This was taken out canoeing on Lake Quinault, just outside the Olympic National Park. I was so lucky to have this trip scheduled ahead of time and get a nice sunny day with no wind in the middle of winter in the rainforest. The mountains in the background are in the Colonel Bob Wilderness. The deciduous trees are alder, cottonwood and willow.
This is a view of Woodard Bay, an inlet off of Henderson Inlet (an inlet of Puget Sound) northeast of Olympia. If you look closely (clicking on the image to expand it will help here), you can see the bridge where Woodard Bay Road crosses the inlet. This is high tide. When the tide is out, there isn’t anything except mud from bank to bank … except for the little bit of water from Woodard Creek.
Below is a view of the inside of the canoe, showing the paddle and baskets of oysters and blueberries, and a kneeling mat.
Henderson Inlet is just outside Olympia, Washington and is one of the numerous inlets off of Puget Sound. This is looking northeast from the Woodard Bay Natural Resources Conservation Area … on Weyer Point, between Chapman Bay and Woodard Bay. The canoe on the left has a couple of baskets and a paddle on the inside … the baskets have oysters and blueberries in them (or depictions of such).
The image below shows Henderson Inlet from the other side Weyer Point, looking south.
Below is looking north again, showing the old dock that was used for the export of logs from back when there was a rail line (the Chehalis Western) running up to help feed the mills of Puget Sound. Notice how dense the pilings are on the dock … a requirement in order for being able to hold the weight of railcars loaded with logs and the engine.
This totem pole sits in downtown Port Townsend outside the building complex that hosts the Northwest Maritime Center and the Wooden Boat Foundation. When the local native peoples have their canoe paddle down Puget Sound, this is one of their stops.
Bowron River is in Bowron Lake Provincial Park in British Colombia. The park in primarily used by canoeists … the only road access is by road to Bowron Lake … the rest of the park consists of a chain of lakes that runs 75 miles in a loop with no motors allowed (except on Bowron itself). This image was taken early in the morning as we were paddling out on the final day of a 10 day trip. The river is slow moving and easy to paddle up … we chose not to explore up the river, since it is winds all over the low country and the brushy banks offer no view ahead. And it is grizzly bear country. Didn’t want to come around a bear feeding on fish and need to paddle fast backwards. No thanks. Not my idea of a calm relaxing paddle.
It’s beautiful country though. Just spectacular. And we caught a 24 inch rainbow on one of the lakes.