Denman Island to Vancouver Island, Vancouver Island to Denman Island, back and forth, again and again . . . . Denman resident Eli Hason made that trip hundreds of times during his three-and-a-half-year stint as a BC Ferries deckhand. Watching the shorelines of the two islands alternately receding and approaching, he began to wonder what it would be like to swim the 2.3-kilometre crossing.
“I thought, ‘I could swim this.’ It was a bit of a joke at first, but one day I realized ‘I have to do it, just to prove to myself that I can,’” says Hason.
In 2018, Hason found three friends to join him, and a few more to travel alongside in boats. One summer day, they took the ferry from Denman to Buckley Bay, plunged into the chilly waters of Baynes Sound, and swam home.
Starting a tradition
Although they didn’t know it, this brave band of four was starting a tradition. “After the first swim, people asked us why we didn’t invite them [so] we started letting people know by social media,” says Hason. “Later that summer, we swam across Lambert Channel from Denman to Hornby—1.6 kilometres if you measure it directly, but about two kilometres of swimming because of tides and currents. The next year we switched directions, and we’ve done Hornby to Denman ever since.”
The “sister island swim,” as some locals call it, has taken place every year since then, and has evolved over time. The swim crew has grown steadily, although in 2020, during peak COVID, Hason chose not to advertise and kept the group small. In 2023, 27 people took to the waters, including a sizeable contingent from Hornby Island and a handful from Vancouver Island. Almost as many people accompany the swimmers in boats and kayaks and on stand-up paddleboards, providing safety and support. An even larger group waits on shore with food and drink, welcoming swimmers with applause as they emerge from the water.
“It’s not competitive,” says Hason. “Some people take two hours. The fastest time was 35 minutes. That’s part of why people hang out at the beach—to cheer on every swimmer when they arrive.”
The swim offers participants a unique experience of the place they call home, creating an intimacy with the ocean that no amount of ferry travel can replicate.
The beauty and challenges of the open ocean
“The feel of being out in open ocean is really profound,” says Hason. “Your body senses the depth. There are some really deep trenches. The channel is mostly about 100 feet deep and then it suddenly drops to 300 feet. I remember popping my head up and saying to the person in the kayak, ‘It just got weird. This must be the trench.’ It felt kinda like ‘this is where the monsters hide.’”
This intimacy gives modern residents a hint of what the relationship with the ocean might have been like for Indigenous people before colonization. Although there are no reports of swimming as a regular mode of transport, the ocean was the highway for the region’s original inhabitants, who travelled in hand-carved canoes.
Like paddlers, Island-to-island swimmers must contend with the vagaries of weather, tides, and currents; Hason schedules the swims during slack tides to ensure calm waters. But in 2023, despite his careful planning, an unexpected current came up, relentlessly pushing swimmers southward. The ferry had to alter its route to keep a safe distance. Denman Island swimmer Michael Rapati recalls, “At one point, after I’d been swimming against the current for 20 minutes, the person in the kayak near me said, ‘You know, you haven’t moved from this spot.’” Rapati eventually reached shore but, like many participants, landed well south of the official destination.
Hason will monitor currents more carefully in the future. Although the ocean’s unpredictability might add allure for some people, safety is paramount. Accessibility is also important. Swimmers’ ages range from 13 to over 70, and not everyone is an advanced swimmer, although a certain level of proficiency and strength is required.
“We have one person who generally dog paddles the whole way,” says Hason. “That’s hardcore!” Hason, who swam competitively throughout his childhood and teens, starts training for the swim each spring, doing laps in Denman’s lakes.
An inter-island connection
Beyond encouragement to stay fit, the swim offers a welcome opportunity for inter-island connection. “I like that this is something the two islands can do together,” says Hornby Islander Clare Rundall. “I used to stand on [Hornby’s] Shingle Spit and look out at Denman and think, ‘I’d like to swim there.’ This event gives me the opportunity to do that in a safe and really fun way.”
Swimming in the open ocean provides a primal satisfaction that’s hard to define. “We’re 90 per cent water. And we came from the ocean,” Rundall points out.
Hason also talks about the special joy brought by swimming from island to island: “I love stopping in the middle and hanging out for a while. I just float and gaze around at where I live and think how amazing that I get to do this. As a kid from the city who just swam laps in a pool, it’s awesome to think, ‘Hey, I swam from one place to another place.’”
