Here’s a wet and wild winter option to languishing on a tropical beach, swatting golf balls on a palm-studded course, cruising calm seas on a big ship or even skiing through down-soft powder snow. If you lust for a combination of excitement and raw natural beauty, think about heading into the teeth of wild winter weather. For a growing cadre of
stormwatchers, nothing but nothing beats the Pacific Coast of
Vancouver Island off mainland
British Columbia's coast.
There you will find the only stretch of the island’s central coastline with a year-round paved road. Between forested mountains and lakes to the northeast and the Pacific Ocean to the southwest stretches a sliver of
Pacific Rim National Park Preserve, known for its fine-sand beaches, rocky headlands embracing scenic bays and coves, and rainforest hiking trails cut through thick old-growth red cedar and Western hemlock.
The
Pacific Rim Highway, a two-laner flanked by these towering, moss-draped trees, runs right through the park with
Tofino on one end and
Ucluelet on the other. These funky hamlets just 25 miles apart enjoy some of western Canada’s mildest winter temperatures and experience some of its heaviest rainfalls and most potent storms. What the 3,000 or so locals endure has made these towns meccas for winter stormwatchers, who treasure this dramatic and remote area to watch Pacific storms roll in with power, fury and wild beauty.
More than 130 inches of average annual rain falls on this part of Vancouver Island, which is nicknamed the Rain Coast. Of that, 20 inches can pour from the skies in a single storm. Even in relatively tranquil periods between storms, impressive swells roll onto shore, crashing against rocky headlands, sliding over the wide beaches, littering the white sand with whiter oyster and clam shells, fringing the tideline with seaweed and rearranging the driftwood.
Eight-foot waves are not uncommon. Add wind and rising tides, and when all the elements of waves and weather converge to create the proverbial perfect storm, waves have been known to crest to 30 or 40 feet, occasionally more. Driftwood isn’t limited diminutive sticks and ordinary-size logs, but includes enormous tree trunks cast upon the beaches and piled into bayheads like spilled toothpicks. Beneath the turbulent waves lie nearly 250 shipwrecks, sunk over two centuries, in the so-called "Graveyard of the Pacific."
A dozen significant tempests, give or take, hit this coastline each month during storm season, which kicks off in late October or early November and shifts into high gear in January and February. In midwinter, you’ll see curtains of rain, buckets of rain, horizontal sheets of rain, sprays of rain shooting through the salt-kissed air – but rarely snow. It is improbably romantic, whether you prefer to share the raw and invigorating experience of the outdoors, protected by fetching fishermen’s slickers that lodges lend to guests, or to snuggle in the warm, dry coziness of one of the handful of inns and lodges that remain open. Even from indoor comfort, you will be mesmerized as wave after wave washes up on the beach below, crashes onto a nearby cliff, and sprays your double-paned window. You might also luck upon nature’s light show from a winter electrical storm.
During low tides and calm periods, there’s nothing finer than an invigorating walk, either on a trail or directly along the shore. Step onto a beach as the tide goes out and gaze out at the restless sea and down by your feet to examine what the water has deposited on the sand. Still, it is imperative to keep a cautious eye for changing weather, and retreat when the ride begins to change. Beaches can be especially hazardous during a true winter storm, when massive drift logs ride the waves and jumble onto land and pile up like Brobdinagian Pick-Up Sticks. Except during the most potent storms, when hoteliers and innkeepers caution guests to stay inside, you can don heavy-duty raingear and venture out into the weather, staying on marked trails and staying off wet rocks.
The best stormwatching spots include designated safe areas along the well-named Wild Pacific Trail that snakes along the top of sea cliffs and Big Beach, a relatively sheltered, horseshoe-shaped strand near Ucluelet. Radar Hill, crowned by remnants of a long-abandoned World War II installation at nearly 500 feet above sea level, provides a stunning panorama of coves, bays, breakers and clouds but can be terribly windy during a howling storm. Perhaps best of all is the Amphitrite Point Lighthouse overlooking with views of Barkley Sound, Broken Group Islands and the open sea. The operating Canadian Coast Guard Station (below), a squat, square signal structure, is a coastal a landmark at the tip of the peninsula below Ucluelet.
In late February and early March,
gray whales begin migrating northward along the coast, and stormwatchers begin to give way to whale watchers. An estimated 20,000 gray whales – the entire North American population of this awesome species – pass close by on their 5,000-nautical-mile journey from mating and calving lagoons of the Sea of Cortes between the Mexican mainland and Baja California, to their summer feeding grounds in the Bering and Chukchi Seas. That’s one heck of a commute – and it happens just off-shore of Vancouver Island. Most grays are gone by May, but some spend the entire in
Clayoquot Sound, a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve just northwest of Tofino.
The rocky headlands jutting out toward the sea offer fine vantage points for spotting these splendid marine mammals, and during the
Pacific Rim Whale Festival (Mar. 14-22, 2009), free public viewing stations are set up at Amphitrite Point Lighthouse, and charter boat and floatplane operators from
Ucluelet and Tofino begin their season. The festival features 70 events, ranging from a seafood chowder cook-off to an art show.
Wildlife viewing is not restricted to whales. Bald eagles overwintering in this area can often be spotted in sheltered harbors, where they perch on trees or pier pilings in the harbor. The region’s black bears do not go into deep hibernation, so it is not uncommon to see bears even in the wettest weather. By March, you can often spot a bruin or two on skunk cabbage growing in roadside ditches or marshy areas.
Tofino was a fishing town, while Ucluelet’s economy was once based on logging. First Vietnam-era war protestors and later eco-activists added a layer of idealism to the pragmatic working-class popular, which still is only about 3,000 people spread between the two towns. Local business signs now indicate such enterprises as “Massage therapy,” “art gallery,” “fishing charters” and “whale watching trips” now form the base of the local economy.
These days, the economy is tourism-based. Of the several properties that stay open in winter especially for storm-watching and whale-migration season, the first among equals is the Wickaninnish Inn (above), an upscale Relais & Chateaux property that offers a polished version of down-home hospitality. In December, rooms starting at $200 a night -- less than half of summer season rates when there's much less excitement. With a first-rate restaurant and on-site spa, the inn's early storm-season pricing fits into the "affordable luxury" category. It closes Jan. 2-8 before reopening for high storm-watching season, when room rates are $100 or more higher per night. The reservations number is 800-333-4604.
