Crescent Inlet (or at least the end of it) is a wonderful alpine bowl, which allows for limited satellite contact.
Today we left Murchison Island Cove at about 1130 and motored over (in sun and quiet seas) to Windy Bay. Windy Bay is where the Haida made a non-violent stand against the destruction of the land and the forests by the logging corporations in 1985. The elders who blocked the logging trucks changed Canadian and English law with the recognition that the “honour of the crown” required the recognition of the sovereignty of the First Nations. That led to the United Nations Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (which to my embarassment as an American, has not been adopted by the United States), which in many ways changed international law. Let no one tell you that non-violent resistance to oppression is useless; the witness of the Haida elders, Martin Luther King, Jr, Mahatma Ghandi, and Jesus all testify against those who do.
After a good long time at Windy Bay, we motored to Crescent Inlet and anchored at the end. I think I’ll check the exclusion map, and drop a crab trap (we could see them on the bottom as we scouted our anchor point. Crab omelettes for breakfast?) if it’s legal (it wasn’t)–BUMMER!
Tomorrow, we will head over to Tanu, the remains of a large village destroyed by smallpox, and possibly to Skedans (K’uuna) with a probable anchoring in Thurston Harbour.
The plan is to head up from Thurston Harbour or Chumshewa Inlet north to Sandspit, Queen Charlotte, and Skidegate on Thursday. We are hoping to find a fast boat heading down to SGang Gwaay to visit that site, spend time in the Haida Heritage Centre, and maybe rent a car to do land-based exploration.
Braesail - A grand yacht in the Salish Sea 