Chronicle 6 Fally-down-places

June 3   Are we having fun yet?  You betcha!  We’re at Butedale on Princesses Royal Island.  ‘Arrived here after a 12 hour day...we had the tide with us through some important (narrow) channels and when it turned, we decided to slog on ahead because we wanted to spend the night at Butedale.  Don’t ask...

Some of you may not know this, but June 3rd is when the moon is at perigee.  (This is a piece of knowledge that I hesitate to call knowledge, since I have had to learn it again each time of the three times we have gone north.)  When the moon is at perigee (its closest orbital point to the earth) the tidal exchange is Very Large...20 feet here today.  This is important for two reasons. A channel that generally has little discernible current now has a current that can be a huge help or hindrance.  AND the Already Questionable Dock here at Butedale becomes even more questionable.

Doug pointed out that our moorage payment at Butedale is actually a museum donation, and the donations have not been keeping up with the demands of the North Coast.  AFTER we tied up, Lou, the French Canadian caretaker of this relic of the coast, told us that the bottom of the ramp (Only walk on the right side going up.  The other side is rotten.  Fortunately, the rusty handrail is on the right side.) to the stairs (beyond rickety; no handrail) had washed out to sea because of the high tide.  Lou had wrestled it back into place, except it no longer reached the stairs.  Big timbers, beams, (rotting or already rotten) and boulders filled in the gap. 

Lou is an amazing man.  A former pipeline worker from the interior, he is both resourceful and personable. He was able to cobble together a water-powered generator  and somehow keep this mess together.  In the ten-plus years he has been at Buttedale, groups of people have attempted to help him preserve this former cannery, but all gave up and it is going back to nature.  Quickly.  The government is now trying to get the absentee owner to clean up the site. 

Just before dark, (10:00) a fishing boat from Anacortes tied up behind us; we were the only customer until then.  The skipper and fished for years, then became an architect, now he’s going back to fishing. His adult son was on board as crew and his teenage son will join them when school it out. We wish them well!

The skipper asked if we knew Doug Cole, a good friend of his from Bainbridge. Well, BI  is a (relatively) big place, and we don’t know Doug.  But we were friends with his parents,  Dick and Margie, on the Sandspit.  The skipper knew all about the 4th of July parade and Dick’s part in that craziness.  

Then the skipper told Doug and Lou a story....

Scary stories before bedtime are more the stuff of kid's summer camps than evenings on the dock with yachties and commercial fishermen.  But we got a good one from the Signe's captain.  'Seems that one fall evening he was returning from a summer in Alaska on his troller with a couple of groups of similar vessels.  The first pod of trollers arrived at Butedale earlier in the evening and secured their vessels to some pilings in the bay.  As they sat down to have dinner, a large, wild looking man came out of the woods, boarded the boats and demanded food.  His hair and beard were amazingly long, his clothes were filthy, his aroma was pungent and his general attitude was decidedly ungentlemanly.

Now, commercial fisherman are a tough lot, but this fellow scared the hell out those guys.  They gave him food and, although it was difficult, got him off the boats.  Immediately they got underway and radioed to warn the group of trollers behind them to keep on traveling in spite of the approaching darkness and fatigue.  

Later they learned that their  uninvited "wild man" was wanted by the RCMP in Kitimat for multiple murders committed a few months before.  Seems that Mr. Wild Man had a thing for cars and owned a restored roadster that was very dear to him.  Some of the local high school geniuses got into a bit of alcohol one evening and thought it would be funny to do nasty and disgusting things to Mr. Wild Man's prized roadster..  He didn't see the humor in their prank; went home, got a shot gun, killed two and badly wounded one of the kids and then took flight to the woods.  The  fishermen's encounter relaunched a massive manhunt, but the Wild Man of Butedale was never apprehended. 

Lou working his magic on the ramp.


There are two more fally-down places, but their where-abouts will have to wait for another day.   The intent has decided that it is full.


We are leaving Ketchikan (Yes, we made it to Alaska.  The Blog will too, someday.)  and will be in Petersburg or Wrangell in a few days....4? 6? 7? and will again search with our faithful credit card for access to cyberspace.