Cruising Destination: Wallace Island Provincial Marine Park

Chris Chamberlin

The Canadian Gulf Islands landscape looks as if a giant has scraped its fingernails across the earth's surface. The tracks of ancient glaciers remain in the islands, most of which are long and thin, running generally north to south. On little Wallace Island in Trincomali Channel between Saltspring and Galiano Islands, narrow glacial ridges run the length of the island.

Two snug harbors are tucked between these ridges, making the island an excellent cruising destination. Most of the two-by-one-half mile island is a B.C. provincial park. Amy and I recently spent a lovely evening on Charlotte, the club's Catalina 27, anchored in the island's Conover Cove. This cove is shallow, so you'll want to check your charts and tide tables carefully. In the morning of our stay, we were glad to be on our way before the low tide drained a big part of the harbor. Also, be sure you're centered in the harbor entrance as you come in - while we were cruising around looking for a place to drop our hook, we watched a larger sailboat run hard aground on rocks near the entrance. We noticed, looking around the cove, that stern-tie anchoring is the preferred method. This was a new process for us, but I jumped in the dinghy and took a line to shore. Tying it to a big old snag, we kept our boat from swinging into shallow water or rocks. Elsewhere in the cove, metal rings were bolted to rocks for this purpose. Wallace Island's other harbor, steep-sided Princess Cove, is also narrow, but deeper than ours was, and seemed to be the preferred destination for larger sailboats.

Ashore, we found the remains of an old summer camp, including several buildings, a working hand water pump, and the very rusty shell of a pickup truck. One building, perhaps the camp's dining hall, was filled with hundreds of pieces of driftwood carved with boat names and dates the craft visited. Some were even decorated with paintings of the boat. We added one for Charlotte, and left space where we hope future WYC visitors will add their marks.
After dinner, we hiked out to the northwest corner of the park, where the island's ridges slope down into tiny islets accessible only at low tide, and watched a fantastic sunset over Vancouver Island.

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