Great Bear Rainforest (8 page)

“I’m calling the Coast Guard. I should have called them right after we lost radio contact with Captain Colin and Dr. Brezner, but I was confident they would be okay. To me, the captain’s always been invincible.”

“It’s not your fault,” I said. “We all thought they’d be okay.”

5:53 PM


Another hour has passed and I don’t think we have a choice anymore. We have to take action. To be honest, I’m scared. But, there are lots of reasons for Gannon and I to go in search of the captain, Dr. Brezner, and my parents—all of them good. The best of which is that right now we are their only hope.

Turns out, the Coast Guard is responding to another Mayday call. A cargo ship is taking on water off the western coast of Haida Gwaii, a group of islands more than one hundred miles away, and that mission is putting to use the only rescue boat and helicopter in the region. Right now, we’re in one of the most remote parts of the Great Bear Rainforest, almost a day’s travel from civilization. Even in the best circumstances, it can take a long time before help gets to you.

As further motivation to go ashore, Gannon reminded me that, according to seafaring folklore, a ship whose captain has been lost at sea becomes a “ghost ship.” Legend has it that a ghost ship is doomed to float adrift at sea … forever! Now, I try not to be superstitious. Gannon, on the other hand, can’t help himself and sometimes he can be pretty convincing.

“Did you hear that, Wyatt?” he asked.

“What?” I asked.

“I just heard the captain’s voice.”

We ran to the starboard side of the ship. Then the port side. There was no sign of the captain. No boat. No anything.

“You’re losing it,” I said.

“No, I’m not!” Gannon yelled. “I’m telling you, I heard the captain!”

Gannon paused, as if thinking.

“Oh, man,” he said, “I just remembered something.”

“What?”

“This was a hospital ship at one time. Jeez, you know how many ghosts are probably floating around us right now? I can literally feel them breathing down my neck!”

Gannon shuddered, spun around, and hightailed it through the galley. I followed him to our room, where he haphazardly went about packing a waterproof bag with supplies.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

“I’ll never forgive myself if we don’t do everything we can to save Mom and Dad,” he said. “Plus, there’s no way I’m staying aboard this ghost ship any longer than I have to.”

“Do you understand how dangerous it would be to travel to that island alone?”

“I don’t know about you, but I learned a lot about the rainforest from Alu yesterday. I’m confident I’ll be okay.”

I folded my arms and paced the room.

“Let’s just take a minute to think this through,” I said.

“I don’t need a minute. My mind is made up. The way I see it, you have a choice. You can either come with me or enjoy a night aboard a haunted ship.”

“You know Joe and Liam aren’t going to let you go anywhere.”

“They aren’t going to know. The next time they go down to the engine room, I’m going to sneak off the ship.”

“And just how do you plan to sneak off the ship? Both tenders are gone and you can’t unload the skiff without Joe’s help.”

“I’ll take one of the kayaks. I’ll be on the island before they know I’m gone.”

Gannon wasn’t giving me much of a choice. He was going ashore no matter what.

“Okay, fine,” I said. “Give me ten minutes to pack. I’m coming with you.”

As the THIRD LAW OF EXPLORATION states: Make certain you are properly equipped before embarking on an adventure.

The difference between a properly equipped explorer and a poorly equipped explorer can be life or death. It’s that simple.

Much like preparing for travel, packing for a search and rescue mission isn’t something you want to do in a hurry. But again, I had no choice. Time was short. I grabbed another waterproof backpack and quickly went to work.

After packing, I pulled the latest weather report from the bridge and read that there’s another front coming off the Pacific Ocean. We can’t catch a break. These storm fronts keep coming at us, one right after another. And this one is bringing colder temperatures.

In the captain’s library, I found a topographical map of Princess Royal Island and some general information about the area to take with us.

We have to be careful not to raise the suspicions of Joe or Liam. If they catch us preparing for this mission, we won’t be going anywhere.

A FEW HOURS BEFORE DUSK
FEAR FACTOR: HIGH


Princess Royal Island rising above the clouds

Okay, Wyatt and I are all set. Our packs are under a tarp and the kayaks are near the edge of the boat for an easy drop. Our fingers are crossed that Liam and Joe won’t notice. Now, all we have to do is wait for them to disappear into the bowels of the ship. As soon as they do, we launch for Princess Royal Island!

10:02 PM


About two hours before sundown, Liam and Joe finally disappeared into the engine room and Wyatt and I went to work sliding the kayaks over the side of the ship and carefully climbing aboard. A pretty strong wind blew over the water making the surface really choppy with white-caps breaking over the front of the kayaks and knocking us around and we had to work hard to keep from getting dumped into the Pacific.

Within minutes of leaving the Pacific Yellowfin, we were totally surrounded by fog and what we had been able to see of the island disappeared. In that fog, it felt like we were all alone, paddling in the middle of the ocean, but we knew that if we continued moving west we’d eventually run right into the island, so that’s what we did.

Getting to Princess Royal took a lot longer than we thought, mostly because a strong headwind and rough conditions made for slow going. There were times where it seemed like we weren’t making any progress at all, or were even going backward, but eventually we broke through the fog and the rocky shoreline came into view.

As we got closer to the coastline, I spotted a lone wolf staring at us from atop a boulder field that spilled onto the beach. I turned back to Wyatt, pointing to the wolf, and we both stopped paddling and sat patiently in the gently rolling waves, hoping that he would eventually move along.

The wolf was thin, a trait Alu had said is common among the coastal species, but his scrawny figure didn’t make him any less menacing, that’s for sure. His gaze alone sent this wave of fear right through me. As intimidating as they are, wolves really are beautiful animals. This one had a mostly gray coat with some streaks of black on its belly. I couldn’t tell for sure, but it almost looked like the area around its mouth was covered in blood and that kind of freaked me out.

For a while the wolf didn’t move. He just sort of stood there, staring, like he was guarding his territory or something. Wyatt and I kept drifting closer, carried by the current. The wolf didn’t seem to appreciate the fact that we were invading his personal space and eventually gave a great howl that sounded like it came from the depths of his lungs. I paddled backward a few strokes and was seriously thinking about going back to the ship, when the wolf turned and trotted off into the woods.

We didn’t know if the wolf was rounding up his buddies or hiding in the trees, ready to attack when we came ashore, so we paddled in the opposite direction to put a safe distance between ourselves and this top-of-the-food-chain predator. A little ways north we found a tributary and just beyond that a beachhead of small boulders and it was there that we came ashore.

Along the shoreline we found a few fresh salmon carcasses scattered about the barnacled rocks.

“Notice that the heads are all missing,” Wyatt said, pointing at the salmon carcasses. “That means that they were eaten by wolves.”

“Thank you, Captain Obvious,” I said.

Wyatt rolled his eyes.

A salmon carcass left by a wolf

It seems that there’s really no way to avoid wolves on this island, so we continued ashore. Getting ourselves onto the island was tricky with the slimy, algae-coated rocks making it almost impossible to get any traction, especially when dragging a heavy kayak. Wyatt took a hard fall, rolling backward into a shallow pool and was soaking wet and cold, but fortunately he wasn’t hurt, well, except for his pride.

Not sure how high the water would reach when the tide came in, we’ve dragged our kayaks up a hill a good distance and stashed them inside the forest.

“We need to set up camp right away,” Wyatt said. “We probably have a half an hour of light left, at best. Let’s go further up this hill, underneath those trees. You put up the tarp, and I’ll get a fire going. I’m going to freeze if I don’t dry out these clothes. And maybe Mom and Dad will see the smoke.”

I took the tarps and a line of rope and Wyatt went around gathering whatever dry wood he could find. I walked into the forest and looked for a soft bed of moss with a good canopy of trees overhead to keep the rain off. The light was almost gone from the sky by the time I found a decent campsite—a patch of flat ground between two fallen spruce trees, about seven feet by ten maybe, with good tree coverage.

I was in a race with the dark and strung the triangular tarp between two trees and staked the third corner of the tarp to the ground, driving the stake deep into the soil with a rock. With the tarps in place, I cleared the rocks and fallen tree branches underneath and padded the ground With extra moss and then placed the second tarp over the moss and spread out our sleeping bags. The last thing I did was to string our food over a high tree limb, beyond the reach of bears and wolves.

I figured Joe and Liam had noticed we were gone, so I called them on the radio to let them know we were okay, but all I got was static. Wyatt showed up with an armload of twigs and branches and I told him that I couldn’t get through to the ship.

“That’s strange,” he said. “I tested the radios before we left the ship. Let me try mine.”

Wyatt tried his radio, too, but he got the same. Static. He checked his GPS and it wasn’t working either. There’s been all kinds of thunder rumbling overhead and Wyatt thinks that maybe the electricity in the storm is scrambling the signals or something.

“Forget the radios for now and get that fire going,” I finally said. “I need to thaw out.”

We both sat underneath the tarp, cold and shivering, while Wyatt went about starting a fire. Or attempting to start a fire, I should say. The rainforest is so wet it makes the otherwise simple task of starting a campfire really hard and despite Wyatt’s best efforts, he couldn’t get one going. Match after match burned to the end and went out without as much as a glowing ember in the pit. I could tell his patience was wearing thin, so, naturally, I made a joke.

“How many
Wyatts
does it take to start a campfire?”

Wyatt turned to me, his jaw rippling as he waited on my punch line.

“Obviously more than one, bro.”

“If you’re such an expert,” he yelled, veins bulging from his neck, “why don’t you try to start a fire?”

“Fine,” I said. “Step aside and I’ll show you how it’s done.”

I reached into my backpack, removed a Quick-Light Fire Starter (never leave home without one), lit it, tossed it into the kindling, blew softly to fan the flame, and just like that, we had a warm, crackling fire.

Voila!

“Ah, this really warms the old digits,” I said wiggling my fingers over the flames.

“Don’t talk to me right now,” Wyatt said and went about changing into a dry set of clothes.

Here’s the problem: I only brought one fire starter. And it’s in the fire. I thought there were more in my kit, but when I searched for another, I realized there aren’t. It’s supposed to get colder after the storm, so if we’re not back to the ship tomorrow before nightfall we’re going to be in deep trouble.

SEPTEMBER 22, 1:47 AM
PRINCESS ROYAL ISLAND (UNABLE TO TAKE COORDINATES)
9° CELSIUS, 49° FAHRENHEIT
CLOUDY WITH A STEADY WIND


Okay, so I broke the third law of exploration. I’m not properly equipped. What kind of explorer sets off into a rainforest without everything he needs to start a fire? I’m so angry with myself I can hardly stand it, and Gannon acting like a know-it-all only makes it worse.