A brush with NATURE

Canada’s Southern Gulf Islands have an arty vibe and few visitors, but each one has its own unique character to discover. They could be your perfect 2020 escape…

- ANTHONY LAMBERT

Our kayaks slipped silently through transparent waters towards the family of sea otters cavorting on the rocks, the two pups playing hide and seek before they slid down to hunt for sea urchins among the kelp beds. We edged along the shoreline past beaches littered with jumbles of trees, the tell-tale deposits of storms past, their trunks stripped of bark, bleached by the sun and polished smooth by abrasion. Beneath us tiny crabs scuttled over the sandy bed, while bald eagles circled overhead.

I was in Galiano, one of the Southern Gulf Islands lying between the east coast of Vancouver Island and the mainland of British Columbia, Canada. Since my first visit over 20 years ago, I had been drawn back to these oases of tranquillity by their exceptional beauty and the gentle pace of island life. Here cafés are as much about meeting and talking as sustenance, and every shop is independently owned. Too small for public transport, several islands have a Car Stop scheme where you wait by a sign and the next car along will probably pull up to give you a ride and have a chat. Every meeting turns into a conversation.

The islands are so peaceful that only Salt Spring and Pender have a police presence, and the most serious incident during my visits was the abduction of the community hall cat on Salt Spring by a well-meaning mainland resident who thought it needed a ‘proper’ home. There’s not only a strong sense of community but the islanders are proud of the land they live on. In 1948 the Galiano community even pulled together to help buy Bluffs Park, the island’s oldest wilderness park.