The Seattle Times: Travels with Brian

Last words and Tofino tips

Mon, 29 Jun 2009 16:07:08 PDT

We left Tofino on a morning when the rain wasn't pelting down; it was more a really penetrating mist that left you soaked and soggy like a cookie that broke off in the milk. It made it a little easier to head home, though we wished for another beachcombing walk among the driftwood and the shells.

Last thoughts, and a few words on costs:

A mussel shell on driftwood at Wickaninnish Beach.

Woof, woof, wolf, wolf

Mon, 29 Jun 2009 10:06:05 PDT

TOFINO, B.C. -- Watch for wolves? Are they kidding?

Around this busy summer tourist destination, where packs of rental RVs roam like hungry predators searching for empty campsites?

No kidding.

Signs posted at the beach access trail at Wickaninnish Interpretive
Centre in Pacific Rim National Park Reserve warn of wolves and bears.

A cultural adventure for next time

Sun, 28 Jun 2009 10:01:05 PDT

TOFINO, B.C. -- Clayoquot, as in Clayoquot Sound, was an Anglicized spelling of the name of the Tla-o-qui-aht First Nations people, a branch of the Nuu-chah-nulth (formerly Nootka) tribe. ("First Nations" is a term used for native people of Canada.)

Visitors to Tofino can look across the harbor to see the Tla-o-qui-ahts' tribal village, Opitsat, on wild Meares Island, a site believed to have been occupied for at least 3,000 years. The Tla-o-qui-ahts played a major role in blocking the logging of Meares Island when the chief declared the island a Tribal Park in the 1980s.

Getting tuned into that native culture is a good way to get the full flavor of this place.

Fishing boats set out in the morning across Tofino Inlet, with Lone
Cone Mountain and the tribal village of Opitsat in the distance.

Hostel with a view in Tofino

Sat, 27 Jun 2009 17:42:05 PDT

TOFINO, B.C. -- Some people say Tofino's Hostelling International hostel, Whalers on the Point Guesthouse, is more like a resort hotel than a hostel. Um, I wouldn't go nearly that far, but it's a pretty nice, lodgelike building, on the waterfront within a few minutes' walk of everything in town.

It won an award for "Best Canadian Hostel" in 2001, but a lot of backpacks have been dragged up the stairs since then. The wear and tear shows.

There's more than one hostel in Tofino, but only
Whalers on the Point is affiliated with
Hostelling International, the leader in the field.

Kayaking to the big trees of Meares Island

Sat, 27 Jun 2009 07:20:41 PDT

TOFINO, B.C. -- Two days ago it was pouring rain here hard enough to worry Noah. Yesterday afternoon it was blowing like stink, with whitecaps marching across Tofino Harbor. And today, when we set out kayaking on Clayoquot Sound, it was bluebird skies, light breezes and flat water.

That just about sums up the predictability of weather here on this ragged edge of the continent. You book your trip and you take your chance.

And sometimes you luck out, I thought, as Lilli and I worked our paddles like syncopated butterfly wings and pointed the bow of our double-seater sea kayak toward the giant trees of Meares Island, a place famous in the recent annals of British Columbia timber wars.

Clayoquot is pronounced "CLAY-kwat" by the locals.

Potato Chip diplomacy

Fri, 26 Jun 2009 17:01:05 PDT

Lilli here:

Over the years, I've eaten all manner of bizarre snacks, partly due to travel and partly due to "Someone Let Papa Go Shopping Alone" syndrome. (You never know what he'll bring home.) Today, I was in for a combo of the two. I let him go into the Save-On-Foods store by himself, and he came back with a big bag of Old Dutch All-Dressed potato chips.

Brian:

In my defense, I have to ask: How else are you going to stretch your palate if you don't try new things when you travel? And it's double the fun when you have no idea what you're buying.

On the road to Tofino

Fri, 26 Jun 2009 12:01:04 PDT

Here are Lilli's notes from the long and winding road to Tofino:

-- We stopped to walk through Cathedral Grove, a grove of old-growth Douglas firs in MacMillan Provincial Park. The largest was more than 800 years old, and we debated whether that could be termed the early phases of the Renaissance or not (hey, I took European History way back when I was a sophomore, which feels like at least 800 years ago!).

Visitors try in vain to wrap themselves
around a Douglas fir in the Cathedral Grove.

Wild Pacific Trail is wild and wonderful

Tue, 30 Jun 2009 09:52:04 PDT

UCLUELET, B.C. -- Our first encounter with the Pacific Ocean on this trip couldn't have been better, thanks to a bunch of people we don't know and never heard of, but who deserve their praises sung to the highest hills of Vancouver Island.

They are the members of the nonprofit, all-volunteer Wild PacificTrail Society, who have created a wonderfully accessible and well-designed trail that puts visitors close enough to this rugged and surf-splashed coastline to get saltwater in their eye.

Before the road's end in Tofino, we took a short detour south to Ucluelet because we'd heard about this new trail -- still a work in progress -- and let me tell you why we were glad we did.

Barkley Sound and the Broken Islands as seen from the Wild Pacific Trail.

Goats on the roof

Thu, 25 Jun 2009 17:31:04 PDT

COOMBS, B.C. -- I've seen a lot of gimmicks to get tourists to pull off the highway. Wall Drug has billboards all over the midwest. Lots of places have giant figures of something (often a local agricultural product, such as the giant artichoke we saw in Castroville, Calif., or the giant pineapple we climbed to the top of in Australia). Just up the road from Nanaimo today, a gas station had a giant gnome (which is an oxymoron, but then so are a lot of tourists).

But I've never seen goats on the roof. Or realized what an effective tourism gimmick they would be.

A young visitor shoots a photo of goats on the roof of the Old Country
Market in Coombs, B.C., along the highway to Port Alberni and Tofino.

A pretty river runs through it

Thu, 25 Jun 2009 11:31:05 PDT

We woke up to the ping-splat, dribble, ping-splat, dribble of driving rain outside our Nanaimo hostel window, the first real downpour of the trip.

And it would come on the day we planned to go camping on the coast.

With a daughter coughing from a chest cold, I quickly changed plans, extended our stay by a night, and found a good diversion: a quick and easy hike to gorgeous Englishman River Falls.

The sun peeked through the drizzle
as we looked down the pretty canyon of the
Englishman River, northwest of Nanaimo.

Rants and raves on the hostel circuit

Wed, 24 Jun 2009 22:48:05 PDT

A gold star goes to Nanaimo's Painted Turtle Guesthouse for the foosball game next to the kitchen, handy for deciding who has to do dishes.

A mildewed dishrag gets thrown at the fellow hostel guest wearing American flag pajama bottoms (in a size that would accommodate several more states) and parading about the guest lounge in them while talking loudly on his cellphone.

Adrian, left, and Mary Stone of Wales play foosball at the Nanaimo hostel.

A gold star to the inventors of those plug-in kettles, found in every hostel, that boil water in a flash when you really need a cup of hot tea after an exhausting day of tourism (though one does yearn for the higher voltage of the U.K., where water boils faster than you can say "pip pip and gorblimey").

Lilli throws a mildewed dishrag at hostel bunkbed designers who provide no safe or easy way to get into the top bunk -- and fires special evil death rays at the creator of the ladder with narrow metal rungs that disfigure your feet every time you climb up to bed.

A gold star to the local busker violinist who plays Vivaldi and other favorites each evening within earshot of our open window in Nanaimo.

Readers: Got any to add to the list?

Here's a map of our trip

Wed, 24 Jun 2009 17:00:16 PDT

It never hurts to look at a map:

They say "The Dock" rocks (but bring your ID)

Wed, 24 Jun 2009 15:01:04 PDT

Nanaimo has some unique attractions, including its pair of interesting islands in the bay, both easily reached by water taxis. One, Newcastle Island, is a provincial park with camping and hiking. The other, Protection Island, is residential, home to about 300 people as well as the popular Dinghy Dock Pub, where we had dinner.

The Protection Connection water taxi does the 5-minute run between
Protection Island and the Nanaimo waterfront. Carol Pucci photo.

The zen of bungy jumping (and zipless zip lining)

Wed, 24 Jun 2009 02:02:32 PDT

Nanaimo isn't a huge magnet for travelers. The downtown is an interesting village of winding hillside streets, and there are some good restaurants (we liked Aladdin's Cafe, with Lebanese and Greek food) and galleries. A modern marina and wharfside shopping complex is a little sterile for our tastes, but it depends on what you like.

It's slow, but not so boring as to make me want to jump off a bridge. Should I change my mind, though, a bungy jumping park called WildPlay is just out of town. That's where we went today.

The dopey-Canadian-icons-we-love photo album (with celebrity spokesmodel)

Tue, 23 Jun 2009 12:01:13 PDT

Here's an entry from Lilli:

Never let it be said that I have not suffered for my art.

OK, maybe posing in front of dopey Canadian icons isn't quite an art form, but it sounds better than "I have suffered for the sake of patriotic gimmicks." Besides, I was putting real effort into my modeling. I think I was really getting close to answering that age-old question: "How does a giant hockey stick feel?"