South OZ Adventurers - Adventure, Travel, Expeditions


Behm Canal and Misty Fiords

The Behm Canal is somewhat of a Mecca to sea kayakers making there way through Southeast Alaska. And so like the good followers of our faith that we are we made a pilgrimage to this place on our Journey.

The Behm Canal seperates Reviliaggio Island from the mainland.

We left Stephen's cabin sometime around 8 in the morning and made a brief stop in at Meyers Chuck, with a hot chocolate from one of the friendly locals, and then it was back out into the rain to continue paddling south towards the Behm. We had a long paddle ahead of us to make it to Helm Bay. Unfortunately we entered Helm Bay just as the sun was setting and couldn't make out which headland was which and camped on a small island in the middle of the bay. Cold, wet, tired and hungry we set up a tent in the most obscure small area, just above the high water mark. The next day we rose early and headed towards a forest service cabin to dry out, whilst waiting for the tides to change in our favour. We left the cabin just before low water. If we had read the tides right we would get sucked out of Helm Bay by the last of the ebb and then pushed up the Behm by the flood. We had read the tides and made excellent progress up the canal. Enjoying the sunset, we laughed knowing that it would be the last time we would see the sun for four days; now entering the Misty Fiords National Monument. The name says it all. We continued to paddle towards Blind Pass cabin, which we almost missed in the pitch darkness around midnight.

After two late nights and long days we were both pretty tired and neither of us felt like paddling the following day. We stayed in the cabin to recover and spent the day sleeping, eating and reading, trying to ignore the rain pounding away at the roof over our heads.

From Blind Pass we headed towards Anchor Pass, stopping in at the hotsprings, where we were met most unhospitably by the owner, who made it quite clear that it was private property and we weren't welcome. We were in fact on a Forest Service right of way and we were on public land. Reluctanly we left, failing to spend hours soaking in the beautiful pool.

Upon arriving in Anchor Pass, Kim quickly started to get the fire going, whilst I was hanging out gear. All of a sudden there was an explosion out of the fire place, and huge plume of smoke and one Kim Petherick holding her face. Somehow the lighter had fallen out of her hands and had exploded right as Kim was blowing on the fire. After rinsing out her eyes she was administered to bed and ordered not to open her eyes or do anything else for the next 5 minutes. Luckily the flushing seemed to remove all debris from Kim's eyes and the only damage done was a huge fright to both of us. An incident that we were fortunate was not any worse considering we were 2 days paddle from any good help.

The next morning we arose early as we had a 30 mile paddle down to Manzanita Bay, the first decent camp spot south of us. This turned out to be one of the hardest days so far in the trip. Not only were we battling the cold, head winds and rain, the tide was also against us. This resulted in short sharp waves jumping up against us, making for hard paddling as we were unable to get into any sort of rythmn.

When we finally made it to Manzanita Bay we were somewhat surprised to discover that there was a three walled shelter tucked into the densly forested shoreline. It all helps in these areas and meant that we were able to get out of the rain and cook. I set my tent up inside as well. No point in tempting fate by setting up a tent in the rain....

The next day we made for the very impressive Punchbowl Lake and Bay. With 2000 ft cliffs in a semi-circle lining the bay it was easyto see how it recieved it name. We left the bay and hiked upto the lake. However neither of us could relax leaving our kayaks behind us on the beach, even though the tide was dropping. This bay is regularly visited by smaller cruise boats and were concerned with the wakes and wash that some off them leave behind. Being stranded in the rain in the middle of nowhere was not something either of us looked forward to.

However our fears proved irrational and our boats were exactly where we had left them 2 hours ago and the water was about 20 metres away. We paddled out of Punchbowl and made for Winstanley Bay, where we stayed for the night.

The next day we had planned to have a nice easy day, making for Alava Bay, about 15 miles away. However we somehow managed to miss the bay, probably because we saw a boat in there and didn't want to see anyone else. Once we had realised our mistake, we were about 20 minutes on. We continued to explore and look for a campsite for the night. Being chased out by no-see-ums, bear scat and massive piles of washed up logs, it was decided that we might as well continue onto Ketchikan, another 15 miles away!! We made it to Ketchikan just after dark and camped in the car park of the boat launching ramp for the night. This ment one less day of having to put on our wet paddling gear and we were happy with that!