Vancouver Island Nature Tours

Although it isn’t part of the trips I do, I took some people to the Carmanah Valley last week. I don’t go there very often. But when I do, I am always impressed. It is home to the largest tree in Canada, a Sitka Spruce 95 meters tall. Although the trail to this tree is […]

In my spare time I also write a column on tourism in the local newspaper. The local community is in transition from a logging and milling town to something else. What, we don’t know yet. But tourism is likely going to play a much larger role in the economy in the future. Anyway, I will […]

It has been a very busy period here at Rainbird Excursions. So I haven’t had time to sit down and write a few notes about what has been going on. This year there have been Dutch, Germans, Australians, Americans and even Canadians enjoying the trips. The weather that had been pretty mediocre throughout June has […]

Last Friday I took a drive up to Labour Day Lake. For those who don’t know, Labour Day Lake is a fairly high elevation lake that is the source of the Cameron River, the River that runs through Cathedral Grove on Vancouver Island. I wanted to see how much snow was still around. We had […]

Recently a friend emailed me a surprising file. It was a PDF file (That’s Adobe Acrobat to some) of an old trail booklet of the Alberni Valley. Greg had kept this booklet, which is really just photocopies of drawn maps and of typed descriptions, for many years. Recently he scanned it and sent it to […]

I have been to the Nahmint Recreation Site a couple of times recently. And many more times in the past. Each time I go I am amazed that the place is so empty. How many places on Vancouver Island can you go and camp or picnic in a pristine old-growth stand of Douglas fir comparable […]

What’s a Fam Tour? That was my first reaction when I was starting this business. It’s short for Familiarization Tour in the tourism business. This is a free or reduced rate tour that is offered to travel professionals like travel writers so that they can become familiar with a destination, or a tour company.
I use […]

I have been working for two years to get a tour to see the Vancouver Island Marmot going. Primarily, there was resistance from the British Columbia Ministry of Environment (MoE) because these animals are so rare.However we have reached an agreement that they will address government concerns and the tours will go ahead starting in […]

I have been doing a monthly column for the Alberni Valley Times, the local newspaper. It focuses on generally on Tourism. This particular column is pretty relevant to this blog, so I thought I would post it here.

Five years ago Tourism Vancouver Island commissioned a study to be completed by Malaspina University College. It was […]

It’s Good Friday today. This morning I hiked up to the Alberni Lookout. From Coombs Country Candy on Highway 4, it’s only about a 40-50 minute hike, depending on how fast you go. I’ve been hiking up regularly because it is a good bit of exercise. The weather was cool and foggy. But the […]