Go where the rainforest meets the sea
Head to Sooke and Port Renfrew, where lush rainforest meets rugged sea
When the tiny shell I’m holding suddenly grows legs and begins to skitter, across my palm, I panic and the hermit crab falls back into the tide pool from whence it came.
“You can’t just throw nature, Mom!” my teenage daughter scolds.
I dropped nature, but I don’t quibble — on the remote, southwest coast of Vancouver Island, the flora and fauna are weird.
Earlier at Botanical Beach, a picturesque and popular spot along the Juan de Fuca Marine Trail that parallels the coast, we saw a bright pink nudibranch that resembles a child’s eraser, a giant green sea anemone waving its pink arms underwater, some kind of squishy yellow sea cucumber, and multiple chitons that look like prehistoric trilobites. Who knows what else we missed? At least 100 shallow, shimmering tide pools are carved into the flat sandstone shelf that greets visitors at low tide. It’s impossible to investigate them all.
To get there you have to watch your step, too — my husband nearly squished nature in the form of a chocolate bar-sized banana slug that was oozing along the rainforest trail.
Our family travelled to the island from the interior by car and ferry to spend a few days in and around the harbour town of Sooke. Though we’re just a 30-minute drive from the manicured gardens and tea rooms of the province’s capital city, the vibe west of Victoria couldn’t be wilder.
Between Sooke and Port Renfrew, an hour’s drive apart, the scenery alternates between coastal rainforest thick with hemlock, Sitka spruce and towering western red cedars, and rough beaches decorated with driftwood, coarse black sand and colourful shell fragments.
We need some back-to-nature therapy after months at home during the pandemic, and the grotto-filled forest and marine air is an immediate balm for the soul. The community is also home to a growing food and craft beer scene that proves a panacea for hunger and thirst.
When we stop for hiking snacks at Shirley Delicious, a cute A-frame cabin-turned-bakery on Highway 14 west of Sooke, the friendly worker raves about Botanical Beach and encourages us to get there for low tide. I ask if it’s been busier since B.C. went to Phase 3 of its reopening plan and she’s happy to see more visitors, “as long as they’re respectful.”
I think she means we should remember to wash our hands and stand six feet apart, but we should probably also stop stepping on slugs and dropping crabs, just to be safe!
After the hike and tide pool explorations, it’s a short drive into Port Renfrew for lunch at the Port Renfrew Pub. This historic wood building on the shore of Snuggery Cove seems like the hub for burgers and craft beer in this hamlet of 144 residents — Sasquatch footshaped decals on the floor remind visitors to keep their distance.
Port Renfrew is the jumping off point for both of Vancouver Island’s famous hikes — the Juan de Fuca Marine Trail to the southeast and the West Coast Trail to the northwest — so there’s a kind of hipster-meets-mountaineer feel to the place. That is to say, you can get an excellent cup of coffee or stellar cocktail, but you’re off-thegrid enough that there’s no cell service and you have to pass over four, single-lane bridges to get to town. It’s also just a 15-minute drive to Avatar Grove, an old-growth forest where Canada’s “gnarliest” tree, a western red cedar encircled by a 12-foot burl, rules the woods like Treebeard.
On the other side to Sooke is the sea, so we take to the water the next morning in kayaks. West
Coast Outdoor Adventure has an office at the Sooke Harbour Resort & Marina, where we’re staying. We walk down to the harbour from our cosy townhouse unit and company owner Allen Krutz gives us a quick lesson in using the fancy pedal-driven kayaks. In theory, they make it easier to approach harbour seals bobbing in the calm water.
My tween son immediately notices a funky sea smell thanks to the sea grass and kelp that are exposed at low tide. We pedal the kayaks toward Whiffen Spit, a natural sandy breakwater that protects Sooke Harbour from the Juan de Fuca Strait, and watch the horizon for any sign of orcas or grey whales. Soon, a long strand of winged kelp — the very kind that adds a hint of brininess to the award-winning Seaside Gin from local Sheringham
Distillery — gets caught in the craft’s pedals and needs to be removed. There’s very little harbour traffic and beyond the spit, we can see the mountains of the Olympic Peninsula ringed by mist.
This proximity to water, rainforest and mountains is why Krutz, a Kiwi, set up shop in Sooke.
“It’s the northern hemisphere’s ‘New Zealand’,” he says. “Close to Victoria, but not. There’s a budding mountain bike scene, the Galloping Goose trail, a protected and tranquil harbour, with easy access to the wilder west coast, hiking trails galore, stunning beaches with towering forests behind and winter surf.
“How is this place not an iconic town?” he wonders.
I mention we’re heading to the Sooke Potholes that afternoon and Krutz tells us where to go to get the best views. These clear, polished swimming pools are strung along a stretch of the Sooke River and were carved by glacial melt water and giant boulders that eroded the bedrock in perfect circles.
We walk along the Riverside Trail and gaze down at the tourmaline water meandering through the gorge. It’s enticing, so we stop for a snack and dip our feet into the cool water.
Like most of our activities this trip, we have Sand Pebble Beach almost entirely to ourselves. I wonder if that’s a reflection of the pandemic, or if this side of Vancouver Island is always a little sleepier than Victoria or Tofino. Whatever the case, Sooke feels a bit like a secret that isn’t sure if it wants to be told.