Quiet Cove

2) DND camped at Quiet Cove for many summers, sending our soldiers to the beach at the north end for somewhat lavish survival training. They’d always welcome us sailors, giving us meals, fixing our whatever was brokens, plying us with hot showers, short-wave radio telephone patches, you name it. And they kept the bugs at bay with proprietary Rambo-style propane flame throwers forbidden to civilians. They even had both their planes stationed there for a while and were often out and about finding and rescuing people all over the lake. But it got louder and louder over time and they eventually had to shut her down because of the excessive noise of survival, the noise of guns. Moral: you get the boot if you party and shoot ....

... meanwhile Phil Mork had looked the place over in 1988 and in 1990 quietly started setting up his marina on the east side, on the shale beach in the lee of the reef ...

3)... and when DND left, there it was, Mork’s Marina, soon THE place to stop for a little R&R, meet Phil’s many friends, relatives and colleagues who’d visit for a week or so and be replaced by the next shift, flown in with the beer/fuel supply; try your luck at the evening fishing derbies; sit around their fire at dusk hoping for an invite to play Spin-and-Win with the malt whiskies on the LazySusan: and yes, sometimes even have a hot shower!

Until recently the only quiet thing about the cove was the overgrown graveyard a ways up from the beach on the north shore.

Disquieting forces have been at work here for a long time:

1)the Copperpass site noted in the Girvguide brought occasional minor disturbance but never an actual mine. They’ve been poking around there — at Sachowia Lake, some 6-7 miles to the NNE — since 1940, but AFAIK very little nickel came out of it, most notably several bags of ore that made it to Europe in 1970. But they still poke at it now and then, like in 2007 when they checked it out for diamonds — but by air rather than via Quiet Cove.

Download a pdf supplement to page E15 of your Girvguide

Looking out SW on a calm evening, Quiet Cove at its buggy best

Mork’s Marina packed up for the last time and left in 2011, after more than 20 years’ good and happy times ... sometimes

not so quiet!

Thanks, Phil and Pépé

Pépé, aka Pierre LeBel, was 2IC at Quiet Cove for many years

... who’s next?

Photos never show the real height and savagery of waves, like these heavy-duty rollers, driven in by the strong SW wind, that hobby-horsed us wildly at anchor.

No way did we want to rock all night

so up up and away, first to try the American Cabins then on to Christopher’s Pocket for a quiet and motionless sleep. Good move.

August 11, 2012, 40+ kn SW winds near Yellowknife but only about 20 kn in the East Arm

Quiet Cove offers many delights when calm and gives good protection from northerly winds. It’s an ideal place for that early morning start to Lutsel’Ké and Christie Bay or up into McLeod Bay, destination Emerald Cove or beyond by late afternoon. But when a strong South or Southwester blows, watch out. Don’t even go there. And keep away from Utsingi Reach and Scott’s Arm where the same conditions prevail, only worse.

So where can you hide from a nasty SW? If you’ve a small boat, say under 30’, George’s Bite, the little nook off the island to the NE, offers OK protection. Or you can round the American Cabins from the south, well clear of the deadly reef north of its western end and anchor in 25’ just off the sauna, keeping in mind you’ll be swinging quite close to a rocky clifflet (in small waves but no swell, elsewhere nearby is even deeper). Of course you can always sleep in the main cabin providing you tidy up and sweep it clean when you leave.

You may find something in Hamilton Bay where I haven’t. The smaller island (or is it the larger one?) has a bit of calm water in its lee otherwise the bay is mostly open. A good place to anchor might be in the lee of Hak’s boat if he’s in residence ....

Christopher’s Pocket is your default hidey-hole in a SW blow. About 7 nm to the southwest of Quiet Cove, it’s a big round flat sheltered billiard table with a level 10-15’ of water, all ‘round protection from wind and wave, good holding, and room for everybody. Go there.

Phil M.