Anything But
DESOLATE
British Columbia’s Desolation Sound teems with salmon,
adventure and great lodges. By TERRY W. SHEELY
I
WAS PREPARED FOR THE salmon,
the white linen fish camps,
and bears; had a hunch I
would be overwhelmed by a
sweeping wrap of mountain/
fjord spectaculars, but the
black hole of the monster
whirlpool in Aaran Pass is a jaw-dropper.
Justin Farr feathers the jet and slides
our boat into the whirl, dipping into and
teasing the outside edge of the powerful
swirl until I’m looking straight into the
widening gullet of “Devil’s Hole.”
An aptly named hellishness Devil’s
Hole booms into existence when the
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explore:NW | The Official Magazine of kenmore air | Spring 2016
raw running tide of Queen Charlotte
Strait funnels into a band of narrow
braids along Johnstone Strait to surge
down a web of narrow channels into
violent collisions with the Strait of
Georgia at Desolation Sound.
The racing threads of saltwater
stream between islets in the Discovery
Islands, kiss the mouth of Bute Inlet,
at 42 miles the second longest fjord in
British Columbia, carrying multiple runs
of salmon through some of the most
spectacular, protected scenery in the
Inside Passage.
The islands of Desolation Sound
create an irregular geological nest of