Chapter 12 recap: In an effort to be their own bosses and work from home, Linda Syms and Wayne Lewis became oyster farmers in the early 1980s. First they started on the beach in front of their Desolation Sound cabin, and then expanded to a 10-acre shoreline that encompassed many beaches and coves. To gain access to the lowest tides, it was also a job done mostly in the winter and mostly at night.
Linda and Wayne continued to come up with all sorts of different innovations to make their lives easier at their off-grid wilderness homestead.
To ease the burden of schlepping their supplies up and down the hill from boat to cabin, cabin to boat, they attached a winch to a chainsaw. Affixed to the winch was a cable that hooked onto a large wooden box on a track. The motor in the chainsaw would power the winch to haul the box filled with their heavy supplies up the hill. That method lasted for more than 30 years.
Even though they had their own well, it would often run very low or dry out completely during long hot summers in Desolation Sound. Fresh water became an issue, which they needed for their garden and drinking supply, so they came up with another ambitious plan.
They knew there was a freshwater lake nearby, but it wasn’t on their peninsula. Wednesday Lake is located on Malaspina Peninsula, across two inlets and a set of islands, but that didn’t stop Linda and Wayne from running a pipeline all the way from the lake to their cabin in Salubrious Bay on the Gifford Peninsula.
“It was over two miles of line that went in and out of the ocean three times,” explained Linda. “As we were installing it, a lot of the other neighbours wanted in on it, and we signed up seven people. But then that turned around against us because it turned out we were required to supply them with water.”
If the water stopped running or it suddenly came out salty, the neighbours would immediately turn to Linda and Wayne for answers and maintenance, so they’d have to go out in all types of weather to painstakingly trace four kilometres of overland and underwater pipeline to try and fix the leak.
If the break was on land, it was often a bear bite. If it was somewhere underwater, it could be from almost anything. More often than not it was human-caused, from a boat anchor hooking onto the line and breaking it when the owner hauled in their anchor.
“It was a big hassle replacing the underwater sections,” said Linda.
Eventually, their long freshwater pipeline became too much to maintain, so Linda and Wayne reverted back to their well full time. The four kilometre freshwater pipeline lasted for more than 12 years.
Picking alone
Late night oyster farming also continued every winter, and they were doing well financially, but Linda was taking on more and more of the beach picks and the farming without Wayne.
“Wayne had back pain pretty much his whole life, debilitating pain,” explained Linda. “He fell off the Keats Island government wharf at low tide when he was 11. He broke his collarbone and it was never set properly. Then he got curvature of the spine, followed by several more injuries when he was younger.
“Wayne stopped doing any direct oyster farming in the early 1990s. So I did the basic day to day farming.”
But it wasn’t for lack of effort on Wayne’s part. For a while, in an effort to keep picking, Wayne took a cot down to the beach in the middle of the night so he could lie down, take a rest and then get back up and start picking, until he quit the pick for good.
Instead, he did a lot of work at home and on the boats, but without Wayne on the picks, Linda often found herself alone on the beaches in the middle of the night with only her dog Laz for both companionship and protection.
Once, Wayne dropped off Linda at the remote Stopford Point around midnight on a rapidly dropping tide. Instead of heading home, Wayne went further afield in their boat to check out the low-tide beaches of another inlet for a prospective new site for a wild pick. The plan was that Linda would do her pick and Wayne would swing by to pick her up after his scouting mission.
As the sound of the outboard faded away, Linda was left with the soft hiss of her gas lamp that cast a ghostly yellow circle on the beach while she picked and picked. She was always amazed at how large the oysters could get at Stopford Point, and how quickly they would grow, likely the reason that it had been the site of multiple clam gardens for Tla’amin Nation.
The oysters were so big that Linda filled her bags quickly and was soon ready to go home. She sat for a while in the moonlight, but couldn’t hear the returning roar of the boat, so she got back to work, pulling predatory starfish off of her crop. With that job done, Linda rested again and listened for Wayne. Nothing.
Carrying her gas lantern, she took the dog for a short walk along the beach to a vantage point where she could look down the inlet for the light of the approaching boat. Nothing. It had been over two hours since Wayne had dropped her off. Where was he?
As soon as Linda got back to the crop, her lantern’s hiss softened. Her light faded, and then died completely.
Linda had no desire to wait for Wayne in the dark, so she reached into her pocket for a flashlight and flicked it on. The feeble, flickering beam barely illuminated the toes of her rubber boots. She padded her jacket down for other flashlights. Nothing.
Linda realized that her eyes were so accustomed to the dark it was almost better than a flashlight. Linda was a mix of emotions. She was worried for Wayne, but annoyed at being stranded.
Treacherous trip
Three hours had passed. Linda glanced west, toward the warmth of her cabin that was out of sight, about a kilometre and a half away along a rocky shoreline of cliffs and granite outcrop, backed by thick forest. It was doable if challenging during the day, but potentially treacherous at night.
Linda looked up at the half moon partially shrouded in clouds, which cast a silky carpet of light on the rocks and cliffs between her and home. She moved all her sacks and supplies above the high tide line. Screw this, she thought. I’m walking.
Laz jumped up and excitedly raced ahead of her. Soon they reached the first impassable cliff along the shoreline. It was either swim around it or climb up and over it. Linda opted for the latter.
When she entered the forest, it was much darker than the shoreline. Linda stood very still to allow her eyes to adjust. She almost jumped out of her skin when she felt something wet touch her hand. It was her dog’s nose.
As Laz pushed ahead through the bushes, Linda tried to follow him. Her hands felt for branches as she inched her way in the dark along the top of the cliff’s edge while she tried to make out the terrain through tree-filtered moonlight. Then she took a step, and felt nothing but air.
You’ll find out what happened next in chapter 14 of Wild Pick: The life and adventures of Linda Syms, oyster farmer of Desolation Sound.
Grant Lawrence is the author of the new book Return to Solitude; he considers Powell River and Desolation Sound his second home. His book and Linda’s two books: Salt Water Rain and Shell Games, are for sale at Pollen Sweaters in Lund, and Pocket Books and Marine Traders in Powell River.
