In the late 1950's Bob Stewart and Dick Blewett decided to go into the steelhead-guiding business together on the Dean River. Bob had established a successful trout fishing lodge at Nimpo Lake in 1952 and the Stewart family moved to Bella Coola when the road between Bella Coola and Williams Lake was opened in 1953.
Dick Blewett was instrumental in developing the Dean River steelhead sport fishery. He worked out run timing, extent of steelhead migrations through the Dean River system, and developed the commercial potential of the steelhead sport fishery.
After spending his first summer with Al Elsey, Dick decided to stay in Bella Coola. Initially he lived with the Bob Stewart family. In the fall of 1958 he worked with Al Elsey and Ken Stranaghan guiding grizzly-bear hunters. This is where he first gained his knowledge of bear guiding; Dick went on to become a recognized world-class grizzly bear guide, hunting largely in the Owikeeno Lake country.
In 1959 Dick worked for Bob Stewart and the following year Dick Poet arrived on the scene. Dick Poet was a first-class 'crop-duster' from Oregon, and was the husband of Bob Stewart's cousin Helen Poet. Dick Poet came up with a Cessna 180 float plane. This was to be the humble beginning of 'Wilderness Airlines'. Dick Poet died tragically in 1964 in an airplane crash.
A partnership developed between Bob and Dick. Bob continued to operate his Nimpo Lake resort, but Dick and Bob became partners in the outlying camps and Dick Poet did all the flying. As Dick was a good carpenter he did most of the construction of the fly-in fish camps on the numerous lakes surrounding Nimpo Lake.
In 1960 Dick flew into the Dean River twice, and did two exploratory trips lasting ten days each. He set up a tent-camp in 1961, approximately nine miles from the river mouth. The site was chosen because a float plane could be landed safely there. (Robbie Stewart, son of Bob Stewart, currently operates a fishing camp at this site on the Lower Dean River). Over the next four years Dick's energies were focussed on establishing his camp, learning the Dean River and the characteristics of its summer steelhead run.
Lee Richardson describes Blewett's early steelhead camp on the Dean and the trip in and out with Dick Poet's Cessna 180: "In the late fifties Poet figured out a way to land his float plane on a stretch of river three miles above the canyon. Here in a grove of cedars they set up a camp of sorts, built boats capable of running the wild water, equipped them with jet engines, trained men to operate them, and, when the word got out, started a rush comparable to the one on 1898, but for a different commodity.
"Though setting the aircraft down against the current of the river presented no particular problem, getting off again was a horse of another color. The strong down-stream thrust of the river had to be contended with. And once the craft was airborne, a dog-leg and a great many tall tress somehow had to be surmounted; the granite walls on either side of the river left no route of escape in event of any emergency. Most sane people took a rather dim view of this sort of Russian roulette, and those who risked it did so but once. But steelheaders, by no stretch of the imagination can be considered sane people, as many a long-suffering wife can testify; those wives, indisposed to suffer at home went along with their menfolk, if for no other reason than to have something to talk about when they got back.
"For obvious reasons only one passenger could be flown out at a time, baggage to come after, if at all. When it was time for takeoff, lines were made fast to the aircraft, and all bands on the ground held the plane back in the manner of a human catapult while the pilot revved up the motor. At a given signal everyone let go (sometimes in more ways than one), and away went the tortured craft. Inside the cabin, prayer book in hand, the wretched passenger was wondering how the hell he got into this mess, while those left behind were reciting the Lord's Prayer and contemplating how the scene would look with a steelheader splattered all over the trees. It was almost enough to make a man give up steelheading. But not quite."
When Dick Blewett first started his guiding service, there were no logging roads into the watershed. What couldn't be flown into the camp had to be packed in. Dick had to take all the equipment, building materials, and even driftboats and their motors by hand above the canyon! In the winter of 1963 and spring of 1964 logging roads extended above the canyon to the vicinity of Blewett's camp. This made the transportation of goods to their camps much easier.
Dick Blewett is famous for drifting practically the entire Dean River from Anahim Lake. He is one of the few, if not the only man, to have successfully drifted through the lower Dean River Canyon, a feat which he accomplished in 1950.
The tale of Dick's famous run is outlined in Trey Comb's book Steelhead Fly Fishing.: "I hiked out onto the bridge, looked down into the upwelling of lethal hydraulics, and experienced a rush of giddiness. No passage remotely existed for even the most nimble of boatmen. How had Blewett done it? Twenty-five years before no roads existed, and transporting gear and supplies to the lower river was overland and back-breaking. One day, disgusted with this prospect, Dick Blewett stuffed air mattresses into his rubber raft to provide back-up flotation, and dropped down into the chasm. This was no glory ride at any cost, but an effort to master this section of river in late summer's low water and connect his lodge enterprise to the lower river.
'I had barely started when the rocks broke both my oars in half,' he told me. 'From then on I kept pushing myself off with a pole.' Dick chuckled at the memory, and was mildly incensed when I told him I'd heard the run nearly killed him. No one ever tried this again, and Blewett's experience is the most enduring of local tales."
Business was good despite the fact Dick Blewett and Bob Stewart never advertised for clients.
While developing a steelhead guiding business on the Dean, Dick Blewett employed Robbie Stewart (Bob Stewart's son), and Darryl Hodson. Both men eventually established their own successful steelhead camps on the Dean. Robbie first worked on the Dean in 1962, and by 1965 was guiding clients for Dick. He eventually took over Dick Blewett's share of the Dean River Steelhead guiding business in 1973, but that's another story.
When Dick sold his share of the Dean River steelhead guiding business, he said he was "fed up dealing with Fish and Wildlife officials." Some of this conflict appears to have arisen when he set up a helicopter camp some 40 miles up the Dean River, a few miles below Salmon House Falls. Provincial Fish and Wildlife official shut it down in 1970 to provide a 'sanctuary' for spawning summer run steelhead.
Dick was also uncertain about the future potential of the Dean. From 1960 to 1966 the weather was quite warm, and when it is hot the Dean becomes quite colored with glacial silt. Fishing can be poor at these times. As well, a Kemano II dam project was threatening to destroy the Dean River steelhead fishery. This project (sine abandoned) proposed to divert part of the Dean River flow north into the Nechako Reservoir. The project would have flooded a substantial area of timber and changed the hydrology of the Dean River. In response to the Kemano II project proposal, Dick Blewett hired a young fellow named Dennis Hemus to conduct a proper scientific study on Dean River summer-steelhead biology and run characteristics. After initial resistance from Fish and Wildlife, the study was conducted. The Kemano Project was put on hold. Dennis stayed around the Bella Coola Valley for a few years, did some guiding on the Bella Coola River, and eventually established a successful ocean guiding business off the Queen Charlottes.
After leaving the Dean River, Dick Blewett developed a Charter Boat Business to take fishermen out from Namu to catch salmon and halibut. He also developed a successful grizzly bear guiding operation in the Owikeeno Lake area. He spent time exploring rivers throughout the Central Coast but never found another steelhead river that could match the Dean. His sons Mike and Billy Blewett both carry on the Dean River tradition. Both are employed as guides for Robbie Stewart, and both are excellent fly-fishermen.
(Editor’s Note: Harvey Thommasen is co-author of River of the Angry Moon, a natural history of the Bella Coola River. Working as a medical doctor in Bella Coola, he has become an expert on the area’s natural - and human - history.)
