In North of Town, Peak contributor, author and CBC journalist Grant Lawrence profiles the lives and livelihoods of those who have chosen life at or beyond the end of Highway 101.
If you ever want to come across some of the most authentic characters on the coast, spend some time hanging around on the Okeover Government Wharf. If you’re willing to lend a hand, you’re sure to meet plenty of the salty barnacles who cling to various parts of our coast, because everyone coming and going is either loading or unloading a boat, and most would welcome your help.
That’s how I met 74-year-old Ken Beaubien, a slim, short man with trimmed white hair and a tidy white beard. He was schlepping a carload of supplies in multiple trips down the ramp to a waiting speedboat. I offered to help and we started chatting.
“Caretaker” Ken, as he is known, looks after the historic Lindberg farm, a remote and beautiful property nestled on the shores of Homfray Channel, north of Desolation Sound, in the traditional territory of the Klahoose First Nation. The farm is about an hour’s boat ride from the wharf.
The far-flung property is now owned by Americans from Seattle who mostly use the place in the summer, but didn’t during the summer of 2020 due to COVID-19 restrictions.
Beaubien, who is a retired heavy-duty mechanic from Vancouver Island, landed the job 12 years ago when he spotted an ad in his local paper that sought a full-time caretaker on an “off grid, out of the way place.” He has been on the farm year-round ever since.
Late last summer, I made the trek up in a friend’s boat to visit Beaubien while keeping a safe physical distance. He greeted me on the shores of an idyllic bay. Standing on the beach, you could look west to Desolation Sound and Vancouver Island and east to an immediate massive vertical rock wall that dropped straight into the ocean, a favourite rubbing spot for grey whales and orcas, said Beaubien, which he got to see up close. Straight across the channel is East Redonda Island, an ecological reserve.
“All the boaters who come in the summer say ‘oh gosh, how beautiful it is,’” extolled Beaubien. “Well, you oughta see it in the winter when these mountains are all covered with snow and avalanches are coming down right behind the farm here. You can sit in the front and look across the channel and see avalanches coming down every day; the power and magnitude of this place is just overwhelming.”
The century-old farm is backed by a steep pair of mountains and thick forest. The site is so remote Beaubien rarely sees other people. When I showed up that summer day, I was the first person he had seen since we met on the dock, over a month earlier. In the winter, “Caretaker” Ken sees even fewer people. He lives in almost complete isolation for most of the year.
“I’ll go to town to get coffee and sugar and salt - stuff like that - about once a month,” offered Beaubien when I asked him about his solitary lifestyle. “I just sorta figure I should go in so I see people - mental health more than anything. I could go for six months up here and not see anybody, but I think it’s a good idea to keep some contact to keep myself sane.”
The unique property was preempted and homesteaded in 1912 by the Lindberg brothers, a pair of eccentric Swedes who had crossed the United States on horseback. They bought a boat in Seattle intending to make the trip to Alaska, but when the boat broke down in Homfray Channel, they thought the area was so beautiful they decided to stay.
“They hand-logged the whole farm before they planted their fruit trees,” explained Beaubien. “In the summer, while they logged, they wore boots, hard hats and nothin’ else. Buck bare ass naked save for boots and hats! Not only that, they would rub themselves down with black ashes from the firepit to keep the bugs away. It was busier around here back then, and they would have been quite the sight for anyone passing by, that’s for sure.”
The brothers used some of the fruit for a still they kept in the woods during the prohibition years.
“In those days, there were a lot of loggers, fishermen and Klahoose who lived in the channel,” continued Beaubien. “So the brothers Lindberg would meet you at the beach with a rifle pointed right at you because they were always afraid of being busted by the provincial police.”
The brothers lived out their lives on the farm, at one point even raising turkeys for Hotel Vancouver until their stock was too consistently ravaged by wolves. The Lindbergs’ bodies lie in a stone crypt on a wooded hillside above the farm, which Beaubien occasionally checks on. It was the only sight on the tour that was off-limits.
“I create my own power out of the creek over yonder, and I have some solar panels, so I don’t have hydro to worry about,” said Beaubien. “There’s salmon out front, there’s cod, there’s oysters on the beach, a big garden, berries everywhere, and there’s the fruit and nut trees.”
While Beaubien has hardly any human visitors, each fall, much heavier and hairy types frequent the property.
“We’re right in the middle of cougar country in these mountains behind us, eh? It’s also bear country and wolf country. I’ve been charged by bears, but that always ends badly for the bear,” chuckled Beaubien.
One of Beaubien’s homemade bear deterrents is a series of large, rusty hand-logging saw blades, mounted teeth up, below the windows of his cabin.
“They step on that, they ain’t coming back,” quipped Beaubien. “The bears that come down here are about 50 per cent grizzly and 50 per cent black bear. There used to be a photograph in the Lund Pub of the biggest grizzly ever found in this area and it was shot right in those trees.”
When the fruit is dropping in the fall, Beaubien carries a rifle with him at all times.
“The grizzlies that come down here weigh 2,000 pounds,” said Beaubien. “You can’t fire a warning shot - it’s a waste, they just run 50 feet, and think ‘well that didn’t hurt’ and come right back. You gotta keep your eyes in the back of your head, you have to be more apprehensive, you walk slower, and you just gotta be careful because you know they’re going to be here.”
The bears disappear with the return of the salmon.
“There’s a salmon run in the next bay - Forbes Bay - two salmon runs go up there, so they all lumber into the next valley and load up on salmon before they go to bed for the winter,” he added.
Beaubien has a family - an ex-wife, adult children and grandchildren - who visit him during the summer in non-COVID times. I asked him how much longer he planned to remain on the old homestead.
“I haven’t seen a doctor in 60 years,” declared Beaubien. “I cut about 10 cords of wood a year. Fall the trees, buck ‘em, bring it all in, and as long as I can still do all that, I’ll stay here.”
When he’s not working to keep the farm running, Beaubien paints. The interior walls of his small cabin near the rear of the property are lined with his impressive array of oil paintings.
“Being here, well, it’s like living in a painting,” he told me with emotion in his voice. “If you have to live in an apartment, you’re staring at a flat wall or out a window at a parking lot. Where would you rather be?”
We paused for a moment to gaze out at the spectacular view. There was not another boat in sight.
“Would it be easier if I had a partner of similar mind to give me somebody to talk to and share with? You bet,” he said. “You know, I’ve had porpoises jumping and orcas playing right out front here, and you turn around and point at them to show somebody else, and…well…there is no one else. You’re the only one seeing it. So, someone to share this with would be nice.”
Here’s hoping Ken Beaubien will one day get his wish.
Grant Lawrence is an award-winning author, columnist and radio personality who considers Powell River and Desolation Sound his second home.
