10. Triangle Island I made my first trip to Triangle Island in 1976, aboard the Nimpkish II, the navy ship attached to CFS Holberg. The island, along with Sartine and Beresford, had been made ecological reserves in 1971, and researchers were working at establishing migratory maps and studying the colonies of the tufted puffins, auklets and murrelets. The ship was taking two scientists and supplies to Triangle Island and there was extra room, and a few of us teaching on the base were offered a passage, with the understanding that we couldn’t land on the island.  We picked them up in Port Alice and headed off for a run to drop them off. . I became interested in the ecological reserves, the history and the populations of both sea birds and sea lions on Triangle Island.

My next visit to Triangle was in passing. Just as I retired, I was able to place two of my students on board The Oriole, the navy sailing ship, for a five-day leadership training, and I was able to secure a spot for myself as a working passenger, not a chaperone. Two years later, in 2009, The Oriole was one of the racers in the Van Isle 360… they ended a leg in Port Hardy, and I was able to secure a spot on the ship from the Port Hardy to Winter Harbour run… as long as I stayed out of the way! Rounding Cape Scott, you could see the Scott Islands on the horizon…

At the end of my final term on the Regional District of Mt. Waddington, I was one of the local government appointees to a large committee tasked with making recommendations to the Federal government on making the Scott Islands a marine protected area. It was a large committee, that included representatives from DOF, Environment Canada,   BC Ministry of Environment, Vancouver Aquarium, World Wildlife Fund, David Suzuki Foundation, Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society and Quatsino First Nations. We’d meet every six weeks or so at the Quatse Salmon Stewardship Centre in Port Hardy…

To get an on the ground view of the area, a three day trip to the Scott Islands and an overnight stay at Triangle Island was arranged… we left Port Hardy aboard The Curve of Time, and it was a tight fit, only 12 were able to take advantage of the trip.  The ship left at 9:00 am… I was late in arriving, I had a few cases to finish up at the constituency office for the local MLA before I boarded. I was the last one to arrive, and the only space left was the V berth in the fo'c'sle. At the last minute, an ornithologist with Environment Canada squeezed in… and as it turns out sharing that cramped space was a bonus… we were the only two not snoring away during the night, and I managed to glean information about the tufted puffins…  

It was a long run to the Cape, and there seemed to be a storm brewing… we landed at Lanz Island, and went ashore for a visit. We quickly began the hunt for glass balls, as there aren’t many visitors to this marine park. I found a few broken ones, and there was one large one picked up well above the tide line. We had dinner below decks… and the skipper decided we’d ride out the storm anchored near Cox Island.

It was a rough night, no one had a sound sleep, I was up early, and out on the deck with a morning coffee, when out of the corner of my eye I see the waters part, and a humpback whale breaches, doing a 180 in the air. And no camera at the ready, but the skipper saw it as well! We pulled anchor shortly after 9 am and headed off to Triangle Island.

No horns on this bull…

27. The Nesting Zone As we get closer to Triangle, it’s easy to see how it was named, and what’s left of the light station… and platform on the high point of the spine.  Triangle Island isn’t a safe anchorage and the spot where we’re anchored looks fine at high tide… with a sandy beach. But a closer look shows a ring of jagged rocks lining the shore, and as the tide goes out, they become even more prominent… so landing spots at low tide are hard to find… we’re off to one at the northern end of the bight… and it requires a jump from the Zodiac… timing the leap with the rise of the waves…

We’re going to hike up the spine, to where the former lighthouse was built… but first I get some advice from my bunkmate… there won’t be many birds about this early in the afternoon, and the trail is much rougher than it looks. So hauling up my tripod and 400 mm lens would probably be exercise and not much else… I heed his advice and pack my point and shoot and the Nikon D 60 with a few lenses.

The Anne Vallée Ecological Reserve is named after a graduate student studying tufted puffins, she’d spent two summers on Triangle Island, and was killed in a fall while conducting her research. Since its creation, the island is off-limits except for the grad students working during the spring and summer, their cabin is the only structure on the island, and it’s cramped for the four students. We have to ensure that we don’t use their water supply, or tax the outhouse… but they’re looking forward to the on-deck BBQ that evening, I think the cold beer is the drawing card!

So we’re off and don’t be fooled by the photographs that look like green grasses covering the island, it’s a combination of stunted salmonberry, ferns, crabapple, hair grass, and salal bushes, and is four to six feet high. For much of the hike, you can’t see your feet, and attention has to be paid to make sure you don’t stray from the trail… it’s a long drop down either side. And while we see some gulls, for the most part, you can hear birds… many are nested underground… and a few puffins fly past… I’m not going to get any shots, especially close-ups, of tufted puffins.

20. Summer Home I spend much of the late afternoon on the beach in front of the cabin, chatting with the students and having a look at some of their research. A few of us decide to hike around the far side of the beach towards the sea lion rookery… but we get a warning about a bull who doesn’t take kindly to any visitors. I’ve forgotten his name, but true to form, there he is, and don’t kid yourself, they can move quite quickly, even on the beach. And of course, if you did get past him, when returning, you’d have to do it again. As we’re walking back to the cabin, I notice a line of pitons driven into the rock face, along with the odd carabinier glinting in the sun. Turns out that a British film crew working for David Attenborough's programme was in to film the sea lion rookery, and that’s how they got around the bull on the guard.

We make our way back to the ship, and it’s just sitting around the deck, chatting while the BBQ is fired up… the weather has held, and it’s a warm breeze blowing as the setting sun lights up the clouds. We’re told that we might want to get below deck before the sunset, there are thousands of birds making their way back to the island. I set up my camera right in front of the wheelhouse, and under a canvas cover… and all of a sudden you can hear the rush of the air, and the sky darkens as these almost solid black masses of birds swing around the point and head for the cliffs on the island. They split just enough to miss the boat, but if you reached out with your hand, you could grab a one. And the noise and wind are like nothing I’ve ever heard. (those shots were on black and white film… I’m working on scanning the negatives, and will add those later)

After a bit of deck scrubbing, we’re up for a while, enjoying the late sunset and the quiet… it’s an early night and an early start back to Port Hardy in the morning. One of the grad students is returning with us… she’s completed her studies for this shift.

jim-puffin-full-2-2385x1689 And we completed our recommendations to create a Marine Protected area in late 2012. I lost the election, so my time on the Regional District came to an end, but I was included in the final report, and the committee managed to gift me my own tufted puffin, shot by Jim Lamont on Triangle Island in 2011. The recommendations took almost eight years to work through the process, and in July 2018 the Liberal government brought in the necessary legislative changes to create the Scott Islands National Wildlife Area.

And who knows, perhaps I’ll get a chance to return and capture some images of those seabirds.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott_Islands

https://www.canada.ca/en/environment-climate-change/services/national-wildlife-areas/locations/scott-islands-marine.html

https://bcparks.ca/eco_reserve/anne_er.html

https://www.cbc.ca/news2/interactives/sh/lBuyhpcqVr/forbidden-island/

https://www.lighthousefriends.com/light.asp?ID=1203