A 42-foot custom-made canoe was hoisted from the water in Gibsons Harbour recently after being paddled over 2,000 km by 56-year-old Pitt Meadows resident Chris Cooper.
Cooper designed his Spirit Dancer canoe, complete with makeshift outriggers and removable sail, specifically for this journey from Alaska to Gibsons.
It was an adventure he had dreamed of since 1997.
"In 1997 I paddled the B.C. Coast northbound and southbound in a large canoe. Ever since then I've dreamed of the Alaska trip," said Cooper, who has been paddling since the mid 1970s. "I taught Outward Bound for young offenders back in the mid 70s and we would do two-person canoe journeys."
In 1985 he had his first stint in a large canoe, paddling from Fort St. James to Fort Langley.
"After that trip I realized that the big canoes had huge potential for touring,"he said.
With his company, Chris Cooper's Wilderness Adventures, he has taken groups on canoe tours internationally. Now that he is semi-retired, he seized the chance to go on an adventure of his own.
Cooper, accompanied by a crew of friends, left Prince Rupert on May 10 for a seven-day warm-up paddle to Ketchikan in Alaska. Once there they loaded the canoe with 700 pounds of food and paddled north for 35 days, stopping only at dark to eat and camp on sandy beaches along the way.
Throughout the three-month journey, Cooper's crew changed, but he never left the Spirit Dancer. In the end, Cooper put in well over three million paddle strokes, loaded and unloaded 90 tons of gear from the canoe and travelled over 2,000 km.
The most memorable part of the trip for Cooper was the terrifying moment a storm sneaked up on him and his crew, who were far from shore.
"We were caught in a williwaw with winds coming from the north and the south. All of a sudden the ocean kind of blew up on us with six foot breaking waves," said Cooper.
He was happy his canoe had the makeshift outriggers that helped to keep the Spirit Dancer afloat.
"It took us 40 minutes to get to shore, and those were 40 minutes of sheer terror," said Cooper.
On the lighter side, Cooper said the wildlife he saw while on the journey was also very memorable.
"At one point a humpback whale popped up right behind our canoe. He surfaced about 50 metres away from us. That was a big high," said Cooper.
He also came upon a mother grizzly bear and her three cubs one morning while packing up camp and heading out for the day's paddle.
"That's part of the magic. A canoe can get you to places that you're not usually able to reach," said Cooper.
One of the remote areas Cooper visited was a native village on the northern B.C. coastline near Alaskan waters.
"We took some native youth with us paddling from the village to Prince Rupert. It was an awesome experience for them and I think they're looking at starting up a youth quest there now," said Cooper.
Now he's home in Pitt Meadows, reliving memories of the trip with his wife and two sons, but he's not about to put the Spirit Dancer in dry dock. He's planning a trip along California's coastline this winter and has aspirations to paddle across eastern Canada's water systems in 2006.
