I’d been gradually working my up the west coast of Vancouver Island over the past year or two, doing week-long trips in the various sounds that indent the coast. In summer 2016, I reached Kyuquot Sound in the northern half of the island, just south of the Brooks Peninsula.

The Brooks Peninsula has such a fearsome reputation for adverse weather I wanted to visit by kayak and see if it was as bad as everyone said. I was also hoping to see a few sea otters while I was at it. I just love the idea of the sea otters forming safe little colonies in remote parts of the coast, living out their little lives far away from human populations.

What I found exceeded all my expectations. Not only was the Brooks Peninsula totally accessible, even to a non-surfing paddler like me, the sea otters were everywhere! I must have seen hundreds of them over the week and a half I was in Kyuquot Sound. Their babies were out, nursing and playing, and they looked every bit as safe and happy as I’d hoped.

The weather was mostly cooperative. It was raining the first couple days, as one must expect on the west coast from time to time. The second day was windy enough that I took a weather day at Rugged Point, the only time I did so on the trip. Most of the time, the weather was sunny, even hot.

Somet of the paddling was exposed to ocean swells, but Kyuquot Sound and Checleset Bay have a string of small barrier islands offshore that prevent the worst conditions from reaching the main paddling grounds. I was able to cruise on peaceful, flat water through the various archipelagos. Even in the more exposed portions, I simply bobbed gently up and down as the swells went rolling under me. Far from being scary, I found the conditions to be serene and beautiful.

The wildlife was also spectacular. Altogether, I saw fifty-three species of bird, which is pretty good for summer. The summer months are a bit of a bird desert on the coast—the overwintering birds have all migrated north, so we lose most of our seabirds and waterfowl. We gain warblers, flycatchers, and swallows, though, so there are compensations.

Counting two species I saw on the way from Seattle to VI, I saw nine species of mammal: eastern gray squirrel (Seattle); California sea lion (Strait of Georgia); harbor seal; sea otter; Steller sea lion; mule deer; mink; black bear; and gray wolf.

The sea otters were concentrated around the Mission Group, although small numbers were present everywhere on the trip. From Lookout Island, I saw a baby sea otter nursing at its mother, then diving down to the bottom and retrieving an old clam shell. Then the baby tried striking the clam shell with a rock like the adults do, but the baby was using a tiny little pebble. Between the inadequate rock he was using and his weak little arms, he couldn’t break the shell! All he could do was make a funny, fast tap-tap-tapping! Eventually, he gave up and resumed nursing.

It’s hard to say what part of the trip was my favorite. The Brooks Peninsula was as beautiful and remote as I’d imagined it, but the various archipelagos were also wonderful. I love the kind of water maze feeling you get when you paddle through a dense cluster of islets, and there were excellent water mazes in the Missions and Bunsby groups.

Fresh water was not hard to find in Kyuquot Sound, but reaching it wasn’t always very convenient. Having determined that Clanninick Creek would be too much of a hike to get upstream of the saltwater, and having chosen to skip the village of Kyuquot with its municipal water source, I tried finding water on the mainland near Mount Paxton.

Landings were difficult and rocky, but I finally got ashore near a stream marked on my map, only to discover that in the hot summer, the stream had dwindled to a mere thin trickle, almost unusable. It wasn’t until I landed on the Brooks Peninsula that I found a convenient, reliable source of water.

The Brooks Peninsula was so beautiful I spent two days there, wandering the sandy beaches, rock formations, and trails through the forest. The landings were quite exposed, but in such calm conditions, it was easy both to get ashore and to launch again. With no one else around, I spent hours listening to the waves and reading on the sand.

I made a point of camping on different islands on my way back than I had on the way up. In a week and a half, I saw every major region of the Kyuquot Sound region I wanted to, but it would take months to fully explore every nook and cranny.

The only place I met other people was on Spring Island, where I encountered a pair of women hiking in the forest. The rest of the time, I had every island and beach to myself. The only folks I saw were in passing fishing boats, and north of the Bunsbys, I didn’t even see those every day. It was wonderful to be alone in such a wild space.

The only damper on my enjoyment of Kyuquot Sound was the enormous logging scars visible on all the surrounding mountains. The timber industry has really done a number on the west coast. I hope the money they got from cutting these ancient, beautiful forests was worth it—if we stop logging the west coast now, it will be the twenty-fifth century before we see forests like the ones that were lost.

I’d hate to think the money from the timber harvest had already been spent and forgotten long before that. Surely that wouldn’t happen, right?

Even the ugly scars of man’s greed could not ruin such a beautiful place. I drifted slowly back down south through glossy waters, kelp beds, and otter rafts. On the last day, the rain clouds rolled in again, welcoming me back to Fair Harbour the same way they’d seen me off.

Camp hosts Sherry and Marcus greeted me warmly at the launch point and generously let me camp in the tarp shelter one last night before beginning the long drive home.

Kyuquot Sound proved to be one of the most beautiful places I’d paddled. With the solitude, the wildlife, and the scenery, it became a new favorite of mine. I think it must be one of the finest places on earth. I look forward to visiting again someday.

—Alex Sidles