Tofino

From that point, there was only water and sky.

For secret reasons, I went to Vancouver Island one March, a long time ago. I was alone, driving an ancient Volkswagen, thinking about whatever was troubling me at the time. There was always something.

One morning, as dawn broke over the high trees across the harbor, I found myself at the docks, walking among the boats. Fishing boats, sail boats, motor boats, row boats, canoes - any kind of small boat was there, moored to the walkways, or floating off shore, rocking gently back and forth with the calm waves, sheltered from the North Pacific by a finger of land. At the tip of this finger was a town called Tofino.

When I could sleep at night, I slept at the edge of town in the Volkswagen. There were small islets offshore. On the nearest islet was a larger boat, washed ashore many years before, leaning to one side. It appeared someone was living, at least part-time in that boat. Further offshore were what looked like rectangles of bouys and nets, indicating a salmon farming operation.

People had begun stirring in some of the boats, but I hadn’t seen anyone yet. As I passed an older fishing boat, I noticed a man sitting on a bench built into the side of the boat deck, watching me. I looked at him. He was older, and had straight black hair and brown skin. He was dressed, unremarkably, in jeans and an old rain jacket. It was chilly that morning, and occasionally misty on the water.

“You look like you need a visit to Hot Spring Island,” he said.

“I do?” I muttered.

“It’s not that far, but you can only get there by boat or seaplane. We usually see whales and sea lions on the way, but I don’t charge extra for sightseeing,” he said, in the flat cadence of many Native American or First Nations accents. I looked away toward the mouth of the inlet beyond the town and the tip of the strip of land.

“It isn’t out that way,” He said. “We go over around this side of the next island across the water, so most of the journey is calm. We only go out into the sea for a few clicks, and I give plenty of warning when it’s time to hang on. The waves get pretty big in the inlet there.”

I looked back at him.

“You need to go to Hot Spring Island. I only charge $20,” he said.

“Ok,” I said, imagining I could find 20 Canadian dollars to spare.

“Meet us here in about four hours. There will probably be a few others. You can swim in the spring, so bring a change of clothes,” he said, “you’ll be glad you came along.”

“Thanks,” I said, and walked away.

When I passed back by the boat a few minutes later, the man was gone.

***

I returned to the boat at the appointed time. The sun had burned off some of the clouds and shone through a patchy sky. Everything looked more vibrant in the brighter light of day, some boats had left and others had arrived. Some looked like they never moved. The man stood on his fishing boat, and spoke to a handful of other people. A blonde, smiling family of four, with preteen children in expensive travel clothes, stood around the man, who spoke to them of the people living on the boats in the harbor, of the sea that day, and of an exciting journey two weeks prior in which his boat had sailed across the path of a pod of orcas. Other groups of middle-aged couples chatted among themselves. I stepped onto the boat. The man, who I suppose I should now call the Captain, announced,

“I think this is everybody who said they would be here.”

He turned and began readying the boat to depart. Everyone climbed aboard, one at a time, and moved toward the back of the craft, where there was room for a group to stand and sit. I stood near the bridge next to the captain as he started the engines, blew a whistle he retrieved from his jacket pocket, and unmoored the boat. We moved slowly around and out of the harbor, into open water. The captain talked a lot, but few, and later, no one, seemed to listen but me. He told small stories of the people living on the islets and in the forest nearby.

A lot of these people had been conscientious objectors to the Vietnam War. Others were refugees of other types and levels of comfort. He pointed off around an islet further toward the main island across from Tofino where a larger house became partially visible. He mentioned that a famous singer lived in that house. I said nothing in response, but I later determined it was very likely Elvis Costello.

Tofino was small enough that it quickly disappeared from view, and all that remained was water and forested mountains. Massive, ancient evergreens blanketed every inch of land and terminated into dark water at a rocky shoreline.

“I’m going to take us a little off course to see those sea lions on the shore over there,” the captain said, pointing at what looked like nothing much to me.

A few minutes later, he pulled the boat around so the stern faced the shore, and the other, at the back of the craft, gasped a pleased surprise as a group of sea lions came into view atop some rocks. The captain watched, smiling silently as the group brought out their cameras and took photos. I had not brought a camera with me.

After a little while, the captain steered the boat off toward a gap between two islands ahead. He continued chatting. He offered me some Fisherman’s Friend, but I didn’t know what it was, and assumed it was tobacco, so I declined.

“Oh! There’s one…,” he suddenly said to himself, staring at a spot in the water that looked exactly like all the other water to me. He stopped the boat. Just then, the dorsal fin of a whale appeared right along the port side of the boat.

“You can touch them,” he said quietly. I moved to the edge of the boat, put my hand in the water and my fingers brushed the backs of at least two huge, brown and grey speckled whales. The others moved to both sides of the boat and did the same.

“There are probably about six of them today. They have been back here for a couple of weeks,” he said. “They will move along again in a week or so.”

The group made excited sounds. I was surprised the preteens in the blonde family did not make more noise. I assumed they must be Canadian. After the whales had passed, the captain started us off again towards the inlet. As we got closer, the captain said, loudly this time,

“We are about to cross into the ocean for a few minutes. Hang on to something solid.”

I could see a line in the water where the wild ocean water met the calm, warmer water of the inlet. The captain turned the boat into the waves and we bounced and rocked straight into the ocean away from land. Water splashed and sprayed into the boat, making everyone wet. The water was ice cold and smelled fresh and wild.

The captain brought the boat about sharply and we headed back toward the land, a bit to the left of the inlet. Quickly, a dock appeared. A small boy waited on the dock. The captain cut the engines as we approached, grabbed a line and threw it into the boy’s hands. The boy held the line and pulled. When the boat was close enough to the dock, the captain jumped from the boat to the dock, took the rope from the boy, and pulled hard, using his weight to steady the craft. The boy tied the line to the dock, jumped into the boat, grabbed another line and tossed it to the captain, who tied that line to the dock as well. As the captain tied the line, the boy flipped some cushions down the side of the boat to dampen its impact against the dock. The boy then went into the bridge by the captain’s wheel, and sat down, helping himself to some Fisherman’s Friend.

The captain said, “Welcome to Hot Springs Island.”

He instructed the passengers to climb onto the dock. He explained that the hot spring was up and over a hill in front of the boat, and suggested that those who wanted to change into swimwear find an appropriate tree in the forest and change there. All of us, the group and me, but not the captain, went to separate trees in the forest and changed. Once changed, we each climbed over the hill.

On the other side of the hill was a huge crack in the rock of the island. In the crack was a rapidly moving stream of steaming black water about as deep as it was wide, and too far below the path for us to touch. We walked alongside the stream for no more than a few yards as the path dropped quickly into the sea. We stood inside the now-widened crack, opening to the black ocean on one end, and the stream falling down about ten feet into the water about 20 yards away at the other end. Some people waded into the water at the base of the path, reacting with shock at its coldness. I jumped in up to my neck and swam to where the stream fell in a short cascade into the sea water. Hot water, almost too hot, enveloped my body from the cascade. The sound of the waterfall drowned out all other noise. I stayed there as long as I could and then pushed myself away from it.

I swam to the ocean end of the crack, passing the group in varying states of submersion, clucking excitedly to each other. At the ocean end, the water was far too cold. But I lingered there a moment, the huge black Pacific waves pushing me back, little by little. It was strange to see the ocean framed by the rocky opening, and to view it from the level of the waves themselves. From that point, there was only water and sky. I felt small, but not unimportant. Not everyone stumbles across something like this.

When the coldness was too much, I backed into the crack once more, watching the rocks of the opening draw closed like a theater curtain. At a certain point, I realized I could stand. As I stood, I felt the hot water from the stream envelop me from behind. When a wave breached the rocky entrance to the crack, cold water blasted the warmth away. I stood there under the water for a long while feeling the waves - hot and cold, hot and cold, hot and cold - until both sensations felt expected and normal.

I decided it was time to leave. I turned and swam back to the path. Most of the others were already heading back up to the boat. A few stragglers splashed nearby. I thought it odd that none of them came out as far as I, to feel the warm and cold extremes meld together at that one spot.

***

On the journey back to Tofino, after we had passed back into the calm water, the crowd sat and stood quietly at the back of the boat. I stood again, near the captain, who was much quieter this time. Suddenly, in the middle of the inlet, he stopped the boat.

“There’s one,” he said, looking far off into the tree tops of a mountain ridge.

He pulled out a metal box about the size of a brick, flicked a switch and held it toward the water. The box beeped loudly, like a machine in an emergency room. He put the box down, grabbed a fishing pole I hadn’t even noticed, pulled something out of a bucket by the wheel of the boat, stuck it on the hook, carried the pole to the side of the boat, and simply dropped the line straight down into the water. Instantly, the line jerked and he reeled it back in. A beautiful salmon, about 18 inches long, wriggled at the end of the line.

He grabbed the fish, removed the hook with a pair of pliers, and stuck two fingers through its gills. Using the fingers of his other hand, which had just held the fish, the captain whistled, looking up at the tops of the trees. He held the fish up high above his head, waving it around, and whistled again. Something moved at the distant top of the forest. He held the fish up, waving it above his head, and said, “there we go.”

A bald eagle dived down from the trees, hundreds of feet up and away. It opened its wings and began to glide towards us. The captain waved the fish over his head, slowly. The eagle swooped low across the boat and snatched the fish from the captain’s fingers. The others gasped. I think I gasped, too. Some people clapped. I watched the eagle glide away with the fish, then turn and fly with its burden back up to its perch at the tops of the forest.

I sat down on the side of the boat. The captain turned the boat back toward Tofino. He looked around and as his eyes me mine, he said,

“You feel better now than when we met this morning, don’t you.”

I nodded “yes.”

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Patrick McCarty writes about what interests him, which is a little bit of everything and a lot of certain things. Right now, he lives in Houston, Texas.

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