By Keith and Heather Nicol
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| Approaching well named Tree Island |
Tree Island is
located off the northern tip of Denman Island and makes a perfect half day
paddle (or longer if you plan to explore the island or want to linger). We do
the trip on an annual basis and usually launch at the Union Bay Boat launch. This makes it easy to launch your kayak and
there is a large car park for your vehicle (gps coordinates are: 10 U 0363691 E 5494107 N). Be sure to drop
your launch fee money in the box. From here you can’t quite see Tree Island but
as soon as you take a few paddle strokes out of the harbour it looms 4.4 km in
the distance. Since it is an open water crossing you want to factor in the weather
and wave conditions and be competent at doing a self rescue if you run into
trouble.
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| We appreciate the shell beach on Tree Island |
On Thursday June
29 the wind forecast was light NE winds which made for a very pleasant trip to
Tree Island since the breeze was in our face keeping us cool. Although temperatures
were forecast for the low 20’s C the following wind made it quite warm on the
return trip. Be sure to bring water! We saw very little wild life in terms of
birds or seals but we had fine views of the snow capped Beaufort Range and we
love the shell beach on Tree Island. We had a lunch break for about an hour
before paddling back to Union Bay. All about 1 hour each way for paddling
depending on wind and wave conditions.
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| Heather approaching the launch point at Union Bay with snow capped mountains behind |
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