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Powerful winter storms produce ocean swells, creating epic storm-watching opportunities and a thriving cold-water surfing scene. On the windswept west coast of British Columbia's Vancouver Island lies tiny Tofino, a former fishing village and the traditional home of the Tla-o-qui-aht First Nation of the Nuu-chah-nulth people, now a bustling community surrounded by the UNESCO Clayoquot Sound Biosphere Reserve. A new multiuse pathway through Pacific Rim National Park Reserve, completed this year, connects the park visitor center to Tofino village. [Extracted from the article]

The article looks at a fatal accident that took placed in the waters off of Tofino, British Columbia, in which a whale-watching boat capsized, reporting on how many local fisherman, members of the Ahousaht First Nation, moved in and successfully rescued many of the passengers. Topics include the water temperature and the risk of hypothermia, rules regarding personal flotation devices (PFDs), or lifejackets, and the emergency response activities of the town of Tofino.

This article looks at ecotourism and specifically whale watching from kayaks. The exponential growth of whale-watching as a tourist business--it is a billion-dollar industry that increased in popularity at a rate of 12.1 percent a year throughout the 1990s, according to the International Fund for Animal Welfare--has a downside. Several studies cite whale-watching--along with pollution, whale hunting, and the noise from military patrol boats--as major threats to the well-being of orcas. Which is why, this past summer, my son and I went in search of a different way to observe Willy's orca relatives: We would sea kayak near a whale hangout, limiting as much as possible any disturbances to them or their habitat. Brian Danyliw, founder of WeGo Kayaking, and his wife, Ann, greeted us. Ecofriendly whale-watching can be a bit frustrating. We would paddle in the vicinity of the whale reports, pick a spot, and stay still. On Days 1 and 2, we saw no whales. Their routes and ours had not yet coincided. Our patience paid off. The next day we sat in kayaks and watched first one, then two, then three and four orcas spray and swim and surface and dive across the strait.

Discusses the concerns of whale-watchers over the population of the grey whales off the coast of Vancouver Island in British Columbia. The International Whaling Commission allowing the Makah Indians the right to hunt grey whales off Washington state's Olympic Peninsula; The dependence of the whale-watching industry on the continued presence of the grey whales.