Changelog

The tide note guessed the direction. Yesterday's sheet told a reader to expect the tide at China Creek later than the printed Port Alberni times. Nobody measured that, and the physics runs the other way first: the wave reaches the down-inlet end before it reaches the gauge at the head of the inlet. Slack water is a different event from high water in an inlet this long, so the current can turn well after the crest has already gone past. Direction unproven, size unmeasured. The note now says that, and the ask at the bottom asks both halves: how many minutes apart, and which turn comes first.

Which current tables cover this water. Canada's current tables for this coast (Canadian Tide and Current Tables, Volume 6, 2026 edition) predict the tide at Port Alberni on pages 40–43. The same volume lists eleven current stations: Beazley Passage, Hole in the Wall, Gillard Passage, Arran Rapids, Seymour Narrows, Johnstone Strait Central, Blackney Passage, Weyenton Passage, Nakwakto Rapids, Quatsino Narrows, Scott Channel. None of them is in Alberni Inlet. The rise and fall here is predicted. The turn is not. That is why the question at the bottom of the sheet is aimed at a person who keeps a boat there.

Read in full, not at abstract level. Stronach, Ng, Foreman & Murty, “Tides and currents in Barkley Sound and Alberni Inlet”, Marine Geodesy 16(1), 1–41 (1993), doi 10.1080/15210609309379675. GF8, the three-dimensional baroclinic model, restricted to a single layer without density effects, 400 m grid, boundaries taken from Foreman and Walters’ finite-element model of the west coast of Vancouver Island. Elevations came out in close agreement with observations. The currents were checked against one current meter, in Imperial Eagle Channel, and the authors say plainly the diurnal tide there is mostly baroclinic, so agreement at that frequency was “neither expected nor achieved.” A copy of the paper was put in front of me; it is not hosted here.

On which end of the inlet the tide reaches first, the paper says this: “Within Alberni Inlet, the model indicates that amplitude and phase increase toward the head of the Inlet” (p. 26). Phase increasing toward the head is the crest arriving later at Port Alberni than down-inlet — which is the direction the sheet was corrected to. But the next sentence is the honest part: “This behavior is not strictly borne out in the observations,” and the authors put that down to measurement error rather than to a problem with the model. So a published model points one way, the observations that exist do not confirm it, and nothing in the paper gives a time for China Creek. The ask at the bottom of the sheet stands.

The turn is not the crest, and the paper shows why. In the inlet’s upper layer run, at low tide the barotropic current is already running toward the head while the upper layer current is still ebbing; on the flooding tide the upper layer current keeps ebbing (p. 32). Slack here is set by two layers, wind and the Somass pushing at the head, not by arithmetic on a wave. That is why no number from a frictionless trough goes on the sheet. There is no travel time, phase lag or slack time in minutes anywhere in the 41 pages.

The shallow-water baseline, for the record and not for the page: wave speed is the square root of gravity times depth, about 38 m/s in 150 m of water, which puts a crest roughly 6–7 minutes apart over 15 km of channel. That figure is a lower bound from a frictionless trough, not a measurement of this inlet, which is why no number goes on the sheet. The arithmetic is checkable; the answer still belongs to someone who keeps a boat there.

The residency rule was printed wider than DFO writes it. The page said a non-Canadian resident has to buy a tidal licence from a vendor in Canada, full stop. DFO's licensing page scopes that to halibut in Areas 121, 23 and 123. Everything else can be bought online through the National Recreational Licensing System. Narrowed to what the page says.

The buying rule was wrong, and it was mine, not the record's. The Sproat page said non-residents of Canada must buy a licence from a vendor in Canada. The province's own page (updated 22 Oct 2026) says the opposite: buy online in WILD or in person, no residency restriction, only a fee difference. Corrected on both reads, with the free FWID first, the angler numbers retired after 31 March 2026, and what you actually carry now on the page. The tidal licence below the Paper Mill Dam signs really is a separate federal licence, and that distinction is now printed instead of blurred.

A claim the page did not keep. The Sproat intro said every line carried a label, and two of them did not. They do now, and the claim is narrowed to what it can hold.

Kokanee were filed as a gap when only half of it was. The separate quota of 5 a day, none from streams, is printed in the synopsis. What nobody can tell me is whether Sproat holds a fishable population. The gap now covers only that half.

Boaters: since 17 May 2024 it is illegal in BC to move a boat with the drain plug in. Pull it and drain every compartment on dry land, at the Sproat launch and on the way home.

Named sources with named dates: regulations page updated 26 Aug 2026 (and its Region 1 in-season table, with no entry for Sproat Lake, Sproat River or Great Central Lake), licences page updated 22 Oct 2026, conservation surcharges page updated 1 Apr 2026, and the Region 1 section of the 2025–2027 synopsis.

The Great Central closure is a reach, not the lake: 1 Jan–30 Apr from the dam to the signs near the Ash Main bridge. The bait ban on the Sproat River is confirmed by both agencies, DFO's line covers salmon only, and the missing bait row for the lake is now marked as an inference rather than a permission.

"Sample reads" is gone from the site. These are reads, they are yours to keep, and the invitation at the bottom is to tell me what water you are headed for, not to buy something on the way in.

The intro contradicted the stocking section. It called Sproat a stocked cutthroat and rainbow water while the same page said no releases in five years. The stocking report now leads: the last trout planted in the lake was 2000.

The rainbow rule did not resolve. The page printed "no wild rainbow over 50 cm" next to a quota allowing one trout over 50 cm. The allowance only reaches a hatchery fish; nothing has been planted since 2000. The plain line is now on the page.

A source line named a document the page did not use. The footer credited DFO's salmon table while the page carried no salmon limits. The salmon position (zero in the lake, no retention in the river, both sourced) is now on the page and the line matches.

The river note had no dates and no home. The Sproat River is closed to all finfish 15 June to 15 November, which was the week the page was written. It now sits in its own section with both agencies' wording and a status as of the pull date.

The Great Central comparison was adjectives, not records. It is now a table: each lake's cutthroat rule, rainbow rule, gear rule, seasonal closure and newest release, side by side.

A fishing-behaviour claim had no source. "Boat traffic pushes fish deep" was printed as local knowledge. Local knowledge covers access and pressure; it does not cover what fish do under a wake. The claim is now a named gap.

The labels did not match the site. The page used "convention" where the rest of the site says "local", and printed an absence claim as sourced. Four labels now, used the same way everywhere: sourced, local, inferred, gap.

The stocking ledger in full: 30 provincial release records back to 1921, including Atlantic salmon from the Miramichi planted into Sproat Lake in 1921–1924, and the federal enhancement site still putting coho fry into the lake's tributaries after the province stopped planting the lake.

Access and safety: the park launch on the north shore, the pull-offs along Highway 4, two campgrounds, no lifeguards, ski and windsurf traffic, no motorized access on trails or in the day-use area.

Licensing for a lake: freshwater licence tiers and fees, no stamp for trout, and the steelhead stamp rule for anyone working the tributaries.

The red "do not fish from it" correction banner, and the page's argument with its own earlier draft.

The steelhead conservation stamp was missing. BC requires it to fish for steelhead anywhere in the province, keep or release, resident and non-resident, $28.57 / $68.57. A reader could have fished legally-licensed and still been short a stamp. Added to the licensing block.

The closure count was wrong. The page said four sections were closed. Two were live on the pull date and the other two had not opened or had already reopened. Each row now carries its own status against the as-of date.

Stocking was overstated. The page said the Stamp is planted in millions. Across nine DFO post-season reports, 2014–2022, exactly one row names the Stamp as a release site (2020 brood coho, 179,630 smolts). The provincial report shows no releases in five years. Both are now stated as the record, and neither is presented as the whole answer.

The boating rule was printed in halves that contradict each other. BC Parks writes both "do not boat above the waterfalls" and "a boat pull-out is available approximately 500 m upstream of the falls" in one sentence. The contradiction is now shown as it stands, with the park named as the place to settle it.

Licensing block: freshwater licence tiers and fees, steelhead stamp, non-tidal salmon stamp, and DFO's note that tidal and non-tidal salmon stamps are not interchangeable.

The two "what you can keep" tables were merged into one, and the closed-sections table given a status column against the as-of date.

The page body no longer argues with earlier versions of itself. Rebuttals, correction notes and drafting asides moved here. Gaps are stated as facts about the record, in the reader's voice.

The "Rebuilt 24 October, corrected again 25 October" banner. The WILD licensing outage notice for Sunday 25 October, midnight to 5 am, which expired the same morning. The 650,000-range forecast figure: its source page no longer opens and a page that changes under you is a lead, not a citation.

Bait and roe. The page recommended roe inside a section where bait is banned. Bait rules are now stated as two zones against the boundary signs, above and below.

The closed stretch. The page described water closed 1–31 October as fishable. The section above the tidal boundary is now named as closed, with its own table.

Closure windows were printed without applying them to the pull date. Every row now carries its status.

Correction banner added. Bea's read found the same fault class as the Stamp: seasonal windows quoted without a status, and species lines that read as advice rather than rule. Full rewrite pending the same treatment as the Stamp.

Sockeye limit. The page read 2 a day. DFO's Area 23 row gives 4 a day inside Subarea 23-1. Corrected, with the two zero-limits printed beside it and the boundary line that separates them, because the zeros belong to San Mateo Bay and the inlet entrance, not to China Creek.

The map point was wrong. The page's coordinates sat about 4 km across the water on the far shore, so the wind reading was modelled over land. Point corrected; the wind is now labelled modelled, not measured.

Clutesi Marina's ramp closure was named on a page about China Creek's launch. It is not China Creek's launch. Removed and labelled.

All five Area 23 finfish restrictions, with DFO's own boundary wording and which side of each line the marina sits on. Licensing block, including DFO's rule that non-Canadian residents must buy a tidal licence from a vendor in Canada.

Environment Canada marine zone and alerts, printed from the source on the pull date. Tide turns labelled Port Alberni, with the ~9 km lag to China Creek named as a gap rather than smoothed.