Porteau Cove

6 May 2017

Today we were very excited to be going up into the mountains we’d been staring at since we arrived in Vancouver, courtesy of our wonderful tour guides, Jen and Kevin. The plan was to head towards Whistler on Highway 99, otherwise known as the Sea to Sky Highway, for obvious reasons. The highway crosses the causeway that cut the Lost Lagoon off from Vancouver Harbour and runs all the way to the United States border. It is two hundred and fifty four miles long and was listed in the Guardian newspaper as the fifth best road trip in the world. We would, of course, only be exploring a small part of it. 

We’d soon left the tall buildings of the city and the beautiful park behind. The road snaked between the sea and mountains with craggy, pine covered granite cliffs almost overhanging it. In the front of the car Commando and Kevin talked about how good those twists and turns would be on a motorbike while Jen and I talked about the fjord like coastline and all the little islands.
“There’s one called Keats Island,” she told me, “but they spelt it wrong. It’s only accessible by ferry and is mostly forest but a few people live there year round.”
“Maybe we should go there with a marker pen and add the final e,” I joked, “then we could claim it.”
In actual fact the little island is named after Sir Richard Goodwin Keats, a British Admiral who served under Horatio Nelson and was governor of Newfoundland.

When a Porsche sped past the men seemed impressed. It was followed by another, then a Maclaren. The noisy high powered sports cars just kept coming, blasting past us and disappearing around the bends ahead. There was a certain amount of crowing from the front of the car as we passed a couple of these supercars being pulled over by the BC police for speeding. Later I discovered we’d been caught up in the Hublot Diamond Rally from Vancouver to Whistler, a fundraising event, raising money for the charity of each driver’s choice. Speeding fines were probably seen as occupational hazards.

Our first stop was Porteau Cove on the Howe Sound, a triangular sound, part of a network of fjords stretching between West Vancouver and Squamish. The cove and Provincial Park, around twenty four miles north of Vancouver, is a popular spot for picnics, camping and watersports. We parked the car and walked along the path above the shingly shore. Out on the clear water, beneath the backdrop of pine covered mountains a few yellow kayaks were paddling.

There was a long pier with little side platforms from which to stare at the stunning views of water, sky and mountains. This also acts as a ferry terminal used only in emergencies when rockslides on Highway 99 close the road. Such rockslides are rare but, in July 2008, huge slabs of granite fell onto the road at Porteau Bluffs, just north of the cove, and blocked the highway. Thankfully, no one was hurt. I’m glad I didn’t know this at the time or I’d have been looking at the cliffs a lot more suspiciously.

The name Porteau is French for Water’s Gate and the area was first inhabited in 1908 when John F Deeks came to mine the sand and gravel to supply Vancouver. His employees lived in a small community and there was a daily ferry service. When the depression came, they left.

The little fifty acre park sits on an ancient ridge of moraine material where the ice age glacier paused. From the pier we looked towards Squamish, into the deep sided fjord. The mountain tops, blanketed by cloud, still had white patches of snow. Back towards Horseshoe Bay were the humps of pine covered islands. Little yellow kayaks and paddle boards floated on water reflecting sky, cloud and the green of the woodland peaks.

It is hard to imagine a place more beautiful than this, which could explain why it’s such a popular spot for camping. People come to be close to nature, walk the trails, windsurf, cycle, take boats or kayaks out on the water or swim. It is also a great place for diving. Hiding below the clear water are a series of artificial reefs and two shipwrecks filled with marine life.

We stood for a long time contemplating the combination of islands, water and mountains, thinking about the huge glacier that once slowly crept across this land and created the wonderful landscape. Walking back along the pier towards the shore we could see tents and caravans beneath the trees on the shoreline. A few people were wandering along the stony beach and the kayaks were still on the water beneath the craggy, pine covered mountains.

We headed along the shore a little way, watching the way the clouds kissed the tops of the snow capped mountain peaks. A narrow tarmac road runs through the trees dotted with small clearings for campers. We passed two golden brown cabins made from logs so gigantic Commando didn’t believe they were real at first.  These were built for the 2010 Winter Olympics and relocated here for people to rent. Jen and Kevin thought they’d make a great place for a long weekend. Both had cars parked outside, one looked to be a stray from the Hublot Diamond Rally. I imagine they are popular and would need booking well in advance, but what a view to wake up to!

We didn’t walk too far because, beautiful as it was, this was just a stop to stretch our legs. Soon we were heading back towards the pier and the car. We’d almost reached the car park when Commando stopped and pointed towards a small stand of silver birch.
“What’s that bird?” He asked.
It took me a while to spot what he was looking at but, when I did, I was delighted to see a little woodpecker foraging  etween the crevices in the bark. It was too far off and the light wasn’t good enough for decent photos but, for all the woodpeckers I’ve heard in my walks in the woods, this is the first I’ve ever seen with my own eyes. It was a fabulous surprise ending to our time at Porteau Cove.

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