Blogs from Bamfield, Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada, North America

Bamfield Memories Hey! Canuck Junior Here! Visitors from all over the world marvel at the beauty and serenity that British Columbia's wilderness experiences offer urbanites. Admittedly, I am not outdoorsy, but as a photographer, I loved the sheer majesty of my surroundings on this very memorable school field trip, like no other. This is a photoblog more than a reminiscence of a high school Biology 11 trip to Bamfield Marine Sciences Centre on the west coast of Vancouver Island in my home province of British Columbia. The coastline and water are breathtakingly beautiful. The coastal environment ranges from exposed rocky shorelines, expansive sandy beaches, productive estuaries, and ancient coastal temperate rainforests. Situated within the traditional territory of the Huu-ay-aht First Nation in Barkley Sound, and adjacent to the Pacific Rim National Park Reserve... read more

We simply had to know…Could we trail-run the 420 kilometers from Bragg Creek to Jasper in just ten days? Short version…we tried…we couldn’t. But in that very inability something quite marvelous happened for Grace and me. We started out well enough. Day one—the Powderface trailhead. Thirty-eight kilometers later we landed at the Quaite campground, just past Barrier Lake. We sat at the lake’s edge, bone-sore feet plunged in the numbing-cold water, feeling beaten beyond anything we’d expected. Our packs—simply too heavy. Food and fuel caches along the way—didn’t matter: Our packs would only get heavier. What’s more, during this one day of exceptional effort, we’d scarfed down nearly double our planned daily food allotment. Gear spread out on the meadow, we limped about, surveying, seeking anything we could drop to lighten our loads. A shared toothbrush, ... read more

The weather has once again been fine, although cold and frosty. We decided to make the most of the weather and our time left in Bamfield by going kayaking. We took the boat to the dock in West Bamfield and walked ashore to get kitted out. Unfortunately, Pippi and I decided not to wear our gumboots. An important lesson I have learned here is, if in doubt always wear gumboots! We had to lug our kayaks down to the dock and carefully sidle in without toppling over and falling in. We were inside a dock that is surrounded on three sides and I was facing the wrong way. I kept trying to turn around but would just paddle back and forth into the dock! Eventually I found my way out and Pippi and I got a ... read more

Once again it was sunny so we decided to hike some of the West Coast Trail. The West Coast Trail is in the Pacific Rim National Park. It starts (or ends!) at Bamfield and goes all the way down the coast almost, reaching Victoria which is the capital of British Columbia. The Trail is 75 km long and takes about 8 days to hike (or so the guide book says - it would probably take me 2 weeks!). It was originally an escape route for the survivors of shipwrecks. We hiked in 6km and back, which was tough enough! At the start of the walk (if you can call it that!) there are rock face ladders to climb up and down. The longest one was probably about 10 metres, and this was the one we had ... read more

The weather has been absolutely glorious since I arrived. Every day has been sunny and we have felt compelled to make the most of it given that it rained for four weeks straight before my arrival - apparently this is normal I’m told! On Sunday we went on a short walk to Brady’s Beach because we only had a few hours of daylight left. I was still adjusting to the time difference and recovering from the flight so I had gotten up very late. Brady’s Beach has amazing small islands of rock on the shore with trees growing on top. Along the way we saw different animal tracks which we tried to identify. We came across some huge ones which we were postulating could be a wolf or a wild cat. We even photographed some because ... read more