VANCOUVER ISLAND: day 17
On the edge of being pretty chilly still, but we both committed to a proper camping shower/hair wash. The kind where you pour buckets of freezing cold water over your head, Wim Hof style. Not sure how he does it, but it certainly does freshen you up.
Packed up to head towards Nimpkish Lake, need to get some KMs under our belt. The more north/inland you go, the further from civilisation it feels. The tree-lines either side of the forest service roads are unbelievably thick, makes stopping for a roadside wee quite unnerving.
Despite the eery-ness, every spot around Nimpkish Lake was occupied. Not with your usual retired couple with their ridiculously swish RV and tiny yapping dog, but with bizarre semi-permanent camping set ups (fenced gardens/pot plants, wooden extensions nailed haphazardly onto caravans? hmm).
We tried the sistering lagoon, Anutz Lake, where there was a plethora of spots to chose from (why the heck was the other one so popular/what’s wrong with this place?!). As we drove in, the occupants of another make-shift shack/tent set up (grandparents and grandkids) leapt from their camping chairs, with frantic arm waving and whooping as they enthusiastically greeted us. The Grandad squished his nose right up against my half open window and yelled “Y’ALL ON SASQUATCH* WATCH TONIGHT?!?!?” with a slightly crazed look in his eyes, blowing his stale beer breath all over me. “Haha!!!!!!” (me nervously laughing in response) and we drove to a different section where we could block ourselves in with the van.
Turned out to be a 10/10 spot, private beach access. Half way through setting up, we heard a rustling in the bushes and out popped the Grannie from earlier. She had a beer in one hand, a cig in the other and a grandkid wrapped around her legs. She was chatty and oozed with friendly warmth. A good 20 mins later, she climbed back through the bushes whilst inviting us to their fire pit for a drink later. We made some dinner, picked out a beer and headed over.
The kids were sweet, the grandparents were smashed. It seemed to be a complex family dynamic, but there was clearly a whole lotta love. After a few mins of getting our ears chewed, we asked about the Granddad about his strange Sasquatch comment. This lead to a very, very in depth tale of the night before (I will try my best to summarise).
In the early evening (let’s call it dusk), after spending the day canoeing around the lake to find nothing but more trees, not another soul in sight, they heard a weird yelling from the other side of the lake. This was met with more yelling, from a different point, on another side of the lake. It continued for about 20 minutes, back and forth, growing to multiple different points. As if something was having a long distance conversation. They thought ‘weird, huh’, but went to bed anyway (how they fell asleep is beyond me).
In the middle of the night, they were abruptly woken the sound of a huge fir tree splitting, as if it had been struck by lightening. The splitting sound happened in the same format of the yells, repeatedly from different points across the lake. To their horror, an almighty split sounded from the forest directly behind their campsite (eek!!!). Kids and Grannie clutched each other, terrified, whilst the Granddad whipped his chainsaw from the ute (a very normal piece equipment for a Canadian to keep at close hand, who knows what they might need to chop) and tried to be louder than the cracks that were too close for comfort. When the morning finally arrived, he ventured into the forest, chainsaw in hand, to find fresh debris from tree trunks that had exploded into a million pieces.
I am not 100% sure how much I believe this story. But, I can’t deny the fact they had goosebumps whilst they were recalling it and seemed visibly shaken up. Apparently this area is known by the First Nation groups and loggers to be ‘The Sasquatch Valley’, with Sasquatches supposedly communicating with each other through tree knocking……
With the darkness suddenly becoming way more scary and that lovely bedtime story ringing in our ears, we said adieu and practically sprinted back to the van. I locked myself in, Isaac waited by the fire in anticipation of more exploding tree action.
*Sasquatch AKA Bigfoot: a large, hairy, ape-like creature resembling a yeti, supposedly found in north-western America.
VANCOUVER ISLAND: day 1
from the top?