Tides and Sands

We spend a lot of time talking about how spectacular Rathtrevor Beach is. Part of a 19 km sand strewn coastline on eastern Vancouver Island.

It’s not just because the beach is right outside our doors, however. Rathtrevor really is a special place that is worth the trip – and if you take a few minutes to look up reviews of Rathtrevor Beach Provincial Park, you’ll quickly learn why: many of the people visit every single year.

So just what is it about Rathtrevor Beach that makes it so special? Well, it’s mostly two things, and they’re pretty basic but fundamentally important: the tides, and the sand.

First, the tides go out incredibly far at Rathtrevor Beach. At its lowest you get well over 1000 metres of pristine sandy beach between the shore and the Salish Sea – and since the beach stretches on for miles, that’s a lot of landscape ripe for sandcastles, long walks, and swimming (during the summer).

In fact it’s that enormous sand bar which accounts for the incredibly warm waters that can reach over nearly 80 degrees in the summer months – the warmest ocean water on the west coast north of Cabo San Lucas.

But then there’s the sand itself! It too is part of this geological aberration that started 25,000 years ago, during the Pleistocene epoch, a massive glacier – advanced down the Strait of Georgia and graced the shores of eastern Vancouver Island with a soft, rich sweep of sand. It’s so fine and so silky smooth it defies belief. As soon as you feel the grains between your toes, you know the beach is something special.

Add the tides and the sands together, and you have a recipe for one of the best beaches in Canada. It’s worth the trip, every year.