A Brief Chat in Hakai Pass with Cindy

A few days ago, we had the pleasure of sitting down and chatting with one of our guests, Cindy. 

Cindy and her husband Verne have been coming to the lodge for many years. 

Together, they have dozens of stories to tell -  from stories about whales and orcas, to ones about their amazing fishing excursions.

Cindy was kind enough to share one of those stories with us today. 

Without further ado, here’s our conversation with Cindy.

Hope you enjoy.

How long have you been coming to Joe’s for?

Cindy: “Since 1996.”

Marisa: “Since 1996? How did you hear about us?”

Cindy: “Verne.. Verne was friends with Dougie and Clay*. Verne played hockey with them. Well, did he play hockey with them? Ah, they all lived in the same neighbourhood. So they all knew each other from school.

* Doug and Clay were both previous owners of the lodge.

Why do you come here?

Cindy: “So, I’ve always loved nature. When I was 14, I wanted to run away and join GreenPeace and my mom said I wasn’t allowed. Go figure eh? But I was never pushed to go that way. If I would’ve been encouraged to follow that, I could’ve been a Marine Biologist or Conservation Officer… there were a lot of options obviously for me that I didn’t know existed at that age.”

Cindy: “Coming up here is awe-inspiring because you don’t see this everyday. I even said this on the plane coming up here, you are now 1 of 1000% of people that will be able to come up and see this. 

Tell me the story about your dad and the halibut.

Cindy: “Dad fished with me since I was little. He took us, when I was about 8, my brother would’ve been 6, to Salt Spring Island for about a week. We ate oysters everyday!"

Cindy: “And then Verne brought me here. We came here three years before I said, Dad, you gotta come fishing with us.” 

Cindy: “I came across a two for one deal for Father’s Day at Peregrine Lodge. I took my dad and Verne took his dad - at no great expense I’ll say haha. His dad [Verne’s dad] won biggest fish of the day - we got some really cool pictures of his dad standing at the front of the boat, and there were probably four foot rollers, and he got his Christmas Elf hat on.”

Cindy: “My dad caught a fair amount of fish. He was amazed at how easy it was up there. Most of it was the guide handing you the rod with the fish on it, but there was a fair amount that was caught without that. 

Cindy: “Dad first came up here (to Joe’s)*, I think 2005 or 2006, and they were jumping in the boat - it was insane. It was just one of those one off years, you couldn’t keep’em off the rod. We went through billions of bait because you dropped it in the water and they were taking it - you could barely get it in the water and it was gone. So you spent the majority of your time cutting the bait, fixing the bait, putting the bait on the line, only to lose it in 10 seconds.”

*Side note: Cindy’s dad won Joe’s first ever derby with a 30 pounder!

Marisa and Cindy: *laughs*

Cindy: “So every 2 to 3 years, dad would come up. 2013 was the halibut and we brought Ryan [her son]. Ryan, Dad, Verne, and me, and we would swap out every day who we were fishing with. I was fishing with Ryan and Verne was fishing with Dad - my dad and Verne are good friends - Verne really loves my dad, you have to meet him.” 

Cindy: “We were fishing for salmon, and were across the Pass. We were in one of the two little bays - I think we were in the second one over from Hakai Land and Sea. It was kind of rough on the outside, so we thought we’d just cruise around this bay and got a double header.”

Marisa: “Oh!”

Cindy: “I ended up losing mine, but I looked over at dad and he’s like, I don’t know. It hasn’t moved. And I said, are you sure it’s not the bottom? And he said, no, it gives me head wiggles… Okay chuckles. What happens when you pull on the rod? [Cindy then goes on to describe with her hands what the rod was doing] - okay don’t break the rod. After an hour and a half, he had gained that much line [about half a foot] and we hadn’t moved. The boat hadn’t moved! The boat was still sitting in the same spot. 

Cindy: “Ryan and Verne were in the next bay over and I said, you guys should probably come over here. Why what’s going on? Honestly, I don’t know but dad’s got something at the end of the line and it’s slowly coming up. Okay we’ll be right over.”

Cindy: Dad starts reeling - and you saw the results of that [Cindy had shown Marisa a clip of the incident]. But what you don’t see in the video is that the water is coming in the boat. My son and my husband are at each end of a fish that’s six feet long. And they’re thinking they’re gonna gaff it and they’ve got it in the net. They’re both holding onto the net and they can’t lift it out of the water. My son’s strong, he plays hockey, my husband’s strong, he loves lashing. The two of them can lift a 300 pound something - and they can’t get this fish out, it’s doing this [flapping motion]. 

Cindy: “She [the fish] sees the light, knows she’s close to the surface, but we don’t break the water - she’s not a stupid fish being that size. Then you have these two clowns that haven’t seen a fish that big either and how are we gonna get it in the boat… It’s flapping like a bird, it weighs probably around 150 pounds and the net didn’t stand a chance. So it just went [deflating noise], out of the net, gone, see you later, and that was it. It was over.” 

Cindy: “It was just like, wow. There’s this much water in the boat and in their boat because it was displacing. They push water - it’s like four buckets of water at the same time.”

Cindy: “... it was gone, here’s your net! I’m looking at it (the net) and I’m like, I can’t even do anything with it at this point. Oh my God I have to explain this to Clay.

Marisa: “... and how did you Dad feel about this whole experience?”

Cindy: “Dad was laughing. He remembers the incident to this day. He remembers the excitement of having something so big on the line that he can’t even bring it up. He’s never had that. But dad was tired. He was almost 78 when that happened. I think he lied down before dinner. But dad still can’t really fathom how big that fish was. Clay said it was over 100 pounds.”

Cindy then went on to mention that this incident happened on July 13th. This interview was recorded on July 9th, so she’s excited to go back to the same spot on almost the same day and try again.

What does this place mean to you? 

Cindy: “This goes back through a lot of years. If they needed us to come, we’d be here… When the lodge got a hole in it on the Fraser River, the basement was flooded out, all the rooms - everything had to be gutted. I still have linens from the beds that were in the lodge. Everything that was stored in the basement was gone and it was a dumpster out in the parking lot. We had to take everything off the barge. It took six days to get the barge empty. And as far as I know, that was the only time the barge took on water in its 50 year something long history.”

Cindy: “This place is a phone call away. It’s family.”

Special thanks to Cindy for taking the time to chat with us and compiling hundreds of images of her, Verne, and other memories at the lodge for this interview. 

We’re fortunate to have people like her and Verne as part of our family.

Tightlines, 

J.S.L. Crew

*All images were taken by Cindy and Verne. Cindy was kind enough to share them for this interview. We do not own them or the rights to them.