photo: A. Nugent
#28 Boat up Bute Inlet
One of “50 things to do before you die” in the Summer 2009 50th-anniversary issue of British Columbia Magazine.
As I zip up my survival suit, I know this will be no ordinary boat ride. But then, Bute Inlet is no ordinary destination. The deep fiord, which carves 75 kilometres into the Coast Mountains north of the Strait of Georgia, is one of the province’s wildest, most remote attractions.
We begin our journey from Lund, the terminus of Highway 101, up the Sunshine Coast. As we pass Desolation Sound Marine Provincial Park, kayakers and recreational boaters wave as they bob in the sheltered waters. But beyond Stuart Island, at the opening to Bute Inlet, their numbers dwindle. We pass a seal and her pups on a floating log, then we are alone.
Only the boat’s wake stirs the teal blue waterway. Waterfalls streak the steep granite cliffs that flank the inlet. There’s a chill in the air now, and the light bow spray on my face makes me shiver. A lavender sky warns of rain as an eagle rides an updraft then disappears into the mist.
At the head of Bute Inlet, where the Homathko and Southgate rivers meet, mountains rise from the ocean’s edge like giants from their beds. We turn our eyes upward for one final reward: 4,016-metre Mount Waddington—the highest peak entirely within B.C., about 50 kilometres inland—and the enormous Homathko Icefield.
Rob Wood, who used to guide visitors up the Bute and is among the elite climbers who have reached Waddington’s summit, chose to make his home at the inlet’s mouth.
“The size of the mountains and their proximity to the ocean is bigger, grander, and more magnificent than anywhere else on the B.C. coast,” he says, “possibly more so than in any other fiord in the world.”
Info: (www.buteinletadventures.com; www.marinelinktours.com; www.buteinlet.com).
Read more in the current issue of British Columbia Magazine
