Exploring Vancouver Island With Ben Boxer

Exploring Vancouver Island
With Ben Boxer.

Words by Ben Boxer
Last year, I cycled the distance of the flight from London to Vancouver raising funds and awareness for the Sussex Dolphin Project, a marine mammal conservation non-profit here in the south of England. Riding 7,587km in 6 months was a big step up from the kinds of mileage I was used to, and wrapping it up hours before jumping on a plane to do the journey for real felt like a pretty big personal accomplishment.
 
Once out in Vancouver, I had a few days of downtime off the bike before getting back in the saddle and setting sail for Vancouver Island. Since coming up with the idea for the fundraiser, I had a special ride in mind to cap it off: a multi-day route up to and along the north coast of Vancouver Island, to the shores of the Johnstone Strait. Home to one of the highest densities of killer whales anywhere in the world, alongside humpbacks, sea otters and many others (with the coastal, forested valleys equally full of life), it has long called to me.

Day 1 was a doozy. Setting off at dawn, I was awash with equal parts stoke and butterflies as the ferry pulled into Nanaimo. A tough 100 miles of hot highway haulin’ on the loaded-up Cascade (rolling on trusty XC Wides), featuring plenty of mid-ride creek dips, saw me pull into a campground on the outskirts of Campbell River. With bears very much on the mind, I searched for a safe place to store my food - but came up short. Tired and dehydrated, I convinced myself it would be fine to keep the food bag on the bike for one night...

 

As I tossed and turned on top of my sleeping bag, a voice called out in the now-dark forest. A park ranger checks my permit before asking me about my food situation. She goes on to tell me about a ‘less-than-shy bear’ that was poking around the site earlier in the day. This was followed by a ‘get that sh*t in a tree!’ and ‘good luck and stay safe!’. I quickly set about finding a suitable tree to rig a bear hang and hoisted my food up high. Solo bikepacking in bear (and cougar and wolf) country is a different beast!

Following a pretty patchy night’s sleep, tired eyes and stiff legs pull me up and into the North Island. Roads narrow and quieten, tarmac turns to gravel, gravel turns to trail, forests deepen. The Adam gives way to the Eve river before I arrive at the calm waters of the Johnstone. After some time, sea lions, porpoises, bald eagles, herons and later, a pod of stampeding white-sided dolphins greet me. The following days are full of similar encounters, before I am reunited with some buddies for a few days of kayaking and backpacking.

 

A handful of nearly-sketchy bear encounters later, we are left with our jaws on the floor as a large group of orca pass through the Strait, no more than 100m from where we stand on the shore! Thanks to the calm conditions, their breaths were clearly within earshot, whilst the tail slaps of one of the females gave a clear sense of the heft and power of the animal. These 20 or so minutes felt like the culmination of not just the preceding days of riding, hiking and paddling, but of the 6 months of what came before, back home in Sussex.
We decided to bring our time on the island to a close with some time learning about the history of the area’s indigenous peoples. Having spent nearly a month experiencing the beauty of the lands and waters of this part of the world, it felt fitting to spend some time slowing down to learn about those who have long called it home.
 
Arriving at the highly recommended U’mista Cultural Centre, we passed countless carvings and paintings of whales, eagles, ravens, salmon, bear - making clear the deep respect the Kwakwa̱ka̱ʼwakw people hold for all life. The centre is situated not far from where one of the largest residential schools in the province once stood. Designed as a means to “kill the Indian in the child” through forced ‘education’ of Christian and western ideologies, they were a striking form of cultural genocide. The impacts of this were many, including generations of individuals being imparted with a sense of not belonging “to their community, or the world beyond their community”. When we arrived, there was a group of artists carving a totem pole in a quiet expression of resilience and hope.

We have much to learn from the acts of colonisation and colonialism, as we do from indigenous ways of knowing. In my mind, the concept of ‘two-eyed seeing’ - of respectfully reconciling western and indigenous world views for the betterment of all - is a beautiful, optimistic and indispensable one. Shifting to a view of natural resources and commodities as gifts and relatives, with a greater emphasis on empathy and gratitude would go a long way in the journey towards a more just and sustainable world…

 

‘Wheels & Whales’ started out as a somewhat tongue-in-cheek name I gave to this experiment of combining my two greatest - yet wildly disconnected - passions of cycling and marine biology. A few years on however, it’s morphed into something beyond simply using a bike as a tool for seeing these incredible beings and places. It’s my way of exploring what it means to give my love of moving my body in the outdoors a greater purpose. Using my time on the bike to deepen my awareness and love of the wilder things still left in this world. Greater purpose still, by aiming to introduce a degree of reciprocity and respect into how I do what I enjoy most; by giving something back to the places and persons (both human and otherwise) that give us all so much.

 

Robin Wall Kimmerer speaks to this in the hugely influential Traditional Ecological Knowledge - Learning from Indigenous Practices for x Sustainability: ‘it is not only the land that is broken but our relationship to it. Our responsibility is not only to restore the land, but also heal our relationship with land, restoring the covenant of respect, responsibility, and reciprocity’. Of course, the act of cycling is a humble cog in a much larger machine - but I believe it has a lot of potential for good. In my experience, making space for some sense of reciprocity in how we spend our time outdoors only serves to enrich the experience, rather than taking anything away. I’d highly recommend giving it a go.

This year, I’m continuing to explore these themes through a slightly different lens. Ahead of another trip to BC this summer, I’m currently in the process of hiking and paddle-boarding 758.7km, whilst beach cleaning 758.7kg worth of rubbish off the local coastline here in Sussex. Once on Canadian soil, I plan to finish off the challenge with a single unsupported mountain bike ride taking in 7,587m of elevation somewhere in the Sea to Sky (Vancouver to Whistler) region. This year, I’m fundraising for the Marine Conservation Society’s efforts to protect, restore and rewild our coastal and marine environments around the UK. All support would be greatly appreciated.

 

~ This adventure took place on unceded Kwakwa̱ka̱ʼwakw territory. ~

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