CLOSE ENCOUNTERS
Jill Dawson ventures into the territory of ospreys, sea lions and whales in the dramatic surroundings of Vancouver Island
Wolves, bears and bonding in the wilds of Vancouver Island
‘Fancy a trip with me? Just us, something really special, like whale-watching in Canada? Might even see a bear?’
Lately, I’ve been missing my 19-year-old son and he hasn’t even left home yet. A moment’s inattention and the curly-haired four-year-old has unfurled into someone about to go to university, six feet tall, stretching and yawning, shaking himself awake like he’s emerging from hibernation. The end of motherhood, just as I was getting the hang of it.
‘What kind of bear?’ he asks, suspiciously. Vancouver Island only has black bears but they’re common, I tell him. We’re bound to see one. He disputes this, with some impressive figures about bears and probability.
I have two sons. They are half-brothers, 11 years apart. This one, the youngest, we call Nature Boy. A ‘very strange enchanted boy’, like the song.
‘There’ll be birds too,’ I say. ‘Bald eagles and ospreys. Cougars and wolves. Orcas… sea otters…’ He’s hooked.
My feeling of already missing him is a kind of grieving, taking the form of terrible imaginings: aeroplanes going down, cars crashing. I never used to have these fears, though new parents will recognise them as part of those crepuscular times with a newborn. My terrors are swiftly followed by fantasies of escape. Running away, or better still running back to somewhere far off – 23 years away – where I was young and fearless. On my first visit to Vancouver Island, I stayed with an indigenous family at Alert Bay, members of the Kwakwaka’wakw tribe. The second time, I came here, to the west coast.
Tofino. The westernmost edge of Vancouver Island. It
is one of the last stretches of temperate coastal rainforest left on the planet. Surely that’s enough wilderness for even the most avid of nature boys?
There’s a photo of me in Tofino in 1996, on Chesterman Beach. A windswept picture, grey and blurred: rocks and sea and emptiness. Not wholly empty, though: nestled on the rocks is the extraordinary hotel we’ll be staying in, the Wickaninnish Inn. In 1996, it was newly built, the culmination of a dream of its owner, Charles Mcdiarmid. Today it’s part of the Relais & Châteaux group, one of the top spa hotels in the world, and the loveliest place I’ve ever stayed: characterful, truly pampering, but authentic and whimsical too. Rooms have giant baths and fireplaces, and guests are supplied with waterproofs and binoculars.
We have breakfast (juice of the day: strawberry, mint and sorrel) to the sound of crashing surf and the most astonishing view of the Pacific imaginable: my son spies an osprey making a masterful catch. (So, number one of my promises, an osprey, can be ticked off his list.) The surfers are a species just as fascinating, with their twists, rises, leaps and tumbles.
Next, it’s our whale trip with Jamie’s Whaling Station. We smack over a bouncy sea in our inflatable boat while shearwaters slice the air beside us. The tell-tale white spout, like steam from a boiling kettle, reveals a grey whale. She is identified as Big White: a fiftysomething female, who has brought three calves to the area, before returning each year to her breeding grounds in Mexico. She’s close enough that I can hear her breathing, a soft puff or snort, then a queenly tail flick as she dives down to feed.
Moments later, the engine cuts again after a sea otter and baby sighting. The pup being too young to swim, the mother, my son tells me, has an ingenious way of allowing him to float – she blows air into his fur, inflating him, while she disappears for a few moments, diving for food. On our journey back, there’s a Steller sea lion, weighing a tonne, swaying its bulk back and forth on a rocky perch like a metronome and roaring. This is an endangered species and sightings are rare. Just when it couldn’t get any better, we draw close to the shoreline and get the best glimpse of all – a wolf, eerily red in the sun, elegantly picking its way home over the rocks.
‘Get out of town,’ says the guide back at the whaling station when we mention the wolf. I think this translates as: ‘The other things were standard, but a wolf in broad daylight! You were lucky indeed.’
On the last day, driving to the ferry to the mainland after an impulsive swim in the icy green water of Taylor River, we’re waiting at the traffic lights and here comes the most casual and unexpected sighting of all: a bear ambling across the road in front of us. It glances furtively back over its shoulder, then speeds up a little to trundle into someone’s front garden.
‘Told you we’d see one!’ I say. The bear seems to be a win for me in our ongoing argument about the merits of rationality (his approach to life) versus optimism and intuition (mine). Good luck, be lucky, like me, I want to say. And I feel pleased to have pulled off this last magic trick of parenthood. Three gifts to send him off to his new life, to his future. In Kwakwaka’wakw culture, the whale symbolises longevity, the bear strength. As for wolves, they mate for life and share parenting; they represent family love.
Long life, strength and love. A whale, a bear and a wolf. Wickaninnish Inn, Tofino (www.wickinn.com). Jamie’s Whaling Station (www.jamies. com). Tofino Tourism (www.tourismtofino.com). Long Beach Nature tours (www.longbeach naturetours.com).