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Sointula's fishing village overlooks waters that these days no longer have so many fishermen. The working harbour in Rough Bay, which is not so rough, includes net lofts and marine businesses, many of the sheds standing on pilings over the water. The village once boasted nine boat-builders but now has none. Trawlers and gillnetters can be found docked in the harbour, the coloured stickers of their fishing licences fading in the sun.

Today, the trail draws not prospectors but whale-watchers. The pebbles on the beach are favoured by orcas, which come here to rub. A viewing platform has been built just 165 metres from the trailhead. A second platform was washed away in a winter storm a year ago, a reminder of the force of the sea.

Troy Bright has spent the past decade watching orcas rub on these stones, his office a small tent beneath a tarpaulin. He knows each pod and can identify whales by their calls. In July 1997, he was a visitor sitting here with a local family when he saw a fin rise out of the water. So touched was he by the experience, he dedicated himself to studying the magnificent creatures, though he has yet to discover an explanation for the rubbing ritual.

Bright maintains a lonely vigil on the beach. "I keep a fire going," he says, "drink lots of tea. I do a lot of reading. I keep a journal." He is reluctant to leave his spot on the sand, lest he miss a sighting. Even as he carries on a conversation with me, Bright spots porpoises and a pair of humpback whales out in Queen Charlotte Strait. Alas, we spot no orcas, as a fog bank rolls in, bringing with it an otherworldly chill.

Bright's research assistant, Kate Brauer, operates a guest house in Sointula. The two share their records with other orca researchers along the coast. They work for free, or, rather, for the joy that each sighting brings, and seek only to encourage donations to their whale-watching project.

Back in Sointula, the village may be lacking for fishermen, but it has plenty of artists. Ryan Pakkalen uses his grandfather's old boat shed as a workshop and an old forge shed as a studio. Once a logger, he now wields his chainsaw to carve creatures from western red cedar. He used to fish, too, but now trolls for tourists instead of salmon and halibut. His works, including tiki heads, stand outside his studio, giving First Street a distinctly Easter Island look. And Pakkalen is not alone in his pursuits. Every summer, Sointula hosts the three-day Artopia Festival of the Arts.

Next, I make a pilgrimage to the island's little cemetery, which is at the eastern end of the townsite. Some of the graves display the flotsam of sea life — a lighthouse model, an anchor embedded in a grave. The oldest marker honours a mother and her four children lost in the calamitous fire in 1903 that foreshadowed the commune's collapse not long after its founding.

Soon, it is time to catch the ferry for the ride back to Port McNeill. As the vessel pulls away from the dock, a poem on display at the museum by Sointula's kantele-playing leader, Matti Kurikka, comes to mind. "To Sointula, To Sointula / That is where my thoughts aspire / From the turmoil of the world / From the whirl of surging waves / My mind longs for a place of peace." We are early in the crossing when the ferry is joined by six porpoises. They cavort in our wake most of the way across. Sometimes, paradise is not built, it is found.

Tom Hawthorn is a freelance writer who lives in Victoria.

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