beautiful oceanside residential community of White Rock,
clinging to the slopes above Semiahmoo Bay’s
expansive beach.
Just five kilometres north of the Douglas Border
Crossing, White Rock shares the bay with the nearby
border town of Blaine, Washington.
Renowned for kilometers of wide sandy beaches, quaintrestaurants, art galleries and spectacular sunsets, White Rock has been a holiday destination for decades.
The epicentre of this community is Marine Drive, a lively strip running along the oceanfront bordered byrailway tracks and a popular stretch of grass along the beach.
The city of White Rock was named after the mostnoticeable landmark in the area, a massive white 486-ton boulder that lies on the beach just east of the pier.
Deposited by glacial action and frequently paintedwhite to keep it looking pristine, the rock’s arrival on the shore is the source of many colourful FirstNations’ legends.
Native legend has it that the rock marks the spot where the Transformers, emissaries of the Sagalie Tyee, the Creator, once passed.
Another legend holds that the white rock marks the landing spot of a stone that was hurled across the Strait of Georgia by a young Indian chief.
It was said that he and his bride moved there from Vancouver Island to make a home together.
If this was the case, they started a migratory trend thatcontinues to this day, albeit among retirees moving to the west coast from cooler parts of the country.
White Rock is also called Wrinkle Rock by some of its residents, a reference to the fact that the majority of its citizens are of retirement age.
Population: 19,545
Location: White Rock is located just off Highway 99,immediately north of the Canada/United Statesborder at Peace Arch/Douglas, 32 miles (45 km) south ofNeighbouring communities are Ladner and Tsawwassen, location of the ferry terminal for the ferry service toVancouver Island and the Gulf Islands.
Discover White Rock’s history at the White Rock
Museum and Archives, located in a designated
heritage Train station on the Promenade at West Beach.
Near the train station, one of the city’s major features,
the City Pier, marches out into Semiahmoo Bay.
Stretching some 1,500 feet into the water, the pier was
first constructed in 1914 as a landing dock for steamships,
and has survived fires and a major overhaul to become
a favourite haunt of sightseeing families and sunset-seeking couples.
From here you can look back to shore and identify the
famous white boulder from which the town takes its name.
Meet the Royal Canadian Mounted Police in their official red serge uniforms.
The officers meet and greet visitors on the Promenade
during the summer, providing great photos for the folks
back home!
As you walk the beach east of Semiahmoo Park you
soon reach White Rock Beach.
A boardwalk runs almost the entire length of the beach
in front of Marine Drive.
White Rock has a reputation as one of the sunniest
locales in the Lower Mainland, a fact borne out by
meteorological statistics that show it receives 20
percent more sunshine than does Vancouver.
Small wonder that the beach here is so popular with
swimmers, windsurfers, anglers, and joggers.
Visitors in search of picnic tables should head to the west
end of the beach, where there are a number of them
grouped together on a grassy hillside overlooking the bay,
each with its own small barbeque.
There’s more to do at Crescent Beach in South Surrey
than simply get sand between your toes.
Although swimming is the big attraction in summer, you
can launch a car-top boat and explore the coastline of
Boundary and Mud Bays, as well as the Nicomekl
River, which channels into Boundary Bay east of Crescent
Beach year-round.
For larger boats, there’s a ramp just east of the
Burlington Northern railway tracks in Crescent Beach.
There’s also a drive-in boat launch nearby on the Nicomekl
at Surrey’s Elgin Heritage Park on Crescent Drive
near 35th Avenue.
Between dips in the ocean at Crescent Beach search
out viewpoints south of the sandy beach area.
Pick your way along the rocky shoreline and head south
towards distant Kwomais Point, around which the
railway tracks curve east past Semiahmoo Bay and
White Rock Beach.
Gravel and riprap make walking more difficult at water’s
edge than beside the tracks.
A warning notice posted near the parking area informs
track walkers that they do so at their own risk.
Kayakers pass by offshore, balanced on the waters of
the bay with much greater ease than those poised above
on the steel rails.
The tracks hug the hillside, curving gracefully along the
embankment.
Looking south from one of the curves, you can just make
lookout the sandstone bluffs that rise above Birch Bay in
Washington State.
Along the way, various rough trails lead down the steep
embankment, none of which are very inviting to explore.
The charm here lies in the quiet isolation of the beach
as the less adventuresome throngs are left behind.
Semiahmoo Park is located in White Rock, a namesake of the small Semiahmoo Park on the Washington side of the bay – you’ll have to drive or cycle 20 miles (32 km) around Blaine’s Drayton Harbour to reach it.
The well-marked entrance to Semiahmoo Park is located on the south side of Marine Drive.
A raised railway bed shields the bay’s wide expanse of beach from view.
Walk up the embankment with your barbeque, your beach toys, and even your dog – they’re welcome here.
There is room for everyone on this broad beach, even on the hottest summer days, and the reason they all come down is to wade a long way out into the warm water of the shallow, sandy-bottomed bay.
Watch for the 1,001 Stairs that lead from the beach to the neighbourhood situated above that is all but unseen from below.
The clue to finding them is the appearance of a very small trestle bridge.
A trail runs from the beach beneath the bridge and then leads south along the embankment behind a mesh metal fence.
In minutes you’ll come upon a wooden staircase that climbs the hillside.
Numerous landings interrupt the flow of stairs, places where you can pause to catch your breath while taking in the views of Tsawwassen and Point Roberts on the peninsula to the west across Boundary Bay.
As hard as we’ve tried, we’ve only ever counted 233 steps!
The Horseback Riding paths in Campbell Valley Regional Park to the east of White Rock are located east of 200th Street in Langley.
Before this was parkland, Langley riders maintained the bridle trails that run east towards Aldergrove.
Since September 1979, when the GVRD took control of the 2-square-mile (535-hectare) valley, these trails have come into greater public use.
Today, Campbell Valley Regional Park is one of the easiest places for visitors to satisfy a desire to ride a horse.
The Shaggy Mane Trail, which rings the park, runs 6.8 miles (11 km), an easy two-hour ride.
Since riders often encounter park visitors who are exploring the trails on foot, they must be escorted for the first several visits.
Once riders qualify, however, they can set out on their own.
At sunny times of the year, the Peace Arch Provincial Park in nearby South Surrey attracts almost as many photographers as it does motorists who must wait patiently for their turn to cross the border.
The main attraction here is the imposing white monument called the
Peace Arch, a unique symbol of peace and friendship between Canada and the United States built in 1920.
The floral landscaping in the park is another reason that visitors come here with cameras in hand.
On sunny days, particularly when the long afternoon sun begins to drop towards Vancouver Island, Semiahmoo Bay dazzles with its powerful reflection of light.
This is a good location for big sky shots of the fiery variety.
To find your way to the park, take Hwy 99 south almost to the Canada Customs and Immigration Building, then turn west onto Beach Road, next to the duty-free store.
Located immediately north of the Blaine Canada/US border, the Peace Arch Provincial Park Visitor Info Centre offers visitors a wide range of travel services.
Courteous knowledgable staff provide professional visitor councelling and itinerary planning, accommodation reservations, and helpful travel information including transportation and community information on all areas of British Columbia.
What children or kids activities are available in Victoria BC?
Victoria BC being one of the worlds premier destination cities that appeals to mostly adults does have places that the kids can enjoy too. Often trying to placate bored children can be a little difficult in Victoria. That is why this lists names the top kids activities in Victoria BC all in one spot so you’ll need not to look any further.
1. Downtown has many options, and the first is the Royal BC Museum. This is one of the best museums in all of Canada and appeals to to the young and the young at heart. Explore BC’s natural, human and contemporary history brought to life in some of the most detailed immersive displays that make this museum famous. There is an interactive area for young children where they can touch and explore using microscope-like devices and other visual aided apparatus. Not only is this area fun for kids but is educational as well. The museum also plays host to other touring displays of the likes of whales and Leonardo Da Vinci.
2.Beacon Hill Park. A five minute walk from downtown Victoria, this beautiful urban park has many acres of gardens, ponds, trails, miles of coast line and most important of all, lots of stuff for kids to do!
Beacon Hill Park is a great place for the kids and family to have a picnic lunch and spend a few hours of semi or unstructured leisure time. There is a large playground with many different kind of activities that will help burn of that extra energy kids always seem to have. Not one, but two water parks where kids can frolic around and cool off on a hot summers day. Last but not least, a petting zoo! Admission is by donation and there a lots of animals that are kid friendly, especially the goats.
There is plenty of free parking every where in Beacon Hill Park, a great view from the top of Beacon Hill where you can walk or drive up and there is a great little fast food restaurant called the Beacon Drive In (at the corner of Douglas St. and Beacon St.) where they have some of the best soft serve ice cream in Victoria BC.
3. The Victoria Bug Zoo. This attraction was designed just for kids in mind. Come explore the world bugs and creepy crawly insects guaranteed to amaze children of all ages.
5.WildPlay Element Parks. Adventure high up in the forest canopy where your kids can zip-line from tree to tree over a set course. Safety is of utmost concern and you can be rest assured this supervised kids attraction will provide thrilling memories for the rest of their lives.
7.All Fun Recreation Park. Water slides used to be the prime attraction here, but they have been permanently closed. However, there are more great kids attractions besides water slides. There are batting cages, mini golf and go karts that will be guaranteed to amuse for many hours. The park is open year round and there is also an ice cream stand on premises.
8. Shaw Ocean Discovery Centre. A hands on marine educational centre, explore up close our marine ecosystem with the aid of microscopes and other educational devices. The aquariums are stocked with local plant and animal life from our local environment and some you can even touch.
9.Fort Rod Hill National Historic Site. Extensive WWI and WWII artillery batteries completely restored to its period form. Explore the many gun batteries, barracks, war room, support structures, beaches and even a working lighthouse that is open to your exploration.
10.Witty’s Lagoon. This park located just outside Victoria BC has a nature house, waterfalls and a 25 minute walk through the forest to the beach. The best part about Witty’s Lagoon sandy beach is at low tide the sand bar becomes exposed and stretches out half a kilometer. The tidal pools warm up on sunny summer days and can become warm, the shallow sandy beach is great for building sandcastles and skim boarding adventures.
The only amenities at Witty’s Lagoon are pit toilets so make sure you bring your own water and snacks.
Well, there you have it, all the 10 top things to do for kids in Victoria BC. If you need more general information about visiting this fabulous city come on over to our main site for Victoria BC Tourism to get all the information you need on local services, accommodations and a feature length in depth travel guide so you can get the most out of your vacation.
By Darshan Montgomery
Powell River offers unlimited variety for hikers, from oceanfront strolls to backcountry treks.
The 180km/111mi Sunshine Coast Trail is the best-known hiking
trail in the region, and can easily be explored in smaller sections.
Other hikes provide more opportunities for wildlife-watching
and checking out local vegetation.
Many trails are maintained by the Bloody Old Men’s Brigade
(also known as the BOMB Squad), a group of retired local men
who volunteer their time and energy.
The Sunshine Coast Trail, founded in 1992, meanders south from
Sarah Point on Desolation Sound (north of the village of Lund) to
Saltery Bay on Jervis Inlet (where ferries travel to Earl’s Cove
on the lower Sunshine Coast).
With ocean views, old-growth forest, bridges, and bluffs, the
terrain is engagingly diverse, and ranges from moderate to
challenging.
Between Sarah Point and Malaspina Road, don’t miss the swimming
and camping at Wednesday Lake Watershed. Farther south,
between Fiddlehead Farm and Eagle River, admire the views
from Tinhat Mountain and pick blueberries in the summer.
Campsites and toilets are located along the trail, and B&Bs can also
be accessed.
The official recreation map for the upper Sunshine Coast
Nestled in the southern end of the Columbia River Valley is the community of Canal Flats, located just off Highway 93/95 that links Cranbrook in the south of the valley
with Golden, about 140 miles (239 km) to the north.
Canal Flats sits 1 kilometre from the southern end of
the 16-kilometre long Columbia Lake, the source of
the Columbia River that flows north to Kinbasket Lake
before turning south to finally empty into the Pacific
Ocean at Astoria, Oregon, a journey of 1,225 miles
(1,960 kms).
Columbia Lake lies squeezed between two walls of
rock; the Purcell Mountains to the west and the Rocky
Mountains to the east.
In pre-Contact native America and the early years of
western exploration, the Kootenay Valley was a major
transportation corridor.
Due to curiosity of geology, the headwaters of the vast
Columbia River are separated from the south-flowing
Kootenay River by a low, 1.2-mile wide (2-km) berm of
land called Canal Flats.
The Kootenay River then meanders down into the US
before flowing back north into Canada to join the
Columbia River at Castlegar, BC.
Canal Flats was originally named McGillivray’s Portage
by David Thompson, who passed through the area in
1808.
Not far from the Canal Flats Provincial Park are the
remains of a canal, completed in 1889, which connected
Columbia Lake with the nearby Kootenay River, hence
the name Canal Flats given to the post office in 1913.
The canal was part of a scheme by English/Austrian
entrepreneur William Adolph Baillie-Grohman in the
1880s to breach Canal Flats and divert water from the
upper Kootenay River into the Columbia system,
thereby sufficiently lowering the level of Kootenay Lake
to reclaim the 48,000-acre rich alluvial plain in the
Creston area and open up a north-south navigational
system from Golden to Montana.
The scheme was abandoned under pressure from the
Canadian Pacific Railways, concerned about its
Columbia River Crossings, and from Settlers around
Golden who feared that their farmlands would be flooded.
Baillie-Grohman had to settle for building a canal and
lock system between the two rivers, completed
in 1889.
Only two ships ever passed through the canal; in 1895
the vessel Gwendoline successfully navigated the
canal from the Kootenay River to the Columbia River,
followed in 1902 by the North Star.
The canal builder owned the first store and post office
in the community as well as the first steam sawmill in
the valley, the start of the lumber industry that has put
Canal Flats on the map.
Canal Flats is the gateway to several backcountry provincial
parks, including Whiteswan and Top of the World, and
is an entrance to the Kootenay River Road.
Location: Canal Flats is located just off Highway 93/95
at the southern end of Columbia Lake in the Kootenay
The Sunshine Coast is accessible from the Lower Mainland only by boat or airplane.
Travellers aboard BC Ferries leave Horseshoe Bay in West Vancouver for the 45-minute ride to Langdale on the Sechelt Peninsula. Highway 101 links Langdale with Egmont and the ferry terminal at nearby Earls Cove.
and scenic beauty that must be seen and experienced to
be fully appreciated, a tranquil paradise tucked into the
Coast Mountains on the BC mainland.
Stop at the sandy swimming beach at Dan Bosch
Regional Park on the eastern shore of Ruby Lake,
10 minutes south of the Earls Cove ferry terminal, where
you’ll find just the place to picnic and swim.
The park has 3 picnic tables, and a quarter-mile loop trail
along the shoreline of Ruby Lake.
If you need a boat, nearby Ruby Lake Resort rents them out.
Ruby Lake Lagoon provides a safe home to over 80
species of birds, including a growing abundance of North
America’s most beautiful waterfowl, the Wood Duck.
Other wildlife at Ruby Lake includes painted turtles,
beavers, otters, Roosevelt elk, deer and bears.
The Ruby Lake Lagoon Nature Reserve Society
provides facilities for the casual bird watcher and family
nature hikes, and supports activities ranging from scientific research studies to local school projects.
Between Madeira Park and Earls Cove, you can canoe or kayak Sakinaw Lake, and follow the portage route up to Ruby Lake.
There’s lovely freshwater paddling on Ruby Lake, which most folks only get to admire from their vehicle as they pass by on their way to or from the Earls Cove ferry terminal.
Ruby and Sakinaw Lakes are noted for good trout fishing in season.
Egmont also makes a good base for charter boats to explore the prime cruising grounds of Desolation Sound – one of the most beauti
ful and varied cruising areas in British Columbia.
Egmont Park is located in the heart of downtown Egmont on the old Egmont School site. There is a grassy field, tennis court and playground.
One of the greatest natural shows in British Columbia occurs twice daily in Skookumchuk Narrows Provincial Park in Egmont at the north end of the Sechelt Peninsula.
One of the largest saltwater rapids on Canada’s West Coast, Skookumchuk Rapids boils as huge volumes of water force their way through Skookumchuk Narrows at the north end of Sechelt Inlet (Skookum is a Native word for strong and chuk means water).
A 2.5-mile (4-km) walking trail leads from the outskirts of Egmont to viewing sites at North Point and Roland Point.
This is an easygoing ramble without much diversion except where it skirts Brown Lake.
Depending on the motion of the ocean, viewing is at North Point during a falling tide and at Roland Point during a flood tide.
The two points are separated by only a short distance.
You can plainly hear the boiling, bubbling roar of these tidal rapids at Roland point.
At low tide, the bays around both points display astonishingly colourful and varied forms of marine life.
Giant barnacles, colonies of starfish, sea urchins, and sea anemones thrive in the nutrient-rich waters, whose strong tidal currents cause these creatures to grow to extravagant sizes.
In order to fully appreciate the scene, plan your visit to coincide with the change in tides.
The most dramatic motion, when billions of gallons of water are sucked into cavernous whirlpools and whipped up into standing waves, occurs an hour after slack tide when the ocean is rising.
Consult tide tables to determine the timing of your visit.
You’ll find these posted at tourist information centres around the Sunshine Coast, on BC Ferries, and at the trailhead.
