Quick Summary
- After a decade since his first time traveling to Haida Gwaii in the archipelago off the northern coast of British Columbia, Canada, to spread his grandfather's ashes, David Jackson, along with his wife Leah, return to the spot that's held so much meaning to him - one, for obvious reasons, but secondly, because it represents a place of hard lessons learned in the incredibly weather harsh conditions the islands are known for. Now, as accomplished adventurers, their visit played out much differently, but the impact of the trip was just as powerful.
Words, Photos, and Video by David Jackson @davidjackson_ and Leah Jackson @exploreleahjackson
Fortunate are we who get to cross the trails of our old self. Pulsing ocean, breathing fog, the wind roaring a gale throwing driftwood high into tree canopies, branches crash to the ground. Hovering around freezing, rain occasionally turns to snow, and with my headlamp I watch, trying my best to dodge the forest falling all around. What was I thinking? My nails were turning yellow from nearly a month of cold, driving rain. My pack was heavy, food scant, I hadn’t thought to bring a burner stove, and I quickly learned fires were difficult to kindle in a place that only rained harder by the hour it seemed. Occasionally an icy wind, parting clouds, snowcapped peaks and fog banks of icy vapour, just enough to remind me there was light in this dreary tunnel. The little ceramic urn I had packed across the entirety of Canada to the edge of the world was guiding me, my grandpa was the reason I hadn’t bowed out. Before passing, he asked for this, to visit once more a place we never knew he had been, a chain of isolated islands notorious for winter storm season, a land to rest his wandering soul. With no foresight, I had let him guide me into the teeth of an environment I've never been able to forget, a journey I was lucky to survive.
It’s been ten years since I learned to tough it out and find solace in the storms we can unknowingly walk into in life. I followed the spirit of my grandpa, and he led me on the first truly hard trip I was to ever learn from. Safely past the tail end of storm season, with Leah now by my side, we loaded up our packs with the type of lightweight equipment I wish I had thought to bring years earlier. Extra tarps, proper rain gear, burner stoves, and a heap of experience lighting fires in the soupiest of dismal weather. I needed to journey back to the land where I first listened for what was unsaid, I wanted to see how my grandpa was doing. We rode the rails cross country, the steel snake arcing through frozen, snow packed boreal forest, chugging across sprawling prairie, until a wall of rock rose out of the plains and craggy peaks became our new companions. The train stopped just before driving into the ocean and after five days, we stepped off the steel and walked with minutes to spare onto an overnight ferry. My return to North America’s rainiest forest was nothing like I remembered. Warm breeze, inky ocean and a blanket of stars pulled over the ferry to sleep our night sailing away. Years ago, staff had locked the doors on the same boat, and anyone aboard could only crawl to move around as waves washed over the four story ship and driftwood pounded the upper decks. That night, Leah and I were lulled to sleep by the gentle rolling of a dream filled sea.
Blue sky broken only by the horizons, one of ocean and seacliff, the other of distant peaks. Birds wheel and whine, deer scamper away, and we look forward to wading small rivers. A local, on our questioning of the sunny forecast, assured us that in these islands you don’t tan, you rust, but now Leah was wondering if we should have brought sunscreen. We walk ourselves to oblivion on a small strip of sand, daring to dance the tide along dangerous cliffs, emptying our packs at night to make camp by dark, swirling streams. I lead Leah into the woods and relive the wonder I once felt at my first visit to the grandparents of a coastal rainforest. She runs her hand along the bark of western red cedar, we climb up and over Sitka spruce roots, sometimes crawling under their trunks. Her face is sealed in wonder, the forest cloak is a shaggy green and it seems if we don’t keep moving, we too might grow moss. Beyond the forest, seals pop their black heads above turquoise water and further out, whales spout into the clear blue sky.
I hadn’t seen any of this before, at least beyond the trees and moss. My first visit felt more like reading braille to interpret the land, for it was always shrouded in mist. Now I could understand, more than I had understood so long ago, why my grandpa was spellbound by this mysterious chain of islands. The wool had been pulled from the landscape. We followed streams uphill, passing trees that would demand us to stop and soak in their stories. At night, our white tent glowed in the dark forest. We climbed high onto the ridges until snow became our burden, watching the ocean wink with gleaming, blue eyes far below in the sounds and inlets. We were too soon for good mountain travel, but we needed a view to take in this once in a lifetime weather window. Jagged peaks bit straight up from the sea, fog clung deep in mysterious valleys, and I remembered the snowstorm that nearly ended me the last time I tried to find this view. We sat on a peak, our packs resting beside us, munching salami, cheese, and rye bread. I hadn’t realized the lesson my grandpa was passing on, that in death we face a choice, in life we have trails, and the two can join in places like this. Grandpa took a chance by speaking his wishes so he could rest, at least in part, where headstones are the bark of an ancient tree, spirits move in the fog banks which drift like ghosts up slope until finding their way into clouds to fall as rain, to moss, to stream, under roots, to mix with salt once again. My grandpa had asked to go where the cycle of life is so plain to see, one final grand adventure, and now we sit in a stream of clouds looking down on the wonder of his vision.
Through weeks of walking, we’d pass by old campsites of mine and I’d share stories with Leah of the storms I had survived. It was disheartening to know the trouble I went through, to see the world I really hadn’t seen at all, but as the weeks went by, we kept having to pinch ourselves at where my grandpa had brought us. We were backpacking, but not on a trail I could tell you about. Instead, we were choosing to live life slower, to train cross country, travel by boat, sleep in a tent and walk with all that we need on our backs so that we might iron out the restless creases of our wandering souls. We were visiting my grandpa and waving to an old self, bidding farewell to the zest of an oblivious youth who once walked blind into storm season with a too heavy pack and no room for food.
The tide rises near to our campfire; mountains glare our eyes. Above our tent stands the grandparents that we need to make time to visit, so we sleep another night on their roots before the ferries and rails take us far away, only our tans to show that we enjoyed our time in a land of rust and memories. If I found anything I left behind years ago, it’s that we need to be grateful for the tides we chance, the storms we dance, and spirits who guide our way.
