This past weekend, I celebrated my half-century with family and friends in the village of Zeballos on the rugged west coast of Vancouver Island.
This gold rush town has only 125 year round inhabitants, along with 150 in the Ehattesaht First Nation just next door. Residents were quite friendly, though we stayed clear of one house with an off-leash pit bull. Other fun facts:
- There’s no mobile phone service for 65 km in any direction.
- I heard there’s a horse tie-up at the general store as some still travel to town on saddleback. We saw more golf carts than horses.
- The province recently poured $3.5 million into the 46 kilometre gravel road from the North Island Highway to Zeballos. I wouldn’t take your Smart Car on it, but it’s surprisingly smooth and the easiest of the mere half-dozen ways to get from the east to the west coast of the island. When the road is paved, the town will explode.
- Like in the Yukon, residents are resourceful and inventive. One resident carved a truck rack out of wood instead of buying a metal one. They carpool on trips to the nearest grocery store (190 km away!). There’s no real gas station, but you can call a guy down at the marina and get some in a pinch.
- Zeballos has some of the only untreated municipal water in BC. The water is so pure it needs no treatment and they regularly win water quality awards from the province.
- Wildlife sightings: bear, martin, river otter, mudflat crabs, a chorus of songbirds
- Berry foraging: thimbleberries, red huckleberries, salal berries, saskatoon berries
On July 29, my actual 50th birthday, a local guide took several of us to Little Huson Cave – a swim-in cave with a cathedral ceiling. There’s even an island in the middle of the cave that we swam to and climbed. The water was crystal clear and surprisingly temperate. The limestone surface is wrinkled from the water motion into something like elephant skin – grippy and easy to climb barefoot.
Swimming from daylight on one side, through the cave and peering out to daylight on the other side was a rite of passage: leaving my 40s behind, swimming through the dark unknown and peering out on a new decade. The view ahead was verdant.
