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Winter at Special Places

by Eric Lucas

Contrast is the key to appreciating winter. The warmth of a fire is magnified by the memory of the crisp, snowy walk just beforehand. The sound of a storm on plate glass is leavened by the calm of a sitting room lined with warm wood and books. A snowball fight is better remembered when followed by a cup of hot chocolate or a bowl of beef barley soup.

The relaxing ease of hot water marks nicely the end of a vigorous day of skiing. And the discovery of a warm patch of sun in a protected south-facing pocket in a winter landscape provides a serendipitous sensory experience whose contrast is instant—sun at your feet, winter at your back.
Vancouver Island’s Special Places—most of them fully open and bustling all winter—offer many excellent options for savoring the contrasts of the season. Multiple are the ways at each to enjoy winter’s contrasts; and at many of these destinations, one of the notable contrasts is the favorable difference in price between summer and winter travel.

Kingfisher Oceanside Resort & Spa near Comox is the place to pair the outdoor challenges of skiing—either Alpine or Nordic—at Mount Washington Resort, where prodigious snowfalls ensure good conditions into April, to the soothing comforts of warm water in all its forms in the resort’s Pacific Mist Hydropath, a splendidly relaxing journey through water baths, showers, steams and soaks. No matter how stiff and sore skiing (or snowshoeing) may make you, an hour in the Hydropath calms the ache. Nearby Old House Village, in downtown Courtenay, has spiffy new housekeeping units, each with a soaking tub for in-home treatment of stiff joints and muscles.

Tigh-Na-Mara Seaside Spa Resort in Parksville is an ideal place to blend the briskness of the winter shoreline with indoor spa indulgences. The 20,000-square Grotto Spa features a huge indoor warm pool with waterfalls, private nooks and a companion cold plunge pool for dedicated European-style spa goers. The resort’s beachfront offers the opportunity for bracing, wind-brushed walks over to Rathtrevor Beach Provincial Park, a BC gem that’s packed with people in summer but uncrowded in winter. Nearby, the Beach Club Resort is a vacation condominium complex of housekeeping units all of which feature ocean or mountain views, and access to the same long strand of beach.

Brentwood Bay Resort in Saanich, a half-hour north of Victoria, provides a unique launching point from which to enjoy world-famed Butchart Gardens in the off-season. Winter-blooming hazels, jasmine, cherries, rhododendrons and more provide unexpected colors and scents throughout winter and early spring, contrasting vividly with the otherwise bare branches of the gardens; the resort, 10 minutes from Butchart, overlooks its namesake bay and provides complete spa, recreation and dining facilities.

Sooke Harbour House, 40 minutes west of Victoria in Sooke, is a world-famed culinary destination where the winter menu offers hearty experiences based on local provender. Root vegetables, cold-water fish and shellfish, savory meats and breads all render the metabolic warmth needed for a stroll on nearby Whiffen Spit, a curl of sand that guards the entrance to Sooke Harbour.

Poet’s Cove Resort is, like Sooke Harbour, a protected anchorage sheltered from the worst winter weather. That’s why sailors have been dropping anchor in this South Pender Island haven for centuries; the resort’s cottages, villas and hotel rooms offer luxurious shelter for boaters and other travelers who can venture outside when the weather’s decent for kayaking, sailing and hiking up the massive ridge adjoining the resort, Mount Norman.

Out on the Island’s West Coast, Ucluelet is a wilderness of headlands, rocky shores and woods into which Black Rock Resort was carved facing the ocean. The sleek new facility’s modern design is one of the most conspicuous winter contrasts here—metal, stone and mirrored glass shimmering in the high winter light off the Pacific. A small cove offers the chance to pick through the detritus of the waves, and a full spa is the place to soak in the warmth of body treatments such as scrubs using Island sea salt, seaweed and glacial mud.

Up the coast an hour, Tofino’s Wickaninnish Inn was specifically designed to further the visitor’s opportunity to experience the contrasts of winter on this wild shore. Poised on a headland where waves pound the rock, the resort’s restaurant, lobby and oceanside rooms are famous venues from which to experience the power of winter storms. Thick plate glass allows guests to watch the waves, which sometimes reach the picture windows; microphones bring in the sound from outside. Meanwhile, guests luxuriate in firelit warmth and savor such hearty fare as short ribs and cider-glazed sablefish.

“Some would say variety is the spice of life… I say it’s contrast,” writes online populist philosopher Ian Cohen. “It’s time to celebrate contrast.” And winter is the season, all across the Island.