One Day in Toba Inlet

Words by Albert Keller

Beep, beep -, beep, beep – beep, beep…the tinny sound of my watch alarm jolts me awake in the pre-dawn darkness. I shut it off quickly. I may as well let everyone else sleep an extra hour. I slipped out of my sleeping bag and into my clothes; damp from touching the side of the tent. I unzip the tent to a rush of cool night air. “This is way too early to be awake”, I think to myself before hardening into the rhythm of guide life….fetching food from kayaks, brewing coffee, prepping breakfast, and unique to this day, setting out lunch food and brown paper bags. Tasks completed, I wake the rest of the group at 5am. 

There’s no grumbling. The group has been well informed on the importance of getting an early start when paddling into Toba Inlet. The inlet is subject to diurnal ”katabatic” (outflow) and anabatic” (inflow) winds. As sunlight warms the mountain tops during the afternoon, the warm air rises from the peaks and pulls air into the inlet, where its narrow and steep sides act like a vacuum hose to intensify the wind. At night, the pattern can reverse, and wind blows out of the inlet. Our early morning start is tailor-made to avoid potential anabatic afternoon winds.  

As a group we load kayaks, and slip into the water just after 7am. For most trip participants, this is when the work starts, but for a kayak guide it offers a moment of rest. Strong and conditioned from a season of paddling, I breathe easy while my mind wanders. 

The sun has just crested the steep hills to the south of the inlet, and casts a warm glow over the craggy cliffs. Scraggly trees cling impossibly to the rock face, their drooping branches festooned with lichen. Wisps of mist waft from thick beds of moss that steam in the sun. 

I’m suddenly grateful for the early start. This is the most beautiful time to be on the water. 

A wild and mostly inhospitable place, Toba Inlet remains the unceded traditional territory of the Klahoose Nation, who claim to have inhabited it since time immemorial. In reality, human settlement in the inlet likely dates back less than 10,000 years, since the retreat of glaciation following the last ice age. It’s still an eternity compared to less than 300 years of white settlement on the coast, and the clear cuts that mar the otherwise pristine landscape are testament to the jarring impact of white settlement. A key purpose of our kayaking business today is advocating for responsible logging practices and protection of wild spaces. Sometimes we are successful.

It’s not long before we reach the first waterfall. It towers above us, a shock of white against black cliffs. The early morning sun casts rainbows off the spray. Even though this is the smallest of the waterfalls that we’ll see today, the torrent pushes down heavily on the bow of my kayak when I paddle underneath it, and I retreat, drenched from the spray. 

Time, tide, and anabatic winds wait for no one, so we carry on, our paddle blades dripping little beads of silver with each stroke. We paddle mostly in silence; a little dazed by the early morning, but mostly in awe of our surroundings. With each bend of the inlet, taller mountains rise from the water, until we are entirely surrounded by stone giants. 

Every creek and river that flows into the inlet floods the sea with a glacial clay sediment. This fine clay colors the water a pale teal color, adding to the otherworldly experience of the inlet. It also coats the shoreline with a slick layer of clay; we will have to tread carefully from now on.

There are no beaches in Toba Inlet, there are only “places you can get out of your kayak”, and these are few and far between. With nowhere to land the entire group at once, we bunch our boats together into a raft and pull out our brown paper bag lunches. It’s not the lunch buffet we’ve grown used to, but nobody cares. We’re all in awe of the scenery. 

I never tell people when we near the biggest waterfall. There’s something special about paddling around one more corner, arms aching, and seeing the torrent of water plunging from the cliff above. If the first waterfall was a graceful dancer, this one is a raging beast, all power and noise. There is no pushing the bow of my kayak into this one; the wind from the falls is enough to drive me backwards. Once again, I am drenched. 

We linger at the falls as long as we can, revelling in the power and beauty, but also relieved by the knowledge that our paddling day is almost over. 

There are many inlets along the coast. They are all different, but they share a few characteristics: steep walls, rugged terrain, and usually no islands. Except Toba. It is the only inlet that I have paddled that has an island; a cute little blip that also happens to be the only hospitable camping in the whole place. It is also gorgeous; a glacially sculpted haven that hosts a few wind whipped blueberry bushes, scraggly pine trees, and flat tent spots. Did I mention mountain views in every direction?

The only problem with the island is that there is no beach. At first glance, there isn’t really anywhere to take kayaks out at all. There is just steep, and less steep. We choose less steep, and get to work unloading kayaks. We move deliberately; the rock is covered with a slick layer of glacial clay sediment that is akin to a layer of ball bearings. We solve this problem by passing gear through a fire chain. It’s a slow and arduous end to an already challenging day, and the smiles and high fives when we’re complete are perfectly real. We are no longer a group of individuals. We are a team that has just completed a challenging, rewarding, and beautiful experience together.