Six Days on Haida Gwaii: Misty Meadows to North Beach

After a lovely evening at Misty Meadows, we awoke the next morning to a breakfast of oatmeal with raisins and (for Chad, who is more adventurous) salal berries picked from the side of our campsite not 8 feet away.  We had been used to the national parks where you are not to pick or touch or remove anything at all, but the park attendant here advised us that as long as we didn't cut down any trees (it's happened), we would be okay.  Salal is everywhere on Haida Gwaii, and the fruit is very tasty - like a cross between a huckleberry and a blueberry.

We headed north up the highway to Masset, which is the biggest town (about 900 people) on Haida Gwaii and one of the commercial centres.  About two kilometres west is Old Masset which is residential and houses a large Haida population.  Totem poles and Haida art abound.

Masset is also the end of Highway 16 (also called a Trans-Canada highway, enabling confusion with Highway 1), which we had followed all the way from Jasper.

Hitchhiking is clearly not banned on this highway.

In the afternoon, we visited the Dixon Entrance Maritime Museum, a quaint little place with all kinds of interesting artifacts from the early days of logging and fishing on Haida Gwaii.  (Dixon Entrance is the passage between Haida Gwaii and Alaska.)

An olive jar from a Spanish ship that wrecked nearby in the 1700s.

We then headed out to North Beach, where we would spend the night in the provincial park right on the beach.

A quaint little coffee shop in the woods along the road to North Beach.  No electricity or running water here, but they make all of their baking from scratch using a propane stove.  Chad tried the cinnamon buns, which were touted up and down the island as legendary but which he found to be pretty average.

Smelling the lovely, lovely cedar driftwood before sacrificing it to our fire. 

Beer on the beach, brought all the way from Plan B Brewing in Smithers.

Camping on the beach!

On a very clear day you can see Alaska across the water - alas, conditions were not favourable enough.  We had a nice evening and a great fire, but around bedtime it began raining heavily and continued through the morning.  Not feeling like enduring too much more rain in the tent, we packed up & turned our thoughts towards a dry hotel room.