Long Beach Getaway
By Kate MacLennan
Long revered for stunning natural surroundings,
Tofino and Ucluelet are now worth a visit for first-rate
restaurants and luxurious accommodations
In this series:
> Tofino:
Where to Stay and Where to Play
> Where to
Eat in Tofino
> Ucluelet: Restaurants,
Inns, and Diversions
> What $1 Million
(Or Less) Will Buy You...
Ukee (as Ucluelet
is called) may still be known as the cheap sibling
of Tofino, but she’s hot on the heels of her
sister to the north. Image
courtesy A Snug Harbour B&B
There was a
time on Vancouver Island when Tofino and Ucluelet,
the bookends on Long Beach’s famed stretch of
sand, were almost impossible to differentiate and practically
nameless to all except those who lived there. But just
over a decade ago, the 42-kilometre ribbon of road
that joins them began to look more like a closed border
than a scenic drive, dotted with protesters, anti-logging
plywood signs, and pro-logging yellow ribbons. Clayoquot
Sound had caught the world’s attention for better
or worse, and the two fishing villages were pinned
under the spotlight, and pitted against each other. But this tale of two towns begins further
back, when war was raging in Vietnam and British Columbia’s
west coast was absorbing American draft dodgers. Many
of them were well-educated, well-heeled kids who set
up shacks by Wreck Bay and Long Beach. When the Pacific
Rim National Park Reserve was established in 1970,
the squatter community relocated to Tofino, where Chesterman
Beach’s sandy kilometres were ideal for hippie
encampments. With the artsy influx came an alternative
vibe that nurtured a budding environmental movement.
Meanwhile Ucluelet, then the bigger of the two townships,
burgeoned on the strength of tourism. Standard summertime
attractions included whale watching and wilderness
tours on the Lady Rose around Barclay Sound. Both towns
were in bed with the logging industry, but Ucluelet’s
population was far more dependent upon it—for
long-time locals, felling trees put food on the table.
Ucluetians were pigeonholed as insensitive blue-collar
rednecks while Tofitians were revered as valiant protectors
of Mother Nature.
Throughout the ’80s, the subject
of Clayoquot Sound became as sensitive as the wilderness
itself.
Locals suggest that the logging companies played up
the schism between Tofitians and Ucluetians; others
blame the media. Wherever the blame may land (on consultants,
tree sitters, spin doctors, what have you), Ucluelet
was labelled an example of what not to do (shear Mount
Ozzard to the point of baldness, for instance), while
Tofino was placed
on a pedestal (Meares Island shined pristine and preserved
as the backdrop). It made for a hell of a good story.
In the early ’90s, international
activist groups like Greenpeace and the Sierra Club
joined the fracas,
and in the summer of ’93 the province intervened
and put an end to the road blockades and business boycotts.
By 1994, more than ten percent of Clayoquot’s
rain forest was safely ensconced behind legislation,
and “light logging” practices had been
implemented. Tofino was firmly on the map while Ucluelet
was left to pick up the pieces.
The villages have reconciled,
but it’s still
an issue that locals don’t care to rehash. These
days, Ucluelet’s permanent population of 1,900
is slightly larger than Tofino’s, but weekends
are a different story. Thanks to an aggressive tourism
push (think storm watching), Tofino’s streets
swell with unfamiliar faces come Friday night. It isn’t
the artsy utopia it once was, but you can still find
a shot of wheat grass, and large chains like Subway
and Cactus Club have remained conspicuously absent.
As for development, condominiums are popping up like
skunk cabbage in spring. (The repercussions of which
are beginning to surface—remember the Labour
Day weekend in 2006, when Tofino ran out of water?)
Homes on nearby Chesterman Beach developed in the mid
1960s (“Who would pay $1,600 for an acre lot
with such a high water table?”) are today multimillion-dollar
properties.
Ukee (as Ucluelet is called) may still
be known as the cheap sibling of Tofino, but she’s
hot on the heels of her sister to the north. Property
prices
are almost on par, and Ucluelet has hired a town planner
who will build LEED standards into all community development.
The downtown is evolving to keep pace—witness
the arrival of the posh Black Rock Hotel, opening in
September. Jack Nicklaus’s Wyndham Sea golf course
(slated to open in 2011) will be accepting reservations
in its resort hotel soon afterwards. And Ukee has greened
up significantly; Mount Ozzard is no longer an eyesore.
There’s
a fair way to go before the buzz reaches the fevered
tourism pitch that Tofino maintains, but
that might ultimately work to Ucluelet’s advantage.
In any case, the question is not whether Ukee is stepping
up, but whether Tofino will one day be left behind.
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