MOMAR Ucluelet, BC
MOMAR 1, 2006 – Ucluelet, Vancouver Island
Jacqueline Windh / 09.05.2006
Pre-race report Tuesday 9 May, 2006The countdown is on... racers will meet for the first MOMAR of the season on the start-line in Ucluelet, BC, this Saturday.
I will be reporting on the race for Sleepmonsters, and this will be a really special event for me. I have been inspired at the races that I have reported on over the last few years (Patagonia Expedition Race, Costa Rica Coast to Coast, Raid Qualifier in Bend last year), and especially by the racers I have met. So inspired, in fact, that I have been training, and am actually going to race this MOMAR! Although I am a generally fit person, this will be my first adventure race, and my aims are just to have fun, take some nice pictures, and hopefully make it to the finish line...
I live just up the road from Ucluelet, in the village of Tofino, so this is my home ground.
About Ucluelet
Ucluelet is a little village of about 2000 people, on the west coast of Vancouver Island. Ucluelet and Tofino are the two communities that make up the gateways to the Pacific Rim; our little towns receive about one million tourists a year!
Historically, the things that have attracted tourists to the area have been related to the wilderness and the environment – kayaking, boating and fishing, surfing and hiking. We have lots of surf-washed beaches, including Long Beach, a string of about 20km of sand beaches within Pacific Rim National Park Reserve. We also have some of the largest remaining stretches of intact coastal temperate rainforest in the world, with huge fern-festooned cedar trees a thousand years old or more.
In the last decade or so, the region has also started catering to the higher-end tourists. We now have a string of world-class luxury hotels and resorts, complete with award-winning spas and restaurants. If you have the bucks, you can enjoy your wilderness adventures and return to your resort for a massage and some fine Island cuisine. If you are a low-budget traveller, there are a few cheaper hostels, motels and campgrounds – but we are so busy on weekends and through the summer months that you should always book your accommodation well in advance. It is a long drive back across the island...
Ukee, as locals call it, is a great base for kayaking and other ocean activities as well as for day-hiking. It is situated on a narrow peninsula with a protected harbour that, most days, is pretty calm for paddling. But paddle out of the harbour, and you are on open ocean! From here, advanced ocean kayakers can paddle out to the Broken Group, a pretty cluster of little islands situated at the entrance to Barkley Sound – and there are water taxis that can carry kayaks available for paddlers who don’t feel confident about the 15km open ocean crossing. Ucluelet’s gem has to be the Wild Pacific Trail, a beautiful coastal trail that hugs the wild outer coast of the peninsula. The trail is being constructed in stages, and so far 8.5 km have been constructed, leaving right from town. The plan is to continue the trail northwestward another seven or so kilometres right to Florencia Bay, in the southernmost part of the Long Beach section of the National Park.
Even though the race is centred around the town of Ucluelet, there are possibilities of racers seeing quite a range of wildlife. Bears and wolves have been seen right in town in recent months, and deer are common wandering around town. (Riding from Ukee to Tofino last week I passed a mama bear with a little cub right on the highway). Cougars occasionally venture into both Tofino and Ucluelet, and there are even occasional reports of Sasquatch sitings (more around Tofino though). Early May is also the peak of the shorebird migration – hundreds of thousands of sandpipers and related birds alight on our beaches and mudflats to feed before taking to the wing to fly non-stop to the Arctic. (Many will have flown here non-stop from California or thereabouts, losing half their body weight on the flight, so their ability to rest and feed here is crucial to their breeding success up north and to survival of the species).
For more information about this beautiful region, have a look at my books, both published by Harbour Publishing (www.harbourpublishing.com) and available at any major bookstore or online:
The Wild Edge (2004) a coffee-table type book with lots of information about Vancouver Island’s Pacific Rim and over 200 colour photos.
The Wild Side Guide to Vancouver Island’s Pacific Rim (2006, should be available in late June) a guidebook to both wilderness areas as well as restaurants and hotels and more.
And have a look at some Ukee area pix that I have posted here in the Photo Gallery.
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