{"id":46495,"date":"2024-06-25T00:05:03","date_gmt":"2024-06-25T07:05:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/hakaimagazine.com\/?post_type=custom_features&p=46495"},"modified":"2024-06-24T15:21:28","modified_gmt":"2024-06-24T22:21:28","slug":"the-estuary-smothered-by-a-thousand-logs","status":"publish","type":"custom_features","link":"https:\/\/hakaimagazine.com\/features\/the-estuary-smothered-by-a-thousand-logs\/","title":{"rendered":"The Estuary Smothered by a Thousand Logs"},"content":{"rendered":"

It is almost low tide on a sunny late-July morning in Cowichan Bay, at the mouth of the Cowichan River, on southeastern Vancouver Island. I walk alone across the exposed tidal flats of the estuary, wading through brackish streams, skidding on mud, and sidestepping barnacle-crusted rocks. Sounds of clanging and grinding drift from the Western Forest Products lumber mill on shore, mixed with the cries of gulls and bald eagles.<\/p>\n

But there\u2019s another sound, too\u2014plaintive, not unlike a human baby\u2019s cry.<\/p>\n

The sound emanates from an implausible location: inside a rectangular industrial log boom about the length of a football field. The boom consists of a perimeter of outer logs chained together to protect an inner cargo\u2014typically, bundles of western hemlock, Douglas fir, and western red cedar logs. A tugboat hauled the boom here from a logging operation up the coast so that its contents can be processed at the mill.<\/p>\n

From a distance, the log boom presents a familiar, almost nostalgic image of British Columbia\u2019s working coast. Up close, it is an intimidating, two-to-three-meter-high tangle of dead trees resting upon the dark ooze.<\/p>\n

I follow the cries until I locate a dappled, dark-gray harbor seal pup, belly-deep in water, trapped in an open pocket inside the boom. Hearing the splash of my neoprene booties, it looks back and forth\u2014likely for its mother\u2014then retreats deeper into the logs, then comes out again.<\/p>\n

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