Vancouver Island

Vancouver Island has an extraordinary diversity of geography, climate and wildlife. Separated from the rest of British Columbia by the Strait of Georgia, it is a world unto itself, with rugged mountains (many more than 7,000 feet high), a dense blanket of temperate rain forest and a west coast lined by rocky shores and spectacular beaches. Its landscape is dominated by three magnificent trees: the hemlock, the Sitka spruce and the red cedar (whose fragrant, rot-resistant timber served as raw material for much of the region’s native culture). Migrating whales, both humpback and gray, can frequently be seen feeding and frolicking.