Chesterman Beach

Chesterman Beach is at Tofino, on the west coast of Vancouver Island in British Columbia. It is two and a half kilometres of pale sand facing the open Pacific, backed by temperate rainforest, with a tombolo connecting it to Frank Island at low tide.

Tofino's winter is the unusual part. Between November and March the North Pacific delivers storms to this coast with waves of several metres and winds to match, and the town has built an industry on watching them — hotels sell storm-watching packages, rooms face the water, and the winter occupancy is real. It is one of very few places that markets bad weather successfully.

The beach is broad, hard-packed and walkable, with cold water — around 12 to 14°C year-round — and consistent surf. Tofino is Canada's surf town and the wetsuit is not optional. The rainforest behind is part of the Clayoquot Sound UNESCO biosphere reserve, protected after a major logging blockade in 1993 that led to hundreds of arrests and changed British Columbian forestry policy. Long Beach in the national park reserve to the south runs sixteen kilometres and takes the surf schools, and Cox Bay between them has the biggest waves.

This is the territory of the Tla-o-qui-aht First Nation, who have declared tribal parks over much of the surrounding land and are increasingly the authority visitors deal with — a shift worth understanding before arriving. Hot Springs Cove, reached by boat or floatplane, has geothermal pools running into the sea and is the region's other fixture.

Twelve to fourteen degrees in every month, rainforest to the sand, and a town that sells its winter storms rather than apologising for them. This is Tla-o-qui-aht territory with tribal parks over much of it, and visitors increasingly deal with that authority rather than with a provincial one.