“Haida Gwaii is not somewhere that everyone can reach,” says Correa, who has worked for Lakesider’s owners for more than 20 years. “The majority of cruising in the Pacific Northwest is around San Juan. Maybe, if you really find your sea legs, you can get up to Desolation Sound or even reach the north end of Vancouver Island, but anything past Cape Caution and Queen Charlotte Islands is big boy territory. And Haida Gwaii is a whole separate deal because it’s off the beaten path of Alaska’s Inside Passage.”
Lakesider: A voyage back in time
On the south end of an archipelago 60 miles off the coast of mainland Canada sits a remote spiritual island chain of untold beauty. First known by the Haida people as Xhaaidlagha Gwaayaai or ‘Islands at the Boundary of the World’, the 3,600 islands are more commonly known as Haida Gwaii or ‘Land of the Haida’. Rob Correa, captain of Lakesider, describes it as “a mystical place” following a three-month summer trip in 2018 aboard the Vripack-designed Doggersbank 92 Offshore.
