Great Bear Rainforest (10 page)

11:47 AM


With the hope that our parents were near, we hiked away from the cove. Soon our path along the shore became impassable and we moved inland. We’re tired and have stopped to rest and eat. I’m still having a hard time getting my bearings on this island. My GPS has been useless. I’m hoping to spot a geographical landmark, such as Whalen or Butedale Lake, so I can place us on the map because it’s pretty much impossible to pinpoint our location in this dense forest. Even along the last stretch of coastline, one cove looked a lot like the next.

All this hiking has been more strenuous than we thought and we’ve already gone through most of our food. We’re down to one last energy bar and a bag of beef jerky. We’re going to ration what’s left, but if we’re on this island much longer, we’ll have to catch a salmon or collect mussels. A good meal will be needed to keep our energy up. Our canteens are also close to empty, but there’s plenty of fresh water on this island so that’s not a problem. After this break, we’ll continue our trek in the hopes of fi nding everyone … alive!

A wolf print in the sand

LOCATION: NO CLUE!


Our situation is becoming more serious by the minute. I haven’t wanted to admit it to Wyatt, but I can write it in my journal:

We’re lost!

Earlier, we made a big mistake when we wandered away from the shoreline and into the forest and now we can’t find our way out. We’ve been trying like crazy to make it back to the kayaks for the past two hours, but my guess is that we’re farther away from them than we’ve ever been.

An unknown location in the GBR

I mean, other than the tender, our search has turned up nothing, nada, zilch. There’s just no way to put a positive spin on things at this point. Our mission, so far, has been a total and complete failure.

Okay, I admit I’m tired. Aggravated. Cold. Grumpy. My feet and legs are aching. In all honesty, I don’t think I could feel worse. So maybe I’m being overly critical, but I just have to get something off my mind so I can focus on the crisis at hand.

Okay, here it is: my brother is driving me nuts.

I know he’s a smart kid and aces most of his tests and his IQ is some ridiculously high number and all, but he definitely needs to brush up on his map reading skills. Fine, I’m no good at reading maps either, but I never said I was. I even reminded Wyatt that we needed to stay within eyesight of the coastline during our search, but he wouldn’t listen and kept looking at his map and leading us deeper and deeper into the forest. This is a big island and Joe and Liam said that you can get lost real easy. Well, they were right.

For whatever reason, Wyatt keeps studying the map, but it’s totally useless. I mean, he may as well be trying to translate Greek.

“What did you bring that map for anyway?” I asked. “You can’t even read it!”

“Yes I can!” Wyatt said angrily. “We’re about a half mile from the kayaks.”

“That’s what you said a half mile ago.”

“Just keep your mouth shut and follow me!”

I knew we should have radioed Alu before we left the ship. Maybe she would’ve come with us. I’ll fess up, that’s totally my fault. I was so anxious to get to the island and find everyone that I just couldn’t wait. Now I realize that was a bad call. Alu would have kept us from getting lost. And not only that, she probably would have been able to help us find everyone. But thanks to me, we’re all alone and being alone in this tangled, mountainous forest, well, we’re pretty much helpless. I mean, I hate to say this and all, but I’m beginning to worry we may never get off this island.

SEPTEMBER 22, 8:03 PM


T
he FOURTH LAW OF EXPLORATION reminds us to document all findings. This is especially true when important discoveries are made, so here’s the latest:

After several hours of aimless hiking, we came to a place where the trees were mangled, bent inland, or snapped in half, leading me to believe we’d arrived on the western shore, where violent storms first hit Princess Royal Island. Moving through the tree cover, a large cove came into view. At the far end of the cove, we spotted two fishing boats trolling around the mouth of a river. Gannon immediately slid down the hillside and ran onto the beach, waving his arms around frantically.

“Hey!” he yelled. “Over here! Please help us!”

I caught up with him as fast as I could.

“They’re too far away to hear you,” I said.

“Then let’s hurry and get to the other side before they leave. They’ll be able to take us back to the Pacific Yellowfin.”

Before I got another word in, Gannon took off around the cove. I followed. As we plowed through the bushes, the sharp spines of Devil’s Club sliced my face like tiny razors. Sweat poured down my forehead, stinging the fresh cuts. My legs and stomach were cramping, but I managed to keep up. By the time we reached the other side, I felt like my lungs were about to burst.

The sharp-edged stems of the Devil’s Club plant

“Let’s get down there!” Gannon yelled, anxiously. “They’ll be able to see us from the shore!”

“Wait,” I said, panting. “Something isn’t right.”

“There are two boats in the cove. Either of them can save us. What could possibly be wrong with that?”

“But what are they doing here?” I asked.

“Who cares?”

“Just give me your binoculars.”

The captain had said, other than the random sailboat, it was unlikely that we would see another vessel in this area. So what would two fishing boats be doing in protected waters? It just didn’t make sense.

Leaning against a rock, I caught my breath and looked through the binoculars. The fishing boats were idling just off shore, one on either side of a wide river. There were two men hustling around the back of each boat. The water between the boats was choppy, as if a current from the sea was colliding with the flow of the river.

“What’s going on, Wyatt?”

I didn’t answer, only because I didn’t have an answer.

“If you don’t tell me,” he said, “I’m going to run down there and make sure they don’t leave without us.”

“Give me another minute. I need to get a closer look.”

“Fine, I’ll give you sixty seconds. Then I’m going with or without you.”

We climbed down a muddy slope to a boulder field near the shore.

“Stay low. I don’t want them to spot us.”

From the shore, I had a clear view. Stretched between the boats I could see a large fishing net. Trapped inside was a massive school of salmon.

“It’s an illegal fishing operation,” I said to Gannon.

At any given moment, there were hundreds of salmon jumping through the air, each one trying desperately to make it upriver to spawn. Some of them managed to leap over the net, but most were stuck.

A third man exited the cabin of the boat closest to us and started shouting orders at the others. His voice traveled over the water and sounded oddly familiar. I focused the binoculars to see if I could make out the shadowy figure. When he returned to the cabin a bulb above the door cast a beam of light across his face.

I knew that I recognized the voice.

It was the voice of Dr. Hans Brezner.

Everything Gannon told me about his files raced through my mind. Could he actually be responsible for what was happening on the island?

“That’s Dr. Brezner, isn’t it?” Gannon asked.

I nodded.

“I told you he was up to no good, Wyatt!”

“We still don’t know that for sure.”

At the far end of the cove, just off the point, a bright light flashed two times quickly. It must have come from a lookout, someone they had stationed at the point to keep watch for the Coast Guard. The fishing boats returned the signal, two quick bursts of light. Soon after, their engines revved and the boats started for the open ocean. Sadly, thousands of salmon caught in the nets were being dragged with them.

As they turned north, I saw Captain Colin standing at the helm of one of the boats.

“The captain’s alive!” I said, excitedly.

“Well, that’s a huge relief,” Gannon said. “But what’s he doing mixed up in all this?”

Taking another look, I saw that the man next to him was holding a gun. It was pointed at the captain.

“He’s being held at gunpoint,” I said.

Gannon fell back against the rock and let out a sigh.

Again, Dr. Brezner’s stern voice carried over the water.

“Sounds to me like Dr. Brezner is in charge of this whole operation,” Gannon said.

“Stop jumping to conclusions.”

“Come on, Wyatt. You admire the guy and you’re letting that cloud your judgment. I think he’s involved, whether you want to admit it or not. And if that’s true, he’s probably responsible for Mom and Dad’s disappearance!”

“That’s enough!” I shouted. “I don’t want to hear anymore!”

Frustrated, Gannon stood and walked off.

“You’re so stubborn sometimes,” he said, as he climbed over the rocks. “I’m heading back around the cove. You can catch up whenever you feel like it.”

What bothers me most is that Gannon’s accusations have some merit. The doctor’s involvement is definitely suspicious. I can’t make heads or tails of what’s going on. I wonder if they are netting the salmon at the mouths of other rivers, too. I wonder if these men are responsible for the low salmon numbers Alu observed last season. I wonder just how damaging a large-scale netting operation would be to the Great Bear Rainforest. It’s as if they are trying to sabotage the entire ecosystem. Why would someone do such a thing? For the life of me, I just can’t understand it.

LATE AT NIGHT


When Wyatt caught up with me we called a truce and went looking for something to eat near the shore so we could keep the last of the food we’d brought for morning. It was pretty dark with only a little moonlight coming through the clouds and that made the search pretty difficult, but eventually I came across a shallow pool in the rocks that was full of mussels. We stuffed our jacket pockets and rinsed them in a nearby stream before taking cover in the woods to eat. With our pocketknives we cracked open the shells, tore away the beards and slurped down the slimy mussels. They were all rubbery and salty and would have been hard for me to stomach under normal circumstances, but we were so hungry we swallowed them one after another and soon my hunger pains went away.