All text and photos copyright 2009. Written permission must be obtained in advance for use in any website or other publication. Hi-resolution and RAW files available.



Consulting on renewable energy projects takes us to some remote places! We wouldn't have it any other way. We are publishing these pages about some of our more unique consulting jobs so that colleagues, friends, relatives, and potential clients can see what we mean by specializing in "Renewable energy system design for extremely remote or difficult locations." We hope you enjoy the photo essays as much as we enjoyed the journeys.

Damdochax Lake, with Blackwater Peak in the background.

The Damdochax River Lodge is a 135 mile floatplane trip North from the town of Smithers, BC. Alice Belford and her husband homesteaded Damdochax Lake in 1977 with 4-year old Hannah, intending to guide clients in big-game hunts. Moose, black bear, grizzly bear, wolf, wolverine and other wildlife abound. But what were all those huge fish in the river? Bull trout and Coho salmon for sure, but what were those shining chrome torpedos moving up the river to the lake in Autumn, some weighing upwards of 30 pounds?

Steelhead! Flyfishers obsess over them, traveling thousands of miles and paying thousands of dollars for the privilege of trying to catch a wild one. Steelhead are rainbow trout, but they are migratory-- during its lifetime, a fish may take two or more trips to the ocean and back to its birthplace. The steelhead get huge during their frolics in the ocean, and upon return they don't die after spawning like the salmon do. Damdochax Lake is deep, a perfect spawning ground. And the Damdochax River is only 12 miles long before feeding into the Nass River. The sheer magnitude of this natural resource was virtually unknown, even to government fisheries biologists. The Belfords hold exclusive guiding rights to the river, and now their business is guided steelhead trips in Fall when the fish are migrating, and guided fishing for wild trout in late Summer. Fine art photography and watercolor painting seminars, wildlife viewing and nature tours are offered during all the Summer months.

Alice still guides part-time, but is very busy as the remarkable hostess of all things Damdochax. Hannah is now lodge owner and head guide-- she is recognized as one of the top steelhead guides in North America, and her mug is well-known from Simms waders advertisements. I guess that figures, since she moved up here at age 4. She also runs the women's flyfishing blog FlyFisherGirl.com, and when not in magazine advertisements she usually looks like this, including fish:

"Damdochax" is not a French word, and is pronounced just like it's spelled: Dam - do - chacks. It loosely means "blackwater" in the language of the native Gitx'san people. The people of this First Nation have lived in the huge Skeena region of BC for thousands of years, and the underlined 'x' in the name denotes a sound that does not exist in English. Their endangered Gitsenimx language is both lyrical and highly descriptive, so a possible translation of their Nation's name is "People of the misty Skeena River." A possible translation of "Damdochax" would likely be "Lake where the water looks black from the shadows cast by the high mountains above." From my travels back and forth across the lake in a small motorized canoe, I found that the Gitx'san word described both the cause and effect perfectly!

To get to the Damdochax, it's a one-hour floatplane trip North from Smithers over some spectacular scenery. We flew in a Turbo Otter operated by Alpine Lakes Air, an amazingly powerful aircraft. I was astounded at how fast it got off the water.

BC sure has some nice mountain ranges.

If this mountain looks extremely close by and higher than the plane, that's because it is!

Um, wait. We're going past the Skeena (above photo)? And we just passed over the Bulkley, Babine, and Kispiox? This Damdochax place must have some incredible fishing to skip over these famous steelhead rivers.

The flight in and the landing were uneventful, except for the stunning scenery. The Damodochax River Lodge staff were out on the dock to greet us and the floatplane. The week's fresh food supply arrived with us, too.

Alice, Hannah and Shawn bid goodbye to last weeks clients.

I only spent a couple hours at the lodge after arrival. Lodge handyman Shawn and I geared up with heavy backpacks full of renewable energy site assessment tools, cameras and fishing gear, and took off across the lake in a motorized canoe to the outlet. We then backpacked four miles down the river to the first remote camp, Cottonwood, and got there an hour before dark. The four fisherman clients stayed and fished the lake in the lodge's flotilla of pontoon boats.

Oh wait, this place is so remote, they are not called clients.....

Our first night's camp, at Cottonwood Creek. It's on a 30 foot bluff overlooking a big loop of the Damdochax.

We moved a day or two ahead of the flyfishermen and their guides to each camp. I did my site assessment work for solar, wind and hydro potential, and Shawn prepared the camps for the fishermen's arrival the next day. Did I mention how steelhead fishers get a bit obsessed? They have the option to move around the various camps on the Damdochax by helicopter. The only other option is on foot. After half the fishermen choppered into Cottonwood (the other 2 hiked down), Shawn and I tossed our backpacks in the helo and made a 5 minute hop 4 miles downriver to the most remote camp, Moss Creek.

Yes, he really is going to land on that tiny little spot at the edge of the cliff!

"Welcome to Camp Moss," Shawn growls in his best Vietnam movie Sergeant's voice...

Shawn and I did "hot" loads and unloads for our hop ahead of the clients, so the pilot didn't have to shut down his engine and then warm it up again. It's cold laying over the gear so it doesn't blow away in the rotor wash! And, it goes without saying, keep your rod tip down!

Moss camp is very remote, with stunning scenery.

Where do hippies live? In tents, eh? But the woodstove in each tent is sure nice.

The cabin at Moss Camp.

We stayed in the cabin this night. Remote camp, no humans have been there for a week, fresh bear tracks in the riverbank mud...this camp will be buzzing with fishermen and guides tomorrow, with the bears scared far away. But tonight? Wooden walls sounded like a good idea to me, too!

"Hey Shawn," I asked. "You folks have dogs up here?"

"Nope," he said.

These are wolf tracks in the riverbank sand.

Some bears here are black bears, some are Grizz. This is how to keep Grizz out of your supply cache throughout a long winter with no humans home.

All staff and clients carry bear spray 24/7, and the guides carry "bear bangers," which are flares that launch and explode to scare the bears away if they act aggressively. The Damdochax River Lodge has never had a "bad" bear encounter, though. Most sightings are of the ass end of a bear, running away from the humans. It's important to make noise while hiking through the "bearish" parts of the canyon. We talk loudly, whistle, fart, and call out "Hey bear!" while crossing prime territory. All we saw this week were black bear and Grizz tracks in the riverbank sand.

I was way up here in the middle of nowhere just to gather this data. Fortunately the computer crunches all the numbers.

Each arc on the sunpath diagram (above photo) shows the track of the sun for a different month, and obstructions like trees are visible as to which months they are a problem, and for how many hours each day. The computer then calculates the solar potential for each month at each location where I set up the Solar Pathfinder.

Autumn has arrived, with winter close behind.

Temperatures plummeted with an unusually early cold snap; low teens at night (American teens in degrees F, not Canadian ones in degrees C!) We had a couple days where it did not get above freezing, even after noon. This caused numerous problems with iced-up flyfishing gear.

I also found out that when someone says "Beat the ice off your guides now" they are talking about your fly rod! Silly me. But flyfishing guides Hannah and Don should recover soon, it's the off season. Anyone who fantasizes about being a steelhead fishing guide should come and watch these dedicated folks in action-- you'll soon decide on an easy career instead, like logging or wildland firefighting. Wet frozen hands, frozen feet, heavy backpack full of spare tackle, lunch for everyone, thermoses of hot coffee, fire starter for streamside warmups, 2-way radio for emergency communication and daily check-ins, bear spray, bear bangers, heavy cameras.....all while living in ice cold (and sometimes frozen solid) waders 12 hours a day. Professional guides Hannah, Alice, Don, and Nelson are very dedicated and talented folks.

I understand why folks travel a very long way to fish the Damdochax River...the scenery for sure, eh?

Or maybe, just possibly, it might be that fish like this, my 18 pound steelhead hen!

This was my first steelhead ever, and my first time trying to fish for them. All fishing is by flies and single barbless hooks only, by Provincial law. And by Damdochax River Lodge rules, all fishing is catch and release only, with 'questionable' fly patterns like articulated leeches and egg patterns (which may increase fatality rates) strongly discouraged. Alice and Hannah have decreed that no steelhead will be killed on their river, and on the rare occasion that a fish dies after release the entire camp is somber.

Simms: It's what's for dinner. Naw, Alice's cooking at Damdochax is awesome! Homecooked meals each day, with all the bread homemade. Lunch sandwiches that reached the point of artistry. And the desserts each evening made from berries that Alice picks herself on the river.

The helicopter carries my 50 pound backpack to the next camp 4 miles upriver. I hike in waders with fly rod and lunch, fishing all the way up. Nice gig!

I asked the price for cat rental at Cottonwood Camp, but it was free. Always nice to have a large orange cat for extra warmth at night. The woodstove in each tent helps, too. This cat (Alice's) is one of very few in the world who get to fly in and out of home by floatplane, then via helicopter to a remote camp, I suspect.

Berry season is about over with the cold weather-- time to go to sleep, bear!

Mushroom season is about done with, too.

We hike and fish our way back to the lake, take the motorized canoe a mile to the lodge, and our heavy packs are already waiting for us thanks to the helo. I'm really starting to like this new backpacking concept!

It's nice to be back to the luxury of the lake lodge. There's even a phone and high-speed internet thanks to the satellite dish on the shop.

I don't know what Honda calls this thing that Shawn's driving, but I want one!

This cabin was built around 1865, for a full-time maintenance man of the Collins Overland Telegraph line. Must've made for some tough winters. The cabin is used by fishing clients now.

With electricity in short supply and gasoline that has to fly in by float plane and helicopter, this brace and the auger bits see lots of actual use.

My last night at Damdochax. The tundra swans on the other side of the lake made an incredible, unearthly racket at sunset! They are the last birds to leave for the winter.

Bye, Alice, Hannah, Shawn, Don, and Nelson! You folks are just amazing, and so is your guiding operation. See you next year....

The winding creek and oxbows below on our flight out echo the tortuous pronunciations of the Gitx'san language.

The Damdochax river is an incredibly unique and beautiful corner of the world. I hope to return soon!
DAN