World Class Paddling: The Great Bear Rainforest

SUPing the Greatbear Rainforest. Photo: Derek Nixon

 After a few days of packing gear, loading boards and buying food Jen and I departed for the 17-hour road trip to the northern coastal community of Prince Rupert. Clients would be meeting us there for our 2011 Greatbear Rainforest standup paddleboard expedition. This is the second year of running Mountain Surf Adventures commercial SUP expeditions up here. I have guided in this area for 12 years and my first SUP expedition took place in 2009 with Explore Magazine. Since then I completed the 2010 Stanudp4Greatbear Expedition, a paddle that took me 400km from Kitimat to Bella Bella to bring awareness to the threat of oil tankers on our coast. After overnighting in Smithers, my favorite northern community, and sleeping in the back of the Frontier under a tarp, we rolled into Prince Rupert early in the afternoon to meet the team.

Gifts of the Sea Project

It's the first day of September and I just arrived in Hartley Bay a few days ago to meet with ILCP(International League of Conservation Photographers) and National Geographic Photographer Tom Peschak to work together on getting some pictures for the "Gifts of the Sea" ocean foods book that we are working on with the students in Hartley Bay as part of the SEAS(Supporting Emerging Aboriginal Stewards) program. I first met Tom when we were on assignment last September and working for the ILCP as part of the Greatbear RAVE which has turned out to be a very successful project for bringing awareness to the threat of proposed oil tankers.

Gitga'at Values