Few locations along the Inside Passage offer the combination of splendor, protection and solitude as Khutze Inlet. A fjord surrounded by nearly 4,000-foot peaks, the inlet is one of several fingers that branch off Graham Reach, the southern end of Princess Royal Channel, and stretch inland toward British Columbia’s Coast Mountains. This section of the mountain range was first “discovered” by Western explorers when Captain George Vancouver charted these waters in the late 18th century aboard his ships, Discovery and Chatham.
Khutze Inlet—one of many such fjords along the north-central B.C. coastline—is a six-mile-long protected waterway that serves as the delta for the East Khutze River. In the spring, snowpack runoff cascades down in waterfalls with icy clarity while bears, still groggy from a season of hibernation, patrol the flat, grassy delta fishing for sustenance.
Anchoring here will be your biggest challenge, as water depths are significant, measuring more than 200 feet even in shallower areas, and severe tidal changes can provide for problematic hook-dropping if you try to set too close to shore.
But if you go, I can guarantee you will remember the experience.
