FOG ISLAND: A Vancouver Island Circumnavigation Full of Surprises

Vancouver Island stretches from Washington State almost halfway to Alaska and its west coast is exposed to the stormy and unpredictable North Pacific Ocean. This coast, known as the graveyard of the Pacific because of the great number of ships that have foundered there, is lined with rocks and often covered with fog. On this circumnavigation of the island nearly 50 years ago there were few navigational instruments, so Norm and his crew had to grope through the thick fog trying to find safe places to anchor. Sometimes they didn’t see another boat or person for days and they ate what they could catch from the sea and find on the shores. It was a one-and-one-half-month voyage in a small, trouble-ridden sailboat. Norm had no experience with this and had to learn things the hard way. However, they came across hidden totem poles, longhouses, and moss-covered skulls propped on rotting dugouts. They found a forty-foot beached whale still wiggling, heard wolves howling throughout the night, soaked bare in a spring that was so hot they could hardly crawl back out, and they anchored alone in quiet bays with nothing but ducks for company.