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The Culture Islands of Wonder GWAII HAANAS, HAIDA GWAII Just 2,000 souls are lucky enough each year to enter the 1,495-square-kilometre expanse of islands thickly forested with giant western red cedar, Sitka and hemlock that make up Gwaii Haanas National Park Reserve. Encompassing almost a third of the Haida Gwaii archipelago, and accessible only by floatplane or boat, the 138-island preserve was protected from seabed to mountain peak in an unparalleled move by the federal government in 1988. By effectively re-turning guardianship of this sanctuary and its five heritage sites to the Haida, the accord also acknowledged the traditional rights of a First Nation only now emerging from the shadow of cultural annihilation. Here, wide-eyed explorers like me discover a Jules Verne world of giant ferns, brilliantgreen moss and lichen-draped (The Haida mask Ancestral Sun, 1870) Peter Horree/ACP p18-27_The List.indd 19 ida gwaii ha in for these leviathans that can weigh 40 tons full grown.) Two hours later, we���re steaming on auto-pilot up Principle Channel, lonely and wild Banks Island to the west. McAllister is below deck, I���m standing in the cockpit talking to my wife on the satellite phone, when a pod of killer whales suddenly approaches from the north ��� led by a bull, its dorsal fin towering six feet above the water line. With seamless choreography, the pod of four splits and passes to the port and starboard. I���m left speechless, my wife hanging on the other end of the line. ��� ���Andrew Findlay e passag sid e nature unfolding as it should. But B.C.���s Great Bear Rainforest, one of the planet���s largest intact temperate rainforests, is one such ecosystem ��� a rare world with a full spectrum of wildlife that revolves around the cycle of salmon. It also has some of the most volatile sea conditions found anywhere. Just 50 km west in Hecate Strait, the wave height can jump from two to 14 metres in just two hours, while hurricane-force winds pummel waves more than 30 metres high. At nearby Princess Royal Island, King Pacific Lodge was blown from its moorings in fall 2011. Ironically, more than 75,000 storm-watchers a year now flock to Cape Beale near Bamfield and the surge channels south of Tofino to experience rogue waves from behind floor-to-ceiling hotel windows ��� waves that have sunk more than 470 ships in this Graveyard of the Pacific. But today, no other boats are in sight. The swell is choppy, and aboard McAllister���s catamaran, Habitat, we���re beating against the wind, the sky above us a mottled, stormy grey. We tack north into Wright Sound just as the two-way radio crackles with a call from Janie Wray about feeding humpbacks. Twenty minutes later, we spot the researcher ��� who with partner Hermann Meuter studies humpback, orca and fin whales from a lab on Gil Island ��� bobbing in her powerboat a mere coin���s toss from a rocky Princess Royal Island headland. Suddenly, the water boils around us, disturbed from beneath by an unseen force. The massive head of a humpback whale slowly emerges, jaw agape, krill and herring spilling from its mouth by the hundreds. Then another surfaces, so close I can smell whale morning breath and nearly reach over the bow to touch the barnacles on its skin. (Scientists call this ���bubble-net��� feeding, the technique by which humpbacks corral and consume fish, an astonishingly deft manoeuvre START HERE More than 75 whale-watching outfits operate on the West Coast. Multi-day sailing cruises to Haida Gwaii, the Gulf Islands, the Great Bear Rainforest and other unique coastal destinations also feature whale sightings. B.C.���s original whale-watching outfit: stubbs-island.com Sailing cruises to Haida Gwaii and other coastal B.C. destinations: mapleleafadventures.com; bluewateradventures.ca Kayak-cruise tours of coastal B.C.: mothershipadventures.ca l l l old-growth, where strips of halibut dry in the sun, prepared in the traditional way by Haida Watchmen ��� guardians of the park and interpreters for its five heritage sites. The most famous, SGang Gwaay, on Anthony Island, is one of two UNESCO World Heritage Sites in B.C., where carved mortuary poles, faded by sun and salt, still stand against the wind. Landing at dawn in a moody mist, we are led along a muddy path to a meadow still haunted by 200-yearold Haida totems evoking memories of Machu Picchu, Petra and Stonehenge ��� the few places on Earth that can still lure even the most jaded explorer with their eerie, magnetic aura of history and mystical significance. ��� ���Robin Esrock W estw o r ld >> S p r i n g 2 0 1 3 19 13-01-28 10:30 AM

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