Vancouver Island is a great place to live and visit, especially in summer when the days are long and the sun is shining. We’re highlighting some of our favourite summertime activities — things we think everyone should try to fit in before fall comes around again.
Summer is the perfect time to go for a swim.
When the sun comes out and temperatures start soaring, local lakes and beaches become a place for a refreshing swim rather than an unnecessary skirmish with hypothermia.
There’s always the option to pack your swimsuit and make the drive up the Malahat toward the larger lakes that can be found all across Vancouver Island.
They’re known to be some of the best in sa国际传媒 — Sproat Lake near Port Alberni won a recent CBC poll to find the province’s best lake. Parksville’s Rathtrevor Beach waters are famously shallow and warm, unlike the rest of the Northwest Pacific.
But there are plenty of urban swimming holes, as well.
Last Sunday, Carmen Smith was luring her dog, Monte, into the water with her Crocs sandal, just off the entrance of Banfield’s well-used swimming dock.
“He swam all the time in Queensland, but it’s warmer water there,” she said. “I think we’ve got to get him water wings.”
Smith, a recent returnee from Australia, discovered Banfield Park’s swimming spot this summer.
“When you live downtown, there’s not many places you can go swimming,” Smith said, calling the Gorge a “little city paradise.”
“Apparently, the whole waterway flushes because the tides are so strong,” she said, adding that she had previously thought that the Gorge was “too gross” to swim in. The Gorge waterway has been the site of intensive cleanup after previous pollution and garbage dumping.
Almost abandoned by swimmers after the 1940s, the Gorge began to be restored in 1994, and the waterway was given a clean bill of health in 2000. Swimming in the Gorge became re-popularized through a series of swimming competitions and events.
In 2022, a point of interest was added to the water when developer Aryze Developments installed a floating swim dock, with a Japanese katsura tree, a short swim away from the Banfield public dock. Following increased public usage, the public dock was expanded significantly in 2022 by the City of Victoria.
The bike parking adjacent to the dock is now well-used in the summer, even on weekdays.
To cope with demand, the city committed $300,000 in June to build another swimming platform at Gorge Marine Park, adjacent to Banfield, and will install buoys to delineate a protected swim zone.
At Langford Lake, families are also enjoying a respite from the heat.
On a recent weekend, Elyse Sidhu was sitting at the edge of dock, dangling her feet in the water and watching her two kids swim with their dad. Her son Jamie, 6, was wearing swim goggles and had been in the water for about half an hour.
“Watch this!” he said, making a running jump into the water.
Jamie said his favourite lake is Sproat Lake, but this one is “so much closer.”
“This little thing really helped build his confidence,” Elyse said, pointing at a submerged level of the floating dock, newly installed by the city in July.
It’s the second time that Jamie swam at the dock.
When Jamie’s father, Joel, returned from a trip to Halifax, all Jamie wanted to do was to show his father the new dock, she said. Joel likes the dock, too. “The new dock’s made it much more accessible.”
At the other end of the lake, another family of four — recent arrivals from Ukraine — were also enjoying the water at the sandy shores of Scout Beach.
Viktoria, who did not give her last name out of concerns of being a Canadian newcomer, said that the lake is a good place to go after work with her kids.
The family said they have been enjoying the lakes and waters around the West Shore since their arrival in February.
Viktoria said that they used to swim regularly in the Dnipro river, in their home city of Kremenchuk, before they arrived in the capital region. “The water is cleaner here,” she said, laughing. “Very beautiful.”
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