strathcona park | Wing's World

You’re halfway up Vancouver Island. You only have a few days before heading back to the mainland–not enough time to get out to the Wild West Coast, nor down to Victoria. Where do you go?

This is Englishman Falls Provincial Park, just a hop & skip off the main highway between Campbell River and Nanaimo. And yes, that disappearing waterfall is even more insane in real life. Here’s what it looks like face-on:

…and from the top, just above the drop:

Who, me? Just a boring old clear Canadian river…

That little park was one of several blips on the map of east-central Vancouver Island that, in classic Canadian fashion, fail to call attention to themselves…until you are standing there with your jaw a-drop.

Campbell River–the actual river for which the town is named–is dammed, but not only does it offer the salmon a big side-channel to bypass the dam, it provides guardians for those fish on their passage:

Not as good as a wild, free river–but way better than nothing

Further inland, Strathcona Provincial Park certainly shows up on the map, but this little waterfall? We only found it when directed there by a volunteer docent we happened to meet.

No one else was around. Just me and that pool.

We’d intended to camp in Strathcona, but the weather went sideways. No problem backpacking in the rain, but wet car camping? That just feels stupid. So we got in a short hike…

(I can just imagine that trail repair crew going, “Eh…good enough! Let ’em climb.”)

(forcing myself to resist the biggest Chicken-of-the-Woods mushrooms I’ve ever seen!)

…and rode our bikes along the 14-mile long (and unfortunately-named) Buttle Lake…

…before heading back to Campbell River, where we’d scored one of those cheap hotel deals at a NOT-cheap hotel, Painter’s Lodge.

as seen from the lodge’s dock, at very low tide

On that dock we found this map–WONDERFULLY helpful for orienting ourselves in BC’s bewildering array of islands:

Not our usual type of stay, but we took full advantage. Especially because the part we stayed in seemed to be a mashup of our last name & our favorite BC island:

Of course the rain stopped when we got there. But then it came back. Phew.

Luckily for us, they let us cook our cheeseburgers out in the patio area!

“This counts as camping, right?” (Quadra Island in the background)

Our last day, after those amazing Englishman Falls, we found a very cool bike path–along the highway, yes, but screened by bushes & trees, with plenty of curves and hills giving it a very adventurous feel.

Some of those bushes had blackberries on them, and I was shocked at how sweet they still were, in September! So: lunch.

Peanut Butter, Honey & Blackberry Sammy!

Our final night on the Big Island (move over, Hawai’i–actually, never mind, you’re already pretty far over) we spent in Nanaimo, in order to catch our ferry next morning. I walked all over, discovering the best kind of quirks, like this Flower Wall:

Just an apartment building, far as I could tell

Along with flowers, Nanaimo boasted its own poster-of-random affirmations, because I found a number of these type of signs, here and there:

Next week, the exciting BC conclusion: University of! Thanks for riding along.

Having checked out some of its wee satellites (Quadra and Cortes), we turned our attention to Vancouver Island itself, a mothership so vast it’s hard to remember it’s an island. (Although I suppose one could say that about our continent as well, eh?)

With only two days before our ferry home, we didn’t have time to head all the way over to the wild West Coast–that trip will have to wait. Instead, we bumbled into the easiest possible gateway to gorgeous: Strathcona Provincial Park, just west of Campbell River.

Our goddaughter had described her “best bike ride ever” a couple of years ago, along the shores of Buttle Lake in the park. That’s talking our language! In scrutinizing the map, we discovered Strathcona Park Lodge. And since it was now raining more or less continuously and we were no longer interested in campgrounds, we crossed our fingers and gave the lodge a try.

They had one cabin free.

“Tent, shment.”

They also had 180 Canadian teenagers staying on the grounds…because Strathcona Park Lodge, it turns out, is an Outdoor Education Center–I mean, Centre. In their own words, they are “a self contained community of more than 20 buildings, 50 or more staff and hundreds of guests. The entire operation is powered by a micro-hydro system, which means we’re highly sensitive to energy conservation. We also treat our own water and heat some of it with passive solar technology.”

Yup–we’d found our peeps. Those 180 teenagers? Not only did they get whisked away to spend their days hiking in the rain and learning to kayak, they also returned at night to tuck into a dining-hall meal that truly shocked us in its boldness: curried eggplant and lamb, with samosas and yogurt! Can you imagine American teens eating that? Good for you, Strathcona! Good for you, Canada!

[If I were the kind of person who takes pictures of food…but I’m not, so you’ll just have to imagine it.]

The second night we cooked, using our camp stove out on the cabin’s front deck, with this view.

This will do.

Nights were awfully cozy.

“Tent, shment.”

Oh, and that bike ride? As beautiful as described, going on for miles and miles and miles. (I mean kilometers.) AND relatively flat. I did one section with the Mate, and another alone, stopping to take pictures.

Looking into the interior, where the mountains rise to 7,000 feet.

Their version of the dogwood…and, I THINK, BC’s provincial flower (too lazy to fact-check this)

Don’t think I’ve ever noticed maples changing color outside-in like this.

The hiking was no more jaw-dropping than a hike in our own Cascades–like I’ve said before, I’m completely spoiled. But I did encounter some FANTASTIC fungi.

These guys usually have red caps! Is this the Black Panther version?

Who needs maple leaves when you have this?

The rare British Columbian Boobshroom in full fruit

On our way back to the ferry in Sidney, we made a few stops to smaller provincial parks. This one, Elk Falls, was a favorite–right outside Campbell River.