Coastal Caper

Our coastal caper, as I’ve come to call the time we spend on Vancouver Island, is the perfect antidote to that parched feeling we always have come the end of August, when the hot, dry Okanagan summer has gone on for long enough. Too long, in fact. The warm, moist coastal air meets us just east of Hope and we immediately feel our pores open to take a big drink. Skin, hair, nails all slurp up the humidity of the rain forest as we move west, deeper into it. 

Rain greets us at the Coast Marina Hotel in Victoria. We walk anyway, heading downtown along the harbour. Past Fisherman’s Wharf. Then a few sunny days and walks around James Bay and the Dallas Road seaside sidewalk. The Kamloops Neville clan are in the city and we get together for a few dinners. Friend Murray shares a Greek meal with us at Ithaka.

We get full-on touristy and spend a morning at Butchart Gardens, a National  Historic Site. World renown for good reason, the grounds are landscaped and manicured to remarkable effect. Formerly the home of Robert & Jennie Butchart and their limestone quarry, the property is still in their heirs’ hands. Photos show it best. 

From the gardens it is a short drive to Brentwood Bay and the start of a tour around the Saanich Peninsula. The natural beauty of the coast with its inlets and beaches and views of nearby islands combined with the verdancy of the of the forest and gardens and the architecture of the housing make for an eye-dazzling meander. Again, photos show it best. 

Another day is spent driving west, through Sooke, to Port Renfrew, along the shore of the Salish Sea. More dazzling scenery. See the photos. 

Our most western destination is Ucluelet, to see friends living literally at the edge of Vancouver Island, on the wild North Pacific, just south of town. A blessed day of sun has us on rented e-bikes, pedalling along the ocean toward Tofino, getting as far as Long Beach. Round trip is about 44 kms. We’re warned to save power for the big hills on the way back. We all return the bikes with more than half the power remaining. Dang! We could have coasted more and worked less. Hate it when that happens. 

The next day is rainy, keeping some of us inside while others foolishly go for a wet hike. You’ll see what I mean in the photos. 

The final stage of our coastal caper takes us to an airbnb in Bowser. You’re forgive if you don’t know where that is, Bowser being a small settlement of fewer than 2,000 people, on the east coast of Vancouver Island, between Parksville & Comox. We are here to spend time with friends Sharon & Ray’s family, especially Max & Mila, their grandchildren, who, I might add, are lively and smart and fun.

We get the gift of a dry warm evening, which we spend on the beach, around a fire, making … you guessed it … s’mores.   

I forgot to mention that we start the trip in Vancouver, staying for a few days at an airbnb in Chinatown, right on the corner of Main & Keefer. A great location if you want to buy drugs from a woman who sets up a table in the alley next to the parking garage of the property.

The area sidewalks are covered in people and their belongings: tents, grocery carts, pallets, sleeping bags, lean-to hut-like structures … all of it a morass of humanity desperately hanging on to what appears to us as wholly destitute lives. It is awful beyond description. And no, I did not take photos. It’s called poverty tourism when you do. Very un-PC. Ok, I took one. From a distance.

We walk by people in various stages of unconsciousness. Many sitting with their torsos folded over their legs. Heads dangling. Paramedics administering Narcan. Aid workers on several corners. Police, fire and ambulance vehicles parked haphazardly. Sirens a near constant high-pitched whine. The music of the downtown eastside. The soundtrack of a tragedy.

If you live in Vancouver I challenge you to go down there yourselves. Have a look. Let me know what you think.  

Over the course of just two days in Vancouver we have lunches & dinners with friends and cousins and niece Jaclyn. Each has their own complaint about life in the city. Mostly it’s about traffic and parking and noise and violence. No surprises there. It takes an uncommonly beautiful place to attract a million plus inhabitants, given the inconveniences. And Vancouver is nothing if not beautiful. I snap a photo of the skyline from our China town balcony. And another from the ferry on our return trip from the island. 

We don’t stop in the city on our way home. Bad weather is forecast and we want to beat it. Coming down the connector into the Okanagan valley, we feel like we are coming home. Yes, it’s hot and dry. But two weeks in a pacific coast island rain forest is long enough. We will be back, most likely next September when we are once again weary of the hot, dry Okanagan summer. Fortunate to be able to spend time in both places.