Paddling a Land of Safe Harbours and Wild Horizons

For over 20 years, Hello Nature has been leading excursions through these waters and the Broken Group Islands. Sam explained their half-day harbour tours are especially popular with first-time paddlers because no experience is needed, and the conditions here are reliably calm. The real draw, though, is the chance to paddle among seals, sea birds, and sometimes even black bears foraging along the rocky coast.

During our morning paddle, Sam had mentioned the plethora of sea life beneath our kayak including shellfish, flounders, and even the elusive Giant Pacific Octopus. I decided to see one for myself and put my fears to rest so I made the three-minute walk from The Break to the Ucluelet Aquarium, which is Canada’s first catch-and-release marine centre.It features creatures that are collected locally and then returned to the wild within the season. I was especially captivated by a medium-sized tank housing the octopus. Though no bigger than a volleyball, it seemed otherworldly: its skin shifted colours and textures as it pulsed gently in the water.

After the three-hour paddle, I took Sam’s advice and set out to find an octopus—but not before grabbing lunch at The Break Café and Bistro, a local gem that had just marked its one-year anniversary. Located in the centre of town, The Break offers a welcoming, cafeteria-style vibe and is especially known for its sandwiches. I opted for the Montreal smoked meat stack, dressed up with chili oil and crisp apple slices. Having once lived in Quebec, I’ve sampled plenty of smoked meat over the years, but this version stood out—it was perfectly balanced between sweet and spicy, and absolutely delicious.

It was definitely a cool experience to see creatures up close that I might have floated over earlier in the day. I would have stayed longer but I had a 20-kilometre drive over some rough roads to get to the evening’s lodging: So Damn Lucky Glamping on Mussel Beach, east of town. It was worth the bumpy, slow gravel drive to get there because the beach is remote and dramatic. I sat outside my comfortable accommodations watching the sun set beyond the horizon, amazed I had the entire, driftwood-laden, rocky seashore to myself.

I drove back into Ukee and searched for the Foggy Bean Coffee Company, which I had been told offered an excellent caffeine fix. When I got there, I realized the cozy café was located in the basement of the brewery I’d be visiting later that day. That’s the great thing about Ucluelet: everything is so conveniently close.

I enjoyed my cappuccino made from locally roasted beans during the five-minute drive up the road to Relic Surf Shop, a local institution that sells paddle and surf gear and offers instructional courses and camps. Manager Olivier “Ollie” Ouellet gave me a tour of the large shop that must have housed over a hundred colourful surf boards and SUPs.

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We drove back through town to reach He-Tin-Kis Park and the trailhead for Terrace Beach. After an easy 10-minute hike with inflatable paddleboards on our backs, we reached a relatively sheltered horseshoe-shaped bay with a beach made up of sand and polished pebbles. We could see breakers crashing against the shore of the island that partly protects this bay, but our launching point was perfectly calm. We unrolled the SUPs, inflated them, and then enjoyed an hour and a half of paddling through kelp-covered recesses and over submerged rock beds carpeted in mollusks. Occasionally we’d duck out from behind the protection of the island and ride the swells in more open water but most of the time we simply coasted and observed. A great thing about paddleboarding is you’re higher up on the board and can see deeper into the water further. I watched large rock crabs scuttle away from my shadow and small fish dart among the kelp fronds.At the end of the experience, Ollie decided to partake in some cold-water therapy and dove into the shallows to sit in the 8°C water for a while. I declined the invitation to join him and instead deflated and packed the SUPs.

On the hike out Ollie told me the trail system we were on was linked to the Wild Pacific Trail loop that leads to the famed Amphitrite Lighthouse. Rather than follow Ollie back into town, I chose to hike the trail, which is 2.6 kilometres long and follows the coastline at the very tip of the Ucluelet peninsula. It’s perfectly maintained so it wasn’t long before I had reached the lighthouse, which resembled a two-storey-high wedding cake wearing a red top hat.

Named for the wife of Poseidon of Greek mythology, the Amphitrite Point Lighthouse was built in 1906 but was destroyed eight years later by bad weather. That gives you an idea of the power of the storms in these parts. The current concrete lighthouse was opened in 1915 and its peculiar shape was chosen to help it withstand gale-force winds and tidal waves. The rest of the hike offered views of colourful buttercups and lupins, red-barked arbutus trees, tangled green cedar boughs and white gulls pecking at the sand.

I lost track of time and had to rush back to the car to make my meeting with Dennis Morgan, the owner of Ucluelet Brewing Company. As it was a Tuesday, the Brewery was actually closed for the day but Dennis opened the doors especially for me, which gives you an idea of how personable and friendly he is. He poured us pints of their new grisette, a light-bodied, low-alcohol beer with hints of lemon peel and sumac, and then shared the history of the building and his company. Ucluelet Brewing is housed in the former St. Aiden’s Anglican church, built by volunteer fishermen on a prominent hilltop in the middle of the community in the 1950s. The church was deconsecrated in 2010, four years before Dennis moved to town from Banfield, on the other side of Barkley Sound. He and a few others, such as Jonny Ferguson of Tidewater Timberframes, had the idea of converting the church into a micro-brewery but little did they realize the amount of work required.To say the renovations are stunning doesn’t do enough justice because the towering ceiling timbers, bars and floors made of reclaimed wood, and the expansive deck overlooking the harbour are simply appearance: the real beauty is the fact “the building had to be re-engineered to modern-day earthquake standards,” Dennis said. The result is a structure that’s not only super solid, but so inviting you want to hang out in its sun-lit glory all day. As it was, I could only spend a few hours at the brewery but in that time I got to hear many stories, including how one of the counters was made from a wooden lane salvaged from the former bowling alley. I also got to meet head brewer Allen Cukier and sample a few of his other creations including the Harbour View pale ale, a bright brew with hints of citrus and melon, the crisp and refreshing Seventh Day kolsch, and Resurrection Red, an Irish red ale that was a perfect way to end the visit given its dessert-like flavours of caramel and chocolate. The one thing I missed at the brewery was the food on account of the fact it was technically closed for the day. Apparently the menu is excellent and extensive, ranging from brisket bowls to reuben sliders – an amazing feat given the kitchen space is exceptionally small.

On Allen’s recommendation, I instead had dinner at the new Papi’s Mexican Cantina, less than a block away. I enjoyed an order of elote, which is a cob of grilled corn smothered in a creamy sauce and topped with chili powder, cheese and lime, and washed it down with Ucluelet Brewing’s South Swell IPA. Of all the offerings I’d enjoyed that day, this West Coast IPA was my favourite because the taste was a harmonious blend of citrus and pine.

Forty kilometres east of Ucluelet is the headquarters of West Coast Wild Adventures on Winchee River, also known as Kennedy River. The company is renowned for its zipline, which threads its way through towering cedar trees and criss-crosses the strikingly clear, emerald-coloured river. As I soon discovered, though, it’s the history of the surroundings and its people that truly fill a visitor with awe.

Manager Kelly Bedford met me at my car and we walked the short distance to a pebbled beach on the side of the slow-flowing river where he explained we were in Ha’uukmin Tribal park, one of a series of areas that encompass the largest remaining, intact ancient rainforest on Vancouver Island. Winchee loosely translates to “many species of salmon,” he said, and this area has been important to the local Tla-o-qui-aht people for thousands of years. They fish its waters, harvest cedar bark for craftwork and carve canoes from fallen trees. He also told of how men would train in the cold river for their ceremonial whale hunts, sometimes submerging themselves underwater for over four minutes.This last point struck me. “Wait. People hunted whales from canoes?” I asked in amazement. Kelly then explained how the hunting of enormous grey whales by small teams of men in 10-metre-long cedar canoes was a task passed down by chiefs of certain Nuu-chah-nulth Nations on Vancouver Island, which includes the Tla-o-qui-aht. They were armed with only wooden spears and would set out into the open ocean during the Spring whale migration to bring back an animal that would feed their people for the entire year. “Basically the whalers were super human,” Kelly said.I learned more about the fascinating culture as we prepared for our zipline experience by donning harnesses and helmets and then we were driven a few kilometres upriver to the first of six ziplines. Having rock climbed and ziplined around the world, I found the experience of whizzing down a 60-metre-long steel cable fun but relatively mild. What really astonished me were the surroundings. After the first few ziplines, we hiked through a mature forest of huge, lichen-covered cedars with evidence of cultural modifications on them that were centuries old. Our guide explained the Tla-o-qui-aht people remove long strips of bark from the trees for use in basket weaving and hat making but they do so in a way that doesn’t harm the tree. Veiled lines of white scarring were all we could detect from the practice.

Then we followed the moss-covered trail to the edge of a spectacular narrow slot canyon: steep, 90-metre-high grey walls rose from sun-dappled water the colour of oxidized copper. During some years we were told the canyon filled almost to the top with Spring runoff. The last zipline was the longest and took us out over the river and back to the company headquarters near a covered bridge.The second adventure of the day had Kelly, myself, and two young visitors paddle up the canyon I had just zipped down. I chose a paddleboard while the others elected for kayaks and we put in at the same beach Kelly and I had visited upon arrival. It proved to be a short journey as a waterfall blocked our way after about a kilometre but it still took us a long time because we kept stopping to admire the translucent water, the perfectly smooth scoured rock walls, and the almost painfully bright blue sky. The entire experience had an other-worldly feel, like floating through a magical realm where fairies and other magical creatures live. At the end of the excursion, we pulled up on the beach and toasted the river with beers I had purchased earlier in the day. Then I was introduced to West Coast Wild owner and local legend Louis Rouleau who lives in Ucluelet near where he stores his classic Cessna 180 aircraft. Louis is a Kimberley, BC-born bush pilot who has had innumerable adventures and misadventures around the province and the world during his 75 years. He’s an incredible storyteller and during a lull in one of his entertaining narratives I asked why he moved to the Ucluelet area. “Because it’s paradise,” he said. I couldn’t agree more.

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