This excerpt is taken from my new e-book
On Foot : Islands of British Columbia and the Sunshine Coast
I caught the bus to Ucluelet from Nanaimo via Port Alberni. Ucluelet is on the west coast of Vancouver Island, and sometimes people refer to the town as a blue-collar version of Tofino. There is a slight feeling of remoteness about Ucluelet. There is only one road over the central part of Vancouver Island from Port Alberni and this road is quite narrow in places, especially the section when it passes Kennedy Lake. When this road from Port Alberni comes to a junction it is left for Ucluelet and right for Tofino.
Ucluelet is on a peninsula, and I was never far from the Pacific Ocean. On the one side of the peninsula is the Aquarium and on the other, the Wild Pacific Trail. The centre of the town is on the sheltered side of the peninsula facing towards Vancouver Island. This is where the aquarium is located and where the buses from Nanaimo stop on their way to Tofino. The aquarium is in a large room on the edge of an inlet. This is Canada's only catch and release aquarium, so the fish and other marine life I saw will be back under the waves by the time you read this.
What struck me about the staff here was their enthusiasm for their aquarium and for the marine wildlife in their care. The information about the fish was superb, and the corals and anemones were bright and colourful. One tank showed a block of concrete that had been in the aquarium since 2012 and had not been under the sea in that time. It was unrecognisable, as a diverse range of marine flora now called it home. The staff renew the water in the tanks frequently by pumping in water from underneath the aquarium, and so there has been a constant supply of microorganisms in this water which have attached themselves to the concrete over the years and flourished.
The Ucluelet Aquarium is not just about marine flora and fauna. The aquarium takes part in several worthwhile projects, such as participating in a study to find out how radioactive the seas are around the aquarium. The leaking of the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant in Japan prompted this study. The Aquarium will sample local waters once a month to monitor radiation levels and contribute to this important study. Results and interpretation are available online via the Fukushima InForm website The Ucluelet Aquarium is part of several projects and initiatives aimed at educating the public about and reducing the impact of marine debris. When I visited, they were hosting an interactive marine debris art installation designed by local artists Pete Clarkson and Dan Law.
Outside the aquarium is a naval gun called the Thiepval cannon. In 1962, divers rescued this cannon from the wreck of HMCS Thiepval, which had sunk nearby in 1930 after striking an uncharted rock. HMCS Thiepval was one of twelve Battle-class naval trawlers used by the Royal Canadian Navy (RCN) and named after WWI battlefields. After seeing service on Canada's east coast at the end of the First World War, Thiepval transferred to the west coast where she spent the rest of her career. Thiepval's duties included taking part in winter-time search and rescue patrols off the west coast of Vancouver Island, started by the RCN after the First World War. These patrols were a response to the dangerous waters here, considered part of the Graveyard of the Pacific. Besides search and rescue patrols, the trawler also conducted fisheries protection work, sometimes seizing US fishing boats that had entered Canadian waters. Thiepval also took part in seal counts and on at least one occasion during the prohibition era intercepted rumrunners near the Alaska border. In 1924, Thiepval visited the Soviet Union and Japan as part of the support efforts for a round-the-world flight attempt.
On the other side of the peninsula is the Wild Pacific Trail, along the rugged coastline. I started this trail at the midpoint, first heading northwards and then walking back into Ucluelet before heading southwards towards the Amphitrite lighthouse. I should say the two separate parts of the trail are spectacular in their own ways, but it is a pity the trail does not run along the entire coast. This is because there are many private properties in the way, owning the shoreline and preventing people from accessing the beaches. This was a familiar story on my journey on many islands too.
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