Sidewalking Qualicum Beach
In the last week, and during the heat wave, I was lucky to have been able to head out on my first trip outside the CRD in many many months. Our primary destination was the great family vacation resort, Beach Acres. What I wanted to write about though instead of Parksville, was an amazing little beach community that I had never really visited before, Qualicum Beach. This beautiful town is a little over 10 kilometres from Parksville. It is kind of split into two pieces, there is the beach along the water and the village that is about a kilometre up the hill. The reason the two are split comes from the colonial beginnings of the area.
Qualicum means “where the dog salmon run”, in the pentlatch language. The Pentlatch people lived in this area for millennia and the population of the area was likely many thousand people before almost disappearing due to small pox. You can read more of the history here. By the late 1800’s the area was virtually uninhabited and that is when the first small beginnings of Qualicum Beach occurred. The main reason that the village is up the hill and the beach is down below is because in 1914 the E&N railway reached Qualicum Beach. I am not sure why the train went through at that location and not along the water, but it did. I will come back to the town, but I think I will start with the beach.
The beach is not one public space, instead it is actually many. I am not sure what the total number of public beach entrances is, I saw at least three separate ones. We parked next to a beautiful washroom and change house. Despite the fact that when we had left Parksville Rathtrevor Beach was already many hundreds of metres away from the shores edge; the water here was only out a little bit. I assumed that because it was deeper, that the water would be colder, but getting in here reminded me of some the ocean swimming I have done in Mexico. It was that warm. My second thought was that the temperature had been elevated due to the heat wave we were all experiencing, but some of the locals assured me that the water gets warm and swimmable every year, usually by May. The beach is mostly rocks, however, the water temperature completely makes up for it and they are relatively small so still comfortable to lay out. I could have swam there all day.
The one thing that I would have thought we would see more of along a beach this nice is some commercial spaces, maybe some cafes, tourist stores, but no. There are a couple of little motels and maybe one café, not very much. I know I have said it before and it is likely just a personal preference, I love vibrant little beach commercial strips. For some reason they are not something we really have in BC. Beach towns overall may be more of an American or Mexican thing. Because there is not much at the beach, we hopped back in the car and drove up the hill to the Village.
Qualicum Beach Village is quite the surprise. It is not like many other places on the island. It has a real vibrancy that is mostly due to its density. The village is spread out into about 16 or 20 twenty blocks, so not a lot, but due to the density of the businesses and what felt like narrow bi-directional roads with nice broad sidewalks, it felt like a town maybe three or four times as large. This is really a great lesson for any place that wants to increase tourism or really just the enjoyability of their downtown area; lose the parking lots in the centre and outside of the businesses and encourage people to park at the edge and walk around. We stopped into a diner named Gary’s and after a very good cheeseburger, headed over for an ice coffee from the French Press Coffee Roasters.
It was a short visit yet one that certainly made me want to go back. I am not sure if it is due to a high population of wealthy retirees or something else, but the town had a real Carmel vibe to it and so did the look of quite a few of the businesses. Let me know in the comments if that is fair or if I maybe got the wrong impression.
The only thing that I think could make it a little bit harder to leave would be to create a solid connection between the beach and the village. I saw sharrows along the main road between the two areas, instead perhaps a really big bike path and if they were being really ambitious maybe some sort of bus trolley to move people back and forth. That said, I am thinking of this from a tourist perspective and maybe that is not something that the locals want to encourage any more than they already have to put up with.
If I were headed back to the area where should I definitely visit? Any great places to stay? (Especially little cabins or camping?) Would love to hear from you.