Whirled Travel: Hunter Gatherers

Tofino is bountiful, as we will fully discover today.

There is this rainforest trail in Pacific Rim National Park, just a mile or two from the cottage. It is dark and cool and green.

The forest hangs with moss, and ferns grow underfoot and in the trees. The ground is spongy with layers of soft red peat.

500 year old Hemlock trees tower over the understory.

Just like that, we step from dense forest to the wide beach.

The wind whips up waves and ruffles the sand. After an hour, Hilda and Matthias propose walking the beach to the Visitor Center. On the map it looks like we are halfway there. Ben and I head back to fetch the car and meet them later. The wind is now howling on the beach, so we cut through forest to the road.

We find a blackberry bush full of ripe berries. Score! Meanwhile, Hilda and Matthias are finding out after an hour of walking that the map was very misleading. Just as we arrive at the Visitor Center, we get a Mayday call from Matthias. We head back to look for them, stopping at each parking area on the way back. We circle through the Greenpoint campground and just miss them. Finally we see Matthias on the road and Hilda scouting for us.

Reunited, we head to Ucluelet to buy a whole salmon to BBQ for dinner. Alex at Fishful Thinking not only sells us a beautiful fish but a pound of fresh Chanterelles he collects from the forest (1000 pounds a year).

Ben could not resist this beer. We have to define the word "naughty," (such as "naughty and nice children at Christmas time) which then leads Hilda and Matthias to tell us about St. Nikolaus's comrade,

dark Knecht Ruprecht, who accompanies St Nikolaus and stuffs naughty children in a sack and beats them, while St Nikolaus rewards the good children with presents. Whoa, I think I prefer lumps of coal.

I make pastry for a free-form berry-pear tart. No rolling pin is available, so I put a hefty roll of plastic wrap to work. Before dinner we eat buttery local cold-smoked tuna on excellent crackers and sip local wine and the Naughty Hildegard beer.