This lovely family pictured here is responsible for saving us days battling a tangled portage. Geoff and I had decided to stop at the beach in Open Bight to stretch our legs and let Taq run around. Stan was doing some PSP testing and had brought his dog, Jesse, along. Taq and Jesse ran and played while we chatted. Stan has worked in the area for over 30 years. When we described our portage route into the Coast Mountains, he raised concerns that the logging road was decommissioned. We had spoken to a couple of people in the area who had assured us it was open. Stan was too polite to push the issue – the conversation moved to other topics and we went our separate ways.

We had been paddling across Rivers Inlet for about a half hour when his boat came up beside us. He was positive it was closed and couldn’t let us paddle away without first confirming it with a couple of knowledgeable sources. The next morning we spoke with him and he confirmed that the logging road had been decommissioned in 2000. This meant the culverts were removed and alders had been growing in for about 7 years. He offered to lend us the charts for an alternate route.

To make an already long story short, Stan and Karen moved their boat, the Hawk Bay, to Fury Island where we were camped and we spent the next couple of days working out an alternate plan. They had electronic and paper copies of the charts for the area. Throughout the time we were there, Karen baked muffins, made grilled cheese sandwiches, lasagna, brownies, bacon, pancakes, etc. In addition to that, she gave Taq bones to chew on and let him eat Jesse’s food.