Some of my chief kayaking interests in recent years have been marine mammals, seabird colonies, and ancient indigenous cultural sites. Kyuquot Sound on the west coast of Vancouver Island abounds with top-shelf examples of each.

Over eight days in late May and early June, I paddled from the road-end at Fair Harbour out through Kyuquot Sound to the north side of the Brooks Peninsula and back. Along the way, I encountered rafts of sea otters, a rare horned puffin, and ancient burial caves. Carved wooden poles, a traditional wooden fishing weir, two black bears, and a prowling gray wolf added to the adventure.

When last I visited Kyuquot Sound in 2016, I was in a barge-like folding kayak. I wasn’t able to visit the outer beaches of Rugged Point, nor was I able to round the Brooks Peninsula. This time, my fiberglass boat had the speed and seaworthiness to reach some of the more remote locations.

Weather was mostly benign. A low-pressure system did roll through one day, pinning me in the Crabapple Islets for an extra night. No worries there. The Crabapples are a lovely place to play castaway for a couple days.

The only other weather troubles I encountered were strong northwest winds. Whenever a high-pressure system set in, northwest winds would build up to twenty knots. Rounding a major headland like the Brooks Peninsula would be difficult and dangerous in such conditions, so I had to time my movements carefully.

On the mainland, I camped on long, sandy beaches at Rugged Point and on both sides of the Brooks. Between Rugged Point and the Brooks, I paddled through and camped on the spectacular archipelagos for which the Kyuquot area is famous: the Mission Islands, including beautiful Spring Island, the maze-like Bunsby Islands, and the delightful little Cuttle Islands.

The wildlife exceeded all expectations. Altogether, I saw sixty species of bird, most notably including a horned puffin. I had just rounded Solander Island, one of British Columbia’s main colonies for the more familiar tufted puffin. Just as I was turning east to paddle back to the Brooks, a single horned puffin flew off the western face of Solander in the company of two tufted puffins. I could hardly believe my own eyes. The horned puffin’s southernmost recorded nesting site in the eastern Pacific is at Triangle Island, some eighty miles (129 km) north of Solander. It would be thrilling to learn they are also breeding at Solander.

To be realistic, the presence of a lone individual cannot be taken as proof of breeding. Individual horned puffins have been spotted at Solander Island since at least the 1970s, but so far there has never been confirmation of breeding on Solander.

Solander Island is also a major haul-out site for the Steller sea lion. In recent decades, their numbers at Solander have increased, and the island has been re-established as a year-round haul-out site, not just a winter site. I was not surprised to encounter large herds of Steller sea lions at Solander in late May, but I was surprised to hear, amid the steady roaring of the hundreds of Stellers, the occasional brassy honk of a California sea lion. Solander is the farthest north I have ever encountered this species. I was not expecting to see California sea lions at all this trip, unless perhaps during the ferry crossing in the Strait of Georgia. Yet here they were at Solander, holding their own against the Stellers amid the limited space atop the rocks.

South of the Brooks Peninsula, I was paddling well offshore when I spotted what I mistook for a small, dark piece of driftwood. As I paddled closer, I saw that the end of this “driftwood” very much resembled the face of a seal—so much so that I was reminded of the Makah sealing clubs I had seen in the tribe’s museum in Neah Bay. The Makah would sometimes carve the striking head of a club into the shape of a seal’s face.

“The Makah would barely have to carve this piece of wood at all,” I thought. It really did look exactly like a seal, except it was too small, dark, and thin. Just as I drew level with the object, its eyes popped open. It wasn’t driftwood, it was a baby Steller sea lion, and it mistook my silent approach for an attack! In desperate defense of its life, the sea lion lunged onto my deck, snarling and snapping its teeth and biting at my deck hatch. I had to strike it with my paddle to drive it back into the water.

The real stars of the marine mammal show were the sea otters. They were widespread throughout the Kyuquot Sound area, including the sound itself, all the offshore archipelagos between Rugged Point and the Brooks, and both sides of the Brooks. At Lookout Island in the Mission group, I saw three sea otters hauled out on shore, something I had only witnessed once before in the wild.

The other mammalian delight in the Mission group was a gray wolf on Spring Island. The main beach at the north end of Spring Island is the most reliable place I know for wolves in BC. An hour after dawn, just as I was paddling away, I spotted a lone adult prowling the beach. When it realized I was looking at it, it trotted into the woods and vanished.

Besides the scenery and the wildlife, the other big attraction of Kyuquot Sound is the cultural sites. Over the course of a week, I found sites of several different types: culturally modified trees, ornate carved poles both ancient and modern, house platforms left over from long-decayed longhouses, wooden stakes embedded in the riverbed as part of an ancient fish weir, and burial caves.

I had been dubious that any burial caves would remain in the twenty-first century. I had expected that wave action or the action of vandals would long since have destroyed everything. As I discovered in the course of my explorations, however, the burial caves are not sea caves, as I had wrongly assumed. They are actually terrestrial caves. They happen to be near the sea, but they are the product of groundwater erosion, not seawater. As terrestrial caves, they are not exposed to wave action, except, I suppose, during tsunamis. In such a geologically stable environment, burials can remain intact for centuries.

As for vandals, it was clear that every cave I found had also been found by less respectful visitors. Many skulls were missing, and most of the ones that remained were damaged. Other bones, including femurs, pelvises, ribs, and mandibles were scattered about in haphazard fashion, although it was unclear whether this was the work of vandals or scavengers. There were burial boxes in most of the caves, made of hewn planks, not sawn, but these had all either rotted open or been broken open.

I’m not sure how the vandals found the caves, because the caves are extraordinarily difficult to find. They cannot be seen from the water, and most are not near good landing beaches. The rocky shoreline is unfriendly to pedestrians. Finding a burial cave unaided would be approximately as unlikely as stumbling across a Kayak Bill campsite by random chance. I suspect the vandals were somehow able to suborn the assistance of locals.

Despite the vandalism, the burial caves were enormously impressive. Even peering in at the bones from the safety of the caves’ entrances was a powerful experience. The quantity of bones and burial boxes that remain is much higher than I ever expected. To think that such a fragile legacy could endure, unprotected, for such a long time gives me hope that whatever fragile legacy I leave behind might endure as well.

In keeping with best practices for discussing archaeological sites, I will not identify any locations, nor will my route map be of any assistance. I have also decided not to post photos of the bones.

Kyuquot Sound is a popular kayaking destination, but it’s a big place, easy to find solitude. I went eight days without speaking to another person. There were motorboat-campers on Spring Island both nights I was there, but we never crossed paths. I saw small groups of kayakers offshore of Spring Island and in the Bunsbys, but they never saw me. North of the Bunsbys, there were no kayakers and hardly even any motorboats—just a single fishing boat off Solander Island, and a few cargo ships far out to sea. I saw many more sea otters than people.

The beach at Rugged Point was really something special, the kind of vista that can stop you in your tracks. The lesser beaches west of Jackobson Point and at the Crabapple Islands were also superb. At each location, the beach was broad and steep enough that even the highest high tide did not approach within fifteen meters of my tent. Most of the animal tracks were from wolves, but there were also a few bear and mink tracks. I secured my food in my kayak hatches or else suspended it from tree branches, but did not bother setting up a proper “hang” anywhere except Big Bunsby Island, where there was recent bear sign in the middle of the campsite itself.

It wouldn’t be a sea kayaking trip without a couple of hair-raising experiences. The worst came during my passage from the beach west of Jackobson Point to my final campsite at the south end of Spring Island.

The most direct route ran from the outside of the Barrier Islands to the inside. The various clusters of Barrier Islands are separated by wide gaps that would have been easy to transit, but I decided instead to pass through the densest part of the barrier, between Clara Islet and McKiel Rock. Here, swells broke unpredictably over reefs and shoals. On half a dozen occasions, a narrow but seemingly safe channel would suddenly erupt with breakers. I zig-zagged through the rocks at sprint speed, like a mouse evading a family of cats. Ten minutes later, heart pounding, I had made it through the dangerous rock field.

Kyuquot Sound is a place that grows the soul. The wildlife, the views, and the cultural sites would each be sufficient reason to come here on their own. Together, they make for an experience that borders on the magical.

—Alex Sidles