Tofino, British Columbia

Tofino, like Jasper or Banff, is also a resort town, but set on the west coast of Vancouver Island. It is hard to get to and not many people visit Tofino compared to Jasper and Banff, partly because the highway there is treacherous, but also because there is no thru-traffic as you are literally on Canada's western edge. In fact, the debris that is found from beachcombers near Tofino often comes from Japanese fishing ships on the other side of the Pacific. The town is surrounded by small, tree covered mountains to its north and its east, and the Pacific Ocean laps against its western shores with world class waves.

The waters near Tofino are filled with surfers year round, even despite the eternally frigid ocean water temperature which cannot be survived long without special thermal wetsuits. To the south of Tofino is Pacific Rim National Park, which features the magnificient Long Beach and other natural scenes that are breathtaking, even on typically grey days. The numerous beaches, near Tofino, all have sand that clumps in your hand like clay but with a grey tone: it is not soft to land in.

The biome of the area is what's called a temperate rainforest: lush, green, trees that are mainly coniferous but with some deciduous mixed in. Home to rarely spotted stealth-like cougars, numerous eagles, and black bears, the trees of the forests in the region are the largest I have seen in Canada, both in height and base width. The Pacific Ocean region near Tofino is home to the apex of the salt water, the Killer Whale (Orcas), and one of its main sources of food. The thirty million year old but currently threatened Eschrichtius robustus, the Gray Whale, dodges pods of Orcas near Tofino while on the longest mammalian migratory path known to man: Mexico to the Bering Sea.

Despite its superior natural setting there are less than two thousand residents (many artists, quasi-hippies, and city life escapists) in Tofino partly due to the fact that employment dries up in the winter but also due to the fact that it is remote. In the summer however, staff accommodation is filled with pot smoking, banjo playing, young adults, as the hotels, which include the prestigious Wickaninnish Inn, fill up with rich people (and celebrities) who have knowledgeable travel agents. While the mountains around Tofino, many of which are submerged and act as islands, are inferior to the mountains of Jasper, Banff, or even the nearby Whistler, when the region is considered on the whole, Tofino outdoes them all, because of it's coastal setting that creates natural diversity.