These are the Chronicles of Famous Surf Writer Ben Marcus and his trip into the Wilds of the Alaskan Frontier.
Latest Update: November 8, 2000

20:01 QUEEN CHARLOTTE TIME ROOM 113 OF THE SEA RAVEN MOTEL

I'm glued to CNN, watching the fallout from the botched election and coverage. This is better than the Gulf War. This is better than anything.

I wrote a quick Local Knowledge column this morning just to feel like I got something done, then managed to tear myself away from the TV long enough to poke around in one of the few pokable places on Queen Charlotte where I hadn't yet poked.

Right and left hand po.

Some time after noon I left my hotel room and made for the ferry building. There's a 20 minute ferry which runs from Skidegate to Alliford about every hour. I just missed the 14:00 ferry so I bought a roundtrip ticket for the 16:00 ferry. I killed time by driving along Highway 16 up past Skidegate.

The ferry from Skidegate to Alliford.

I'm pretty distracted by the election and working on Cinema San Francisco and a lot of other things, such as the shock of getting a $1000 bill from AOL this morning for the use of the 800 number. But I did manage to pull my head out long enough to look around and realize that Queen Charlotte Island is one of the most spectacularly beautiful places I've ever seen. I've seen a few places, but this place wins. It was partly cloudy today, the sky was blue, the clouds were scudding, the wind was blowing and this place was lit up and spectacular.

I'll say again that the east side of the island is absolutely mined with surf breaks. Today I saw a wide variety of perfect, six-inch lineups. There was also a lot of big driftwood piled along the shoreline, which makes me wonder about the storms that threw it all there, and what these points might be like in the aftermath of these storms. I suspect this place is wild and wooly in February.

Surf PO through the trees.

After killing time looking at the beaches on the east side, I took the short ferry ride that goes from Skidegate to Alliford, on the other side of the bay. I just wanted to see what was over there, and it didn't take long.

Sandspit is the main town on the other side. There's a nice little airport which I wanted to check out, but it was closed. I did manage to check out out a pretty fancy schmancy, 100-foot Canadian Coast Guard boat that looked to be ready for the same kind of weather that threw up all that driftwood.. The wind was coming from out of the north and it was really, really, really cold. Biting cold. Arctic cold. You don't feel it on the Skidegate side, for some reason, but I felt it at Sandspit.

Sunset over Queen Charlotte Island.

Beautiful sunset over the inlet that separates Alliford from Skidegate. I set a world record for filling up the van: $104 Canadian dollars at the Esso station, then I took the first ferry back, thinking that I was blowing it by not seeing more of Queen Charlotte Island. I should have stolen a boat or chartered a float plane or something, but I'm running out of time.

I thought that I was leaving on the ferry to Prince Rupert at 11:00 tomorrow. When I got back to the Sea Raven Motel, I found out that the ferry leaves at 23:00 in the evening, not in the morning. The owner of the Sea Raven told me this as he was showing me that he'd moved me to another room. I had fried the fuses in Room 111 twice. Actually, his wife did it once when she bumped the sketchy alligator clip power source from Czech Frank, and I guess I did it too while sleeping. There was no juice in my room so he moved me to Room 113.

Which is where I am now, watching all the major news organizations apologizing up and down for jumping the gun.

I might still try to charter a float plane tomorrow. I feel guilt for not looking at more of this island.

I've sent some extra photos with this dispatch, some photos I took up north that I lost in the van.

Spots on the map.

Hope all is well. Heading for Prince Rupert tomorrow night. I'll get in a few hours before the ferry to Port Hardy. I'll be in Washington in a couple of days.

That beguiling river mouth.


Along the east coast of Queen Charlotte Island, above Skidegate.