Stuart Coulson and the K.O.V.'s

Kayaking in British Columbia, Canada.

The biggest problem with B.C. is getting there. All our endeavours in 1990 to fly our kayaks to Canada with a Canadian airline failed. Summer is peak time and they just did not want to know. Therefore, with an excellent contact in Vancouver (Caroline Watchorn's cousin who competed for Canadian Juniors kayak) we bought kayaks out there and then resold them after our trip. We did look into renting but this looked expensive. With the success of flying kayaks to the States, flying to Seattle, less than 100 miles from Vancouver, would probably be the best bet these days. Remember though that you still need an American visa if you wish to enter the States via land (no longer true, land access was fine in 1997).

We went in late June, probably the best alround month although July and even August would be O.K. May, as several groups have found, in northern climbs is often too cold for the snow to be melting properly. You either get too much or too little water. If you are into the overfull, out of their box river there are plenty of rivers which you are supposed to wait until August/September to paddle (e.g. the Thompson, 700 cumecs in late September in 1991) which would be nuts in June.

Suggest you organise transport when you get there unless you have a local contact. The average hire car companies opinion of a roofrack and a kayakers differ widely. We found it relatively easy to organise. The five of use hired one of those 8 seater family wagons. Might be worth checking the spare wheel, we had to drive 80 miles on a `trailer' type wheel. Secondly, be careful what you say, you will do a lot of traveling on unmade roads and in most instances they do not cover this.

Well, you've done the hard part, you're there with a boat and a set of wheels, where do you head ? If you caught it right you could ski in the morning and then paddle 7km on a beautiful grade 3 gorge on the Capilano in a park in the centre of Vancouver. (This river needs rain, which we had a lot of when we first arrived). Unfortunately I do not have copies of the guides we used, nor can I remember their titles. The BCU used to stock them but they're not in the latest list. Anyway, I think we had 3 guide books as follows;

Vancouver Island and Eastern B.C.

Vancouver Island is an early season area and not that great so we did not bother with it. The rest of the guide covers the area; Vancouver to Kamloops to Revelstroke to Penticten to Vancouver. There are some great rivers in this area, the Chilliwack, Thompson and Nahatlach. We were in this area in the first week, it was the wettest it had been for 15 years and for 44 years in some places. We gave up on at least one river because the road was flooded. This water soon subsided and when we returned at the end of the trip we had some excellent paddles.

Kootenays

This is a brilliant area in the valley to the west of the rockies with the town of Golden at its head. Some excellent paddling to be had.

Washington State, USA

I flew home but the others paddled in this area for the fourth week. If you've got a fourth week it's probably worth if look, if not, don't bother, stay in B.C. There is one simple rule for paddling in Canada. It must be wider than the height of a tree. The small alpine streams all have a roll gate every 50m. On the big rivers they still present a nasty unpredictable hazard. Therefore the paddling is medium to very big volume, anything from 150 to 2,000 cumecs. (During the floods the Frazer at Hope was running at 30,000 cumecs). The other concern was the guides are crap. They are written by a journalist who basically bottles on anything more than 3+. Therefore she has used second hand reports for the big bits. The descriptions of get ins/outs are OK but grade 4 can mean anything from 3/4 to 5+. If you have weaker paddlers, send a group of strong paddlers first to recky. We paddled one river at 300 cumecs, she had written the guide based on 7 cumecs ! This river was the size of the Inn at Scoul. Therefore, if a better guide has not come out, sound out as much info in the UK as you can before traveling and talk a lot to local kayakers. Our best paddle was a 20km section, miles from any road, not in the guide, on the Spillimacheen described to us by a Glaswegian rafter who had emigrated to Golden, B.C., 30 years before ! This brings me to another point, the sections are often long, very remote, with treacherous ferries up radio controlled logging roads. We did not have one but your most valuable piece of safety equipment is probably a suitable 2-way radio.

We spent a week or so in the east, then drove down the `Ice Park Highway' between Jasper and Banff. Well worth visiting the Rockies if you have gone that far. We had no info on rivers in this area but there must be some good sections somewhere. The next week or so was spent having a brilliant time in the Kootaneys before heading back to catch the big bits on the East we had missed out with the high water. Loads of great 3,4,5,5+ to be had, take your pick. Certainly enough to fill 3 weeks. (Joe Robinson was on the trip, we got a lot done !)

Frazer Pearce, F.R.Pearce@durham.ac.uk 3-Dec-95