Blog Archive Layout

Vancouver Island circle route: Drink in the wine, the scenery, the air

May 20 2012/in News Coverage

There is air, there is fresh air, and then there is the brisk, briny, oxygen-thick air that rides in on wild ocean waves.

That’s the air you’ll breathe when you round the tip of southern Vancouver Island and follow the Pacific Marine Circle Route. This 158-mile scenic drive begins in Victoria, hugs the western coastline to Port Renfrew, then travels across the island to Cowichan Bay before returning to B.C.’s capital.

You could drive it in a day, but don’t. Take time to enjoy the natural beauty, outdoor adventures and fine food and wine along the route. Consider these nine locations where Oregonians can, quite literally, come up for air. College scholarships for women

Capital start (Victoria)
Even before you’ve left Victoria’s burbs, the circle route’s attractions begin. Wildplay West Shore Victoria, seven miles from downtown, offers a treetop obstacle course featuring wobbly bridges, suspended rope swings, tightropes, ladders, cargo nets and other fun challenges. Two miles farther, on the grounds of Royal Roads University, is Hatley Park National Historic Site, a beautifully preserved Edwardian estate complete with castle.

Wildplay West Shore Victoria, 1767 Island Highway, wildplay.com. Hatley Park National Historic Site, 2005 Sooke Road, hatleypark.ca.

Ultra outdoors (East Sooke)
One moment you’re hiking the sea-sprayed shoreline, the next climbing bluffs covered with salal, kinnikinnick and Oregon grape, the next descending into ravines thick with Douglas fir and Sitka spruce. The six-mile Coast Trail in East Sooke Regional Park is considered one of Canada’s premier — and rugged — day hikes. Multiple access points make shorter walks possible.

View full size
For a screaming good time, try Adrena Line Zipline Adventure Tours’ eight-line forest canopy course. Toast your bravery post-tour with a shot of “Adrenaline” — cranberry juice, raspberry vodka and Sour Puss raspberry liqueur — at the 17 Mile Pub next door.

If lazing on sun-warmed rock is more your thing, visit Sooke Potholes Regional Park, where ice-age-carved canyons and polished rock pools (the “potholes”) offer clear, cold water for swimming.

East Sooke Regional Park, crd.bc.ca/parks/eastsooke. Adrena Line Zipline Adventure Tours, 5128C Sooke Road, adrenalinezip.com. Sooke Potholes Regional Park, https://www.crd.bc.ca/parks-recreation-culture/parks-trails/find-park-trail/sooke-potholes

Splurging and seaweed (Sooke)
“I want to immerse my guests in British Columbia — the food, the art, the scenery,” says Frederique Philip, owner, along with husband Sinclair, of the much-celebrated Sooke Harbour House. Spoil yourself with an oceanfront room including private fireplace and dinner in the award-winning restaurant, where the focus is on seafood, wine and local, organic ingredients including herbs, edible flowers and vegetables from the inn’s own gardens.

At low tide, take a tour of the ocean’s garden in front of the inn with Diane Bernard, aka “the Seaweed Lady.” On my two-hour tour, Bernard, who supplies chefs with edible seaweed and makes a line of seaweed-based skin care products called Seaflora, has our group taste different seaweed (surprisingly not gross) and rub the gel-like substance found on rockweed (a kind of marine aloe vera) on our skin.

Sooke Harbour House, 1528 Whiffen Spit Road, sookeharbourhouse.com. Seaflora wild seaweed tour, sea-flora.com.

Make a point (West Coast Road)
Bob Liptrot, owner of Tugwell Creek Honey Farm and Meadery, has been keeping bees for 50 years and making mead for his family for 35. Taste the results when you stop by (Wednesday to Sunday, April to October) for free samples.

There’s something intoxicating about a restaurant where binoculars are provided on each table. Point-No-Point Resort is the perfect stop for lunch (think creamy seafood chowder, cold smoked albacore tuna, seafood linguine) or, if a private cabin with no television, Internet or cellphone service appeals, a stay.

Tugwell Creek Farm and Meadery, 8750 West Coast Road, tugwellcreekfarm.com. Point-No-Point Resort, 10829 West Coast Road, pointnopointresort.com

Surf’s up (Jordan River)
Originally a logging camp, Jordan River is ground zero for surfers seeking ride-worthy waves. Looking for lunch? Locals recommend the laid-back Shells Fish and Chips.

Further on, popular China Beach, part of the Juan de Fuca Provincial Park, is a great place to see roaring surf and, if you’re lucky, whales, seals and sea lions. This is also the southern trailhead for the Juan de Fuca Marine Trail, a 29-mile route that rivals the West Coast Trail, with two significant differences: No reservations are required, and there are multiple access/bail-out points. Sombrio Beach, farther north, is another sweet surf spot.

Shells Fish and Chips, 11950 West Coast Road, Jordan River. Juan de Fuca Provincial Park, https://bcparks.ca/explore/parkpgs/juan_de_fuca/

Trails and fish tales (Port Renfrew)
It’s hard to tell who likes Port Renfrew more: the fishers who come to town to enjoy exceptional salmon and halibut fishing or the hikers who end (or begin) their epic treks on the Juan de Fuca or West Coast Trail.

At low tide, hike the 1.7-mile Botanical Loop to Botanical Beach to peer into rich tide pools filled with anemones, urchins, starfish and other colorful sea creatures. Reserve a cabin at the Port Renfrew Resort and join hungry hikers and fishers downing platters of fresh crab and pitchers of beer on the resort’s deck.

Port Renfrew, portrenfrewcommunity.com. Port Renfrew Resorts, 17310 Parkinson Road, portrenfrewresorts.com

Canada’s biggest trees (Avatar Grove)
They are spectacularly tall and wide and old. The western red cedars, Douglas firs and Sitka spruce trees of Avatar Grove, 20 minutes outside Port Renfrew, have become a magnet for big-tree tourists since being discovered in 2009 by TJ Watt, founder of the Ancient Forest Alliance.

Thanks to the alliance, Avatar Grove is now protected and mapped. But with no location signage and primitive trails, you’ll need a map (available on the alliance website) or, better yet, a guide, to find the giants. Watt is happy to lead groups to the most impressive trees, including, in his words, “Canada’s gnarliest.”

Keen for more? Detour off the circle route on poorly maintained gravel roads to see the Red Creek Fir (the world’s largest Douglas fir) and the San Juan Sitka spruce (Canada’s largest).

Ancient Forest Alliance, ancientforestalliance.org

Bountiful (Cowichan Valley)
The Cowichan Valley boasts Canada’s only maritime Mediterranean climate. No wonder the local farms and wineries produce such a mouth-watering bounty, including white asparagus, balsamic vinegar, organic greens, artisan cheeses (including water buffalo mozzarella), spirits and fine wines.

Make a reservation for lunch at Merridale Estate Cidery, where you can learn about cider- and spirit-making, then wash down tasty bistro offerings with a flight of six cider samplers.

Tourism Cowichan, https://www.tourismcowichan.com, Merridale Estate Cidery, 1230 Merridale Rd., https://www.merridale.ca

By the bay (Cowichan Bay)
Brightly painted clapboard buildings sit on stilts at the edge of the water in Cowichan Bay. Stroll the main (only) street and gather provisions for a hyper-local meal: fine artisan cheese from Hilary’s Cheese and Deli; a baguette made from locally grown and milled Red Fife wheat at True Grain Bread; spot prawns from Cowichan Bay Seafoods; and wild berry ice cream from the Udder Guy’s Ice Cream Parlour.

Check in to the Oceanfront Suites at Cowichan Bay, where every room has a kitchen. Slide open your oceanfront windows, lay out your bounty, uncork a bottle of local wine and make a toast — to fresh food, fresh adventures and fresh air.

Shops on Cowichan Bay Road: Hilary’s Cheese and Deli, True Grain Bread, truegrain.ca; Cowichan Bay Seafood, cowichanbayseafood.com; Udder Guy’s Ice Cream Parlour, udderguysicecream.com. Oceanfront Suites at Cowichan Bay, 1681 Cowichan Bay Rd., oceanfrontcowichanbay.com.

Map: https://www.hellobc.com/road-trips/pacific-marine-circle-route/

The Week, May 17

May 19 2012/in News Coverage

Paved with good intentions

Forest lovers take note: your explorations into B.C.’s wilderness could be easier than ever before, at least if those summer adventures take you to Avatar Grove. Now, a new boardwalk may guide your way.

For $100, you can sponsor the construction of a one-meter section of the kilometre-long boardwalk and trail in Port Renfrew proposed by the Ancient Forest Alliance for Avatar Grove. The alliance started lobbying for the path to protect surrounding wilderness after the province announced the grove would be protected in an Old-Growth Management Area last February, which prohibits logging and mining. Scholarships for veterans

The alliance says any amount will help, and hopes to have the walk completed before the summer tourism rush. More: ancientforestalliance.org.

Boardwalk sought for Avatar Grove

May 16 2012/in News Coverage

The Ancient Forest Alliance submitted a request to B.C.’s Ministry of Forests to build an official trail and boardwalk in the recently protected Avatar Grove near Port Renfrew on May 7.

TJ Watt, co-founder of the Ancient Forest Alliance, said the boardwalk will protect the ecological integrity of the grove, provide visitor safety and enable people from all walks of life to enjoy the old-growth forest.

“It makes the Grove more accessible to people of all ages, anyone from children to seniors should be able to come and experience the spectacular old-growth forests there,” he said, adding the construction of steps will help people navigate through the steeper slopes in the ancient forest.

In terms of ecological protection, the boardwalk will keep people off the ground, and off the roots of trees. It will also prevent tourists from stepping through wet areas which have a risk of becoming mud pits.

There is currently an unofficial, beaten trail created from the thousands of tourists who have trekked through the area in the last couple of years.

The environmental group is requesting to build an official boardwalk and steps in wet areas, steep areas and at the base of popular trees. The boardwalk and trail is estimated to stretch for approximately one kilometre between the upper and lower Avatar Groves.

In addition to a boardwalk, signage will also be erected to remind people to stay on official trails and pack out any garbage. Writing scholarships for creative students

The boardwalk will be engineered by experts to ensure it meets the safety standards of other popular ancient forest boardwalks on Crown land. The project is currently estimated to cost between $5,000 and $10,000.

According to Watt, Avatar Grove is one of the few remaining forests of its kind.

“The Avatar is a very unique area in one sense in that it’s very rare, low elevation valley bottom old growth forest,” Watt said. “On southern Vancouver Island we only have four per cent of valley bottom old growth forest left.” The rare ancient forest has attracted thousands of tourists to Port Renfrew since it’s introduction to the public two years ago.

“Since Avatar Grove was appropriately named and brought to our attention in the last couple of years, we’ve seen numbers climb, groups of tours going out in number of anywhere from 30-80 people at a time on any given day,” said Rose Betsworth, president of the Port Renfrew Chamber of Commerce.

Betsworth also stated that Avatar Grove is recognized as a precious resource for the Port Renfrew community.

“Forestry sees the value of the old trees when they’re harvested, we — in the tourism industry — see the financial benefits the living forests bring to our community.”

“We’re certainly the recipient of the tourist dollars right now because of Avatar, so it’s up to us to protect that asset,” she said, adding the boardwalk will prevent any further wear and tear to the ancient forest.

“The path is getting pretty beaten down, and subsidiary trails are being found, so ideally it’d be nice to have a boardwalk constructed to mitigate any further wear on the existing trail. And that way it allows us to have only one trail instead of having people trampling all through the entire forest.”

The Port Renfrew Chamber of Commerce submitted a letter to the ministry in support of the project.

Avatar Grove, which Watt discovered in 2009, was protected in February in a 59 hectare Old-Growth Management Area after two years of campaigning by the Ancient Forest Alliance and Port Renfrew Chamber of Commerce.

The project will be funded by donations, which can be made at https://staging.ancientforestalliance.org/avatar-grove-boardwalk-now-completed-and-open/. For $100 a one metre section of the boardwalk can be constructed.