Tofino

By Julian Worker on August 3, 2024

This excerpt is taken from my new e-book

On Foot : Islands of British Columbia and the Sunshine Coast

The waves have come a long way when they hit the beaches on the west side of the Tofino peninsula. The view north from the town is of forests and mountains with, in the foreground, Meares Island and Vargas Island. To the northwest and west are the smaller Clayoquot Island and Wickaninnish Island. There is a lot of nature here.

Meares Island was the site of the 1984 Clayoquot Sound anti-logging protest and as a result there are many old trees on this island including a 1,500-year-old tree called the Hanging Garden which can be seen on the Big Tree Trail. Another trail, the Lone Cone Trail leads to the highest point on the island.

Tofino is not large, I was expecting somewhere bigger, but then I read there are only just over 1,900 permanent residents. There are no high-rise buildings and no franchises of North American fast-food restaurants or coffee shops, not even on the outskirts like there are at Campbell River. The only place that could be classified as a mall is the Beaches Shopping Centre about two miles out of town close to the entrance to the Wickaninnish Inn. At the Beaches, all the stores are independent businesses including cafes, bakeries, and places hiring bicycles and surfing items. Chesterman Beach is about three hundred yards away on the other side of the road and Long Beach is further out of town just past the tourist centre. These two beaches are where most surfers congregate.

The most famous trail in the town of Tofino is the Tonquin Trail through the trees to Tonquin Beach via a sturdy set of stairs down to the sand. This is the place to come for a beautiful sunset. The trail continues to Third Beach and Middle Beach.

The Tofino Brewing Company on Industrial Way is about a mile out of town. Their tasting room is normally open 7 days a week and they have a broad selection of beers to choose from. You can select a flight of different ales i.e. samples of more than one beer, a pint of one particular beer - I had the Kelp Stout made using locally foraged seaweed - or you can choose to take away some beer in cans or fill up a growler, a large glass bottle holding around two litres. There is a larger patio out front, indoor tables, a smaller patio at the back or you can choose to sit at the bar and have a close view of the polished metal vats.

Tofino is well known in British Columbia for the quality of its food. All of the places I ate including The Shed and Sobo (short for SOphisticated BOhemian) served wonderful salads and pizzas accompanied by either local beer or fresh fruit juice.

In Tofino are two galleries featuring First Nations Art. The first place is the House of Himwitsa where visitors can view masks, carvings, and jewellery. This gallery is owned and operated by First Nations members and specializes in fair-trade First Nations artwork handcrafted by local native artists. The name "Himwitsa" is derived from the Nuu Chah Nulth language and translates as "Story-telling and the passing of knowledge from Elder to Youth." The second gallery is the Eagle Aerie Gallery that showcases the talents of Roy Henry Vickers, a world-renowned Canadian First Nations artist who began his career as a print maker. He built the gallery in the longhouse style in 1986. People travel long distances to inspect his creations, ranging from limited edition prints to his original paintings.

Tofino Botanical Gardens cover twelve acres and comprise gardens, walks through the old growth forest, and views of the Tofino Mudflats Wildlife Management Area, a protected area of around two thousand hectares. Highlights in the garden include the medicinal herb garden, the Frog Pond, and the Chilean plant garden. The Rhododendrons in the garden are from the Pacific Rim nations.

A boardwalk takes visitors through the forest towards the shoreline and a view towards Raccoon Island, an island at high tide but not at low tide. This is original old-growth forest and even when it is pouring up above it is amazing how much of the rain is deflected by the canopy and soaked up by the mosses and lichens. Other highlights include a Nuu-Chah-Nulth cedar canoe carved from a single log although the bow and stern pieces were added afterwards and a gazebo that seems to have come from Hobbiton.

In Tofino itself I found two churches, the Tofino Clayoquot Heritage Museum, and many cafes. In particular I enjoyed the Float 'Em Garden, an outdoor public art installation comprising eleven individual assemblages made entirely from marine debris, created by Pete Clarkson. He has been creating his unique marine debris art since 2000 and in this installation the debris carries its own message - there is no longer an 'away' for us when we throw things away as the ocean is downstream of everything. In many towns, the area occupied by the Float 'Em Garden would have been used for a car park or would have been built on, but not in Tofino!