PACIFIC RIM NATIONAL PARK RESERVE
The Pacific Rim National Park Reserve is composed of three distinct areas: Long Beach, the West Coast Trail, and the Broken Group Islands, all of which occupy a 130-km (80-mile) strip of Vancouver Island’s west coast. The park is a world famous area for whale-watching, and the Wickaninnish Interpretive Centre off Hwy 4 has the latest information on their movements. Long Beach offers a range of hiking trails, with parking at all trail heads and beach accesses. The most challenging hike is the 77-km (48-mile) West Coast Trail, between Port Renfrew and Bamfield. The Broken Group Islands are popular with kayakers.
- Hwy 4.
- Tel: (250) 726 7721.
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from Port Alberni.
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daily.
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Mar–Sep.
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Long Beach
The rugged, windswept sands of Long Beach are renowned for their wild beauty, with crashing Pacific rollers, unbeatable surfing opportunities, rock pools filled with marine life, and scattered driftwood.
Aerial view of Broken Islands Group
This is an archipelago of some 100 islets popular with kayakers and scuba divers.
More than 20 species of whale are found in British Columbia’s coastal waters. Around 22,000 gray whales migrate annually from their feeding grounds in the Arctic Ocean to breed off the coast of Mexico. The whales tend to stay near to the coast and often move close enough to Vancouver Island’s west shore to be sighted from land. From March to August there are daily whale-watching trips from Tofino and Ucluelet.
