In February, Kathryn was visiting the Queen Charlotte Islands with her
friends Krital and Pam during reading break and Kathryn got ill. She
was admitted to hospital and Viki and I flew up to take her home after her
release. It was a very special, if unexpected, trip. I've
always heard about the air sick and sea sick voyages to the Haida Gwaii (aka
the Charlottes). Luckily for me the weather was good - if you can
call fresh snow good!
The town of Charlotte is only 2,000 inhabitants and they
are the friendliest people I've ever met. How small and
friendly? Everyone knows everyone. At the airport, the
boarding passengers wave through the window as the departing passengers
leave the plane, as they all know each other. When we got on the
shuttle from the airport, Viki and I were the only ones that needed to
supply a drop off location - the driver knew everyone else. On
Kathryn's trip over by ferry, passengers were sick and a stranger gave Pam
her baby to hold. Later Pam learned that the woman was coming to
visit her husband who just took a job on the islands. Turns out he
works with Pam's dad.
When we arrived at the hospital, they knew who we were looking for without
asking. There were only 5 patients. No wristbands needed to
identify people here. Kristal and Pam were in the room with Kathryn
waiting for us. They were great friends and spent most of their
vacation sitting with Kathryn. We were at the hospital about 4 hours
before they released Kathryn and we then walked to the Sea Raven motel
next door. They couldn't help but ask where we'd been the 4 hours
since the shuttle arrived in town, as walk ins just don't happen at that
hour. The next day we rented a car or I should say the motel owner
told the garage to bring over a rental car. We drove to Tlell where
Pam's parents had us for a wonderful dinner. The road from Charlotte
to Tlell hugs the beaches and is one of the loveliest drives I've ever
seen. Penny and David Richardson live on the Tlell River, as well as
having oceanfront. They were wonderful hosts and I can't thank them
enough for how they helped with Kathryn. In talking about the
ocean views on the roadway, they let me know that a popular local trip is
to drive 50 miles on the beach from Tlell to Masset. Now I
understand why the car rental agreement made me initial to indicate the
car wasn't covered for beach use.
In driving up the island, we also stopped at the Haida community of
Skidegate and checked out the totem pole carvings. They have carvers
working everyday and we stopped in to see their latest creations.
The Haida were very friendly and although their town is distinct from
Charlotte, inter-marriage is common and the atmosphere of friendliness
extends everywhere.
At the end of our visit we took Kathryn back with us to Victoria.
She was fully recovered a couple of days later and flew back to school in
Prince George. It was a lovely experience to see Haida Gwaii even if
we didn't have the time, money or nerves to take a charter plane and
charter boat to the famous park called Gwaii Haanas at the southern tip of
the island chain. I did recall that one of my co-workers used to
live in the Charlottes, so I asked them about it when I got back to
work. Turns out they used to live next door to the Richardsons!
