Tofino is a small town on the west coast of Vancouver
Island. It's roughly 2 hours from the closest ferry terminal
and is the Northern end of a long string of fantastic
beaches. I have visited a number of times - Tofino for May Long Weekend (2000),
Tofino as a couple (2006), Tofino for a wedding (2022)
and Tofino with my parents
(2023). My parents were visiting again this year and
we lucked out and managed to get a place to stay for the same time
my parents were there. A place like tofino has favorite
activities but there is enough depth that you can also try new
things on every visit.
Tidepools
Crystal Cove is on Mackenzie beach which is
book ended by a number of rocky headlands which is perfect for
looking in tide pools! As Tofino faces the Open Pacific, the
waves can be strong but I think the water also has more nutrients
and is colder. As the rocks rise out of the sandy beach, you
don't have to worry about standing on kelp or sea creatures to
look at what is on the rocks.
The tidepool community has a soft spot for Nudibranchs - often very
colourful sea slugs. Like most sea life, they don't like to be
out of the Ocean but some of them can be found on the higher
intertidal areas. This trip had a new species for me - the
Northern Leopard Dorid.
One of the
projects I've been working on is an underwater camera
enclosure. I made it out of PVC pipe and pipe fittings and it
is waterproof when you don't throw it against rocks and break
it. One of my adventures this time was to do time lapse videos
in the tide pools. This took a bit of insight - like a regular
camera you need to compose the shot and you need to pick the right
place without too much sand.
The kids quite enjoy the beach as well so a little later in the
morning they came out and explored as well.
Tofino has a Saturday morning market. It's mostly an artisan
market as the closest farms are probably in Port Alberni. One
kid brought his pet snake and was letting the other kids carry the
snake. Of course my kids wanted to get in on it.
Sunday (Day 2)
Our low
tide was in the mornings so we decided to go to Long Beach for a
walk. This is a very flat sand beach which makes for great
walks. We found parking (thanks to coming out early) and
went out for a walk to incinerator rock.
Ucluelet Aquarium
Ucluelet
has one of the nicest catch and releases aquariums I have ever
seen. They have a large number of small tanks where the
wildlife is flourishing. The scuba divers who bring the
animals in have a fantastic eye because they bring in animals that
are visually striking but not so reclusive as to be impossible to
see.
Sunday night, Nara and I drove to the top of Radar Hill to watch
sunset. Radar hill has a view North toward Tofino, but because
of intermediate mountains, you can't actually see Tofino from the
hill. You have a great view of the surrounding mountains
I enjoyed the sunset but to see what I want to see I really need
to do the Cox Bay Lookout trail before Sunset and walk down at
night. Maybe next trip.
Monday (Day 3)
I
have a lot of favorites around Tofino, but there are are still
gems to be found. First time, I went to Tonquin beach early
in the morning with my mom. There is a small parking lot
(which was empty) and a short walk through the forest to get to
the beach.
The trail is mostly boardwalk because the soils here are
thin and full of roots from giant trees. The community has
spent a lot of money building this infrastructure and they pay off
is immense.
We arrives on the beach when the morning fog was just burning
off. For and forests combine really well because the fog
allows you to figure out depth and consequently scale. Marine
fog can sock you in all day, but this morning it burned off quickly
to reveal a nice blue sky.
Tonquin beach has some nice rocks rising out of the sand and sea
urchines use the space as a home.
Pretty soon it was time to go back.
Kwisitis Visitor Centre, Sand Dune Walk
Because
of the US situation, the government of Canada made all of the
National Parks free this year. For Pacific Rim National Park
(between Tofino and Ucluelet) has small parking lots that are always
full and then a few other destination that don't get enough
tourists. The Visitor center is an example of the underused
resources. They have a number of dioramas showing the sea life
and life in the forests in the parks.
One of the exhibits was sand dune life. A region just down the
beach from the visitor center was recently cleaned of invasive
species. We decided to walk down the beach to take a look.
Sure
enough, there was a section of beach sand then went into the
forest. The sand had a variety of plants colonizing the open
spaces. You can see some of these plants in Vancouver (Iona Beach) or the
Gulf Islands (Sidney
Spit).
While they look similar, being this far north, there are some
differences. They Yellow Sand Verbena comes in a Pink version
that I haven't seen before, but I couldn't find any here.
Another reason to come back next time.
Another Long Weekend in Paradise
