By Keith and Heather Nicol
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. We did the trip on about a 4 meter tide but tide height is not much of an issue related to landing on Tree Island from our experience.
On Tuesday, August 31 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 love the shell beach on Tree Island (see photo below). You can also camp on the island although we saw no one camping on our trip on Tuesday. Allow about 1 hour each way for paddling depending on wind and wave conditions.
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