Beaches

In the 1970s, I, too, spent many hours by the side of the highway, though the cars driving by tended to take considerably less interest. Sometimes, however, the hitchhiker’s fantasy ride did materialize - not the shag-lined van filled with beautiful girls, regrettably, but occasionally a slick driving machine piloted by an impossibly cool peer.

I relate the story of one such ride the morning Jessie and I share breakfast with Charles McDiarmid, managing director of the Wickaninnish Inn. The tale seems appropriate because one dashing young fellow who picked me up had reached into the back of his sports car and pulled out two frosty German lagers (this was the ’70s, remember), then, as we were chatting, mentioned he was a manager at the original Wickaninnish, now the park visitors centre. McDiarmid doesn’t seem shocked, allowing that he still does things like that (without benefit of beer). It is a good way to recruit staff.

World-wise in the way that hoteliers generally are, McDiarmid still strikes me as someone who fits in well in easygoing Tofino, now the kind of place where surfers outnumber fishermen and there’s no point in requesting a shade-grown fair-trade coffee because that’s all that’s available. It shouldn’t surprise me, because McDiarmid grew up here. His father Howard served as the town doctor and area MLA in the 1960s, earning the intriguing moniker of “the drinking man’s friend,” probably not a criticism in a locale that, at the time, made its living from resource industries. Among the first to spot the area’s tourism potential, Howard McDiarmid was instrumental in upgrading the highway and long harboured the desire to open a seaside retreat.

The creation of a national park infrastructure during the mid-1970s was a mixed blessing in that regard. On one hand, it helped heighten awareness and attract tourists (though not the kind who liked to camp on the beach, a practice that was soon banned by park authorities). On the other, it stopped development on two of the most appealing beaches - Long Beach and nearby Florencia Bay - and ultimately led to the closing of the original Wickaninnish, the one hotel with resort aspirations. On Chesterman Beach to the north, the McDiarmids finally built their inn in 1996, soon achieving the prestigious Relais & Château designation and, within a few years, regular inclusion on Top 100 lists of the world’s best hotels. From our room with a view (and there is no other kind), we can understand why.

But was the Wick a cause or an effect? Do almost a million visitors a year now make the winding three-hour journey over Vancouver Island’s rugged spine because there are plenty of great places to stay? Or is it the other way around? As a person with lots of questions, I am grateful to discover a person with lots of answers. Bill McIntyre arrived in the area around the same time I did and possessed the same intrepid spirit, while lacking the complete aimlessness. An employee of Parks Canada, he helped get the new national park off the ground, then from 1975 till his retirement in 1998, he served as chief naturalist. Now he operates a walking-tour business, Long Beach Nature Tours.

As I am about to find out, McIntyre is equally comfortable interpreting the recent rapid evolution of the human ecology. He suggests we meet at the park visitors centre, the original Wickaninnish. This, he tells us, had been quite the party place back in the 1970s - a time when, really, there wasn’t much to do beyond drinking and cavorting. The ocean was considered too cold for swimming and too rough for pleasure boating, while the kind of eco-adoration that’s common today hadn’t really been conceived.