McKenzie Beach Magic

• Author: Sacred Site
• Accommodation: Vancouver Island

Around the world you will find many sacred sites. Ancient rock and mystical tales abound in places like Scotland, England and Ireland. Canada I have been told is a young country.

Well the land we walk on is ancient, full of mystery and natural beauty. Tofino is a fishing and tourist town filled with First Nations culture, art and people, hippies living their dream and people who just love the rain forest way of life. For 13 years we travelled to Tofino each winter and for us it became a sacred place. A place to watch the ever changing cycles of nature from day to day. Watch the tides and how the changing beach allowed the land to reach into the water with sculpted fingers of sand. Feel the wind as it touched the trees with its force like a bonsai gardener shaping the cedar she so lovingly works on.

Long Beach, Cox’s Bay, McKenzie Beach and Chesterman’s Beach dot the coast of the Tofino area and yet they are so different. Long Beach goes on forever, with its sandy shore allowing the crashing waves to fill the ears with nature’s music. Driftwood, eagles starfish and a place to watch the beauty of clouds and changing weather move closer and closer to you until you realize you are being rained on. Chesterman’s Beach, the locals beach, with Franks Island in the centre breaking up the beach giving the water two directions to come at the shore. Better watch the tide charts, you can walk out to Franks Island right now but in a hour the pathway will be the ocean. Cox’s Bay the narrow bay allowing the waves to crash so magnificently to the shore, nature’s fury one day and calm dapples of waves another day.

McKenzie Beach (the picture you see on the homepage of this website) is protected by the islands giving the beach a quieter walking space. A place to ponder the wonder of sand dollars, sea shells, tide pools and sea weed. Nature’s gifts to the shore which change with each season. A storm out in the Pacific can stir up the waters and hundreds of shells will appear on the beach, many perfect in their beauty and many others shattered by the waves. If you travel to Tofino in the winter, take your rain gear and allow yourself to be buffeted by the wind and the salt in the air. Listen to the gulls, watch the eagles as they glide on the thermals and breath the pure air that makes you want to curl up in your snuggly little cabin with hot chocolate and a good book or your sweetie.

Sacred land carved by nature with enough of civilizations luxuries to please cities dwellers craving nature and naturalists who wish to rough it.