There are days in Tofino when the sun shines down, warming its beaches and storm-twisted coastal rainforest and illuminating the Pacific to a vibrant green hue.
There are days in Tofino when the sun shines down, warming its beaches and storm-twisted coastal rainforest and illuminating the Pacific to a vibrant green hue. But it's the unpredictable and sometimes violent storms of fall and winter that bring the big waves and real surfers to the western edge of Vancouver Island.
When the rain falls sideways, the air temperature hovers around freezing and the ocean isn't much warmer, that's when the trucks and vans of locals and weekend warriors line the puddle-filled parking lots of the Pacific Rim national Park Reserve near Florencia Bay, Long Beach and Wickanninish Beach, the tell-tale plastic bins that hold their wetsuits shoved beneath their vehicles' bumpers.
Those days, if you brave the driving rain and bone-deep chill to stand on the beach and peer out into the angry ocean, you can see their neoprene-hooded heads bobbing about, if the fog isn't too thick. When one paddles into the path of a wall of heaving, grey water that threatens to swallow them, you may be tempted to close your eyes.
Don't.
B.C. surfers are in their element in this cold, briny chaos. In fact, many wait all year for it. This rugged undertaking is the unique Canadian surfing experience.
Word about Tofino's surf culture is definitely out. In 2010, U.S.-based Outside magazine even named Tofino the Best Surf Town in North America. yet while the media's attention to surfing in Canada is relatively new, surfing in Tofino dates back to the 1960s, when American ex-pats and draft-dodgers brought the first surf- boards to the area. After an incubation period that went largely under the radar in the '70s, and a couple of false starts in the '80s, surfing finally took off in Canada in the 1990s – not coincidentally as wetsuit technology began to radically improve.
Then, as the Internet took its revolutionary hold and the core of surfing grew even bigger in places like Hawaii and California, the timing was right for surfing in Tofino yet again. Professional surfers in other countries craved un- crowded waves, and so began to mine territory that it was thought people would never be crazy enough to surf, like Canada. They saw photographs of talented Tofino surfers, such as brothers and surf pros Raph and Sepp Bruhwiler, and began to pay visits to B.C.
Fast forward to 2009, when wetsuit brand o'neill added Tofino to its international Cold Water Classic tour, in which surfers from around the world compete to gain points towards qualifying for surfing's global professional tour. In a fairy tale ending, Tofino-born and based surfer Peter Devries took home first prize. It was a defining moment in Canadian surfing, and it inspired yet another one.
Tofino has one of the highest numbers of female surfers per capita in the world, but women weren't allowed to compete in O'Neill's competition. Tofino surf school Surf Sister retaliated by creating the Queen of the Peak surf contest, which will run for its fourth consecutive year on October 5 and 6.
"We just want to create an environment where men and women are equal in the water," Queen of the Peak co-founder Krissy Montgomery told McClung's magazine earlier this year, and Tofino's male surfers have rallied hard behind her.
That kind of gender-neutral support is not so typical for surfing, a sport entrenched with machismo. But then, Tofino's not your typical surf town.
Want to be sitting on top of the world, too? Learn to catch a wave with one of Tofino's many surf schools:
Sepp Bruhwiler's Westside Surf
Rent boards and buy surf-inspired threads at these long-standing, respected local shops:
Mingle with other surfers and battle for bragging rights over awesome food at these local establishments: