9” x 12” Acrylic on canvas

Trying to make a living fishing off the west coast of the island isn’t every fishermans cup of tea. While the fishing can be quite good and profitable it comes with its own set of challenges and dangers. Most of the fishing takes place a long ways offshore, often out of sight of shore, there’s countless reefs barely submerged, along with pea-soup fog that can last for days or even a week at a time and last but not least the strong summer westerlies. The fishing grounds on the outer coast attract fishermen from all over the island from Port Hardy, Sayward, Campbell River, and more who make the daunting journey up around Cape Scott to join those from Tofino and Ucluelet. If a big westerly picks up fisherman have a few options for refuge, the first one is down past Kains Island lighthouse and into Winter Harbour, but if that is too far and the seas are picking up quick another option is Sea Otter Cove.

Sea Otter Cove is located just north west of San Josef Bay. It is a calm little cove amidst a wild, rugged, and deadly coastline but it is a hard to get into. The entrance is shallow and narrow, a tight squeeze between Vancouver Island and Helen Islands and big turbulent seas makes it that much more hairy.

I have read about Sea Otter Cove in books and how fishermen would use it for shelter sometimes for days at a time while the Pacific flared up before getting back out to track down some Spings and Coho. I have an admiration and love for classic west coast trollers that seems to be growing year after year, paired with my lifelong love of waves and stormy seas I had a lot of fun creating this scene out of bits and pieces of reference photographs that I’ve collected.

I wanted this painting to communicate a story. I imagined this west coast troller finally got into a good school of Springs but with the forecast calling for a major westerly to blow up by sundown he holds on to the fishing as long as he can before pulling his gear and now he’s got a wild ride bound for Sea Otter Cove.

Piece will be shipped within 5 business days.