so infected with trash. Or, more of a stretch: at the GHGs that belch from their coal-fired power plants and ICE cars.
Thursday, September 29, 2018 Hoshidate, Iriomote Island, Japan
Here in this small village of Hoshidate, in a rundown hotel that soon may be without power while Super Typhoon Trami is bearing down and blowing sea water onto the windows in front of me, and as another typhoon is building to the south, I see that our very small project of paddling from Ishigake to Taiwan, and finishing our multi-passage trip from Kyushu to Taiwan, is looking exceedingly doubtful. No matter.
Yesterday I was over at Miho and Shinpei’s home. Shinpei was showing Shiro and me his collection of spears for fishing, like the Hawaiian sling I used to use in the Bahamas before most of the fish disappeared. I mentioned that we had passed over acres and acres of brown and white coral when we had paddled over from Ishigaki and he said, yes, it was dead. Then he mentioned an especially large round coral formation off Pine Cape (I think) and that it was listed in the Guinness Book of Records. I got excited until he said that it was dead too. I asked him how the diving industry could survive. He said that there are still a few pockets of live coral left and the dive masters take clients there. This year has seen more intense typhoons than any on record, which further damaged the coral.
There was a party over at Miho and Shinpei’s home last night as the typhoon powered in. I had thought that they might have been more concerned. I remember in Miyako 6 years ago the countryside was flat, mostly treeless, the buildings were low, concrete structures and the power lines were underground. There was surprisingly little damage, although the sugar cane crop was totally flattened and the few metal lean-to structures were torn away and sent flying. You dared not walk during peak winds.
This town of Hoshidate has traditional wood homes. There are trees everywhere, a mountain rises up behind and the ground is very low-lying. The big trees are called Teruhaboku, are very strong, and have evolved to withstand severe winds. Looking at a cross section it is hard to see the growth rings. Very dense. There is also crowded undergrowth here including beautiful red hibiscus with especially long stamens hanging down. A coral reef extends across most of the bay, protecting it. Inside the reef the water is very shallow. We came in at low tide and had to wade our kayak in. As Shinpei explained to Shiro, who passed it on to me: There is the reef, shallow water, the beach, then plants. What concerns me is that these traditional homes are at or below sea level, in a sort of hollow. If there is a storm surge and a meter of water is dumped, where will it go? Their roof looks strong, but how can they protect against floods? I asked Shinpei, and he just explained that, yes, there has been flooding before, but only during high tide and it only lasts for about three hours. He clearly wasn’t worried.
Two of the guests were descendants of original Ryukyu peoples. They had dark skin, big round faces and talked in a very gentle way. They described some of their family life and everyone started laughing, hugely. It wasn’t just the beer. I couldn’t follow so I asked Shiro about it later. He said that when they go fishing in the sea everyone cooperates as they have to tend the lines and nets together as a team. But when they go up the mountain to hunt wild boar they fight. Every man hunts individually and they are proud and they won’t share. Of course they have to haul the boars back down to the community. Then everyone gets the same amount. It is funny.
There were a number of women at the party, sitting separately from the men. The young women who are born here tend to leave the men and go to cities such as Naha and even Tokyo. But there are also women from the main centers who choose to come here. They tend to be strong, independent types.
One is a physiotherapist who has set up a practice in this village. I asked her how this could work out considering there are only about 100 full-time residents in this village and maybe a few more than that in Sonai, on the other side of the bridge. She said that she also treats tourists during the summer and yes, works at my hotel occasionally. She didn’t seem too concerned.
Another young woman moved from Kyushu. She collects wild plants and makes a type of cloth, like linen, she said, from them. Then she makes clothing and hats, I think, with the cloth, and sells in Ishigaki and Naha. She said that this island of Iriomote has the most varieties of useful plants in all Japan. I asked her if she was concerned about Habu, the poisonous snakes that lurk in the bush here, and she said no.
A third woman told me at the outset that she was getting a divorce. She said it as if she was going to be taking back a faulty pair of shoes. She has two children and it seems that her man is more interested in playing in a rock band than in fatherhood. Later I asked about this. Apparently the divorce rate in the Okinawan Islands is way higher than in Japan generally. Trouble in paradise. “Why?” I asked. Shinpei’s answer surprised me in its clarity and simplicity, “Because the men are lazy.”
I wondered why. Could it be that in this traditional, fairly patriarchal society the women still keep busy doing housework and perhaps working in offices. But the local fishing industry is mostly gone because the reefs are dying and fish brought in from big ocean trawlers is cheap. What’s a guy to do? Shinpei has a successful kayak guiding business and sparks with energy. He reminds me of Nadal getting ready to serve. But jobs available to men who wish to work outside appear to be hard to find. The response to my theory was muted. Something beyond my understanding.
When you enter someone’s home, or, in rural Japan, when you encounter people in their village, you say, “Konichiwa, ojamashimasu”. This means “Hello, I am sorry to enter your space or your village”. It is important to say this, to acknowledge the other person’s right to occupy space and that you are a visitor. We Westerners don’t do this, as we expect that we should be free to wander anywhere we want without restrictions. We take the space. I wonder if this is why we accept so readily the power of large corporations to move in and take our space. The joint stock companies that England pioneered, such as the East India Company and the Hudson’s Bay Company, ended up seizing vast areas of India and North America mainly for the benefit of a few nobles and grandees who lived far from the places of conquest. Technical breakthroughs and efficiencies that these corporations have pioneered have enabled huge numbers of people to live satisfying lives. This has been especially true for people in rapidly industrializing North America and Europe after the war and more recently in Asia. Over time, though, the large global corporations inevitably became more powerful and managed to reduce and eliminate the laws and regulations that had been set up to limit their actions. Today large corporations control industry and trade across the globe with little oversight and no thought about the space or rights of local inhabitants. Increasingly most of the benefits are now accruing to a small number of managers and shareholders. Competition has actually decreased markedly. This path to riches has run out. We see dangerous and growing inequality, and of course, environmental destruction.
It is hard to see how meaningful change in inequality and environmental protection can take place without first changing the structure of large global corporations and having a broad mix of socially engaged people on corporate boards, in positions of power. Don’t expect corporations to do it themselves: people must organize and demand that governments act. For life on this amazingly beautiful planet.
The dinners at our hotel in Hoshidate have been a wonderful assembly of mysterious small fish, sea food and vegetables. All of it delicious. As I was enjoying this, I began to wonder, how do they do it? There are 127 million people on these islands, and everyone eats sea food. I believe most of the fish come from local waters. How is this sustained? It seems as if the spirit of ojamashimasu runs through fishing culture also. Some of the first official no-take fishing zones were established as early as 1895 but these were just official recognition of pre-existing self-imposed zones that had been agreed upon by community members 250 years ago.
It may seem amazing to modern fisheries managers, but fishers back then realized the importance of no-take zones for the welfare of the community. Today there are more than 1,000 fishery cooperatives in Japan and, not surprisingly, also more than 1,000 MPAs. Most are no-take zones. Some are managed top-down by the government and some bottom-up by local communities. Almost all, though, are based on historical territorial use by local communities. This is a maddeningly complex country. The local fisheries are organized on sound, sustainable principles that actually work. But the large, subsidized international fishing fleets? They’ll chase big predators such as blue fin tuna to the ends of the earth and people are prepared to catch, and eat, the very last one. As far as I can see, no one is speaking up about this.
October 1, 2018 Hotel in Ishigaki
It’s nice not to be camping on the concrete slope of the fishing port. We are staying at a hotel recommended by Shinpei. We were surprised when we got here to see lines of young women on either side of the street standing around, looking bored and unhappy, waiting for men. He stays here with his wife and young son Shinjiru? I guess the price is right. Shiro says that the women only talk to lonely men, there’s no other action. Really? There is a sign in our elevator: no visitors allowed.
We left Iriomote because, after the first typhoon pounded by, another was forming even bigger than the first, which had been the biggest of the year. Just like Genghis Khan when he twice tried to invade Japan, we have had no luck with typhoons.
These days the situation is worse. 90% of the heat generated by our GHGs since industrialization has been absorbed by the oceans and in this part of the world it is coming right back at us. Dead coral and super typhoons are the result. There just hasn’t been enough time between storms for the seas to settle down enough for us to go. This hasn’t been much of a kayak trip but it sure has indicated the planet is heating up. I promised Theresa that this would be my last kick at the can as far as getting to Taiwan is concerned. I’ve timed out. So be it.
We’ll be going to Naha tomorrow to visit old friends. Particularly, I want to see Naky, my old paddling partner, and Keiko, who is suffering from brain cancer. Between working his 100 bee hives (down from 200) and being Keiko’s primary care-giver Nakamura-san has time only for a short visit. We’ll also visit with his two sons. They are a close knit family. Then we will head to Makino, Shiro’s home on Lake Biwa. The typhoon that just preceded my visit here loosened some tiles off his roof and now Super Typhoon Trami is headed straight there. He needs to check. Then we will paddle somewhere where there is no typhoon for a few days. Hopefully.
October 7, 2018 Makino
Yesterday we drove to the Lake Biwa Museum and aquarium. En route we were talking about why North Americans burn through 250 kwh/day while Japanese, with an advanced industrial economy, use 125 kwh/day. Just half. How do they do it? Smaller houses, more trains, smaller cars? There are some full-sized SUVs, mainly in the big cities like Tokyo and Osaka, but not many. We had been traveling through many places and I had yet to see a full-size pick-up truck. Not one. I asked why Japanese go for small cars? Carpenters, plumbers and such tend to use small panel vans. Others go for hatchbacks like the ubiquitous Toyota Aqua hybrid hatchback. It rains a lot in Japan so there are not many open trucks. As we were passing by the Hotel Chapel Christmas the reason hit us: The Japanese don’t need big cars because they can go to the love hotels. Brilliant.
Of course the fact that Japan has no fossil fuels and must import all of its fuel has a lot to do with it. Since the 1950s Japan has built a modern industrial economy while being frugal with imported energy sources. For years Japan has had the most fuel efficient vehicle standards in the world, even surpassing Europe. In Canada we have something Al Gore has called “resource curse”. We rely on cheap energy and squander it. Now, as we have to learn to scrimp on energy use for environmental reasons, it’s coming back to bite us and causing real disunity in the country. For me, the success of Japan is cause for hope. If we look at their example and learn from them we know that we can do much, much better.
In the aquarium Shiro talked about the fish and explained how each tasted. Basically, if they have gills, you eat them. It doesn’t matter how small. I remember in Iriomote eating mouthfuls of tiny fish. It was like eating rice with eyes. They were tasty protein. I wondered about fish bile. When you eat a fish you normally clean it first to remove the bad parts. But you consume copious numbers of these, all parts included. Is fish poo a bad thing? How much can you consume? Of course I ate them all, they tasted fine and nothing happened.
In another meal the main course was a fish about 20 cm. long, including head and tail. What was remarkable about this was that there was no meat. Perhaps I had eaten that the night before. There was just a skeleton that had been deep fried. You eat the whole thing. It was crispy and tasted like fish-enhanced chips, not bad at all. They eat up and down the seafood chain with nothing going to waste. I have no idea if these delicacies were wild or farmed. If those tiny critters were caught wild the fishers must have used a very fine net.
After the aquarium we went to the no-smoking doctor. I had met him on a previous trip. He has a chiropractic and traditional healing practice. Back then he smoked a lot, so I called him the smoking doctor. To be fair, he has quit, so the no-smoking name now. He treated some of my ailments with Okyu, which are little discs smaller than a dime with wicks sticking out. When lit they produce a very localized heat of 45 deg. C. The discs are placed on the skin on passageways similar to acupuncture. Years ago I had a climbing accident and eventually had a disc removed from my lower back. My spine is not straight and of course, pain is the result. More recently I went over the handle bars of my bicycle on a steep hill. I landed on pavement and severely crushed my shoulder. He put Okyu on both places. It seemed to help some. I’m mindful of placebo effects although I also realize that without belief relief is unlikely. The jury is out, but the treatment itself felt good. When I was relaxing there, my mind wandered and I started thinking about paddling trips: Bering Strait, French Polynesia, this one. We never got to our planned destinations. The joke is on me. But somehow it doesn’t matter.
October 10, 2018 Makino
Last night we were commando camping on a beach northeast of Matsue. About midnight I woke up to intense pain in my right arm, and there was a swollen red bag hanging down from my elbow. Infection, my old pal Staphylococcus aureus that first visited me in French Polynesia and has come back uninvited a few times since. Right then I knew that our planned kayak trip to Nishinoshima Island was over before it started. I’ve learned not to fool around with this infection.
Shiro was a great help in dealing with this. The first hospital in Yonago was large and unapproachable and sent us to a smaller, more user-friendly hospital. I showed them a laminated card I carry describing my susceptibility and the antibiotics that tame it. I did get a prescription but the staff indicated that they did not know where a drug store was. We eventually found one that actually said “drug store” but it didn’t sell drugs. The second did, but didn’t have the one I needed. In the third, we scored. Quite an unexpected turn of events. My body: still strong enough for paddling, but what about durability? I’m asking that question, but have no answer.
On the way back to Makino we blundered across two EV “Quick Chargers”. I hadn’t noticed any before then, so thought they didn’t exist. My judgment was too quick. How would I recognize them? It turns out that there is an app, just like in North America, that indicates where they are. There are lots of 200 V. level 2 and also DCFC, as we call them, mostly 44 kW. That’s just enough. The hook-ups are all CHAdeMO, which is the plug the Japanese cars are equipped with.
I hadn’t seen many full-on electric vehicles. There were a few Nissan Leafs and finally, in Shinagawa, Tokyo, I chanced upon a beautiful white Tesla S, which I noticed because the driver had done an illegal U-turn on a bridge. So far they have the charging stations but not the cars. An average electric car (if there is such a thing yet) has about 50 moving parts. An ICE (internal combustion engine) car has maybe 2,000. When people start to realize how trouble-free these cars are, and how fast and smooth, the change-over to electric could become an avalanche, especially when re-sale values for ICE cars start to tumble. Even now the Tesla Model 3 is outselling all luxury cars in the U.S. despite Musk’s misadventures in the Twittersphere. And electric cars are starting to dominate in China where half of the world’s electric cars are made and sold and where companies increasingly have a lock on rare minerals used in batteries. Tesla is building a mega factory there. Look out Japanese carmakers. I don’t see much action from them, are they sleeping?
There are perhaps three main drivers of electric cars: the climate, China’s foul air, and Elon Musk. The excellence of his Tesla cars is beyond dispute. He somehow keeps avoiding bankruptcy despite his rough tweets, missed production goals, and attacks by foes funded by the fossils. He keeps the pressure on the legacy car makers to improve their offerings. An unlikely environmental hero.
An admission: I really like driving our Chevy Bolt even if, for GM, which makes its money on pickups and SUVs, it is just a compliance car. When you press the accelerator pedal, you go — quiet and fast. Let your foot off and you stop. Regenerative braking. It is the most advanced car they and their Korean partners have ever made. We are lucky that we can charge it at home. Apartment dwellers have a more difficult time getting the juice, but this will change.
Look what’s happening in Europe. To achieve its GHG reduction goals Europe plans to be selling 100% zero emission vehicles (ZEVs) by 2030 or 2035 and retire internal combustion emission (ICE) cars at least by 2050. This is an ambitious goal and is being challenged by the famous German manufacturers of “advanced” gas-powered vehicles. The entire industry employing hundreds of thousands is at risk of being overtaken by the Chinese. Their situation seems to me to be as precarious as that of our own oil and gas industry. Companies and countries that do not plan for the huge disruption that must take place will be left behind. This includes Canada, which is tied to the U.S. and is basically an order taker. With the U.S. going backwards on climate change, I see a lot of Canadians buying Chinese cars in the future.
The air in Tokyo made my eyes sore and my nose run. One of the things that people all over the world tend to overlook is the effect of bad air on our health. How could we not notice? We are living in it. Studies show effects ranging from reduced IQ in children, eye irritation, organ, skin, bone and nervous system damage, increase in respiratory diseases and even enlargement of hearts. Imagine running our transportation system on clean electricity. Irrespective of the positive effects on global climate, this is a goal to strive for.
37. Fisheries: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (Entered Dec. 2, 2021)
The Good
In 2018 Ecotrust Canada published a remarkable report on fisheries. The authors interviewed fish harvesters themselves and studied how fisheries are organized around the world. They found that the most successful fisheries, including the top five, have several attributes in common, including:
The owner/grantee of fishery access must be on the boat (owner-operator),
Processors/non-fishing companies cannot own licenses or quota,
The fishery does not allow the lease, trade, or sale of quota,
The fishery is managed by, or is jointly managed with, harvesters and their community,
Membership in a cooperative or fish harvester organization is required”
They found that when these criteria were met, the marine ecosystem, social network of communities, financial opportunities and good governance of the fisheries were enhanced.
The authors rated ranked the 29 different fisheries that they studied. Surprisingly, the top five included one in Canada: the Magdalen Islands Atlantic lobster fishery. This fishery was categorized as ‘Competition with effort/input controls’. Here the fishery is managed locally and communally with restrictions on gear, boat size, and the amount of time allocated for fishing. Another in the top five was the Alaskan fishery in the Bering Sea and Aleutian Islands. This was described as: “Quotas managed by Communities”. The Japanese system, described as “Territorial Use Right Fishery” (TURF), although not in the top five, also scored well.
The Bad
Of all the fisheries studied, the groundfish fishery in B.C. came in the worst. This system features individual transferable quotas (ITQ): quotas for catching fish can be traded openly to the highest bidder. Over the past 40 years the price for these quotas has been driven up so high that few fishermen can afford them. Now, large corporations control most of the quota. Today 6% of quota holders control over 50% of the quota. From 2000 to 2015 fish harvesters’ income has been reduced by 42%. Communities up and down the coast have been almost completely driven out of the fisheries.
Profits go to the investors, often foreign, who have no stake in the local communities, or in the sustainability of the fish population. Chinese companies are acquiring groundfish vessels and their ITQs. One recently acquired a long-term lease on a plant in Bella Bella. Meanwhile, the boats in the harbour sit idle:
A First Nations fish harvester from the north coast says:
“It’s killed a lot of communities. You go to Bella Bella, you go to Hartley Bay, you go to Alert Bay even, you look at their fleets and ever since area selection and quotas, you’re down to — let’s say they had five hundred boats, they’re down to ten, fifteen. That’s from the quota. You can actually go into a lot of these villages and you can see on the beach the boats that they can’t maintain. My brother’s boat sank right in the breakwater in Hartley Bay.”
The Ecotrust study noted that the only worse example of the consequences of an unregulated market is the Vancouver Housing Market: both a humorous and grim comparison.
(Just Transactions, Just Transitions, Towards Truly Sustainable Fisheries in British Columbia, Ecotrust Canada, T. Buck Suzuki Environmental Foundation, November 21, 2018)
The salmon fishery is dominated by foreigners and by Jim Pattison’s Canfisco, which is an integrated company that owns licenses, quota and fishing vessels up and down the coast. He, who has the most money, wins. Meanwhile, salmon landings have declined from 100,000 tonnes in 1990 to about 20,000 tonnes today. Almost all of the fishermen on the coast insist that only active harvesters should have quota and allocations should be community based. Jimmy Pattison is a popular billionaire. He has played trumpet in a band for ages and he’s donated to the Vancouver General Hospital. A whole wing is named after him. His company also has serious influence in government: his right hand guy used to be premier of the province. Yet communities throughout the coast are suffering, and so are the fish. The situation has been described as a modern-day feudal system in which harvesters are like sharecroppers who have to pay for the right to fish. Some of the offshore money appears to be tied to money laundering. As one industry veteran told Ecotrust: “If we lose our fishing we lose our identity”.
The Ugly
West Africa’s coast has long been one of the world’s richest fisheries. Traditionally, fishing has produced up to a quarter of the jobs and two-thirds of all animal protein in the region. But these days giant Asian and Russian trawlers routinely catch 250 tonnes of fish a day while ripping up the sea bed. This is more than 50 local pirogues[1] would catch in a year. Local leaders are easily corrupted by the fishing companies, and traditional fishing is dying out. It is
contributing to the mass exodus and migration of people from this area and to the refugee crisis in the Mediterranean. Trawlers routinely under-report their catch by 50%.
A recently study by the Environmental Justice Foundation (EJF) looked at the situation in Ghana, West Africa. There, industrial trawlers catch the staple fish that locals fishing from canoes used to catch. Then, at night, the fish are loaded onto canoes and brought to shore and sold as locally caught, for profit. This practice, known as “saiko” fishing, landed approximately 100,000 tonnes of fish in 2017 and is responsible for decimating Ghana’s fish population. Stocks may be completely wiped out by the early 2020s, according to scientists. Local fishermen have been reduced to poverty as have people in support industry onshore. More than 90% of Ghana’s trawl fleet is linked to Chinese owners who have corrupted local officials. This is an extreme, though not uncommon, example of how a fishery can be destroyed in a short time, leaving people hungry and in poverty. An unregulated market system that rewards short-term profit over all else always leads to disaster.
(Stolen at Sea: How illegal ‘saiko’ fishing is fuelling the collapse of Ghana’s fisheries, Environmental Justice Foundation, June 17, 2019)
[1] In French West Africa, pirogues refer to handcrafted banana-shaped boats used by traditional fishermen. In Madagascar, it also includes the more elaborate Austronesian lakana outrigger canoe. Pirogues are usually propelled by paddles that have one blade (as opposed to a kayak paddle, which has two).
38. Geoengineering (Entered Dec. 2, 2021)
Rex Tillerson, past CEO of ExxonMobil and past Secretary of State for Trump’s White House, once stated that climate change is “an engineering problem”. Geoengineering is a term that refers to various plans to halt or slow down the effects of the climate crisis. The most talked about idea, and the one favored in the Trump administration, is that once the world has become so overheated people are begging for any relief, the military would spray masses of sulphate particles into the atmosphere, worldwide, causing some of the sun’s energy to be deflected away from the planet. Problem solved. This seems to be the future we are now blundering towards. Effects would be impossible to predict. Some simulations indicate a further depletion of the ozone layer and that millions, and possibly billions, of people in third world countries would suffer and starve as rain fall patterns change. One thing for sure: this would be catastrophic for the oceans. The only way to limit or reduce acidification in the oceans is to reduce the CO2 in the atmosphere, and spraying sulphates would be a license to keep on burning fossils and spewing GHGs. This is the magic solution of the fossil fuel corporations: deny, deny, deny. Then spray.
Negative Emission Technologies
The IPCC says that in addition to reducing fossil fuel use, changing diets, planting trees and other conventional responses to climate change we will have to start actively pulling CO2 from the air by mid-century in order to keep temperatures rising less than 2 deg.C. This is called negative emissions technologies (NET) and is quite different from geoengineering techniques that aim to reduce solar energy by spraying the atmosphere or seeding the oceans with iron to promote CO2 absorption. Some of the techniques suggested by the IPCC are “bioenergy with carbon capture and storage” (BECCS) which would require unrealistically large amounts of precious forest land and “soil carbon sequestration” which would depend on farmers around the world planting extra crops in the off season. Another possibility was considered by the IPCC but was considered too technologically challenging. This may be changing. Direct Air Capture (DAC) involves capturing CO2 directly from the air. It is a topic that is talked about in hushed tones, almost like a forbidden fruit, because we cannot rely on it instead of reducing our use of fossil fuels. IPCC studies indicate we must do everything possible to reduce our use of fossil fuels and change how we live but this won’t be enough to meet climate targets. There are only two companies currently involved in DAC. Climeworks is based in Zurich, Switzerland and removes CO2 from the air and sells it to greenhouse growers. The other company is Carbon Engineering, founded by Harvard University physics professor, David Keith, based originally in Calgary and now in Squamish, B.C., where it has an operating demonstration plant. It uses readily available and scalable technology to draw CO2 from the air and hydrogen from electrolysis, powered by renewables, and combines them to make ultra-low-carbon fuels for cars, ships or aircraft. They call it “air to fuel”, or A2F. The company is planning on building a plant above the Permian Basin capable of capturing one million metric tons of CO2 per year starting in 2021. The fuel will help California reach its low-carbon fuel standard (LCFS). Credits for LCFS are now trading for about $150 per ton of carbon and Carbon Engineering states that with its industrial scale plant it can get its costs down to around $100/ton. Carbon neutral fuels: this is exciting. Imagine if short range airplanes were powered with electric batteries and longer range with A2Fs. This could become reality if the carbon in fossil fuels were priced properly. Yes, flying would become more expensive. But before you, reader, complain, consider this: 80% of the people on this planet have never flown. Those of us who have are the lucky 20%, and we’re the ones responsible for the climate crisis.
Carbon neutral fuels do not qualify as negative emissions. For that to happen the CO2 captured from the atmosphere must be put back into the ground, where it came from. There are plans in the longer term to do this. However, the price in California today for carbon is only about $15 a ton. Sequestering carbon will not be commercially viable until the costs of companies such as Carbon Engineering come down and the carbon credit for sequestering carbon goes up. An analysis by industry expert The Brattle Group foresees prices reaching $55/ton in 2030 and climbing to $130/ton by 2050. Unfortunately, this isn’t fast enough to prevent disastrous climate change and ocean acidification. We need to more, sooner. If that does happen and we as global citizens manage to hugely reduce our emissions, perhaps we can minimize or even reverse the worst damage to our home planet. We have to try.
39. Burnaby to Victoria (Entered December 30, 2021)
June 14 to June July 3, 2019.
Our plan for this trip was to follow the tanker trail: from the Trans Mountain Pipeline Terminal in Burnaby, B.C. to the Strait of Juan de Fuca where the big ships head out to open ocean. There has been huge controversy about tripling the capacity of the pipeline that carries diluted bitumen (dilbit) from the Edmonton area to Burnaby. For starters, Canada has international commitments to reduce its emissions by over 523 megatonnes a year by 2030 and projections show that it is currently on track to exceed that by over 200 megatonnes. The economic outlook for the expansion doesn’t look so good either. The International Energy Agency predicts that oil consumption will peak as early as 2020 and the price will fall after that to approximately $30 per barrel as progressive countries switch their economies to renewables and economies falter. The marginal costs of the oil sands are estimated at over $60 per barrel. Where’s the benefit in that? There is considerable concern about the demand for bitumen even at today’s prices. According to a well-researched article by Briony Penn, writing in Victoria’s Focus magazine, only 20 tankers carrying bitumen have left for China since 2014. The terminal in Burnaby has been severely underutilized and almost all of the bitumen that did get shipped went to California refineries. There is not much demand for bitumen in Asia. It’s expensive and difficult to refine. It is important to consider what officials who have a global, rather than local, understanding of the future of energy have to say. Here is OECD Secretary General Angel Gurria’s recent comment: “Our policies have to be made with our children’s future in mind…short-term decision-making can lock countries into expensive mistakes in financing and developing infrastructure…that will be neither necessary nor profitable in a low-emissions world, they will be stranded assets.” (Jonathan Watts, Guardian, July 5, 2019) There is also the matter of 1 trillion litres of polluted fluid fine tailings (FFT) being contained in tailings ponds covering 220 square kilometers. These are already leaking into the Athabasca River and the companies involved want to start releasing them on a regular basis. All remediation efforts have failed. Liabilities of the oil and gas sector have been estimated as high as $260 billion. If an industry can’t properly dispose of its massive quantities of waste, and doesn’t know how, can it be considered successful?
As mentioned earlier, the challenges and risks of containing and recovering dilbit in the event of a spill at sea have not been studied sufficiently and recovery exceeding 10% in rough conditions is remote. The risks have been underestimated by the industry.
Our passage will take me down memory lane, where I worked and commuted by kayak for years, and past the most biologically productive environment in all of Canada. As in all large urban areas, there is increasing pressure from industry and developers on the natural surroundings.
Kit was on hand with Theresa to see us off. We had stayed the night at his and his wife, Jill’s home in nearby Deep Cove. We go all the way back to kindergarten. It was with him that I cycled, along with two others, across the country to PEI. To paraphrase Leonard Cohen: “Just 4 young guys in their mid-sixties with a dream”. Kit is a geophysicist by training, and has a wry wit. He says that he has spent most of his working life chasing after “useless rocks” (diamonds). I think that he has been pretty successful at it. He had come down to our departure point at Cates Park, across Burrard Inlet from the Trans Mountain Terminal, on his titanium road bike. He was training for a multi-month cycle trip in Africa. If the subject turns to the climate crisis he says with a grin: “We’rerrr fucked”.
We paddled across to the marine loading terminal on the south side of the inlet. There is a boom across its entrance that was expanded after protests by kayakers and canoeists led by First Nations. I had been there once towing a huge, black inflated tube with red Xs on it, meant to indicate no to a pipeline. It had seemed like a good idea at the time, but it was windy and the giant sausage kept pushing me off course, like a huge, out-of-control tail wagging a lap dog.
On the north shore, across from the terminal, sandwiched between Cates Park and chemical storage vats farther west, is the home of the Tsleil-Waututh Nation. Of all the communities affected by the terminal and tankers they are probably the most at risk and have been amongst the leaders in the protest against the expansion of Trans Mountain. There is a gravel bank extending offshore that drains at low tide, which probably has clams and fin fish, but I doubt they harvest them. Fecal and hazardous chemical levels are high in the area. They have lost much already.
We paddled under the Second Narrows Bridge, (also called the Iron Workers Bridge) aided by a strong ebbing current. In 1958, during construction, several spans collapsed, causing seventy-nine workers to plunge into the water, leading to 19 deaths, some attributed to the weight of their tool belts. I still have a dim memory of that.
My sister and her boyfriend once owned a home in Deep Cove. I paddled to her place through the port from Kitsilano, where I rented a room, a few times. I would stay the night, have a visit, a free meal, and then return with the tide the next morning. But, that was decades ago and things were looser back then. This time we decided to keep a low profile, stay close to the docks on the north shore and try to blend in as much as two guys in expedition kayaks, wearing bright yellow PFDs, can do. We were just approaching what appeared to be a new grain loading facility when a large power boat came towards us at full speed, with blue lights flashing. When it got closer we could see that it said “Port Authority” in large letters. “Do you have any idea why I just drove this boat fast up to you guys with lights on?” asked the grey bearded captain of the Takaya. “Um, maybe because we’re not supposed to be here?” I asked. “You’ve got that right”, he responded. “I’m going to have to load you on this here boat and take you out of here.” The boat had a low transom and it was easy to haul our kayaks onboard. He then asked where we had launched and if we had a car there. I told him that we had been dropped off at Cates. He asked us where we were going and I told him Victoria, but today just to either Kitsilano or Marpole. Then I suggested that instead of taking us back to where we started he could just offload us somewhere past the Lions Gate Bridge, off Stanley Park, and out of his concern. He was stern with us, but friendly, and he agreed. We got set off just shy of Siwash Rock. During that brief passage his mate asked about kayaking, where to go, is it safe, that sort of thing. I showed him the VHF radio that is always attached to my PFD, my flares, and we talked about other safety concerns. He had been in the merchant marine for 12 years and was an experienced seaman. He also explained that the rules for entering the port had been tightened recently. No paddle boards, sailing, kiting, paddling; nothing without a motor.
When we entered False Creek under the Granville Street Bridge we noticed a large new painting called The Birds of False Creek. It showed the birds that I saw during the 26 years that I paddled three or four times a week from my home in Kitsilano to our shop on Granville Island. Most the birds that I would encounter, including geese, grebes, duffel heads, golden eyes, cormorants, crows, mew gulls, glaucous gulls, and eagles were there. They were well painted on a modern pink background. Some things get better.
And some things don’t. We rounded the small marina into Alder Bay, where I used to pull out. The marina there has boats worth hundreds of thousands (or millions?) tied up to cheap wharfs floated on Styrofoam blocks. Over time the Styrofoam has deteriorated and pieces regularly break off and float away. (Newer wharfs usually have concrete or solid plastic floats). I wonder if there are regulations about that.
Evan and I made our way to our old shop building and looked inside. It’s been over two years now and the place is still empty. The wheels of the Federal Government turn slowly.
In 2001 a group called “Friends of False Creek” began a program of testing the water quality in False Creek. They needed a couple of kayakers to take water samples throughout the creek. My colleague, Kevin, and I volunteered. This was easy for me because I was paddling to work anyway, but Kevin had to arrive at the shop early and get into his kayak there. Every Wednesday morning, before work, for a year and a half we took water samples in sterilized plastic bottles at a number of designated positions in False Creek. At each site we took one sample for testing for fecal coliform and another for enterococci. After collecting the samples we went ashore with all of our bottles and put them in a cooler which was picked up by a team member and taken to two testing facilities. The program was supported initially by the GVRD (Greater Vancouver Regional District), and by scientists from the provincial and federal governments. It was already known that there were pollution problems in False Creek but we wanted to more accurately learn about the scale of the problem and identify sources and the effects of weather, if any. At the time there were dozens of small boats moored in the creek, some with people living full time on them. We thought that this could be a source of pollutants. Bigger concerns were the three CSOs (combined sewer overflows) that drain into the creek. The system is designed to send sewage directly to a treatment plant. However, during rain events this can be overwhelmed and the excess spills into the CSOs and flows, thanks to gravity, into the creek. With increasing population densities comes increasing sewage and increasing stress on the CSOs. The GVRD already knew about this and had a 50-year plan to increase the capacity of the sewage system. This seemed a little far off to me. Although the GVRD seemed like a reluctant ally, the provincial and federal scientists were great. The federal guy, whose specialty was shellfish, told us that one day he hoped to eat oysters from False Creek. However, he wondered if the report would ever see the light of day.
Recommended limits for body-contact for enterococci are 35 colonies/100 mL sample. Limits for body-contact recreation for fecal coliform are fewer than 200 /100 mL and for fishing and boating: fewer than 1000 /100 mL. Kayaking would seem to have more exposure than ordinary “fishing and boating”. Safe limits tend to be seen as 200 colonies/100mL. During the months that we were collecting samples we heard about “very high readings” and “readings off the chart” of both pathogens. It was found that the highest readings occurred after a dry period that was followed by substantial rain, which flushed the CSOs out. The presence of the small boats was found to not be a significant factor. Highest readings were near the outflows. One email indicated fecal coliform results ranging from 45,000 to low 1000’s. At that time there was massive development of apartment towers and townhouses, especially on the north side of the creek. Land prices sky-rocketed (which contributed to our shutting down boat manufacturing.) Both the city and the developers made a lot of money. After we finished the program we waited for the study to be completed and publicized. We never did see any results. There must be a report somewhere about pollution in False Creek sitting on some dusty digital shelf. Meanwhile there is a large population living in luxury apartments on some of the most valuable land in North America surrounding the “urban jewel” that is False Creek that sometimes more resembles a cesspool. If you want to see the “natural jewel” of Greater Vancouver you need to look just a bit further south.
We used to sell our kayaks to a chain of large outdoor stores headquartered in Hamburg, Germany. Many people don’t realize that Hamburg has more kilometers of canals than Venice. The Alster River is especially interesting because on its journey through two small lakes to the Elbe River it flows through some beautiful old estates that are only visible from the water. Like Vancouver, Hamburg has a history of overflowing CSOs that polluted the water to the extent that people were warned off the Alster, and massive fish die-offs occurred. Unlike Vancouver, Hamburg decided to do something about it. A few years ago I was paddling there with a German acquaintance when we came to what seemed to me to be a large handsome dock. “What’s this for?” I asked. It was explained to me that it was one of a number of huge underground storage basins for holding water and sewage after a rain event when the CSOs could not handle the excess. Once the rain passes the sewage can be pumped back to the treatment plant. Today you can swim in the Alster and be confident that the authorities monitor the situation closely. The Alster and its two inner-city lakes are now known as “the internationally admired wet bits that make Hamburg what it is!” (How Hamburg became European Green Capital…) Could this system work in False Creek? I’m no hydrology engineer, but intuitively, you would think so. Vancouver gets more rain (1167 mm/yr. average vs. 768 mm for Hamburg), but False Creek is much smaller. There are only three CSOs. There are federal guidelines on pollution limits for marine waters and there is no way that False Creek meets those. All of the various governments concerned have been turning a blind eye to the problem for decades. You would think that there would be funding available from the federal government and also from the developers that have made their millions from building the place out. It may just be a matter of not caring enough. One thing that our little study may have influenced: some time after the project was wound down signs went up at various parts of the creek warning about pollution levels after rain events. (Note: on July 27/19 during a weekend for fireworks, nearby Kitsilano Beach was closed for swimming. One sample for E. coli came in at 12,997 per 100 ml. Safe is 200.)
On our way out of False Creek we passed Fisherman’s Wharf. It was here in 2012 that members of the Squamish Streamkeepers Society began wrapping protective plastic around creosote-treated pilings. Herring like to lay their eggs on the pilings, but the creosote kills them. There hadn’t been any herring in the creek for many years. The Streamkeepers had started wrapping pilings in Squamish a few years earlier. Six years later a strong herring run had attracted hundreds of dolphins and Orcas. The group also installed hanging nets in False Creek where herring can lay additional eggs. In 2018 a billion eggs were laid. This is such a phenomenal result the streamkeepers predict the return of dolphins and orcas. What a terrific success for a volunteer group with a vision and determination to carry it out.
We paddled out of False Creek, past Vanier Park and Kits beach. Further along is what I have long called the “sewer lot” This is another large CSO that has a bad smell during rain events. For a number of years I lived a few blocks inland from there and launched from the pipe that extends out to sea. (Later I moved farther west and my launch site was below a steep staircase.) Beside the CSO is the most valuable home and property in B.C. I call it “Chip’s Big Bunker” because it is constructed from massive concrete slabs. When Chip first built it he had a mural painted on the substantial seawall that fronts his property. It was attractive and featured some cartoon characters and a beautifully painted bird. Unfortunately, he did not get city approval and they made him paint over it. For years after that there were only ugly tags and markings on the wall. I saw that this time, though, the wall had been painted bright baby blue. It is visible from far and wide because it is the biggest and brightest. It doesn’t look as fine as the original, though. Chip’s claim to fame is that he was able to convince half the women in the First World to wear tights on the street. They must be comfortable.
As we rounded Spanish Banks and Point Grey at low tide, far out past shore, we passed by a few Herons, standing in ankle deep water, fishing. Always a good sign. When we entered the North Arm of the Fraser River on an incoming tide the vast array of pilings that the logging industry uses to hold fast their log booms came into view. What surprised me was that most of them were empty. In years past there would have been booms tied up to most of them. Now there were logs only directly along the navigable sides of the river and a couple of small tugs pushing them around. I wonder if this is another indication of the decline of B.C.’s forest industry?
I had been looking forward to paddling the Fraser River Estuary, an area I don’t know well. It has long been the greatest salmon river in the world and is a feeding place for hundreds of thousands of birds. But the approximately 2 1/2 million human inhabitants of greater Vancouver are pushing against its natural fecundity in many ways. 70% of its waterways are impacted by dams, levies, causeways, gravel quarries, dredges and other structures. This is part of a worldwide trend. According to Scientific American, August, 2019: “Only 23% of the subset of the longest rivers that connect to the ocean are unimpeded along their entire lengths…for the rest human infrastructure is starving estuaries and deltas of key nutrients”.
A little farther up the North Arm we came upon the Iona Sewage Treatment Plant that treats sewage from Vancouver and Richmond. Sometimes the smell is pretty bad but on this day, with a favorable breeze, it was O.K. This is a primary treatment plant only, which means that only solids are removed. It does not remove toxic chemicals dumped by households, businesses and industry, including heavy metals such as mercury, lead, copper and chromium. The waste effluent reduces oxygen in the water, which suffocates fish. There is a plan to build a new plant with secondary waste capabilities by 2030. This would treat the water at a microbiological level, but still will not remove toxic chemicals. Quite a few environmentalists are pushing for tertiary treatment.
Urban paddling presents special challenges. You can’t just go ashore, dig a hole, have a poop and set up camp. (Even though in this case the waste treatment plant was just downstream) For this special trip along Vancouver’s environs, my wife, Theresa, picked us up and dropped us off in our small electric car. Payback will come later. We pulled in to Milltown Marina at the foot of Granville Street. This has the feel of a family operation. There is a sizable dock area, a pub with good food, a storage area for boats and lots of good energy. I think that they lease the property from Squamish First Nation. They tolerate us even though we don’t belong to the marina. We do eat their food and drink their beer, though. One day I carried my folded kayak on the Skytrain to New Westminster, launched not far from the market on the quay there and headed down river with the tide. When I pulled out at Milltown and started disassembling my kayak I happened to meet the manager. It was winter. He asked me what I was doing and I told him where I had launched and that I was walking to the nearest car2go rental to drive home. He told me to hop into his car and drove me to my rental. When I first led Evan on a similar route I didn’t tell him about the pub beforehand and you can’t really see it from the water. That was a welcome surprise for him.
As we paddled the East Arm of the Fraser alongside Sea Island the next day we passed a lot of power boats tied up at marinas. I’ve wondered in the past about what level of emissions they create. Boats are inefficient because water is difficult to push through. This is obvious to a paddler. Battery powered boats do exist, but so far lack range and speed. Most of these boats, which are often seen as pits to pour money into, are not used much. Maybe three weeks a year. A report prepared for the GVRD and federal government indicated that the amount of GHGs they spout is substantial, but small compared to other sources. For example, for B.C other than the GVRD and Fraser River District, oceangoing vessels contributed 699,073 tonnes of CO2 in 2000, fishing vessels contributed 14,324 tonnes and recreational vessels: 7,877 tonnes. B.C.s total emissions in 2015 were 63.3 million tonnes. There is a group called “Clean Marine BC” that is promoting environmentally sound recreational boating. They at least recognize some of the issues and are trying to deal with them.
After passing the Olympic Oval and under the two bridges connecting Sea Island to Lulu Island we caught up to some Canada Geese swimming along shore. They seemed to be going as fast as they could, but did not fly. At first you couldn’t see them, as they were sheltered by the adults, but yes, there were a number of goslings in there. We swerved away from the bank to give them some space, but yikes, a seaplane was suddenly bearing down on us. We just stopped then and watched the Harbour Air seaplane land and taxi up to the dock below the Flying Beaver Grill and Bar. Harbour Air is the largest seaplane airline in the world and they have some great news, especially for an ex-pilot like me. They are teaming up with MagniX, a company in Redmond, Washington, that makes electric motors and battery systems for airplanes, to make a completely electric, zero emission airline. Tests on a de Havilland Beaver powered by a 750 HP electric motor will begin this year. (The test flight, flown by company founder Greg McDougall, on Dec. 10, 2019, was successful) The airline serves more than 500,000 passengers on 30,000 short distance flights every year. This is significant. In 2018 75% of worldwide flights were 1,000 miles or less, and that is the market that MagniX sees developing. The electric planes should be much quieter too. Back when I was training to be a commercial pilot some of the bush pilots were quite deaf, which is one reason why I didn’t make a career in aviation. I like quiet. I ended up spending a lot of my time in a noisy machine shop instead.
When we paddled up to Swishwash Island at the entrance to Sturgeon Bank we still didn’t know if we would have enough water to paddle much further. I had never been there before and did not know at what tide level we would be able to continue. We could see the Coast Guard hovercraft station just across the channel beside Vancouver International Airport. They could operate at any tide. If an airplane ever crashed onto Sturgeon Bank, just off the runway, those hovercrafts would be the only crafts that would be able to reach them. Our timing was good: it was the beginning of summer and the huge flocks of migrating birds would not be there. We didn’t want to disturb them. Many years ago an ornithologist explained to me why he hates kayakers: he often watched them paddle near Stanley Park. They would go in close to shore and send off every bird in sight. This may not matter if it happens once to a few birds, but for flocks to be repetitively displaced while attempting to re-fuel for exhausting flights it is harmful to them. Ever since then I have attempted to stay clear of them. It helps to know a little about the birds. For example, along the south shore of English Bay in winter there are often large flocks of Goldeneyes and Surf Scoters. They often are seen together, but the Goldeneyes generally are closer to shore. They tolerate paddlers a little more than the Scoters, which are extremely skittish and don’t venture into False Creek. Just because you are in a non-motorized craft doesn’t mean you can’t cause harm. Give them a wide birth. Carry binoculars.
As it turned out we had just enough water, and with the tide coming in we paddled out past salt water marshes with cattail and bulrush sedges, out around the sand flats, through a space in the Steveston Jetty and pulled in at the docks at Steveston, on the south end of Lulu Island in Richmond. Along the way we saw lots of eagles, seals, herons and gulls. The water, which had come in over miles of sand and marsh, was as warm as in the tropics. It was brown and in some areas was extra thick and had swirls that looked like coffee with creamer that had not completely mixed in yet. This mix of salt and fresh water together with absorbed plant matter from Sturgeon Bank will eventually coalesce into a coating that sticks to the sand and mud. For years I’ve watched Sandpipers up and down our coast scoot along sandy shorelines with their beaks held down low. This seemed like a high-energy activity and I wondered what they got out of this, what was in it for them? I had no idea. It has only been in the last few years that biologists have discovered that it’s all about the mud. The sticky stuff that covers the sand and mud is called biofilm. It has the consistency of snot. The Fraser Estuary biofilm is some of the most nutritious anywhere and one of the reasons the estuary rivals tropical rainforests in biodiversity and productivity. The Fraser River Estuary extends from Point Grey south, encompassing Sturgeon Bank off Sea Island, Roberts Bank between Steveston and Point Roberts, and Boundary Bay east of Tsawwassen.
It is on the Pacific Flyway, which is the route that birds take along the west coast of the Americas on their migrations from as far as Patagonia to Alaska and the Bering Strait area of Russia. Birds need to stop and refuel along the way and probably the most important stop of all is the Fraser River Estuary. It is recognized internationally as an IBA (Important Bird Area) and is the most important bird conservation area in Canada. As many as 500,000 Western Sandpipers were counted feasting on the biofilm on a single day (pre-2001). Fifty species of shorebirds have been recognized including Dunlins, Black-belled Plovers, Swans, and Wrangel Island Snow Geese. The delta supports up to 1.4 million birds annually. Without the Fraser Estuary the survival of these birds would be in jeopardy. The area includes the Reifel Bird Sanctuary and the Alaksen National Wildlife Area.
Otto Langer is a retired Department of Fisheries and Oceans marine biologist, and local environmental activist. Here is what he says about the importance of the river for salmon:
“Basically this is the bulrushes, the cattails and further out, the carex marshes. Its sedge,” referring to Sturgeon Banks, a strip of marshland and mudflats that run the length of the West Dyke Trail.
“That’s basically the engine that drives the Fraser River Estuary and makes this piece of land all the way from UBC to Point Roberts one of the more productive estuaries in the world. So, every year, the plants convert solar energy into useful carbohydrates and sugars and they’re eaten by the insects and break down. In the spring you have billions of insects in the river, and when the (juvenile) salmon come down the river — you might have up to a billion in one year — that’s what they feast on. This is their nursery ground. Without the marshes we are a little bit lost”. (Richmond News, Aug. 1, 2014).
The survival of salmon from the greatest salmon river in the world is dependent on maintaining a healthy estuary.
As we rounded the south point of Steveston Island and pulled into the community of the same name I was reminded of a trip a few years ago. My old pal Shiro Ose, was visiting from Japan. He had heard a little about the Japanese connection with the community and wanted to see it. I took him on the Skytrain to New Westminster. From there you can choose which arm of the Fraser you wish to paddle down. This time we took the South Arm, which takes you under the Alex Fraser Bridge, past Ladner, and, if you angle north when you approach Westham Island, dumps you out at Steveston. It was raining and grey, but still interesting to Shiro. As we pulled in we saw a Japanese flag on one of the fishing boats. Before World War 11 there was an active Japanese fishing community there. They even had their own, highly successful baseball team. When the war started, to Canada’s shame, the Japanese, even those who were Canadian citizens, were treated as enemy aliens and herded up and transported to the interior of B.C. Their land, homes, fishing boats and most of their personal belongings were confiscated. Since then quite a few have migrated back and started families and there is still a sizable Japanese community in Steveston. Shiro really enjoyed the fish and chips from Pajos.
The history doesn’t start back then, or even in 1877 or 1878 when Manoh Steeves first settled there. About 9,500 years ago Richmond started rising from the silt and sand of the Fraser River. But according to their oral history, north of present day Sea Island the main Musqueam village was already thriving. It was only after another 6,000 years had passed that present day Lulu Island had become stable enough to enable permanent habitation. Before white settlers came there were at least 2,000 people living in Richmond, and more than 20,000 would come during the salmon runs. Some of the nations from Vancouver Island had fishing rights in the region, as did the local Tsawwassen and Kwantlen families. These were all Coast Salish people. The arrival of white settlers brought disease, especially smallpox. During the 1780s 75% of the population died. The area was described by Captain George Vancouver as “abandoned villages with scattered bones.” (Graeme Wood, Richmond News, June 17, 2016)
When we traversed Sturgeon Banks to Steveston we used the incoming tides to shorten our route. I wanted to do something different for Roberts Bank. My chart indicated that Canoe Passage, which has an entrance off the south end of Westham Island, might be navigable during any tide. We decided to give it a try during low tide, knowing that if we got stranded we could just wait for it to turn.
When we swung around the south end of Steveston Island the next morning we could feel the current from the outgoing tide and outflow of the river working together. We paddled close to the island and were able to make our way upstream until we were about even with Reifel Island on the other side of the channel. Then we started ferrying across. Soon we realized that the combined current was stronger than we were. We lost ground relative to the island, and started slipping out to sea. Eventually we were able to side up to the line of pylons that make up the south side of the jetty. Here the current was a little less strong and we could make some progress. We came to a gap between the pylons and were able to slip to the other side of them. It was surprising that here the current was about half as fast as it was just on the other side, a meter or two away. It was shallow, too, as you would expect. In the slower flowing current sediment would more easily sink to the river bed. We were able to make our way up to Reifel Island, get out and push our kayaks back through the pylons to the river and continue on our way. At this point we were out of the main channel and although the current was still running strong against us, we made some progress. We paddled alongside Reifel Bird Sanctuary and the adjoining Alaksen National Wildlife Area. On the shore of Westham we passed some very old, tall pylons with tufts of grass or sedge growing on their flat tops. These may have supported a pier owned by Brunswick Cannery Company, which operated from 1893 to 1926. The buildings were demolished in 1983. I thought that once we rounded the east side of Westham Island we might get a boost from the current as we entered Canoe Pass and headed out to sea, but no such luck: the current just died. The only waterfowl we saw was a Trumpeter Swan that seemed to be begging beside a house boat.
Once we passed the entrance to the passage and left Westham Island behind we entered a vast expanse of low sand and mud bars. I thought that the sedge might have extended out farther. We got out of the kayaks once and quickly sank up to our calves in mud. There were pylons spaced widely apart to mark the passage, but only about 6 for the whole winding, 5-mile route. It was easy to miss a turn. (This is the way the whole estuary used to be: open to the elements and always changing. Today the mighty Fraser has been tamed by dikes, jetties and walls). We might have missed a turn a little later because it became so shallow we had to get out again and pull our boats behind us. Here the sand was firm. There were sea eagles standing on the low banks. Two were actually in the water. One was rinsing itself in the brown soup, like a robin in a birdbath. I have never seen that before. As we got farther out the sand banks disappeared under the incoming tide. This made navigating the shallows even harder. We headed for a long row of herons, standing like sentinels along the side of the channel, guiding us. Once we got past the sentinels Evan got out of his kayak and started pulling his boat in ankle deep water. It was a strange sight, watching him miles from shore, as he seemed to be walking on water. I kept paddling out to sea until I was over eel grass, which envelops the banks, at the sub-tidal level, providing buffer from the sea and valuable nutrition and fish nurseries in a contiguous arc from Point Grey to Boundary Bay. I continued around the edge of the extended bank and waited for Evan to finish his long walk on the water. We then headed over to the Westshore coal export terminal.
As we approached we could see water or some liquid being sprayed on the coal to keep it from blowing onto the water. This terminal must be hugely profitable for majority owner Jimmy Pattison and his partners. In the U.S., electric power companies are moving en masse away from coal and embracing renewable power and natural gas. This is not due to any tax or incentive by government. Coal has become uneconomic. The coal companies were extremely worried about their future and moved to increase their exports. Unfortunately for them, exporting soft, dirty, lignite coal to be burned for power in Asia has so far proved too controversial for the citizens in Washington and Oregon States. It doesn’t matter where it is burned, coal is a dirty and dangerous fuel that accounts for 43% of total GHGs worldwide, which is more than oil or gas. (World Resources Institute). They found a willing partner, though, in B.C. Unlike in the U.S., marine terminals are a federal responsibility and override local and provincial concerns. Today Westshore Terminals is the largest export terminal of coal in North America and therefore one of the largest contributors of GHGs on the planet.
There was a strong current running against us as we rounded the coal terminal and headed for our takeout on the ferry causeway. The water, which had been brown, changed to green. The huge causeway that connects Westshore Terminal to the land effectively cut off the sediment from the Fraser. Perhaps an unintended consequence. You can see on Google Maps that the nutritious brown sediments have been carved out of the area between the export terminal and ferry terminal. I wonder what would have happened if the causeways had been made with tresses to allow the water to flow through, rather than on rock piles. Perhaps some planning committee would have complained that the extra cost was “not justified”. The Tsawwassen First Nation land spans the space between the two causeways. The natural wonder of biofilm and all of the birds and fish that that engenders has been taken from them. But, they got even, sort of. They built a humongous shopping mall on prime agricultural land beside the causeway that goes to the Ferry Terminal.
Sturgeon and Roberts Banks, which looked so stable to me on two fine summer days, are in danger of disappearing. Over the past 20 years scientists tell us that they have been eroding at the alarming rate of 10 to 15 meters per year. This rate will increase with global warming, bigger winter storms and rising seas. The most likely present cause is the dredging done on the Fraser River bed to accommodate shipping.[1] Every year the port excavates between 2.5 million and 3 million cubic meters of sediment. That is more than reaches the banks. The material is sold to developers to use in construction. As the industrialization of the Fraser continues there are plans to increase the depth of the river substantially. According to a report from the City of Richmond, in 1960 the draft of the main channel on the Fraser was 8.7 meters. By 1976 it was 10.7 meters and there are plans to increase this to 11.5 meters. Surrey Docks wants the draft increased to 13.2 meters and there are further plans to accommodate vessels with draft up to 18 meters. This will lead to more erosion. Right now the George Massey Tunnel is an obstacle to the largest increase, but there are plans to remove this and other impediments once a bridge is built to replace the existing tunnel.
The massive sediment removal is the leading cause of the erosion of the banks. It is well understood that the best and also least expensive option for protecting land from loss to sea level rise, more intense storms and tidal surges is to stabilize the foreshore. There are about 300,000 people living at or below sea level in Vancouver, Richmond and Delta. The area is home to Canada’s second busiest airport and the sea port. The actions to expand the port are undermining the very land that the port infrastructure sits on. I’m just an ageing kayaker who passed by, but am I not getting something here?
[1] “The evident paucity of sand on the tidal flats is attributed principally to channelization and removal of river sands by dredging, although the various causeways and jetties crossing the banks may also be a contributing factor.”
(Sediment Transport Patterns in The Lower Fraser River and Fraser Delta, 2015) by Patrick McLaren, GeoSea Consulting (Canada) Ltd., Sidney, B.C. and Taina Tuominen, Aquatic and Atmospheric Sciences Division Environment Canada, Vancouver, B.C)
One possible remediation suggested would be to dump the dredged sediment back onto the intertidal mudflats on the banks. That is just one possibility, though. The problem goes to who is in charge of the whole estuary and how much further the industrialization of the river should proceed.
A list of some of the industrial projects that proponents are pushing for the Fraser include: the Westpac Tilbury Marine Jetty Project, which will include the excavation of 2 hectares of submerged land, a direct Transfer Coal Facility Project (currently on hold) at Fraser River Docks, massive onshore building by the Port of Vancouver on agricultural lands, a future fourth runway at Vancouver International Airport that could involve expansion onto Sturgeon Bank, and a second, three birth container terminal at Roberts Bank. Richmond Councilor, Harold Steves, is a Steveston farmer and founder of the Agricultural Land Reserve. He and biologist Otto Langer both are concerned that there is absolutely no one in charge of protecting the whole estuary. The ALR, DFO, Vancouver Airport Authority, PMV, city of Vancouver, City of Richmond, federal wildlife agencies, and UN (Sturgeon Bank and Boundary Bay, but not Roberts Bank, are included in a UN Ramsar agreement, which serves to protect wetlands) all have overlapping, and sometimes conflicting, responsibilities.
Until 2013 that was not the case. In 1985 the Fraser River Estuary Management Program (FREMP) was set up as an inter-governmental group to provide an overview of the health of the estuary and to provide guidance for remediation of the banks. In 2010 it published the second of two reports on its “Living Working River Plan”. Its goals were:
“1. Conserve and enhance the environmental quality of the estuary to sustain healthy fish, wildlife, plants and people.
2. Respect and further the estuary’s role as the social, cultural, recreational and economic heart of the region.
3. Encourage human activities and economic development that protect and enhance the environmental quality of the estuary.”
(Roberts Bank and Sturgeon Bank Reach Overview, FREMP, November, 2010)
In its first report, released in 2009, FREMP came out with the then outrageous idea that some development might have to be restricted in order to protect the banks:
“The range and complexity of the issues further support the need to develop a better ecologically-based understanding of processes occurring in the estuary. With reduced levels of funding available for
government agencies, it may require more innovative management approaches and different ways of doing things. For example, we may need to consider alternative planning strategies that do not
necessarily accommodate continued growth, and instead think about the ecological limits of the area for development in order to preserve an acceptable quality of life.”
(ROBERTS BANK AND STURGEON BANK
REACH OVERVIEW
BACKGROUNDER, Oct 27, 2009) by FREMP
This would have been just too much for Prime Minister Harper’s Conservative Government. It disbanded the group in 2013 and handed over responsibility to Port Metro Vancouver (PMV). This is like the old “fox in charge of the henhouse” cliché. In contrast to FREMP, the prime purpose of PMV is to move cargo. The PMV has done some limited marsh remediation in the Fraser and has plans for more. It has a pretty website and feel-good ads. But you have to ask: who is in charge here? Do they have the health of the estuary as primary focus? What are they doing about the erosion that threatens the whole estuary? The Fraser River Estuary is the “natural jewel” of Greater Vancouver and a national treasure. A group like FREMP with a mandate to look after the whole estuary should be resurrected. It deserves that.
The next morning we drove back to the ferry causeway with the intention of crossing the strait. Although we had crossed it a number of times over the years we had always at least started in favorable conditions. We took our kayaks off the car and started unloading gear. Winds were running from the south at 12 to 15 knots with a forecast up to 20 knots. We were heading south. It didn’t feel right. We put our kayaks back on top of the car. Much to my surprise, Theresa suggested that we take the ferry over to the first stop on the other side of the strait, at Galiano Island, and paddle on from there. This would be expensive and she would have to wait until after 5 pm to catch a ferry back. In the past, not crossing would have bothered me quite a bit, but now: not so much. We took her up on it. More payback later.
We paddled south, along the strait to Cabbage Island. On the way we passed a reef where sea lions haul themselves out in the winter months. One time I slept on a small islet nearby, before it became part of a park. They made a huge racket and kept me awake most of the night. There was no sound coming off the reef this time, though. Cabbage is a small island nestled into the larger Tumbo Island. It is part of the Gulf Islands National Park system, is a favorite for kayakers, and has moorage for larger boats. When we arrived a yachtie in a small skiff asked us if we had been there before and did we know about the raccoons? Well, yes. Good of her to mention this.
The raccoons are small but very lively. At night they go after your food and especially water, aggressively, as there is none on the island. They can puncture a water bag in an instant. We put our supplies in the available steel canisters. It is a pretty little island, although there is not a lot of room to move around. The nearby Tumbo Island is stunning, and has trails that take you through Gary oak, arbutus and Douglas Firs, as well as one of the best south-facing beaches in the Gulf Islands. This beach is part of a tombolo, which is a gravel or sand bar that joins one island to another.
The next morning we paddled east past this beach and crossed the channel between Tumbo Island and Saturna Island. The current in this channel is special in that it always flows south, whether the tide is in ebb or flood. Just outside the channel is the aptly named Boiling Reef. Here the currents flowing from different directions can cause swirling, pitching waves. Add wind and you have chaos. We had to paddle especially hard as we ferried across the channel to avoid being swept onto the reef. For ships heading southwest to open ocean, this is the Canadian point where they turn into Boundary Pass. It is noted for its fast currents and strong winds, sometimes approaching hurricane force in winter. A mishap such as a collision or loss of power could be disastrous for wildlife here. In such conditions it would be impossible to contain more than a small amount of a major oil or bitumen spill. “World class” spill response means maybe 10%. Don’t let an oilman tell you otherwise. Here we saw cormorants, guillemots, gulls, eagles, a pair of rhinoceros auklets, some black oystercatchers, numerous seals, a cruise ship, a tanker, 2 freighters and a tug pulling a barge loaded with wood chips.
Our route to D’Arcy Island took us past Turn Point, on Stuart Island in the U.S., which is where ships have to make a sharp turn as they head into Haro Strait. I didn’t want to cut too close to the point, into the shipping lane, but I needn’t have worried. The current helped swing us over to Moresby Island, in Canadian waters. When traveling in these waters in a kayak you learn to use the currents. This may mean getting up before dawn but if you want to get somewhere, you are much better off. We had begun easing into the natural cycle of things, the ebb and flow. As we were drawn up to this higher order our petty concerns were left behind. The moon rules!
These surging currents are key to the amazing life in these waters. Upwelling waters propel diatoms upward, which feed copepods and other plankters, which are gobbled up by other creatures, on up the marine food chain to salmon, which are feasted on by the Southern Resident Orcas, and by seals, which provide meat for the transient Biggs killer whales . And, of course, where the salt water mixes with the muddy Fraser water, great, prolific things happen. All this is at risk.
South of Rum Island, which has a fine little campsite, there is an island with no trees that is home to the greatest concentration of pelagic and double-crested cormorants on Canada’s west coast. Evan and I call it simply Bird Island. Its real name is Mandarte. Unfortunately the seabird population here mirrors the situation throughout the west coast. They are in serious decline. In 1983 there were 1100 Double-Crested Cormorant nests on the island. In 2000 there were only 215. In a 2001 study, reasons presented were lack of fish, predation by eagles, crows and seagulls, and boaters, which can flush out the birds and expose chicks and eggs to predation.[1] The island belongs to the Tseycum and Tswaout Bands, which allow wildlife research. There are four small cabins just for bird researchers, who have been studying resident song sparrow populations and sea birds for 40 years. Researchers have banded and tracked every song sparrow that lives on the island during that time and there are claims that this sub group has been studied longer and more intensively than any vertebrate on earth (other than humans). We skirted the island this time because it is nesting season.
[1] (Double-Crested and Pelagic Cormorant Inventory in the Strait of Georgia in 2000, Trudy A. Chatwin, Ministry of Environment, Lands and Parks, Monica H. Mather, Ecological Consultant, Tanya Giesbrecht, May 2001)
Our final stop before reaching Victoria was D’Arcy Island. It is a favorite campsite but with a grim past. This is part of unseeded territory taken from Coast Salish First Nations. They would have used this island for summer fishing camps. During the late 1800s and early 1900s it was a leper colony for Chinese immigrants. There was no contact with regular society except for a shipment of food and supplies that arrived once every three months. Today all that is left of that is a caretaker’s ruin covered in graffiti and a couple of overgrown foundations. This is a serene and beautiful island. The deer are quite skittish and run away almost before you see them. Even the raccoons are wary. One immediately hauled itself up a big Douglas Fir when it saw me: the good kind of raccoon. That night some flickers squawked overhead and some oystercatchers squealed down at the beach. Both species have long beaks that they use to peck and pry into places and suck out food. Both have beautiful plumage, are busy bodies and make a racket. Admirable birds. Evan noticed a hole in a stump where two flicker chicks were nested. You could just see two small heads with beaks sticking out. Mom or dad would perch beside the hole with open beak. Then youngster and adult would lock beaks and the two would vibrate back and forth. Vibration, regurgitation. The movement suggested the jack-hammer-like motion the young birds will learn to excavate tree bark and pry out insects. There were mounds of otter scat nearby, emitting a sweet fishy odor. It’s not a bad smell. The next day I watched a large otter rub itself on a log. It seemed to be pushing in one direction only, from front to back, smoothing down its guard hairs over its underfur. Was this to protect itself against cold and to provide buoyancy? Then it pranced over the rocks and into the water. It seemed confident and at ease. And why not? It came up with a small fish on its very first dive. Otters have very high metabolism and need to eat at least 15% of their bodyweight every day. There must be plenty of prey for them just offshore. Life at this island is thriving. The arbutus, oak and Douglas Fir trees are mature and healthy. The little white flowers on the salal underbrush provide nectar for a surprising number of bees. After a hundred years the dark past has been overtaken by vibrant growth. This park was set up in collaboration with Coast Salish First Nations and they have the right to pursue traditional activities on the island, including hunting deer. Perhaps this is one small, but important step on the path to reconciliation.
This is a perilous time. On this gorgeous island I got to thinking about the leader of the most powerful country in the world: one who is morally and intellectually retarded. There is a dark force coming out of his administration of fossil men, climate deniers and sycophants. The IPCC says we have 10 to 12 years to get GHG emissions way down and stop species extinctions. Global emissions are still rising. Overfishing is rampant. Only an advanced industrial nation can provide leadership on the most important crisis ever faced by humankind. I had thought that Canada might be that country, but its overly modest climate program has been mired down by wild and angry men in a number of provinces.
Then I thought about Greta Thunberg. She is 16, began protesting about the climate crisis in front of the Swedish parliament once a week last year, is articulate, and sparked student protests around the globe. I thought of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, 29, the youngest person to ever serve in the U.S. Congress. She submitted the Green New Deal to Congress and scares the hell out of the old Republican guard because she is so bright and fearless. There are lots of authors who have written on climate issues. Two who have influenced me are Elizabeth Kolbert and the super smart Naomi Klein. Definitely, more women need to be in positions of influence and power. The same applies to Indigenous people, whose ancestors knew how to live harmoniously in the natural world. We all need to learn from this precious knowledge if we are to survive.
As I sit here on this beautiful island healed by nature and time I have a measure of hope. Tomorrow we will get up early and follow the ebbing current back home to Victoria. I am not so ashamed of it anymore. There are new bicycle lanes and finally a sewage plant with tertiary treatment is being built. Can a local or global community call itself civilized if it can’t properly dispose of its own waste?
It is my dream that more and more people will find joy in being born on this blue orb and rise up and fight for it. Listen to the children. You can’t love them and this planet too much.
Entered January 1, 2022
My province of British Columbia in 2021:
The COVID-19 pandemic raged for another year.
During the summer a heat dome caused the temperature at Lytton to reach a Canadian record of 49.6 C. The next day it burned to the ground. Over 600 excess deaths due to the heat were reported throughout the province. Smoke spread over huge expanses of the land and forests burned. Last month an atmospheric river caused record rainfall and flooding in major areas. All of the highways and railways that connect B.C. to the rest of Canada were ruptured by raging water and landslides. Gas lines were shut down. Homes were flooded. A quarter of BC’s agricultural land was under water and an excess of 650,000 farm animals perished. Last week brought 42 record low temperatures. In Prince George on December 26 it was -40.7 C. In some areas temperatures swung 80 degrees within 6 months. This extreme variability is unprecedented, but with the climate crisis we are going to have to get used to it.
Meanwhile, the Trans Mountain Pipeline expansion is continuing. Capacity from the Tar Sands will be tripled. Despite Indigenous protests the pipeline for fracked natural gas to Kitimat is also still under construction. Oil and gas companies are predicting a really good year. Prices are up. Their industry had the largest number of participants at the recent COP26, last chance environmental get together. Gas and diesel powered, four-wheel drive pickup trucks continue to lead vehicle sales by a large margin. Canada has the most inefficient vehicle fleet on the planet as people continue voting with their wallets. In the U.S., President Joe Biden has approved thousands of new oil and gas leases in the Gulf of Mexico. Republicans continue to deny the climate crisis and, indeed, reality itself. China and India have refused to agree to phase out their use of coal.
This year I read of a philosopher and historian who said that it is no longer good enough to just comment on the climate crisis, you have to do something about it. Having come across Greenwave polyculture farming a few years ago I have recently been trying to start a regenerative sea farm, growing seaweed together with shellfish on Pender Island. I now have partners and have conversed with First Nations, local residents, the Islands Trust and various members of the shellfish and seaweed communities. We may, or may not, get permit approvals from the province, Fisheries and Ocean Canada, Transport Canada and Tsawout First Nation. We are trying.
Recently I came across a study that concluded bottom trawling and dredging world-wide causes more CO2 pollution than all the world’s airlines. The damage to ruptured sea beds causes carbon in the soil, the largest store on the planet, to be released. Dredging is how most scallops and other shell fish are taken. This astounded me. All the more reason, as Jacques Cousteau pointed out, to stop plundering the ocean and begin growing and harvesting our food in it. Life on this precious planet is threatened. But we must not lose hope. Yes, we are all part of the problem. But, we can be part of the solution too.
Doug Simpson
