The Darkening Archipelago (2 page)

The people of the Lostcoast band had been fishing there for thousands of years, but they had never contributed to the decimation of salmon the way the modern industrial fishery had. Now Archie Ravenwing's people would pay the price incurred by the greed and short-sightedness of the commercial fishing industry and its proponents in government. In the years since British Columbia's current Liberal government had lifted the moratorium on new salmon farms in the province, there had been an explosion of interest in new aquaculture developments along bc's knotted west coast. In the Broughton Archipelago, where Archie Ravenwing fished and lived, there were nearly thirty salmon farms in operation. Many of these open-net farms were located on the migration routes of native wild salmon. And though industry advocates argued that the two were unrelated, along with the development of salmon farms came a corresponding decline in the number of wild salmon. Archie knew that, in a recent count, only one hundred and fifty thousand wild salmon returned to the Broughton, down from the historical three and a half million. In 2002 the wild pink salmon stock collapsed, with only five percent of the native wild fish returning to spawn. Archie knew the numbers by heart.

For Ravenwing, it was as if part of his own body, his own soul, had vanished. The part of his heart that swam through the waters of Tribune Channel and up the mouth of Knight Inlet was gone, lost like the spirit of the once-great salmon.

Archie tried to keep his darkening sadness at bay. How could it have come to this? he wondered. After a thousand years of tradition, his family wouldn't be allowed to fish their ancestral waters? He turned his face toward the sky. A throaty call greeted him, and he opened his eyes to see a jet-black shape cruise overhead. He heard the husky chortle again. Archie raised a hand in greeting. “Good morning, Grandpa,” he said quietly, waving at the raven, a smile creasing his face. “U'melth, Raven, who brought us the moon, fire, salmon, sun, and the tides,” he recited. “Trickster, grandfather of a thousand pranks. Okay! I'll lighten up!” He drained his mug and slung the dregs into the water. “Time to get to work,” he added.

Archie rose, stretched out the stiffness that had accumulated in his joints, and walked back to the wheelhouse, where he opened a large bin and removed the tools he would need for his morning work. He put the long, flexible net together on its pole and readied half a dozen plastic sample jars. These he put on the fish box on the deck of the boat. Without ceremony he began his sampling, drawing forth the tiny salmon fry to be funnelled into the jars. So few, so few. Ravenwing shook his head as he dipped again into the waters.

By noon he had filled the jars with juvenile salmon, whose tiny, finger-sized bodies were being consumed by sea lice. This was what Archie Ravenwing was seeking — irrefutable evidence that the wild salmon stocks of Knight Inlet and the Broughton Archipelago were being parasitized by sea lice.

Archie held a jar up to the light and counted the lice clinging to the salmon. On one smolt he counted four parasites from two different species. Adults might succumb when they had six or seven sea lice on their fins, gills, or skin. Smolts like those in Archie's sampling jars would die with only a few sea lice feeding on them. Archie regarded his unfortunate catch. “Not doing so good, are you, little friends?” He kept finding more and more smolts with more and more sea lice on them, and he had yet to reach his day's destination: Jeopardy Rock. There he expected to find the epicentre of sea lice contamination.

“Not so good….” he repeated, his voice trailing off.

Ravenwing knew that sea lice were a natural parasite that preyed on wild salmon along British Columbia's wild coast and elsewhere across North America. But in the last ten years there had been a shocking rise in the number of lice infesting wild salmon. Where before the numbers had been low, and very few salmon actually died as a result of playing host to the lice, now entire runs of wild pink and other salmon were being devastated by them. Despite protests from the salmon farming industry, irrefutable evidence pointed to the rash of farmed Atlantic salmon as the source of the outbreak. The Atlantic salmon could survive with many more sea lice than the native pink, chum, and coho.

Archie took a black felt pen from his shirt pocket and labelled the jars. He would return these to Dr. Cassandra Petrel for her study.

Archie flexed his big hands and looked at the sky. “Starting to crowd in,” he said aloud to nobody in particular. “Fixing to churn up pretty good, I think.”

He knew he should head back down the inlet toward Port Lostcoast before the storm set upon him, but he had one more thing to do that day. Something was eating Archie Ravenwing, and he had to set it straight. So instead of turning the
Inlet Dancer
for home, he powered across the inlet toward the mouth of Tribune Channel, skipping the heavy boat across the small waves already being formed by the wind.

Now the rain fell in torrents, churning the waves like knives thrust into the sea. The Inlet Dancer bounced and rocked, nose into the waves, powering past the fish farms at Doctor Islets and into the main body of Knight Inlet, making for home. Archie stood in the pilothouse near the stern of the boat, one hand locked on the wheel, the other clenching the throttle. This blow was bigger than he had foreseen and, though he was prepared to moor and wait out the storm, this stretch of water had few safe harbours.

After what he had seen at Jeopardy Rock, a new urgency filled Archie Ravenwing and made him push for home against what seemed prudent for the weather.

A wave crashed over the bow of the
Inlet Dancer,
and the boat dipped into the trough behind it, rising up the side of another stack of water. The swells now topped fifteen feet and came in irregular patterns, every fourth, fifth, or sixth wave taller than the rest, coming on faster than the others. Ravenwing firmly held the wheel, keeping the boat head-on to the storm, not wanting the narrow vessel to get punched side-to by one of the rogue waves.

He had suspected for some time that what was happening at Jeopardy Rock was more than just simple salmon farming. He had suspected for some time that the company was doing more than just breeding Atlantic salmon. Now he was certain. He would make his calls when he reached Port Lostcoast and begin to set the record straight. He would begin to make amends. Did Archie Ravenwing believe in redemption? He believed in justice, even if his own actions hadn't always seemed just. He believed that a man's motivation sometimes propelled behaviour that appeared inconsistent with his espoused values. But we are complex creatures, reasoned Ravenwing.

Another wave rocked the
Inlet Dancer,
and Archie pitched forward. He patted the wheel and remembered that she had survived worse.

It was growing dark. The day was slipping from the sky, and the clouds pressed down so low that the tops of the trees on mighty Gilford Island were hardly visible. Ravenwing switched on his running lights — not so he could see, but so he could be seen. Sonar and radar would guide him down the inlet, through the darkness and the storm, but he worried about small pleasure crafts caught in the weather with no such second sight.

Ravenwing counted the waves, counted the minutes. A half hour passed and the hulk of Gilford Island started to recede. The waves still crashed on the
Inlet Dancer
's bow, and now he was moving across the channel toward the eastern tip of Turnour Island. At his pace of seven or eight knots per hour, it would be another two hours or more before he would be abreast of Parish Island, and home.

The VHF marine radio in the pilothouse crackled and, intuitively, Ravenwing set it to scan. Static filled the wheelhouse, the white noise engulfed by the sound of the storm that darkened the archipelago around Ravenwing. Then there was a voice, clear as a bell: “Any craft in the vicinity of Deep Water Cove, this is
Rising
Moon
. I've lost my primary and am taking on water.”

Ravenwing snatched up the handset and spoke over the howl of the storm. “
Rising Moon
, this is
Inlet Dancer
. I'm passing Ship Rock now, about to make the crossing. What is your position?”

“Glad to hear your voice,
Inlet Dancer
. I'm about one mile west of Deep Water, but I'm getting pushed toward the rocks on Deep Water Bluff.”

“Do you have secondary?”

“I'm running on my little Evinrude 25,
Inlet Dancer
.”

“Okay, hold on, I'll circle back for you.”

“I'm glad to find you out here,” came the static-filled response.

“I'm not,” Ravenwing said over the v h f and returned the handset to the radio.

For a moment he would be side-to the brunt of the storm, so Ravenwing determined to make that quick. He throttled up, pushing over the breaking waves, and counted. The big waves pushed a wall of water over the boat's bow onto the deck, momentarily flooding it until the water drained away through the breaks in the gunwales. He counted. A wave crested, ebbed, and Ravenwing throttled back, spun the wheel, and turned to lee, then powered back up again as the stern of the boat was engulfed in the next white breaker. The ocean flooded into the wheelhouse, washing Ravenwing to his ankles in icy water.

In ten minutes he was adjacent to Deep Water Cove, the massive bluffs that guarded the opening black through the shadowless night.

Ravenwing spoke calmly into the handset. “
Rising Moon
, this is
Inlet Dancer
. Can you see my running lights?”

There was no response. He peered at his sonar and radar, watching the rocky coast weave its white line along the left side of the screen, searching for rocks and logs in his path, scanning for the tell-tale shape of a boat. “
Rising Moon
, this is
Inlet
Dancer
….”

“I see you, Archie,” came the voice, clear through the radio.

“What's your location?”

“I'm right behind you.”

Archie turned in the pilothouse and saw the
Rising Moon
's running lights emerge from the cove.

“I found some shelter to wait in. Can you come alongside me?”

“Yup,” Archie said, turning again in the roiling waters. Another wave broke over his boat, and he was slammed hard into the fibreglass wall of the pilothouse. He stayed standing, his fingers locked on the wheel and the throttle.

The
Rising Moon
was a small pleasure craft that had seen better days. Archie cut his throttle as much as he dared so close to the shore and eased toward the smaller boat. The canopy was up, the pilot eclipsed by the windshield and the rain that drove down on the inlet like an angry fist.

“Do you want me to tow you into the cove,
Rising Moon
?” Archie asked into the handset.

“Can you come alongside, and we'll talk it through?”

Archie cursed. It was always the same with this guy it seemed. “Sure, but let's make it quick, as it's fixing to blow pretty good and I don't want to be out longer than need be.” He put the handset down and guided the
Inlet Dancer
alongside the drifting
Rising Moon
.

When the two boats were just ten feet apart, Archie killed his motor and stepped out from the pilothouse, grabbing a gaff hook from the wall. He stepped onto the narrow deck of the boat and peered through the storm, holding onto the gunwale for support. “Jesus Christ, man, come on deck and let's get this over with,” Archie cursed into the howling night.

Finally a shape emerged from beneath the canopy of the
Rising
Moon
. The man waved and moved to the stern of his vessel, holding on for dear life. Over the clamour of the storm he yelled, “Imagine
me
needing help from
you
.”

“Imagine,” mocked Ravenwing. “So what exactly are you doing out on a night like this? And in that little tub?”

“I could ask you the same question,” replied the man, who was using a gaff of his own to hook the stern gunwale of Ravenwing's boat. Ravenwing used his tool to reach for the
Rising
Moon
's fore cleats. The boats rose and fell, waves surging against them, and they came together with a crash of the
Inlet Dancer
's sturdy, fibreglass-covered wood against the
Rising Moon
's aging hull.

“Your boat is going to be crushed if we stay out like this,” Ravenwing yelled. “Let's hook a line and I'll tow you into the cove. We can find a place to secure this tub and we'll motor back to Lostcoast on the
Dancer
.”

The man on the
Rising Moon
gave a thumbs up and manoeuvred himself to the bow of his boat on hands and knees, clinging to the craft. He tossed his bowline to Archie. Ravenwing secured the line from the
Rising Moon
to a cleat on the port side of the
Inlet Dancer
's stern. The man on the
Rising Moon
held on to his line with his left hand, the three-foot gaff in his right, made a knot fast on the bow cleat, then turned and clambered for the safety of the stern of his boat.

“Permission to come aboard,
Captain
,” he barked to Ravenwing, who had stepped back into the pilothouse to crank up the boat's powerful motors.

“You know the way,” Ravenwing yelled, shaking his head.

The man, gaff still clenched in his hands, stepped onto the
Inlet Dancer
and grabbed the handrail on the side of the pilothouse for stability. Ravenwing engaged the throttle and the boats began to cut into the cresting waves again.