Discovery Passage is the strait between the Vancouver Island and the group of islands towards the British Columbia mainland, connecting the Strait of Georgia and the Johnstone Strait. As it's a fairly narrow waterway, the coastal beaches are frequently strewn with driftwood, from large logs…Read More

Discovery Passage is the strait between the Vancouver Island and the group of islands towards the British Columbia mainland, connecting the Strait of Georgia and the Johnstone Strait. As it's a fairly narrow waterway, the coastal beaches are frequently strewn with driftwood, from large logs to small branches and roots. Most of it is a result of logging that goes on heavily on Vancouver Island and Quadra alike, but the result is a very atmospheric, if often hard to negotiate.

We walk along the beach from Cape Mudge village to Cape Mudge lighthouse – itself an attractive building on the southern edge of the Quadra Island and further on along a pebble beach full of amassed driftwood. The sea surrounding Quadra, including the Discovery Passage is known for its reach wild-life and orcas and other marine mammals can be spotted even from the short Campbell River – Quadra ferry. We don't see any orcas but we do spot a few sea otters playing in the sea just off the stony beach!

It's a bracing walk and the landscape is interesting rather than conventionally beautiful, especially in the pearly-grey, diffused light of a cloudy day, but the driftwood and stones on the beach looks like fantastic sculptures, great logs like matches spilt by a giant, convoluted roots like surrealist abstractions. Close

Quadra is a small island off the eastern coast of Vancouver Island, across the Discovery Channel from Campbell River. Its population is about 2,000, a tad strange but enchanting mixture so typical for many of those small places between Vancouver Island and the mainland: half-hippie-half…Read More

Quadra is a small island off the eastern coast of Vancouver Island, across the Discovery Channel from Campbell River. Its population is about 2,000, a tad strange but enchanting mixture so typical for many of those small places between Vancouver Island and the mainland: half-hippie-half -lumberjack, half-feral-half-art-professional.

Our first full day on Quadra is also the Older Child's birthday, but we are mean to her and decide to hike up the Chinese Mountain, a local hill of 320 or so meters. The kids race up - even the Younger Child is not demanding carrying, spurred I think by the presence of other two boys. It's not a long hike, but a steep one, with a touch of a mild scramble at one point. Still, a four year old and an adult carrying a child in a backpack can make it with no particular problems.

Eventually, we emerge on the top, and it proves very much worth it. It's sunny; clear skies with just a couple of white clouds; and the views are fantastic. To the east, we can see the mainland - though the tops of the mountains are hidden in the clouds - and more Discovery Islands to the south and east: Cortes, Read, Maurelle and others. The sea is blue and green and silver, the islands the lushest of dark greens.

We sit on the exposed rocks on the top and stare. Below us, a bald eagle soaring on the thermals.

Or rather, the adults stare. The children run about, climb trees, jump over rocks, throw banana skins down precipitous cliffs and do everything to induce a heart attack in an unaccustomed adult. But they survive, somehow, and so do we.

We climb down the other side of the hill, a different and more overgrown route, partly running along – and even in - a stream bed. The forest at the bottom is mossy, very green and strangely quiet, at least when the kids are not there.

Afterwards it's time for ice-cream and, after accidentally finding a tick on our host, a somewhat manic search for others - luckily only two adults are bitten. Early removal apparently reduces the probability of infection to pretty much zero, so we don't fret too much (the two oldest children do, though, both being prone to hysterics, and clearly bonding on these grounds).

On return, a cake made by our host for the Older Child follows the Happy Birthday we sang on top of the Chinese Mountain.

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We drive "up island" from Parksville to Campbell River and Quadra Island. We take the "Oceanside route" rather than the main highway. You can't really see the coast from the road, but it's never far away and in most cases just parking the car and…Read More

We drive "up island" from Parksville to Campbell River and Quadra Island. We take the "Oceanside route" rather than the main highway. You can't really see the coast from the road, but it's never far away and in most cases just parking the car and peeking through the trees will take you to the water's edge. It's raining, mostly, but we are still tempted to stop at several moody, pretty much deserted, misty beaches.

Oyster shells, colourful seaweed and driftwood - piles of driftwood - cover the shores. In the water, occasional wrecks, and in the distance the mountains of the mainland are just about possible to make out. It's raining, but strangely beautiful.

Courtney and Campbell River are a come-down, as any town would b, but soon we are on a ferry, making a short hop across to Quadra Island. We keep the windscreen wipers going during the crossing which is obviously a mistake as the car refuses to start on our arrival on the other side. The ferry staff seem pretty used to such an occurrence, as an efficient person with a jump-starting device appears immediately and soon, despite mysterious ways the automatic cars operate, we are on our way.

Our host family are on the other side of the island , but it's not a big place and we should be there in a few minutes. Or so we think. Unfortunately, the piece of paper with the address has ended up in the footwell, trod on by at least two pairs of muddy boots and is now impossible to decipher. My phone doesn't have any coverage, but I remember – vaguely – the directions. We end up driving round in something resembling a circle, getting lost in what seems like magic woods of Quadra. Eventually, we stop by a walker on the roadside, and ask, reasoning that people here might just know each other. She doesn't quite, as she is a new resident – a poet, actually - but she takes us home and searches in a local directory and soon we are on our way. We eventually manage to find our host and her brood in a big, ramshackle house full of children, animals, toys, nice food and animated conversation.
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Port Moody qualifies as "inland BC" only just – in fact it lies at the end of the Burrard Inlet which is one of the main inlets on which Vancouver spreads out. Technically a part of metro Vancouver area, Port Moody is a municipality of…Read More

Port Moody qualifies as "inland BC" only just – in fact it lies at the end of the Burrard Inlet which is one of the main inlets on which Vancouver spreads out. Technically a part of metro Vancouver area, Port Moody is a municipality of its own and feels miles away from the cosmopolitan beat of Vancouver's centre. Port Moody is typical suburbia, a middle class sprawl whose only saving grace is the Rocky Point Park.

The park is adjacent to the inlet and covers 8 acres – but due to being narrow and extended along the shore, feels bigger – including a great playground, a spray park (in the summer – it was closed in May when we visited) a boat launch and a pier. Beyond the mostly open, grassy area with all those facilities – these were incredibly busy on the day of our visit in May 2010 - there are paths in the woodland along the inlet's shore, which despite high level of jogger presence are quite pleasant to walk around.

The tide was out when we were at the Rocky Point and we spent an enjoyable few minutes playing on the mudflats left by the receding water.

This little walk was, however, the only saving grace and overall Port Moody doesn't have much to recommend itself to a visitor, that is, unless you want to do a sociological study of middle class Canadian suburbia. Close

We have a day in Golden, BC before coming back to Alberta to catch a bus along the Icefields Parkway from Lake Louise. As we have a hire car, it seems worth making use of it to explore further and faster than public transport options…Read More

We have a day in Golden, BC before coming back to Alberta to catch a bus along the Icefields Parkway from Lake Louise. As we have a hire car, it seems worth making use of it to explore further and faster than public transport options would let us, but there is so much to see and so little time.

We start off on the Trans-Canada towards Revelstoke, with the idea of having a look at the Glacier National Park. Golden is green in these first days of May. It feels like getting out of ever-winter in Narnia-like Alberta to a fresh spring. There is a lacy spray of pale, almost yellow green on birches and all the other trees are coming to life too.

As the road climbs up towards Rogers Pass, the colour starts to seeps out of the landscape. The sky gets overcast and greyish-white, the mountains are covered in snow not just on tops but all the way down, and it even starts to snow a bit at the road level. Monochrome mountains are covered in sparse and stunted-seeming trees, everything in shades of grey and white. Glacier National Park is known for its atrocious weather, but the complete change of conditions within an hour's driving is still striking.

We turn around at Rogers Pass (altitude 1,330 m) and leave the winter to go back to spring, past Golden and along the Columbia River valley towards the Kootenay National Park and Radium Hot Springs. It's too late to get to Radium, which isn't supposed to be particularly attractive place in itself anyway, but we drive for a couple of hours (with frequent stops) through an enchanting landscape of wide-spreading marshland, verdant floodplain and misty mountains further in the background.

This is a beautiful time to be here, as the spring is truly springing and everywhere can be seen this incredibly fresh, pale, almost yellow-tinted green of soft, small shoots and leaves. Human eye can distinguish more varieties of green (and yellow) than any other colour and it seems to me that at least half of those we can see are present in the new foliage along the Columbia valley. The birches are particularly lovely, with their white, black speckled trunks contrasting beautifully with the green. There are still many confers, with their bottle-green and the river and marshes add to the variety.

We stop several times for photos and just to take in the view. The parking spaces seem to be purposefully designed away from views though, so we see more while driving then when stopped. There is very little traffic and not many villages, and what there is consists of a few houses dotted in sparse clusters around the road.

The mountains on the other side of the river, to the west of the road, are not actually, technically, Rockies anymore but the Selkirk range of the older Columbia mountains. They are, indeed, a little bit rounder and less foreboding than the Rockies – but only a little bit – and still form an impressive backdrop to the river plain.

Beautiful British Columbia indeed.
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On the way back from Golden to Lake Louise we drive again through Yoho National Park, and again, and luckily, it's a reasonable day with fair weather. We don't have much time as we don't want to miss our bus, but we can still in…Read More

On the way back from Golden to Lake Louise we drive again through Yoho National Park, and again, and luckily, it's a reasonable day with fair weather. We don't have much time as we don't want to miss our bus, but we can still in a detour or two and from many potentially beautiful spots we pick the Emerald Lake.

The turn-of is a couple of miles west of Field and it takes us along a decent minor road (open all year round, unlike many other side roads around here). The first stop is what is called "Natural Bridge", despite the fact that rock arch over the Kicking Horse River has now fallen in. But the spot is still supremely beautiful, with a river tumbling noisily between the rocks, eroding them with its power. The pools below the rapids are glowingly blue, the color give by the rock flour carried by the river from the high mountainsides. We spend a pleasant half hour here, admiring the views and peeking between the rocks, luckily managing to slot ourselves between two coach-fulls of organized groups.

Five miles up the road is the Emerald Lake, a superbly attractive lake surrounded by mountains and glaciers – Burgess Shale, famous as and unrivaled fossil source of strange and wonderful creatures – is nearby and some finds are exhibited on the circular lake trail.

Unlike Lake Louise, the Emerald Lake is starting to melt at the time of our visit, and although the surface is yet far from clear of ice, large patches of dark-green (bottle green more then emerald green) are appearing, reflecting the mountains and tall Douglas Firs that surround the lake.

It's a beautiful spot and despite the Icefields Parkway wonders that await us from Lake Louise, I consider this small detour one of the highlights of our whole time in the Rockies. Close

I have waited for close to a year with writing about Yoho National Park in Canada and I find it hard to explain my reluctance as it was one of the most beautiful, striking, interesting and special places we have seen in Canada. Or maybe…Read More

I have waited for close to a year with writing about Yoho National Park in Canada and I find it hard to explain my reluctance as it was one of the most beautiful, striking, interesting and special places we have seen in Canada. Or maybe that is what explains the reluctance, as I feel that the brief encounters we had with its beauty cannot possibly do the place any justice.

Yoho is the smallest of the Rockies' national parks, and is located between Lake Louise and Golden, centering on the village of Field.

We hire a car in Lake Louise - it's only a little bit more expensive and will give us a chance to stop and detour on the way. Soon, a little red Dodge is all ours and after a steak dinner we are off towards the Great Divide, Yoho national park, British Columbia border and Golden. The day is drawing towards its close and the overcast, pale sky that dominated over our day in Lake Louise is replaced by a softer, warmer glow of the late afternoon.

The road – which, incidentally, is part of the main Trans-Canada car route – climbs up to the Kicking Horse pass, elevation 1627m, 10km from Lake Louise. There are suitable photo stops and a viewpoint that allows us to admire not only the landscape but ingenuity of the railway engineering. One gets reminded all the time of the railways' role in the development of the Canadian west and it's a pity that a passenger service on this historic route is no more, replaced by tourist trains that charge arm and leg for an excursion. The original rail route – still very much used by the cargo trains – was opened in 1884 and included stretches with an incredibly steep grades of 4.5% on the BC side of the pass. These were somewhat improved - to 2.2% - by the 1909 construction of Spiral Tunnels, which allow the trains to climb more slowly, inside the mountain.

The Pass marks the Great Continental Divide, as well as the province border and thus we are now entering, for the first time, British Columbia, the westernmost province of Canada and one in which we will spend the rest of our time here (barring a brief return to Alberta for the Icefields Parkway and Jasper).

It's beautiful and wilder than it was in the Banff region. The road is wide and well made, and the driving comfortable, but the mountains that surround us are close and high, and all the traffic and construction seem utterly insignificant. As the sun comes down, I take my eyes of the road and glance sideways, and there, quietly sniffing, is a... black bear! Our first - and only, unless you count one supposedly spotted later on the same week by the Older Child – bear, simply standing there, giving us a brief look before returning to its rummaging. I can't stop as a large lorry behind would go into our back, but I cry out and everybody looks in great excitement at the great, dark shape clearly visible at the roadside.

There will be no more bears, but later the same day, we see some mountain goats on the hillside and a mountain sheep with huge, round horns, standing in the middle of the central reservation.

We arrive in Golden elated, to a mild bafflement of our host, who, being a hiker, has seen his quota of black and grizzly bears. But for us, it's the first one, and up there with the finback whale we spotted in Quebec.
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Vancouver is one of those lucky cities that seem to have everything: a beautiful situation, great tourist attractions, vibrant food and night life, world-class cultural institutions and plenty of opportunities to just wander about and take it all in. Even the climate is pretty good…Read More

Vancouver is one of those lucky cities that seem to have everything: a beautiful situation, great tourist attractions, vibrant food and night life, world-class cultural institutions and plenty of opportunities to just wander about and take it all in. Even the climate is pretty good by Canadian standards.

For those who only have a few days, choices will have to be made – but some places are a must-see for every visitor.

Downtown Vancouver is a busy, bustling confident place full of modern architecture, good shopping, art galleries and creatively designed and used urban spaces. Next to the downtown centre, Vancouver's Chinatown is one of the biggest in North America and if you have never visited one is sure to impress.

You can get a better idea of Vancouver's layout and location if you make your way up 130 meters to the observation deck of Vancouver Lookout at the top of the Harbour Place.

Nearby Canada Place with its iconic sail-like roofs provides wonderful views across Burrard Inlet to North Vancouver and the mountains beyond.

While in that area, take a SeaBus from the Waterfront Station. This is just for another view of the port and the whole city, and it's cheap as the SeaBus is part of the city transit network.

Stanley Park is one of the best urban parks in the world, well worth a walk – there are views again, as well as ancient trees, impressive totem poles, trolley tours and the fantastic Vancouver Aquarium with its beluga whales, sea otters and dolphin shows.

If art is your interest, Vancouver Art Gallery at 750 Hornby Street has one of the best collections of Emily Carr's paintings in the world and it has exciting temporary exhibitions of old masters as well as contemporary artists. Check what's on, as displays vary.

Vancouver Museum of Anthropology at the University of British Columbia is a bus ride away, but features a brilliant collection of indigenous Canadian art of the Pacific North West, including Bill Reid's famous Raven and the First People. The UBC campus on Point Grey is huge, and the campus plus peninsula has woods, beaches, gardens and hiking at the Pacific Spirit Park  and the whole area will easily fill a day.

Those who like shopping will like Granville Island with its artisans, food market and a toy store, those who don't like shopping will think it's rather hellish though.

Kids will appreciate The Science World, especially on a rainy day: plenty to stimulate the mind and wake up the experimenter within.

Many visitors make a point of going to Capilano Suspension Bridge, but the shorter-but-wobblier Lynn Canyon Suspension Bridge in North Vancouver is free! And it has a wonderful waterhole to swim in in the summer as well as twin falls nearby.

There is also plenty of day and longer trips out of Vancouver, of which the most popular and the best are the trips to Whistler in the mountains and the Sea to Sky Highway along the coast north of Vancouver.

The city of Vancouver will easily fill in a week's worth of exploration, and this can be extended almost indefinitely simply because of the dominant lifestyle in Vancouver.Close

Vancouver Island is a large island off the coast of British Columbia, not far from Vancouver city. Most travellers will be arriving there from Vancouver or its environs (although it's also possible to travel to the island from the US). The island is 270 miles…Read More

Vancouver Island is a large island off the coast of British Columbia, not far from Vancouver city. Most travellers will be arriving there from Vancouver or its environs (although it's also possible to travel to the island from the US).

The island is 270 miles long (stretching roughly along the NW-SE axis) and approximately 70 miles wide, although the spine of the island is mountainous while the coast often indented and thus the actual road distances are much larger.

The principal way of travelling to Vancouver Island is by using the services of BC Ferries. Vancouver has two ferry terminals, one south of the city in the suburb of Tsawwassen (technically in Delta) and another in the north west (technically in Western Vancouver) at Horseshoe Bay.

Vancouver Island has a lot to offer to a visitor: a charming and cultured city of Victoria is the obvious destination, but it's up-island that the best destinations are.

North of Victoria is the second biggest city on the Island, Nanaimo, with an attractive waterfront area and some decent accommodation, and north of it, Parksville and the coastal strip up to Campbell River, which among others includes Qualicum Beach, a picturesque and arty seaside town with more gentle beach.

Parksville itself is unexceptional but makes a very convenient base for exploring Vancouver Island, sitting as it is on a junction of roads going north towards the Comox valley, Campbell River, mountains of Strathcona; south to Nanaimo and Victoria and west via Port Alberni to Pacific Rim National Park with Tofino and Ucluelet.

The best known destination for the lovers of wilderness is the Pacific Rim on the west coast. Originally, most of the Vancouver island was covered in forest, bust as it has been intensively logged for over a hundred of years, there are only relatively small vestiges of this original forest left. Some of it has been preserved as part of the Pacific Rim National Park, which incorporates incredible old-growth temperate rainforest, beaches, rock formations, caves and sea stacks, streams and waterfalls.

The Park is divided into three separate units. The West Coast Trail is a 75 km hiking trail accessible only on foot or (in an emergency by boat, starting at Pachena Bay south of Bamfield). This is a gruelling seven day hike, with limited access points and a lot of rough, wet and muddy terrain. The Broken Group Islands form archipelago of over hundred islands scattered throughout Barkley Sound between Ucluelet and Bamfield and is only accessible by boat, with some local operators offering kayak drop-offs. The most popular, accessible and the smallest of the Pacific Rim National Park units is the Long Beach, located between Ucluelet and Tofino.

Nearer to Parksville the interior has plenty to offer. Within an approximately half hour drive (and some accessible by public transport via the bus to Port Alberni) are three outstanding nature parks, including Englishman River Falls, Quallicum Falls and the best of all, Cathedral Grove.

Further north, Comox valley has some skiing in the winter and beyond that, Campbell River offers excellent fishing, whale watching, and an easy ferry connection to the picturesque and unspoilt island of Quadra.

Beyond Campbell River things get considerably wilder and less populated. Many visitors head for Port Hardy, which is where BC Ferries' vessels depart for trips along the Inside Passage all the way to Prince Rupert via Bella Coola.

Vancouver Island offers incredible wilderness, wonderful landscapes, great surfing, fantastic hiking and friendly, down to earth, often quirky people. The city of Victoria is a sophisticated urban centre which provides a great contrast to the wilderness of the up-island areas. The climate is relatively mild, and the tourist infrastructure exists but doesn't overwhelm. All in all, Vancouver Island is one of the best places in British Columbia and whole Canada to visit and deserves at least a week, and will easily fill several weeks of exploration.Close

Vancouver is, just as the tourist blurb and word of mouth alike claim, a city blessed with a breathtakingly beautiful location between the mountains and the ocean, mild weather (though they complain about six months of rain) and wealthy, educated, multicultural population.Driving into the city…Read More

Vancouver is, just as the tourist blurb and word of mouth alike claim, a city blessed with a breathtakingly beautiful location between the mountains and the ocean, mild weather (though they complain about six months of rain) and wealthy, educated, multicultural population.

Driving into the city (we skipped the train, which I still regret a bit, and got a rideshare from a good humoured and intelligent maths' post-grad) I have an intense feeling that, for the first time since we left Toronto almost a month ago, we are entering a civilised area - civilised meaning developed, densely populated and with enough cultural variety and resilience to support a degree of sophistication that is not matched anywhere across Canada until you reach the eastern seaboard cities (and specifically and possibly only, Toronto and Montreal).

The city feels comfortable and content, even more than content. Smug is would not be a far off description here in fact. It's not a very overt smugness, but detectable in the general attitude, in the expressions, in the accent even.

But they have a reason for that: Vancouver is a pleasant city indeed, with an impressive but not too overwhelming downtown core (which reminds me of Montreal), wonderful location and some fantastic features that any city would be proud of, from the landscape around it to the cafe culture, great universities and cultural institutions, and Stanley Park in the middle of it all. Altogether, a place where anybody who would consider living in a big city would probably be fairly happy to live in.

Inhabitans of Vancouver never tire of telling you that it's one of the few cities in the world where you can ski in the morning and sail on the ocean in the afternoon (or the other way round), and this dynamic, typical for British Columbia as a whole, is concentrated in Vancouver's position.

It's a new place and it feels new in more ways than one: there is a cool urban edge to at least parts of the city, although large parts of the inevitable sprawl are as staidly suburban as anywhere.

The buzz of Vancouver is partially due to the multi-ethnic and multi-cultural character of the city, with a large proportion of population having South-East Asian background, but with many other European, African and Asian influences producing a vibrant, open, but also pretty chilled out mix.

All in all, I enjoyed our time in Vancouver very much and it's not surprising the city is so popular among visitors to Canada. Vancouver is not all that's to urban Canada, as some tend to think, especially those who never went east, but it's a unique place of its own, and eminently worth at least a few days (and you might want to stay for life). Close