Chatter Box Falls To Powell River

August 14th – 18th

Raised anchor at around 9am to make slack tide at 9:45am at Malibu Rapids, timed it well and had an easy 1-2 knot ebb current going out through the pass on our way to Powell River.

Powell River is a logging town with the Catalyst Paper Mill to the north of the marina, the area next to the mill is the historic area of Powell river.   There are plenty of places to provision with grocery stores and HW stores available but they are up some steep hills so expect to get some good exercise.

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As we where leaving we started to start noticing the smoke from the BC forest fires that get worse over the next 2-3 weeks and ended up driving us back south from the Broughtons to get out of it later in the trip.  

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 Powell River Marina is around 56nm miles away so at our roughly 9 knot speed we made it to Powell River West View Harbor marina at around 3 pm.   The dock crew at Westview do a great job in packing the boats in so if you have a side tie to the dock expect boats to side tie up to you during your stay.

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Dont miss the Willingdon Beach Trail if you visit Powell River.  The trail runs along the water and is very cool with old logging equipment set up for viewing along the trail.  We walked out of the marina heading North along the water through the Willingdon Beach Campground to the trail.

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 We followed the trail all the way down to Historic Downtown Powell River and the Catalyst Paper Mill.  We returned back south to the marina on Marine Avenue above the trail taking in the view of the old houses for the mill managers/employees up the hill. 

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The logging equipment is very cool and all is custom made for very specific tasks.  The designs for these things are pretty complicated and must have taken years of refinement for a lot of it.  For example the Pole Wheel Cart design uses logs for rails to run the cart on. 

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The steam donkey was dis-assembled by a volunteer crew and flown out by helicopter to the current location where it was re-assembled.   At the north end of the trail the you run in too the Catalyst Paper Mill which is surrounded by the original Old Town Powell River buildings supporting the paper mill. 

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Dwight Hall is the original hall for the mill with kitchens and entertaining facilities.

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On the way over to Marine ave we ran in to the Patricia Theatre so we just had to get a picture of Patricia in front of it.

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One the way back we headed south on Marine Ave above the trail tp take a look at the pretty houses built for the upper echelon mill employees.

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That evening we had dinner under the grape vines at Snickers up the hill and south of the marina.  Very good food and great atmosphere!