On 22 January 1906, the 253-foot passenger vessel Valencia ran aground along the perilous west coast of British Colombia’s Vancouver Island. She lost 133 of her passengers and crew due to high seas, rugged terrain and the inhospitable, remote area with an almost impenetrable rain forest. The coastline lived up to its name of the Graveyard of the Pacific. But it was one tragedy too many for the Canadians. The Government of Canada set out to implement better navigational aides and to construct a lifesaving trail along this infamous section of coastline.

In May of 1980, I was 21 years old and set out to hike the then completed West Coast Trail. But I went there not to rescue any shipwreck victims, but to challenge myself physically and mentally and to hike in awe amidst the enchanting rain forest and along the perilous coast that claimed so many sailors.

It took me six days to complete the challenging 75-kilometre trek. As I did for many of my early journeys, I documented this one not only with photos but with detailed journal entries which not only describe the hike but my mindset at the time. It’s been 42 years since that hike and for the first time I’ll share the photos and the unedited journal as I wrote it on the trail. I have paired the journal entries with photos, which sometimes match my journal notes and other times they don’t. I have made no attempt to polish the writing. They are notes, not prose, and were usually written on the run.

(Images shot with an Olympus OM-2 and scanned from Kodak Ektachrome originals and restored in Adobe Lightroom)

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