Tidal Rapids White Water Kayaking

Watch Out Quadra Island: Here Come the Whitewater Kayakers!

For decades, the Discovery Islands have been internationally recognized as a spectacular island wilderness dotted with fishing resorts. More recently, visitors flock to the islands for other outdoor activities such as hiking, mountain biking, lake swimming and sea kayaking. During the last year, Quadra Island is attracting a new and unlikely sports enthusiast: the white-water kayaker.

Many people think of white water kayaking as a river sport. This is often the whitewater venue, but Vancouver Island’Äôs rivers run low during the late spring and summer. Unwilling to sit-out the warm season, intrepid paddlers have other options in British Columbia’Äôs paradise of outdoor recreation. Many take their small whitewater kayaks to Pacific Rim National Park at Long Beach, Tofino , in search of ocean waves and kayak surfing. Another option is the tidal rapids whitewater of our inside passages’Ķ

Since the improvement of the Surge Narrows Road some years ago, white water paddlers have been making their way out to the beginner and intermediate rapids of Surge Narrows Marine Park. This location (very close to Coast Mountain’Äôs Discovery Islands Lodge B&B Kayak Hostel) is an ideal place to test and thrill novice whitewater skills.

But white-water kayaking is also testing limits, and new class of extreme kayakers is emerging. On the rivers they are known as ’Äúcreekers’Äù: these paddlers armor themselves and kayak down the steep rivers of British Columbia’Äôs mountains, plunging over waterfalls and careening down watery troughs containing more boulders than water. In some tidal rapids, you can have similar excitement ’Äì minus the boulders! Last year a search for adrenaline brought paddlers to the tidal rapids of Quadra Island.

About a dozen times each spring and summer on the big flood tides, the Okisollo rapids build to astonishing proportions. Located at Cooper Point (north Quadra, just east of Hole in the Wall) these tidal rapids reach speeds up to 12 knots, generating a series of stationary waves, whirlpools and whitewater chaos that is thrilling for whitewater paddlers. The rapids offer several perfect play spots for intermediate kayaking -- and for the adrenaline junkies, one huge leading wave which is an intimidating ’Äúmonster’Äù with a glassy green face more three 3 meters high. This standing wave has been dubbed the ’ÄúOkisollo Tidal Wave’Äù.

According to Shane Vollmers, accomplished whitewater kayaker and director of the Vancouver Island Whitewater Paddlers Society ’ÄúThere are few standing waves of this size and quality in Canada’ÄîOkisollo is a awesome wave that will challenge any advanced kayaker.’Äù Getting onto the wave is a nerve-wracking experience for the spectator -- to say nothing about the courage required of the paddler! It is necessary to paddle above the wave in the back-eddy and then drift backwards into it. The kayaker slides deep into a trough just at the base of the wave - literally disappearing from view. Surrounded by fast moving water with only the sky visible, the kayak is pushed up the face of a towering, sometimes breaking, 3 meter glassy green wave. The forces involved are tremendous and one mistake results in what paddlers dub being ’ÄúMaytagged’Äù, which is about how it sounds: churned, tossed, and ejected from the rapids in a most ego-crushing fashion. But only to try again!

At Discovery Islands Lodge, Coast Mountain recently hosted the Vancouver Island White Water Paddlers AGM for a second time -- with a third annual event scheduled for next May. Ralph Keller, Coast Mountain’Äôs owner-guide says, ’ÄúAs sea kayakers, we used to regard the rapids as a liability. But in addition to the possibilities for whitewater kayaking, we have been delighted to discover the thrill of sea kayak surfing on some of the smaller standing waves in Surge Narrows Marine Park. This is the beginning of an interesting trend -- and it adds a whole new frontier to the art and fun of sea kayaking!’Äù

About Whitewater & Tidal Rapids
an informative article about tidal rapids ’Äì general characteristics and how-to navigate rapids by sea kayak

Coastal BC a fun and informative site about outdoor recreation and kayaking the BC coast

Whitewater Kayaking Association of BC Whitewater organization of British Columbia and whitewater activities in the province of BC

Outdoor Recreation Council of BC
More about British Columbia whitewater kayaking and recreation, BC rivers

About the Discovery Islands Area

A guide to the Discovery Islands area

A guide to Cortes Island and

A commercial guide to Quadra island


Guided expeditions: Canadian World Champion Ken Whiting offers summer 2004 whitewater kayak expedition to BC including paddling the famous Skookumchuk Tidal Rapids.

Periodicals: More about whitewater kayaking in Canada and British Columbia can be found in the following Canadian publications:

Rapid Magazine ’Äì a fun magazine about Canadian whitewater kayaking with information, stories, products and services

Wild Isle - a Vancouver Island publication with lots of outdoor adventure writing and information

Wavelength - west coast island published, this is the authoritative source for current events and information about kayaking west coast ocean waters, with lots of other good info about BC and the world

Moving Luna: Science or Feel-Good Ecology?

Luna is a young male Orca (killer whale) separated from his pod. Living alone in Nootka Sound, he is perhaps lonely and has adopted behaviours that put him in the way of humans. orcanetwork.org. Recently a decision has been made to move Luna in an attempt to reunite him with his Orca family. The move is also likely to put him closer to urban areas with potential for unpredictable and undesirable consequences.

Locating Luna’Äôs pod has been a chance endeavour. Sighting of Luna’Äôs clan or ’ÄúL-Pod’Äù was confirmed as it passed Telegraph Cove the week of May 23-29, 2004. The L-Pod was sighted again off Hornby Island in central Georgia Strait in the later part of the week. Of particular interest is the confirmed sighting of Luna’Äô s mother in the pod.

While public opinion appears to favour a move to re-unite Luna with his pod, the scientific community is uncertain that this will be successful. Since BC’Äôs resident Orcas are listed as threatened and widely considered to be endangered, it is understood that getting Luna back to his pod would be a positive move adding one more healthy individual with reproductive capability. The apparent success of Springer’Äôs 2002 re-introduction to her family pod reuniteluna.com has inspired the public to think that moving Orcas is a really only a logistical problem. But it’Äôs not that simple.

The situation of Luna is very different from Springer’Äôs family separation. Luna’Äôs mother has a new calf; Springer’Äôs mother did not. Also, many Orca researchers are asking, ’ÄòDid Luna accidentally stray away from his pod or was he purposefully separated?’Äô These and other nagging questions reveal gaps in our knowledge about the social behaviour of Orcas. There is a distinct possibility that Luna will not re-unite. If he has been moved to a location with more potential for undesirable human interactions, what then?


In the feel-good ecology of the new millennium, Orcas have become second only to humans in our scale of rating higher mammals. One must applaud human appreciation of the living creatures that share our small planet. Recognition of our fellow earth dwellers large and small is overdue and necessary, but we must also recognize that they are other nations and they live in a different reality than what we can manipulate.

More important than the possibility of saving one individual whale is our care for the environment that these animals live in. Whales populations are threatened by dwindling fish stocks, exposure to toxics in the immediate environment and in the food chain, surface disturbances such as boats and other human activities and underwater noise. whale-museum.org. It’Äôs easy to focus on one individual whale whose predicament we might solve with a bunch of money and technical intervention. But we need to look deeper: our lifestyles and wasteful human habits are the biggest problem whale populations face, and this is what we really need to address.


Coast Mountain Expeditions kayak trips are in the area just south of Johnstone Strait, summer home of the northern resident Orca. Occasionally we are thrilled to see Orca pass through our waters, but we do not recommend whale watching in kayaks. Coast Mountain Expeditions. More viewing with less disturbance to whales can occur on larger tour boats. These boats with naturalist guides almost always sight Orca and other wonderful marine life.