MV Dirona

Day 12: Ocean Falls

The following morning we progressed further east down Gunboat Passage  The channel is quite narrow near the eastern end, with range markers and a navigation buoy in place to guide boaters. Given the rarity of aids to navigation thus far, one can only imagine that their installation was prompted by many vessels having gone aground.

I went out on the bow as we went through, although it really wasn't necessary as the channel is well-marked and the charts are quite accurate. This is the narrowest part - after passing the range markers there is a major shoal on the southern side of the passage, marked by the buoy shown at right.

This the view from Gunboat Passage into Johnson and Fisher channels. It was a foggy, overcast morning, but calm and serene.

We are heading north to Ocean Falls, at the head of Cousins Inlet the opening to which is visible in the distance between the mountains. It was quite a dramatic view with the clouds catching in the hills and the sky lit up golden by the morning sun.

Just beyond the entrance the the inlet are several landslide areas. The houses shown are summer cottages, now abandoned, for the earlier residents of the once-thriving community of Ocean Falls. Apparently the area was a known slide point and none of the buildings were constructed in its path, but a couple look awfully close.

This is another slide area nearby - the slide in the previous picture is much more recent than this one, where alders have grown over the damaged area.

This is the view towards the head of Cousins Inlet, with, Martin Valley, the main residential part of Ocean Falls barely in view at the mountain's base. If you look carefully, you can see two large powerboats speeding towards us. They split up and passed very close on either side of us, creating quite a wake. Not a big deal really, but completely unnecessary. Welcome back to civilization.

Turning the corner, downtown Ocean Falls comes into view with the falls creating quite a spectacular sight. The community was founded in 1906 and at at one point had 4,000 residents, but is mostly abandoned now, although some business are still hanging on. The mainstay of the town was the pulp and paper mill, the large blue building on the right, which was constructed in 1912 and includes the dam visible in the center of the picture. The mill closed in 1973, and the government made a failed attempt to operate it as a Crown Corporation, closing it permanently in 1980. The large building on to the left of the waterfall is an abandoned hotel and behind it on the hill are old dorms for the workers.

There is a public marina, visible in the far left of the above picture, where we docked to visit the town.  For the most part we have only seen Canadian-flagged vessel on our trip, but here almost every boat flies the US ensign. We're back on the Alaska route I guess. I had made some danishes underway, which we ate on the back deck in the drizzle before setting off on our tour.

One of the first things we saw was an adult river otter (at right) teaching its young (at left in the kelp) to eat. They were exceedingly cute. The adult was not too thrilled at our taking their picture however.

Ocean Falls is one of the rainiest habitations in Canada, receiving an annual average of 172 inches of precipitation. By comparison, rainy Seattle only gets about 38 inches per year.

The Discovery Coast Ferry stops here too, which must certainly help alleviate the isolation, as the only way in is by boat or plane.

The is the old hotel - its condemned and all boarded up now, but was very busy in the town's heyday. It is kind of spooky walking around through this modern ghost town, although there are still 40-50 residents.

This is a heavily reinforced logging truck that we came across nearby - we really like heavy equipment - it always catches our attention. The roof of the cab is very solid so if the logs get away, they don't crush the driver, an occurrence which was distressingly frequent in days gone by.

The equipment in the mill is in the process of being salvaged. These are large transformers sitting outside.

This is the remains of the dock for the mill, which all kinds of scrap material piled everywhere for salvage. The view is looking down Cousins Inlet, with the marina and town out of the shot off to the right.

We found the largest valve that we had ever seen sitting outside the mill. The outer square panel on the left is roughly five feet tall.

Next we climbed up the road to the falls - they are most impressive.

This is the view from beside the falls looking back down to the pulp and paper mill.

The town was founded with a sawmill in 1906, the remains of which can be seen from the top of the falls, looking past the pulp and paper mill.

Nearby, we found the chlorination plant for the town in a small shack just off the falls, one vat for the upper and the other for the lower townsite. They used lime, bags of which were still inside, to treat the water.

These graphical readings of the chlorine levels in the water supply dated back to the 1960s and were mostly in a cupboard, but also scattered about the room.

In Link Lake at the top of the dam, hundreds of logs lie in booms, abandoned when the mill shutdown. Seems rather wasteful to let them rot like that, although it is fresh water, so they won't be destroyed as quickly as they would in saltwater by marine borers. When we were wandering around up here, we heard someone call "James? Jennifer?" and turned around to see friends of ours from Seattle. What a surprise! You get this far away from where you live, in amongst maybe 75-100 people, and you see someone you know.

This is local resident Russ Jackson, who owns the truck we saw earlier and much of the heavy equipment around town. He stores it here, where vandalism is low, and leases it out. He is also working on salvaging the logs in the lake, but there are so many government restrictions and hoops to jump through that it is quite difficult to make any progress.

We decided to break with tradition and spend the night at the marina in Ocean Falls, as there is really nowhere anchorable for quite a distance. We had dinner with our friends in "The Shack" on the docks. The proprietor showed us her collection of oriental glass bottles, which she gathers at low tide, as there used to be a large oriental community here. Her husband and mother-in-law were also residents of Ocean Falls, the latter attending school here with James Sirois, and is pictured in the high school graduation photo in his book Afloat in Time.