07/03/2021
The following article, by Chuck Gould, appeared in Nor'westing Magazine in the fall of 2004. It was reprinted each year for about ten years in the Waggoner Cruising Guide.
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Zen Garden
A Visit To D’Arcy Island
I am not sure I believe in ghosts, but I have to believe in D’Arcy Island. No, I’ve never actually seen a ghostly apparition. But in the summer of 2004 my wife Jan and I left D’Arcy Island baffled by some strange experiences ashore.
Less than 100 years ago, leprosy was still a public health concern in Canada. Caucasian l***rs were assigned to a facility in New Brunswick to receive the best available treatment and medications. Chinese l***rs were banished to D’Arcy Island, in Haro Strait, near the city of Victoria.
For the Chinese l***rs, the burden of their isolation was surely as difficult as the devastation of their disease. Four times per year the Canadian government sent a supply boat loaded with food, blankets, o***m, and coffins. For much of D’Arcy Island’s tenure as a l***r colony, the community of creeping death lacked any other contact with the outside world. The l***rs were expected to take care of one another.
The Canadian government did, eventually, establish a rudimentary clinic on D’Arcy. In 1925, a few surviving Chinese l***rs were relocated to an even more remote island in the Strait of Juan de Fuca. Jan and I were curious to discover what signs of their presence, if any, remained on D’Arcy Island.
Anchorage is problematic here. Charts show reefs in different locations just offshore. Fields of kelp are so thick in certain areas they would likely foul a prop or otherwise impede passage. Approach D’Arcy with caution. We found marginal, “fair weather” anchorage off the SW shoreline.
We anchored bow and stern. Some very large rocks lurked nearby and just below the surface. We did not want to swing in the wind or tide and possibly hole the bottom.
Almost as soon as we were semi-satisfied that our anchors were holding, we were welcomed to D’Arcy Isand. A swarm of yellow jackets pestered us on deck. They were everywhere; but somehow seemed more curious than aggressive. The yellow jackets disappeared, as if by command, the moment we launched the Zodiac and began pulling for shore.
Perhaps the tricky anchorage and the yellow jackets are D’Arcy Island’s first and second line of defense. During our sojourn there, the defenses proved effective. No other boats stopped, and we say little evidence that many ever do.
We rowed around a few obstacle rocks and beached the Zodiac. The summer air was warm, and silent; accentuating the sound of a carpet of brown and yellow madrona (arbutus) leaves crackling and crunching underfoot.
Trees grew at crazy angles. Many were twisted and bent, as if in agony. Several were saved from ultimate windfall by leaning against their neighbors. Across the face of a granite boulder, a conifer root spread like a network of veins and arteries- in search of an unnatural grip on an unlikely surface.
We located two rectangular cement foundations. Trees perhaps 20 or 30 years of age grew from within the perimeters, where once there had been wooden structures. We assumed that the foundations were all that remained of former dormitories. Some of the rusted metal next to the foundations, however, was of more recent vintage. In the 1970’s we owned a hibachi grill identical to the corroded specimen left behind years ago by some errant camper, picknicker, or explorer.
High atop a rocky promontory we discovered a pool of water. Dark, mossy, life forms thrived within. They appeared perpetually nourished, as if the pool was refilled by something other than the sporadic August rainfall. The calm ebony surface, reflecting a spark of sunlight, was reminiscent of a feature one might discover in a Zen garden. Might a Chinese l***r, decades ago, have climbed up this boulder and meditated next to this very pool- while contemplating a horizon far beyond Haro Strait?
The faintest suggestion of a trail led us to an area on the northwest shoulder of the island. There we found evidence of other structures, more prominent than the dormitories. A set of concrete steps fronted a concrete foundation for a long-decayed building. Crumbling portions of cement walls marked the location of the most substantial ruins on the island. (We later learned from Parks Canada that between 1907and 1916 the island was used exclusively for the treatment of Caucasian l***rs. Segregation was maintained by removing the Chinese to Little D’Arcy Island, immediately east, when the larger island was in use by the Caucasians. Between 1907and 1916, a caretaker’s cabin and a medical clinic were built in this NW portion of the island).
Vandals have craved their initials into vertical blocks of rusting rebar and rotting cement. A similarity to tombstones is readily apparent. We noted one set of initials dated “1959”, and another message noting graduation of a high school class in 2001. Scores of additional defacings designated years between.
Two strange things happened as we began hiking back toward the location where we beached the Zodiac. Somewhere between the crumbling cement ruins and the first of the dormitory foundations I commented to Jan, “You know what’s odd? This place should be teeming with wildlife. Except for the yellow jackets, we haven’t seen a single, living, creature. There aren’t any deer, any rabbits, any squirrels, or even any droppings. And strangest of all? We haven’t heard any birds. This island should be loaded with birds.”
Jan agreed. “Hmm, you’re right.”
No sooner than Jan spoke, we heard a faint “cheep cheep” from the forest. First a lone call, then a second, followed by a third, and almost immediately thereafter a tabernacle choir of birdcalls. We went from total avian silence to a cacophony of tweets, cheeps, trills, chirps, and general “birdlam”. Birds singing to an extent almost impossible to describe surrounded us on all sides, but aside from two seagulls sunning on an offshore rock we never actually saw a bird on D’Arcy Island.
After a few moments, the bird racket stopped. Completely. Even more rapidly than it began.
I said, “That bothers me. Maybe a lot. Why didn’t we hear any birds until we wondered about their absence? It’s like somebody or something turned the birds on, just for us, and then turned them off again.”
I stopped to take a photo. Jan continued along the suggestion of a trail and was 30 or 40 yards ahead. When I reached the short side of one of the rectangular dormitory foundations, I noticed a ditch I did not see when walking the other direction. I thought, “It would have been useful for anybody living here if there had been a stream of some kind running next to the building.”
At that very moment, Jan wheeled around and said, “Listen! I hear water running!”
I suddenly heard it as well. Deeper notes of gurgling water playing tenor, below the soprano whispers of the wind.
I said, “There’s a ditch here, Jan. I was wondering if water had ever run through it when you suddenly said you heard water! I’m going to walk up this ditch a ways and see if I can figure out where there’s any water running.”
Jan seemed concerned. “Be careful! I think I will wait right here.”
I followed the ditch to a field of bright green, tall, grasses. The sound of running water grew louder and louder as I approached the little meadow. I thought, “Something has to be keeping the grass this green. Especially in August. There almost has to be a spring here, and at one time…”
Silence. The sound of running water ceased as completely and dramatically as had the sound of birdsong perhaps twenty minutes earlier. If a spring is out there in the bright green grasses, or any other source of gurgling water, I couldn’t find it. The ground underfoot was firm- and no more than sightly damp wherever I walked. I followed the ditch back to the arbutus covered trail.
Jan asked, “What was up there?”
“Nothing. Not really anything. Just a bunch of tall grass that seems way too green for this time of the year. If there’s a source of running water up there, I couldn’t find it.”
Neither of us wanted to acknowledge that we could no longer hear the stream.
We returned to the Zodiac. As we were about to board, Jan hesitated. “It’s so beautiful here. So peaceful and relaxing. Do we have to go back, right now?”
Spooked by the general desertion of the area, as well as the inexplicable correlations between thoughts and the perceptions of sound, I was in no mood to dawdle. I had a feeling that D’Arcy Island had tolerated our presence for a while, but that perhaps we had worn out our welcome. I convinced Jan it was time to go, and we rowed back to our Sundowner Tug.
I am not sure I believe in ghosts, but I have to believe in D’Arcy Island. Those who dare to anchor there can venture ashore and walk quietly through the shameful shadows of injustices long past. Listen carefully for birdsong, and the sound of running water. Visit the Zen garden, high up among the rocks.
