travel / travel magazine / may08
Notebook
Tidal rhythms
WHAT MAKES a spectacular beach? Is it
the temperature of the water, the softness of
the sand? Or is it something more
ephemeral - the chance to plant the first
footprints on an undiscovered strand? In our
Hot Beaches package in this issue, we’ve
searched the country for some of the most
popular — or pristine — slices of ocean
and lake to start your summer with a sizzle.
From cool subarctic beaches, where the
ice retreats just long enough in the summer
months for a refreshing plunge, to the
lush bounty of B.C.’s Okanagan and the
luxuriously warm waters in the sheltered
bays of the Atlantic, Canada’s beaches offer
a sparkling array of adventures.
We also sent writer Jim Sutherland to
revisit his youth on Long Beach, a surfer’s
Shangri-La and one-time countercultural
paradise on Vancouver Island’s west coast.
In the 30 years since Sutherland first
dipped his toe into the Pacific, fresh off a Saskatchewan farm, Long Beach has
come of age. And so has he.
Now the home of an internationally
renowned hotel as well as national park
and World Biosphere reserves and enough
wild nature to knock you down, the
22-kilometre line of beaches between
Tofino and Ucluelet has become the country’s
premier beach-vacation destination.
But you won’t need a secret map to find
Long Beach or any of the beaches in our
package. We invite you to explore them all.
Create your Canadian beach life list. Then
tell us about each trip. And while you’re
at it, tell us about the splash zones you
love that didn’t make it into our package.
E-mail editor@canadiangeographic.ca.
By Patricia D’Souza
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