Port Hardy, Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada

Marina in Port Hardy, Vancouver Island

Boating & Sailing: Known for its beautiful, rugged shores and close proximity to the famed Inside Passage, Port Hardy is the perfect place to embark on your boating or sailing adventure. Off the eastern shore of Port Hardy, the Queen Charlotte Strait is known for its sheltered tranquility and serene beauty; the perfect spot for exploring.

Fishing: Port Hardy offers world-class fishing for salmon, halibut, red snapper, rock cod, sea bass, crab, trout, steelhead, and cutthroat trout. Port Hardy is home to full-service marinas offering dockage, fuel, and a boatyard. Charters, boat rentals and guides are available for both saltwater and freshwater fishing excursions.

Skiing: The closest ski hill is Mt. Cain Ski Resort, located south of Port Hardy (1 hour and 45 minutes by car). At Mount Cain you'll find untouched powder which has built up over the week, virtually no line-ups for lifts, and the friendly, welcoming atmosphere of a family-oriented mountain.

Storage: There is long-term parking in Port Hardy for RV's, vehicles and boat trailers, and moorage facilities for boats.

Caving: Due to the unique geography of Vancouver Island, and its location within a series of Karst systems, the region is attractive to cave explorers. Spelunkers can discover both surface and underground geological formations such as stalactites and stalagmites, sink holes, disappearing and reappearing rivers, and, of course, underground caves.

Golf: The public 9-hole Par 35 Seven Hills Golf & Country Club in Port Hardy is the northernmost golf course on Vancouver Island. Seven Hills offers the golfer meadering fairways and undulating greens, with scenic views of the North Island Mountains. Open year round. Golf Vacations on Vancouver Island.

Marble River Provincial Park protects a portion of the Marble River, which flows through a shallow canyon bordered by forest-covered benchlands. The park is nestled in a beautiful forest, and incorporates the river's estuary at Varney Bay on Rupert Inlet, a steelhead fishery, extensive waterfowl habitat, and eagle nesting habitat near Quatsino Narrows. The park can be reached from Port Hardy on the Port Alice road off Island Highway 19, or by taking a boat from Coal Harbour, 10 km south of Port Hardy.

Gods Pocket Marine Provincial Park provides some of the best underwater scuba diving on the Pacific Coast. Most diving takes place in nearby Browning Pass, an area rated by the late underwater explorer Jacques Cousteau as one of the best cold water diving destinations in the world. Gods Pocket is made up of a group of islands, the largest of which are Bull and Hurst Islands, about 20kms due north of Port Hardy.

San Josef Bay, Cape Scott Provincial Park

Cape Scott Provincial Park lies to the northwest of Port Hardy in a stunning region of coastal wilderness and scenic oceanfront. Visitors to the 21,849 hectare park will find little development except trails. The park is characterized by 64 km of scenic and rugged ocean frontage from Nissen Bay in the north to San Josef Bay in the south. Rocky promontories and jagged headlands are scattered along the remote and wide sandy beaches.
Nels Bight is the most impressive of the 9 beaches in the park, at 2,400 metres long and over 200 metres wide! Visitors to Cape Scott should be well prepared for adverse weather conditions - all year round. Annual rainfall is between 375 and 500 centimetres, and prolonged sunny periods are a rarity, even in summer. High winds, rain and generally stormy conditions can be expected at any time of the year. There is no best time to visit the park, although mid summer is generally preferred.
The park offers Camping on the beach, wilderness camping, hiking, and wildlife viewing. Hiking trails range from two to sixty kilometres, and from a pleasant stroll to a challenging and demanding test of skill and stamina. The incessant rain results in muddy and difficult conditions on primitive trails that provide some of the most tortuous terrain of any trail in British Columbia.

Raft Cove Marine Provincial Park is located about 5 miles south of Cape Scott Provincial Park, attracting wilderness adventurers on day hikes, or backpackers carrying in overnight gear to set up camp on the 1.3-km sandy beach, This is a great place to really get away from it all, but it is a challenging hike in on a very rough trail. Visitors should dress warmly and bring good rain gear at most times of the year, as Raft Cove is extremely exposed to the Pacific weather systems that have pounded this coastline for thousands of years. Come prepared to wear waterproof clothing on top of your waterproof clothing in an attempt to stay dry.
Remember that away from the road it's a wilderness, with limited development in the park, but it sure is beautiful country. Camping on the beach in wilderness campsites or amongst the peninsula's trees is very popular, as is surfing, swimming, fishing, hiking and beach hiking. During low tides, long shore walks over rock and beach can be made north or south of Raft Cove, at the edge of the pounding Pacific surf.

Bear Cove, Vancouver Island, BC

Annual Events: The residents of Port Hardy honour the local First Nations on Aboriginal Day in June. The Canada Day celebration on July 1 at Storey�s Beach starts the summer off with a bang. Held on the beach, and featuring a parade, outdoor activities and displays, it gives locals and visitors the opportunity to celebrate Canada�s birthday in a unique way. Filomi Days, held on the third weekend in July, celebrates the area's three biggest industries: fishing, logging, and mining. Port Hardy is a lively community, with the seasonal and annual special events and activities ensuring visitors return year after year.

Fort Rupert: Adjacent to Port Hardy is Fort Rupert, an historic Kwakiutl Village. Though difficult to find, petroglyphs do exist on the sandstone formations in the upper tidal area, in front of the old Hudson's Bay Fort site. Fort Rupert is also home to several totem poles, and a traditional native big house. For more information on Fort Rupert, as well as the rich native history of the Kwakwaka'wakw First Nations, the Port Hardy Museum offers visitors a step back in time and look at the diverse culture, history and artifacts of this aboriginal population. The famous Edward S. Curtis film In the Land of the War Canoes was filmed at Fort Rupert.

South of Port Hardy is Port McNeill. Logging and marine supply stores are the predominant features here, but so too is the Port McNeill waterfront, from where ferries depart to nearby Cormorant and Malcolm Islands. The towns of Alert Bay and Sointula, located respectively on each island, are both worthy destinations for day-tripping foot passengers.

West of Port Hardy, beautiful forested valleys and brilliant blue lakes lead to the hamlet of Holberg, once the site of the world's largest floating logging camp. Forty minutes farther along the Holberg Road is the tiny waterfront community of Winter Harbour, an outpost village on the edge of the Pacific Ocean, and the true "end of the road".

North of Port Hardy, at the confluence of the Burke Channel and Fitz Hugh Sound, is the village of Namu, meaning 'place of high winds', or whirlwind. You can still see structures from the abandoned cannery built on wharves over the water, connected by a boardwalk. A short trail leads to nearby Namu Lake, which has good fishing and long expanses of sandy beach.
The Islands tourism region extends north from Port Hardy to include a portion of the BC mainland coast from Bute Inlet to Calvert Island's Hakai Pass, Rivers Inlet, and all the islands in Johnstone Strait and Queen Charlotte Strait. Hakai Luxvbalis Conservancy Area, British Columbia's largest marine park and one of the better-known paddling areas, encompasses a large archipelago of outstanding natural beauty and recreational value. From fully exposed shorelines to rolling, forested hills and 3,000-foot peaks, Hakai offers some of the most varied and scenic coastline in the province. Special features such as lagoons and reversing tidal rapids, beaches, all-weather anchorages, tombolos, and an intricate network of coves, inlets, and channels make it an ideal area for boaters, anglers, scuba divers, naturalists, and experienced sea kayakers.

Circle Tours: See the best of BC when you embark upon one of the driving circle tours that take in Vancouver Island. The Discovery Coast Tour heads north out of Port Hardy on a BC Ferry, returning to the BC mainland at Bella Coola. Travel through the Chilcotin and the heart of the Cariboo to Vancouver. The Inside Passage Circle Tour heads farther north to Prince Rupert and the hauntingly beautiful Queen Charlotte Islands. Return to Prince Rupert and venture east on the Yellowhead Highway to Prince George, then south to Vancouver. The Native Heritage Tour follows the same route as The Inside Passage tour, taking in haunting totem poles, mystifying petroglyph stone carvings, heritage Indian villages, and Native arts and crafts skillfully carved by First Nations people. The Northern British Columbia Tour loops north from Prince George, through the Rocky Mountain foothills via the Alaska Highway to Watson Lake in the Yukon, before heading south again on the Stewart/Cassiar Highway, returning to Prince George via Highway 16.

More Photographs of Port Hardy

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