The cedar-built center makes a great first stop for Long Beach visitors. Indoor displays introduce natural history as well as historic cultural objects of the local Nuu-Chah-Nulth people. Step out on the viewing platform to spot whales passing along the coast. Not to be missed are the center’s beach tours.

Tofino was named by Spanish explorer Juan Francisco de la Bodega y Quadra after one of his teachers, a hydrographer. Located at the entrance to Clayoquot Sound, this pretty coastal town, with 1,600 residents, provides easy access to white-sand beaches and is a magnet for outdoor adventurers, winter storm watchers, and foodies. At the government docks, seafood is sold right off the boats.

Rolling waves wash the white sand shores of this seemingly endless wind-swept beach, 15.5 mi (25 km) in length. The crashing Pacific Ocean rollers offer unbeatable year-round surfing. Giant Sitka spruce and cedars growing in moss-draped temperate rainforests border the beach.

Pronounced “cla-kwat”, Clayoquot boasts trees 295 ft (90 m) tall and 1,700 years old. The UNESCO biosphere reserve shares the territory with black bears, elk, wolves, and an elusive endangered bird, the marbled murrelet. The coastline mingles bays, beaches, channels, intertidal lagoons, and mudflats.

Accessed by boat or water taxi, Meares Island is popular for boat and kayak tours, followed by a stroll along Boardwalk Trail to the hanging garden tree. Birdlife abounds along the island’s shores.

The tranquil cedar-planked Eagle Aerie Gallery in Tofino is a hand-hewn longhouse with a carved and painted housefront traditional to the local First Nations people. Internationally acclaimed Tsimshian printmaker Roy Henry Vickers is the gallerist, and his artwork is also on sale here.

A world-famous area for whale-watching, the 80-mi- (130-km-) long park is made up of three distinct areas: Long Beach, the West Coast Trail, and the Broken Group Islands.

This breathtaking 10-mi (16-km) trail runs alongside the Pacific Ocean through coastal rainforest, from the tip of the Ucluelet peninsula to the Pacific Rim National Park. Hikers are surrounded by lush stands of conifers in the largest lowland temperate rainforest on earth.

This small town is the gateway to multiple outdoor activities on both land and water. Avid fishers flock here for steelhead, sturgeon, halibut, and Pacific and freshwater salmon. The climate is temperate, with 328 frost-free days a year.

The West Coast Trail is a challenging 46-mi (75-km) hike along a historic trail built to aid the rescue of shipwrecked mariners. The trail hugs the shoreline where approximately 65 ships met their demise. Rocky headlands along the trail are dotted with caves, arches, and waterfalls.