The Wild Coast, Volume 3

A kayaking, hiking and recreation guide
for B.C.'s south coast and east Vancouver Island

A few years ago I was chatting with my father, Frank, about my weekend kayaking adventures around Vancouver Island when he suggested I write about them. I agreed it was a good idea. In theory. But not as another I-went-here, I-did-this book about travelling the B.C. coast. Despite a few efforts by writers to keep up the spirit of adventure, the coast really hasn’t been exotic since The Curve of Time. It’s no longer the K2 of marine travel. Rather, it’s our backyard, a known quantity, travelled safely by thousands every year.
As I spread out in my travels, though, I quickly realized B.C. is essentially still wild and unexplored for kayaking. There are established routes along the coast, but venture outside those and you’re in a kayaking wilderness. So my task pretty much wrote itself: kayak the points beyond the main routes and stretch the limits of what we know. I wrote the first volume on a whim, taking a summer off work to run the outer Vancouver Island coast. Happily, when Whitecap Books became involved, publisher Robert McCullough quickly saw the potential for extending the series to cover the rest of B.C. And in doing so I was able to complete what had become a personal ambition: to kayak the coast to Alaska. And so Volume 2 was born after a 3,400-km (2,100-mile) trip from Port Hardy to the Alaskan border and back (plus most places between) in 2005.
Research for the third volume allowed yet a third full summer of kayaking. Another 78 days were spent on the water in 2006, covering another 3,000 km (1,900 miles), bringing the research for this series to well over 10,000 km (6,000 miles).
The third volume of The Wild Coast completes a kayaking perspective of the entire B.C. coast outside the Queen Charlotte Islands—or at least complete enough to be able to travel from the southern tip of Vancouver Island to the Alaskan border with kayaking information about each step of the way. - John Kimantas

A few samples:

The Wild Coast 3 continues the standard of the first volume with easy-to-read and informative maps. In all you'll find over 80 detailed maps of B.C.'s south coast showing camping locations, launch sites and other points of interest designed for kayakers and other coastal explorers.

It's also about photography. Wild Coast 3 has over 100 stunning colour photos of every region of BC's south coast. It is a veritable menu of the outstanding sites to see, such as this image of camping on one of the Polkinghorne Islands north of Fife Sound and far more of Port McNeill..

And lastly, why this book exists...

Here is an excerpt from the introduction:

By John Kimantas

This volume differs because it covers large areas dominated by
private shorefront, busy commercial and recreational traffic corridors
and large urban centres. It follows tried-and-true routes where
saturation, not isolation, is a key concern. But just like other areas
of the coast, if you stray from the main routes, it won’t be long
before yours is the only paddle dipping into the water. This, to me,
is where the real attraction of the coast begins—visiting places few
other people see.
This book is a shopping list, if you like, of these types of places
and a framework to travel them. It may just persuade you there’s a
reason to go outside the ordinary.