These are the Chronicles of Famous Surf Writer Ben Marcus and his trip into the Wilds of the Alaskan Frontier.
Latest Update: November 14, 2000

22:53 BC TIME ROOM 101 OF A MOTEL IN UCLULET

Tofino.

Shit, I'm still in Tofino.

Well, that's not exactly the truth. I'm actually in Uclulet, which is down the way from Tofino, on the way out of Western Vancouver Island. I was intending to leave the area and drive all the way to Victoria today, but I didn't get far. No reason to be in any hurry to leave this place, though. Tofino/Uclulet is one of the best places I've seen (see below): Surf City Canada.

This morning I left the Tofino Motel and went into Tofino looking for breakfast. I found a bunch of people with cameras and surfboards and fancy cars. They were filming a Chevrolet commercial, apparently, using some young, attractive models dressed in wedding tux and gown, and some surfboards sticking up the back of their black convertible Chevrolet. I hung around for a while, took a few photos, and then moved on.

I stopped at the other surf shop in Tofino, called Live to Surf, and bought a surf video called 5 MM Canada, which should give me a better clue in to what the surf is like along here. I've been passing out swell.com pins to people along the way. Most of them haven't heard of it, although they have seen the ads in SURFER Magazine.

Along the road I picked up a hitch-hiker with his big black dog, Brutus. He was an Eskimo guy from Univik, up at the end of the Dempster Highway, and he was one of many young people who seemed to be drawn to this area. It's kind of the hip place to be. No accident that Chevy would film a young people's surf-oriented commercial here.

I dropped the Univik guy off then poked around, trying to find places where I could check out the beaches. There isn't a lot of beach access along this strip. You can't see the ocean from the road, and most of the roads leading to the beach are private. I poked here and poked there and eventually ended up at Chesterman's Beach.

The commercial crew were here too, with all their catered food and Budget rent a vans and dolly jeeps amd other gear. I walked down the path to the beach and understood why everyone was there.

This place is more naturally spectacular than Carmel/Pebble Beach/17 Mile Drive, if you can believe that. The beaches have the same kind of sweep, but they are sweepier. The mountains are higher and greener, there are more trees and it's all just a wilder, better version of 17 Mile Drive.

Chesterman's is kind of an odd set-up, almost in the Natural Phenomenon category. There is a long sand spit leading out to an island, with waves breaking on both sides. This is the only place I've ever seen where waves break directly into each other-paralell to each other-where one wave face breaks into another wave face. Unusual and kind of cool. There were a few people in the water along here: some bodyboarders and a few surfers and a bunch of kayakers at the south end.

The commercial crew were breaking for lunch and I got into a conversation with Garvin Cross, one of the stunt coordinators. He was from Vancouver and was one of many reaping all the movie production that had moved up to Canada to take advantage of the cost breaks. He had worked on a bunch of movies, including The 13th Warrior and Reindeer Games, directed by John Frankenheimer, who is my hero for writing and directing The Manchurian Candidate.

"What's he like?" I asked.

"He's a screamer," Garvin said and told a few stories, which was a little disappointing.

We talked about this and that and compared notes. Garvin had been a smoke jumper in the Yukon and had flown over and around all these places where I had been. He also was working on the Chris Isaak show for HBO, which was shooting in Vancouver.

I took a few photos of the beach, had a chocolate cookie from catering and then pushed on. I got another view of the ocean at Combers Beach and had a chat with a Dutch woman who thought I was crazy for going where I did in the vehicle I have.

How to describe this area? It reminds me of a lot of other places. This is one of three temperate rain forests in the world, and it is as thick and green and pleasantly, humidly lush as Kauai. The mountains and the sounds off in the distance are closer to Norway, and the beach areas are as rocky and convoluted as 17 Mile Drive, but wilder.

Sound good? It is. This place is pretty amazing, all scenic-like, you know?

And lots of surf. Forty kilometers of beach breaks, with other secret spots in and out of the sounds available by boat.

I pushed on from there into Uclulet, along the way passing a sign for the Inner Rhythm Surf Camp. I went into Uclulet and then came back to the Surf Camp.

I met the owners of the camp, Jennifer and Dean, who have a pretty good set-up. They bought a house and five acres and run a surf camp which filtered through 600 campers last summer. There are three cabins with eight bunk beds built on the back of the property and a main house where we ate spaghetti and watched football and Ally McBeal.

They were nice people those two, with a really good set-up. The surf camp is paying for the house. They work their butts off all summer long, and then can cruise through the winter.

This was a spectacular day, by the way. The storm from yesterday had cleared away, leaving that post-winter-storm effect that is so nice in these latitudes: blue skies, clouds, great light, the whole shebang.

After Ally McBeal I left the surf camp and checked into a hotel in Uclulet.

Not sure what I'm going to do today. I guess I'll sit in the room and write until they kick me out, then go by the surf camp and see how they're doing.

Then I'll head for Victoria and try to catch the afternoon ferry.

Mom's by tonight I guess. The van is getting woofy. Need to give it a clean.