Pender Harbour

Skookumchuck Narrows is a short hike on the north side of the lower Sunshine Coast. I’ve been aware of its existence for years, but because it’s a short hike and quite far away, I’ve never had a good reason to visit. In 2023, I attended a wedding in Pender Harbour, which gave me a great excuse to finally make a trip out to the Narrows.

Skookumchuck Narrows is a natural phenomenon on the Sunshine Coast that requires a little bit of explanation of the area. The Sunshine Coast is actually connected to mainland BC, but can be confusing because it requires taking a ferry to get there. There’s no road to get there because it’s separated from the mainland by Howe Sound and the vast mountainous wilderness, so the easiest way to travel there is a 40 minute ferry from Horseshoe Bay to Langdale.

Once you arrive on the Sunshine Coast, you have to drive an hour and a half along the coast. Right before you reach the 2nd ferry at Earl’s Cove, you branch off the highway to drive out to Egmont. The interesting thing about this area is that, from Sechelt to Earl’s Cove, the Sunshine Coast is almost an island. The ocean flows down a large channel at Earl’s Cove and then Sechelt Inlet extends all the way back to Sechelt, with several arms branching off the main inlet. What this means is that every time the tide changes, there’s a significant amount of water flowing in and out of the inlet. The narrowest part of the inlet is the Skookumchuck Narrows, which is why, twice a day, you get this natural phenomenon happening in this area, known as the Sechelt Rapids.

If you’re an experienced paddler, you can paddle up to the narrows from Egmont, or if you’re less of a thrill seeker, like us, you can hike 4.5km from Egmont to the Skookumchuck Narrows Provincial Park. It’s a fairly easy trail. It’s partially on forestry road and then switches to nice forested trails. You can circle around Brown Lake and then you eventually come to 2 viewpoints of the rapids.

The first viewpoint is the more official viewpoint and gives you a great look at the inlet. It’s really beautiful, even without the attraction of the rapids. We enjoyed the view here for a while, and then continued on less maintained trail to the large flat rocks at Roland Point where you can watch the real thrill seekers attempt to whitewater kayak through the rapids. Because there’s so much water coming in and out of the inlet, in this area it creates these rapids where you can paddle almost stationary because of the conflicting currents. It’s a bit hard to describe, but a picture is worth a thousand words in this instance.

If you want to watch the paddlers, you do need to be cognizant of your timing. If I’m being honest, we didn’t really plan this visit at all and had no idea when was the best time to visit. There was no one paddling when we visited the first viewpoint, but our timing must have been perfect, because a bunch of paddlers showed up right when we got to the second viewpoint and we ended up sticking around for quite a while to watch them. It was very entertaining!

Once we had our fill, we started the hike back. The nice thing about this hike in the summer is that there’s a little cafe near the end of the trail, which is a great place to stop for treats. So we rewarded ourselves before returning to the car. I won’t end the blog here though, because we caught one more attraction before leaving Egmont. We started to drive back to the highway, but just out of Egmont, there’s a big lake called Waugh Lake that you can access directly from the road. There’s no beach and limited parking, so it’s more of a roadside stop, but I saw a dock and a few kids swimming there. Since it was so hot, I wanted to swim too, so we made a quick stop and me and Seth both went for a refreshing swim before starting our journey back to Gibsons.

So while I wouldn’t place this trail super high on the bucket list, it’s a great option for beginner hikers or if you just want to have a more relaxing, slower paced day. I had a really fun time and I’m glad I finally got the chance to visit this well known, but not super busy, area.

Me and Seth frequent the same places over and over on our kayaks, so it’s always a special thrill to visit someplace new. We were heading over to the Sunshine Coast in early August for our friends wedding, so we figured it was a good nice to paddle somewhere different.

The wedding was in Pender Harbour, which I’d never been to before, so I didn’t feel much need to go further for paddling. The Sunshine Coast is an interesting place because it’s a great place to paddle, but it does get pretty windy along the exposed coastline. Every time I drive through Sechelt I’m always surprised by how windy it gets along the main beach. Pender Harbour is a lot more sheltered, so there’s a few more areas to explore.

Our friend’s family manages one of the private marinas, so we were able to put in there, but according to BC Marine Trails, you can also launch from Welbourn Cove (behind the hotel) or Bargain Harbour Drive. If you have the time, there’s a nice roundabout route around the Francis Peninsula (just west of Pender Harbour) to see all of the area, but you have to get your timing right. Francis Peninsula only has 1 small canal that you can pass through to go from the south to north harbour. We were told you can pass through in a kayak, but not when the tide is really low. The tide was super low when we were there, so we didn’t attempt it, but it would be a nice challenge when passable. (our route is shown in red, with the canal circled in blue – but remember you can’t launch where we did, it’s a private marina)

Instead of going around the peninsula, we just explored the harbour. Seth recently took up crabbing, so he was keen to drop his crab pots. It was too shallow near the launch, but if you go out a little way (near Gerrans Bay) we could see several other crab pots. It was about 15-17m in depth, so we dropped his pot and then continued on.

Our goal for the day was to paddle around the point to Francis Point Ecological Reserve, where there’s a short hike. The water was extremely flat in the harbour, but the wind picked up a lot when we rounded the peninsula. It wasn’t too windy to be out, but we could see some white caps around the corner which indicated a more turbulent area, so we decided to abort and stop at Martin’s Cove instead. I’d still like to visit Francis Point though, so I’ll have to return for it another day.

Since it was too windy for a round trip and the tide too low to connect through, we returned the way we’d come. Even though there’s lots of people living along the edge of the harbour, we still saw a fair bit of wildlife. As always, we saw several seals, but we also saw a few herons, a kingfisher, and our personal favourite, black oystercatchers!

We didn’t have high hopes for the crab pot because we’d only dropped it for 90 minutes, but it turned out to be quite lucrative! Before this trip, Seth had only crabbed out of Belcarra, which is a very frequented area. He always catches crabs, but most of them are too small or female and have to be thrown back. In Pender Harbour, he only caught 2 crabs, but they were both male and large enough to take home! So you can really tell the difference when you leave the lower mainland – just make sure you have a license and report your catch.

So overall we were only paddling for a little over 2 hours, but it was really nice to get out and explore somewhere new. There’s so many places to paddle on the Sunshine Coast, I know we’ll be back again!

The Road Goes Ever On

Canadian Outdoor Adventure and Travel Blog

Hiking Skookumchuck Narrows

Kayaking Pender Harbour