galiano island

I’ve been to Galiano three different times with three different people, having three different experiences. Go figure. What hasn’t changed its standing as my favourite gulf island (or second favourite – eventually I’ll write something on Saturna and decide) because it has the perfect mix of everything for a small island – a variety of great hikes, water access, and enough food and drink places that you don’t have to forego anything. 

I hadn’t looked much into the history of the island before any of my visits, but I always thought it was interesting it had a Spanish name, like a lot of other small islands and places in the area. The other thing I noticed is the island’s shape – it’s long and skinny, which maybe offers some wind protection for the islands behind it, I’m not really sure. It is pretty cool though to be able to go from one side to the other, seeing two shores, so quickly. 

I wrote this after my first visit, where we island-hopped here and Mayne, Pender, and Salt Spring over a long weekend: 

We didn’t have many expectations for this island – just one of a series – but it ended up being our favourite. The hike up Mount Galiano happened by chance, and the view overlooking Active Pass as clear as anything was probably the best view from a peak we had all summer. The mix of blues from the water and the haze of mountains in the background is too fine for me to attempt to describe: I’d need to point to a wall of blue that shows hundreds of shades. 

Part of the beauty of a view comes from the journey. Walking up a rugged path on a tiny island few people outside of the southwest coast of BC have heard of makes you feel like an explorer, even though you pass by a dozen or so people along the way. Originally we weren’t going to try to trek up the mountain because our packs were both ginormous and amateurly packed, but we were stopped on the side of a road, looking at a map, when a woman came by to see if we needed directions. 

We ended up asking for advice on what to do next, and she suggested the mountain. After talking for nearly half an hour, hearing her story, she offered to let us keep our packs inside her fence a few houses down while we made the trip up the mountain. She said it was worth doing but not with our luggage. So our trip up Mount Galiano was more than the viewpoint, the hike, the island, or all those things combined: the people on the island, by chance, contributed irreplaceably to our experience and appreciation of this place. 

More objectively speaking, the layout of Galiano made it the most convenient to get around. Originally we were going to camp at the other end of it, which would have required about a three hour bike ride, so our initial expectation was that it was going to be an arduous journey. We didn’t end up seeing that end of Galiano, but I think knowing that a more wild, rugged aspect of it exists adds a mysterious aspect, along with the already friendly and accessible impression we have. The island is most built up near the ferry terminal, which makes orienting yourself much easier than on Salt Spring, where town is a ways away. 

Galiano shows me how important mood and emotion are when building an impression of place, and moreso, how important people and interactions are: when passing someone here, unless near the ferry terminal, you say hello. You don’t say hello because it’s the custom (though it may be): you say hello because you’ve been wandering for hours without seeing anyone, and when you finally do come across someone, it’s a natural response to reach out to them, even in a small, seemingly superficial way. The way people interact in densely and sparsely populated areas has a direct effect on how they think about other people. 

If things broke differently – if we didn’t meet the people we met or climb the trails we did, our experience of Galiano quite likely would not have been as positive. If a few things changed, it certainly could have been our least favourite of the Southern Gulf Islands. But things are as they were. Chance or not, that counts for something, and when it comes to our understanding of a place, it counts for almost everything. 

That was six years before the second time I visited, and seven and a half years before the last time I visited, which is two years before now. I’m due for a return, but not before I give Mayne more of a chance (with presumably a subsequent post to follow). 

Probably the image of Galiano I have the mind in my head when I think of it is the view from its namesake Mount, looking down at the intersecting pathways of BC ferries. There’s other boats out there of course, but from that high up it’s hard to see smaller boats without binoculars, which I do not own. 

On the way up the mountain, you can see some ruins of a plane crash, or at least you could at one point. 

On the way down is where I patented my preference for galloping when descending steep (but not too steep, not too slippery) terrain, especially with lots of large, thick tree roots ready to trip you if you don’t lift your feet high enough. 

Another of the hikes takes you alongside a tidal area, with forest, beaches, and cool looking rocks. It’s not as strenuous – mostly flat, it’s a space to look vertically, walk languidly. 

On my last visit – and only overnight visit, I might add – we stayed at a cabin in the winter with a fireplace. It was the first time I’d used one since the Yukon, and I left one of my socks on its side for longer than I should have, searing it to shreds. (The correct amount of time to leave it on was probably less than 10 seconds.) There was a windstorm so the power went out for a few hours, first at the pub and then also back at the cabin, making the job of keeping the fire going both a fun job to keep occupied and also a great help to keep warm. 

We went back to the pub the next day to settle up from the night before and watch a soccer match – England versus somebody – which showed us that there was not an insignificant number of people on the island originally from England. Someone had a medical emergency and I felt like I should have done more to help.

Whenever the power goes out in a cabin, as long as you have what you need – and I had stocked up on beer – the forced disconnection from the fake-world in our phones and forced connection to the physical space around you is rejuvenating. You’d think I’d learn and incorporate that more into my day to day, or at least week to week, life, but the internet’s temptations are hard to resist. 

One of the only good things about living on the mainland was that Galiano was the closest gulf island, having to pass by it to get to the others. You’d be there from Tsawwassen terminal in under an hour. Now that I’m back on the big island (Vancouver island), it’s probably the least convenient island to get to, normally with a stop-over or two, making the trip over twice as long. 

I’ve gone on BC ferries well over a hundred times now, and I’ll never enjoy the waiting, but once you’re on, I still firmly believe it’s the most enjoyable way to travel. When I’m on the ferry, I still want to walk around the highest deck, feel the wind, watch all the little islands grow closer and pass by, their landscapes shifting slightly with every ferry movement, with every movement I make on the ferry to adjust my view. 

I won’t bother to try to explain the landscape in too much detail when you’re driving or walking around Galiano. It’s lush, with big trees, ocean air, cliffsides, and not a lot of other people. Depending on what hike you choose, you can look out at all the other islands in the area, wondering if the communities there are thinking of Galiano as you look at their exposed edges, thinking I’d bet I could swim there if I needed to, or certainly kayak. I wish I had a boat. 

Galiano remains the island off Vancouver Island that I’d pick to re-locate to. To qualm my uncertainty of having things at my fingertips, they have several restaurants and a pub and bookstores and other things I associate with “having things to do”, so it’d be less of a shock to my system.

I’d worry at first at the seclusion, but the more times I spend in crowds or fighting traffic in towns that you could convince me are chaotic metropolises, the more it seems like bliss.