Juan de Fuca Provincial Park is a

provincial park Ischigualasto Provincial Park A provincial park (or territorial park) is a park administered by one of the provinces of a country, as opposed to a national park. They are similar to state parks in other countries. They are typically open to the ...

located on the west coast of

Vancouver Island Vancouver Island is an island in the northeastern Pacific Ocean and part of the Canadian Provinces and territories of Canada, province of British Columbia. The island is in length, in width at its widest point, and in total area, while are o ...

British Columbia British Columbia (commonly abbreviated as BC) is the westernmost province of Canada, situated between the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains. It has a diverse geography, with rugged landscapes that include rocky coastlines, sandy beaches, ...

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...

. The park was established on April 4, 1996 by combining three former parks - China Beach, Loss Creek, and Botanical Beach - into one provincial park. It is the location of the majority of the

Juan de Fuca Marine Trail The Juan de Fuca Marine Trail is a rugged wilderness hiking trail located within Juan de Fuca Provincial Park along the southwestern coast of Vancouver Island. The trail stretches from China Beach, 35 km west of Sooke, to Botanical Beach ...

, which is a southern compliment to the

West Coast Trail The West Coast Trail, originally called the Dominion Lifesaving Trail, is a backpacking trail following the southwestern edge of Vancouver Island in British Columbia, Canada. It was built in 1907 to facilitate the rescue of shipwrecked survivors ...

within

Pacific Rim National Park Reserve Pacific Rim National Park Reserve is a national park located in British Columbia, Canada, which comprises three separate regions: Long Beach, the Broken Group Islands, and the West Coast Trail. Its the Pacific Coast Mountains, are characterized ...

History

The region was recognized as biologically significant, and Josephine Tilden of the

University of Minnesota The University of Minnesota, formally the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, (UMN Twin Cities, the U of M, or Minnesota) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in the Minneapolis–Saint Paul, Tw ...

installed the first marine research station in the Pacific Northwest at Botanical Beach in 1901. The University of Minnesota maintained a research station here for five years, but they left in 1906.

Conway MacMillan Conway MacMillan (August 26, 1867 – June 5, 1929) was an American botanist from Minnesota. Life MacMillan was born in Hillsdale, Michigan. He took his first and master's degrees in Nebraska. After this he spent a year at Johns Hopkins Universi ...

resigned from the University of Minnesota after the university refused to take ownership of land in a different country. After the departure of the University of Minnesota, the

University of British Columbia The University of British Columbia (UBC) is a public university, public research university with campuses near Vancouver and in Kelowna, British Columbia. Established in 1908, it is British Columbia's oldest university. The university ranks a ...

University of Washington The University of Washington (UW, simply Washington, or informally U-Dub) is a public research university in Seattle, Washington. Founded in 1861, Washington is one of the oldest universities on the West Coast; it was established in Seattle a ...

Simon Fraser University Simon Fraser University (SFU) is a public research university in British Columbia, Canada, with three campuses, all in Greater Vancouver: Burnaby (main campus), Surrey, and Vancouver. The main Burnaby campus on Burnaby Mountain, located from ...

, and the

University of Victoria The University of Victoria (UVic or Victoria) is a public research university located in the municipalities of Oak Bay and Saanich, British Columbia, Canada. The university traces its roots to Victoria College, the first post-secondary instit ...

have done research in the area. Prior to the establishment, there were several parks in the area protecting what is now within the boundaries of the park.

Former parks

Loss Creek Provincial Park was a Class A park established on June 29, 1959 at the bridge over the creek of the same name. It was the smallest and least developed of the three parks. China Beach Provincial Park was a Class A park established on January 4, 1967. It was the best developed of the three former parks, featuring a day-use area and vehicle-accessible campground. The park's creation came about in a trade between the provincial government and a forestry company. By allowing logging in the Bedwell Valley of

Strathcona Provincial Park Strathcona Provincial Park is the oldest provincial park in British Columbia, Canada, and the largest on Vancouver Island. Founded in 1911, the park was named for Donald Alexander Smith, 1st Baron Strathcona and Mount Royal, a wealthy philanthropi ...

the company agreed to hand over the land for China Beach. Botanical Beach Provincial Park was a Class A park established in 1989. It was the largest of the three former parks. At the time of creation, the park was 76% natural environment, with plans for complete restoration of the entire park. This included of land and of foreshore. The park was established to encourage education and research in the area. A nature reserve was established in 1961, and expanded in 1966 to include and of shoreline. The initial proposal for the park was investigated in 1981, with the final park was established in 1989 as a Class A park. Access to the park has been possible by the current gravel road since prior to its establishment.

Consolidation

On April 4, 1996,

BC Parks BC Parks is an agency of the British Columbia Ministry of Environment and Climate Change Strategy that manages all of the, as of 2020, 1,035 provincial parks and other conservation and historical properties of various title designations within t ...

consolidated all three former parks into a single larger park named Juan de Fuca Provincial Park. The new park also included the locally popular and formerly unprotected areas of

Sombrio Beach Sombrio Beach is a beach in Capital Regional District, British Columbia, Canada, southeast of the settlement of Port Renfrew, British Columbia, Port Renfrew. It is on the southwest coast of Vancouver Island on the Strait of Juan de Fuca, west of S ...

and Mystic Beach.

Geography

Botanical Beach, Vancouver Island, Canada 04

The park has an area of . The Juan de Fuca Marine Trail was originally part of a lifesaving trail that serviced this area, known at the time as the

Graveyard of the Pacific The Graveyard of the Pacific is a somewhat loosely defined stretch of the Pacific Northwest coast stretching from around Tillamook Bay on the Oregon Coast northward past the treacherous Columbia Bar and Juan de Fuca Strait, up the rocky western c ...

. It has been upgraded and maintained over the years and is now a very popular hiking trail, very similar to the

Pacific Rim National Park Pacific Rim National Park Reserve is a national park located in British Columbia, Canada, which comprises three separate regions: Long Beach, the Broken Group Islands, and the West Coast Trail. Its the Pacific Coast Mountains, are characterized ...

. The park is located west of

Sooke Sooke is a district municipality on the southern tip of Vancouver Island, Canada, by road from Victoria, the capital of British Columbia. Sooke, the westernmost of Greater Victoria's Western Communities, is to the north and west of the Sooke Ba ...

and east of

Port Renfrew, British Columbia A port is a maritime facility comprising one or more wharves or loading areas, where ships load and discharge cargo and passengers. Although usually situated on a sea coast or estuary, ports can also be found far inland, such as Ha ...

Conservation

The primary role of Juan de Fuca Provincial Park is to protect a highly scenic and unique shoreline area between Sooke and Port Renfrew along the

Strait of Juan de Fuca The Strait of Juan de Fuca (officially named Juan de Fuca Strait in Canada) is a body of water about long that is the Salish Sea's outlet to the Pacific Ocean. The international boundary between Canada and the United States runs down the centre ...

. The park encompasses a wide spectrum of natural values from forests to wildlife that must be protected and managed to reflect the purpose for which it was created. Juan de Fuca Provincial Park provides a protected habitat and natural corridor for many larger species of west coast mammals such as

cougar The cougar (''Puma concolor'') is a large Felidae, cat native to the Americas. Its Species distribution, range spans from the Canadian Yukon to the southern Andes in South America and is the most widespread of any large wild terrestrial mamm ...

deer Deer or true deer are hoofed ruminant mammals forming the family Cervidae. The two main groups of deer are the Cervinae, including the muntjac, the elk (wapiti), the red deer, and the fallow deer; and the Capreolinae, including the reindeer ...

black bear Black bear or Blackbear may refer to: Animals * American black bear (''Ursus americanus''), a North American bear species * Asian black bear (''Ursus thibetanus''), an Asian bear species Music * Black Bear (band), a Canadian First Nations group ...

wolf The wolf (''Canis lupus''; : wolves), also known as the gray wolf or grey wolf, is a large canine native to Eurasia and North America. More than thirty subspecies of ''Canis lupus'' have been recognized, and gray wolves, as popularly u ...

otter Otters are carnivorous mammals in the subfamily Lutrinae. The 13 extant otter species are all semiaquatic, aquatic, or marine, with diets based on fish and invertebrates. Lutrinae is a branch of the Mustelidae family, which also includes wea ...

seal Seal may refer to any of the following: Common uses * Pinniped, a diverse group of semi-aquatic marine mammals, many of which are commonly called seals, particularly: ** Earless seal, or "true seal" ** Fur seal * Seal (emblem), a device to impr ...

and

sea lion Sea lions are pinnipeds characterized by external ear flaps, long foreflippers, the ability to walk on all fours, short and thick hair, and a big chest and belly. Together with the fur seals, they make up the family Otariidae, eared seals. ...

s. Red, purple and orange

starfish Starfish or sea stars are star-shaped echinoderms belonging to the class Asteroidea (). Common usage frequently finds these names being also applied to ophiuroids, which are correctly referred to as brittle stars or basket stars. Starfish ...

and

sea urchin Sea urchins () are spiny, globular echinoderms in the class Echinoidea. About 950 species of sea urchin live on the seabed of every ocean and inhabit every depth zone from the intertidal seashore down to . The spherical, hard shells (tests) of ...

s, white gooseneck

barnacles A barnacle is a type of arthropod constituting the subclass Cirripedia in the subphylum Crustacea, and is hence related to crabs and lobsters. Barnacles are exclusively marine, and tend to live in shallow and tidal waters, typically in erosive ...

, blue

mussel Mussel () is the common name used for members of several families of bivalve molluscs, from saltwater and Freshwater bivalve, freshwater habitats. These groups have in common a shell whose outline is elongated and asymmetrical compared with other ...

s and green

sea anemone Sea anemones are a group of predation, predatory marine invertebrates of the order (biology), order Actiniaria. Because of their colourful appearance, they are named after the ''Anemone'', a terrestrial flowering plant. Sea anemones are classifi ...

s and

sea cucumber Sea cucumbers are echinoderms from the class Holothuroidea (). They are marine animals with a leathery skin and an elongated body containing a single, branched gonad. Sea cucumbers are found on the sea floor worldwide. The number of holothuria ...

s only begin to hint at the colourful spectrum of intertidal life thriving here.

Recreation

The following recreational activities are available: vehicle accessible and wilderness camping, hiking, picnicking, interpretive walks, swimming, canoeing and kayaking, fishing, SCUBA diving, windsurfing, and surfing. The beach is best visited at low

tide Tides are the rise and fall of sea levels caused by the combined effects of the gravity, gravitational forces exerted by the Moon (and to a much lesser extent, the Sun) and are also caused by the Earth and Moon orbiting one another. Tide t ...

References

External links

* *
JuandeFucaMarineTrail.com

Tide Tables
{{Authority control Marine parks of Canada Provincial parks of British Columbia Juan de Fuca region Protected areas established in 1996 1996 establishments in British Columbia