Meet Steve

Paddling on the Edge

Steve Milum tells a story that’s as much about kayaking as it is about reinventing yourself.

Years ago a friend from his hometown of Armstrong, BC, came to visit. After work they carried their kayaks to the water’s edge and pointed the bows toward Kitson, a lonely sand-rimmed island floating where the Skeena River spills into the Pacific. Within an hour they landed, broke camp, and stepped into a few days that would quietly rearrange a life.

Days spent wandering sandy beaches, nights swimming through primordial green phosphorescence that lit up around their arms like liquid constellations. Bathed in the glow of firelight they would fall asleep gazing into the cathedral of galaxies overhead.

“There are wild and raw places like this on the North Coast,” Steve says. “I’ve taken people to Kloiya Bay and they start crying because it’s the first time they’ve ever experienced actual quiet. People fly by helicopter into remote wilderness to find silence like this. Here it’s a 15-minute drive from town.”

North Coast Surfing

Besides being an avid paddler and guide, Steve is also part of a small but growing tribe of surfers who keep a quiet eye on tide tables, wind direction, and the subtle mood swings of the North Coast. When the elements line up just right, boards appear and boats start heading out.

Ask Steve where the waves are, though, and he clams up.

“It’s like fishermen not telling you where the good holes are,” he says, flashing that signature Milum grin. “Plus… they’d kill me if I said anything.”

He’d rather talk about kayaking or paddle boarding through glassy channels, tossing a crab trap over the side for an end-of-day feast, or swimming in the Salt Lakes. He’s also eager to explode myths about paddling this coast – water temperature, for example. “Same as Vancouver Island,” he shrugs. And the rain? “You’re already dressed to get wet.”

A Growing Business

His business, Skeena kayaking, grows with each season. All summer long, people come off the ferry ready for an epic paddle north to Alaska or south in the Great Bear Rainforest along the 1000-km Inside Passage. He runs a service where he picks paddlers up from the ferry, even after midnight, drives them to a hotel and launches them the next day.

“The Inside Passage is a world-class bucket list paddle,” he says. “Bears, wolves, whales. Real wilderness. It takes about a month, so it’s for a special breed of adventurer.”

The funny thing about that special breed is that sometimes they arrive by accident.

Take Steve’s visiting friend.

She came for a few days of paddling.

Now she teaches at one of the local schools.

Steve Milum
Skeena Kayaking
250-624-1921
steve@skeenakayaking.ca