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Rock Pools
It is impossible to count the number of tidal rock pools on Vancouver Island’s beautiful Botanical Beach – and each one is unique in its colours and textures.
It is nice when advertising slogans actually make sense and ring true!
British Columbia (BC), Canada’s western-most province, has coined the phrase: Super, Natural British Columbia. And it fits. Wherever you go, there are natural spaces of the most incredible beauty.
I had landed in Vancouver, and almost immediately headed for the woods and nature trails (see: Back in the Land of Tall Trees). I was lucky: some time later, I was visiting with ‘friends-in-the-know’ on Vancouver Island, off the west coast of BC. They took me to visit what used to be called Botanical Beach Provincial Park, but since 1996 has been subsumed under the larger Juan de Fuca Provincial Park. This magnificent coastal preserve is a two-hour drive from where I was staying in Victoria. It sits overlooking the Salish Sea – or the Strait of Juan de Fuca, depending on the age of your maps – and is accessed through the tiny community of Port Renfrew. Serious multi-day hikers know the locale because it is the trailhead for the celebrated Juan de Fuca Marine Trail and the historic West Coast Trail; even so, it is not an area I would have found by accident.
But, like every other corner of this remarkable province, it is a joy!
Botanical Beach, with its abundance of intertidal life, was identified as a notable location for the study of marine tidepools by Dr. Josephine Tildon from the University of Minnesota. The university set up a marine station in 1900 – but students had to travel by steamship from Victoria to Port Renfrew, and then walk a narrow and muddy trail (with all their scientific equipment) the rest of the way. A road was promised but never built, and the station closed in 1907.
Fortunately, we were able to drive to the trail head, from whence the beach was an easy one kilometre (0.6 miles) walk!
Come for a waterfront stroll among the tidal pools.
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Western Skunk Cabbage in the Shadows
Skunk cabbages (Lysichiton americanus) are ubiquitous in the wet spaces here. They are also monocots – which I had to look up: monocotyledons are grass and grass-like flowering plants whose seeds typically contain only one embryonic leaf, or cotyledon. Helpful, right?
The contrasts between brilliant sunlight through a clear sky and dark, damp understory of a tall forest are a challenge for the camera – and for the editing process afterwards!
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“Scientifically Significant”
The interpretive signage along the track provides lots of useful information.
Tall Trees and Alectoria Sarmentosa
I have always called it Spanish Moss – silly me! Thanks to a signboard along the track to the beach, I now know it’s a witch’s-hair lichen.
The Path
We parked near the toilets; as we were about to set off, a woman asked if we’d done the track before. “It’s very muddy and slippery!” she said. …
Walkers on the Path
… Lucky for us, she pointed us to a cleaner, shorter trail to the beach close by.
Green Shoot in the Sun
Approaching Botanical Beach
It doesn’t matter how long I spend in BC where sights like this are an everyday occurance, this kind of view always takes my breath away.
A Figure on the Beach
Even if you are not alone, there is a feeling of space.
Steller’s Jay in the Trees
Regularly sighted in these forests, the native Steller’s jay (Cyanocitta stelleri) was named in 1788 for Georg Steller, a naturalist who first sighted them in Alaska in 1741 from a Russian explorer’s ship.
Waves on the Rocks
The soft sandstone foreshore has been pounded by the waves of the wild Pacific Ocean, carved by boulders tossed around by water, and further detailed by purple sea urchins.
Rocks in a Tidal Pool
Ridges of shale and quartz jut up through black basalt …. It’s a pity I don’t know my basalt from my quartz!
Bull Kelp – Nereocystis Luetkeana
More than once on this trip, I heard stories about how the over-hunting of sea otters lead to the rise in sea urchins, and the subsequent decimation of kelp forests. This then had numerous negative flow-on effects, especially – but not restricted to – the reduction in other marine life. Scientists are currently looking at ways of restoring the balance; but what would balance look like?
The Eastern Shore
An unnamed (as far as I can ascertain) promontory marks the eastern end of Botanical Beach. In any event, the tide was coming in; it was time to work our way back!
Tidal Rock Pool
Provincial Park rules prohibit the collecting or harming of any marine species (whether it is alive or not) …
Another Rock Pool
… but the wonderful colours and textures make the urge to reach in and touch (almost) irresistible!
A Little Drippy Cave
Even the vertical sandstone walls have been carved into interesting shapes.
Nature’s Watercolour Pallet
Rock Pool Moonscape
The incoming tide can rise quite quickly: it is time to move on, before we lose the foreshore.
Mussels on a Log
Creatures are everywhere we look.
Salmonberry Flower
Nothing says the Pacific Northwest like the native bramble: the salmonberry (Rubus spectabilis), which will soon be covered in delicious, raspberry-like fruit.
Laurel
The laurels were also in full bloom, but I’m not so sure these are native.
We were lucky: the low temperatures that had dogged the usually warm west-coast spring were ideal for walking, and the copious rains that had been mostly unrelenting all month held off long enough for us to get back to the car for the drive back home.
Super, natural, …
Indeed!
Pictures: 16May2022
