Ready for a quick morph into travel-blog mode? How about a debate over what IS Canada’s best-kept secret? (I imagine it has many. Unlike the U.S., Canada does not trumpet its specialness.) The Mate and I just returned from a short excursion up British Columbia’s Sunshine Coast, and we are still scratching our heads.

How have we lived so long, and so close by, without knowing about this place?

Quick geography overview: the Sunshine Coast is–duh–on the west coast, or rather it IS the west coast, north and east of Vancouver. It is NOT an island, though it includes many. But considering you have to take TWO ferries to experience its extent, it sure is hard to convince your brain that it’s still on the mainland.

Look, here’s what I’m talking about:

(Courtesy sunshinecoastcanada.com)

Wanna drive to Whistler? Sure. Wanna drive to Gibsons? Get on a boat.

On Day One, a single ferry ride plus a generous hour’s drive from Vancouver, we were discovering the Skookumchuck Rapids. These rapids are NOT in a river–they’re formed by the tide rushing through an inlet too skinny to hold all that water without throwing it around in standing waves and trenches so deep and gnarly that kayakers come from all over to train and play in them.

Not a river? Are you SURE?!

Wheeee!

On Day Two, after our second ferry ride, I was walking through the largest town, Powell River, on my way to the info center. “Um, you might not want to go that way,” a young woman called to me from a yard. “There’s a bear in a tree down that street, and he’s been growling.” Of course I had to go see that bear. It was a big one, very black, snoozing in a crook of a cedar. In the middle of a neighborhood. Welcome to Powell River, eh?

{Did not have my camera on me at that moment, so I’ll give you a second to imagine the bear.}

Day Three, we drove to the furthest northern town, Lund, and took a 10-minute water taxi ride out to Savary Island–referred to by some Coasters as “our Hawaii.” Not sure about that comparison, but in terms of SUN and wide expanses of sand…sure, I get it. Also never heard of it. Also thrilled to be there at the end of the summer with NO ONE ELSE around.

sunny Savary, with Vancouver Island in the background

Day Two and Four, we rode our bikes 13k around Inland Lake, near Powell River. (We liked the bike path so much, we did it in both directions.)

The lake has its own wee island you can ride onto!

Not a soul around, unless loons have souls.

{OK, I’ll stop. I just REALLY liked that bike path.}

On our last day, back on the lower portion of the Sunshine Coast, we hiked a short ways to Smugglers Cove, where we found…

…THIS.

Madrona in the morning sun

Madrona with berries

I don’t usually post so many pictures, so you can tell what kind of a visual impact this place made on me. (If my computer weren’t so slow to upload them, I’d post more.) The Mate and I feel like we only got a little taste of the Sunshine Coast, and we already want to go back.

Which, lucky for us, isn’t that big of a deal. Which brings me back to that first question: why did it take us 26 years of living in the Northwest to figure this out?

So, what do you think: Canada’s best-kept secret? Or are there others I don’t yet know of?