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Taking in the magnitude

The Butze”(but-zee) is not one wave but many separate features or “hydraulics” including big whirl-pools, pourovers, and breaking waves that form and then disappear as 30+ feet of tide water squeezes back and forth through narrow channels between the densely packed cedar covered islands laced across Fenn Passage.

Fenn separates the city of Prince Rupert on Kaien Island from mainland Canada in Northern B.C.  “Kaien” meant “frothing water” to local natives; we slept at three ferry terminals (one of them twice), traveled over 2000 miles and sat aboard a ferry for 15 hours to find out why.

The plan was to get never-before-seen sea kayaking footage for Bryan Smith’s latest project, The Season, while enjoying the exploration of a possible new surfing zone with a solid crew of good friends.  We needed to get in there and camp on one of the islands that form the rapids.  This would provide the easiest staging point to film and shoot photos of the crew paddling and catching rides throughout the entire tide cycle…both ebb AND flood for the next week.

We loaded up expedition style and were prepared for the extended stay in the B.C. bush.  A short distance from Prince Rupert, the rapids had been well known to local whitewater boaters for years, but was relatively unexplored by “sea kayakers” until now.

The B.C. Pilot Volume II, 1969, says of these rapids:

Butze Rapids

“These are dangerous and spectacular rapids…Small craft with local knowledge may pass through at high-water slack. Morse Basin 18 to 300 feet only available to small craft with local knowledge at high-water slack proceeding from the northward through Butze Rapids. Tidal currents flow in and out of Morse Basin through Butze Rapids in the north and from Zanardi rapids through Wainwright Basin and Galloway Rapids in the south. The flows through Butze and Zanardi Rapids are violent during larger tides, except near time of change.”

“Spectacular AND violent…”  Exactly the sort of thing you want to read when searching for a few of the biggest tidal rapids in the world.  We just hoped we would find something that was “surfable” in the long boats.

Get the full story in “The Season” on Outdoor Research or The Season TV