A sense of impending
doom was definitely on me. I was starting to
think about my funeral. I just didin't see how
we were going to get out of it.'
The popularity
of both sea kayaking and whale watching has in
recent years inspired something of a renaissance
in the tiny community of Telegraph Cove on Vancouver
Island's northeast coast. This isolated pocket,
once a hub of lumber-related activity, was on
the verge of falling silent in 1979 when the
Wastell family, for decades the operators of
Telegraph Cove Sawmills, closed their antiquated
operation. Taking an entrepreneurial leap of
faith, employees Bill Mackay and Jim Borrowman
teamed up to launch a venture called Stubbs Island
Charters. In addition to hauling freight and
running dive charters, the pair intended to take
the paying public into Johnstone Strait to show
them the killer whales that have made the area
world famous. Telegraph Cove pioneer Fred Wastell,
who had spent much of his life towing logs and
hauling lumber in and around Johnstone Strait,
told the pair bluntly: "Nobody's going to
pay to look at those darned blackfish." He
did, however, offer to lease them his pride and
joy, the sixty-foot Gikumi. From those humble
beginnings, Borrowman and Mackay and "those
darned blackfish" have made Stubbs Island
Charters a major coastal eco-tourism attraction.
