For some travelers, the quintessential winter getaway looks a lot like a pilot for The White Lotus: swaying palms, striped parasols, cerulean seas, gaudily garnished poolside cocktails. But a growing tourism segment is veering the other way—toward the unpredictable, awesome brute strength of Mother Nature. “Storm watchers,” as they’re sometimes called, think the perfect beach day involves donning full-body rain gear and venturing out in a downpour as waves the height of two-story buildings slam 30-foot logs against boulders, causing the rocks to reverberate like tuning forks.
“People are looking for experiences that aren’t just lying on the beach in Corfu,” says Charles McDiarmid, maître de maison of the Wickaninnish Inn in Tofino, British Columbia. “To escape to a place where Mother Nature is really in control, the rain comes down sideways, the winds blow, the waves are crashing—people come here for that.”
Storm watching isn’t a new idea: In 1854, Henry David Thoreau appointed himself “inspector of snow storms and rain storms” in Walden, while the southern Oregon town of Bandon has been calling itself the “storm-watching capital of the world” since at least 2008. On Vancouver Island, storm watching has become a foundational visitor experience. That’s thanks in part to unique weather conditions: The “Pineapple Express”—an atmospheric river that carries tropical moisture from Hawai‘i to British Columbia—crashes into Western Canada’s chilly Coast Mountains, resulting in heavy rains. Add to that the Bering Sea’s seasonal contribution of 75-mile-per-hour winds and 36-foot waves, and this stretch of coastline becomes a front-row seat to nature’s drama.
It’s also partially due to the efforts of McDiarmid. His family came to the area in the 1950s, when the only routes from the city of Victoria were logging roads, and his father was the area’s lone doctor. At their house on a windswept 1.6-mile stretch of sand, pine forest, and jagged rock called Chesterman Beach, in what’s now the Clayoquot Sound UNESCO Biosphere Region, massive storms “were just a natural part of our everyday winter experience,” he says.
Shelter Restaurant in Tofino looks out on an inlet in the Clayoquot Sound UNESCO Biosphere Region.
Alexandra Marvar
The McDiarmids looked forward to witnessing the squalls that hit between November and March—even if it meant their power was often knocked out—and it occurred to them that others might as well. In 1996, Charles McDiarmid, his brother, and his father opened the Wickaninnish Inn, now a 75-room Relais & Chateaux property, on Chesterman Beach. “The Wick,” as it’s known locally, was purpose-built for guests to embrace the storms: Every room has floor-to-ceiling ocean views, private balconies, and gas fireplaces. All the public spaces, from the spa to The Pointe Restaurant, offer front-row seats to the roiling seas.
Building an entire luxury hospitality offering around the concept of tourists seeking bad weather was a gamble, and the hotel didn’t draw much storm-season interest at first, despite generators ensuring the power stayed on. “Cash and resources were down, down, down,” McDiarmid recalls of the inn’s first winter months.
Then, in early February 1997, a newspaper writer named Alan Daniels, who McDiarmid says seemed “inscrutable,” arrived to stay. His story in the Vancouver Sun piqued interest among readers. “None of us had time to do anything but answer the phone and book reservations,” McDiarmid says.
Since then, an entire storm-watching industry has sprung up on the coast around the Wick. In the past five years, especially, operators have launched guided storm-centric excursions and tours, and existing hotels—including Pacific Sands Beach Resort and Long Beach Lodge Resort in trendy Tofino and Black Rock Oceanfront Resort in laid-back Ucluelet—have begun offering packages aimed at winter-weather lovers.
Twin Wis Resort in Tofino offers comfortable rooms with Indigenous decorative touches, as well as access to surf beaches.
Photos courtesy of Twin Wis
Entirely new storm-watching destinations have also opened up on this stretch of coast. The Nami Project takes its name from the Japanese word for wave and is inspired by the idea that the powerful Pacific may wash objects here from across the ocean. Then there’s Tofino’s Tin Wis Resort, which is owned and operated by the Tla-o-qui-aht First Nation on its ancestral property. To the Tla-o-qui-aht, wiiqsiʔiš (stormy weather) is “an invitation to play.” The resort’s marketing lead, Parker Scott, recalls being amazed the first time she saw the waves go from “zero to 100” with the onset of winter.
Twin Wis Resort, owned and operated by the Tla-o-qui-aht First Nation, has two 23-foot-tall totem poles on its property.
Photo courtesy Twin Wis
“Tin wis means ‘calm waters,’” she explains. “In the summer, it’s so flat—it’s paddleboarding central. As we get into October, all of a sudden, the swells are massive.” Even with the influx of storm watchers, the island is quieter during winter than summer. “Honestly, I tell guests that storm season has become my favorite time,” she says. “It’s really a good mix of calm and storm. You get a lot of it to yourself.”
If you don’t feel like donning a slicker for a wet walk on Scott’s favorite path, the Rainforest Trail boardwalk in Pacific Rim National Park Reserve, there are other approaches. In 2021, Tofino-based surfer and Nordic spa enthusiast Jordan Hanthorn started Tuff City Saunas, providing Finnish-inspired, wood-burning barrel saunas to three area resorts: Pacific Sands, Tin Wis, and Mackenzie Beach Resort.
“I’d sit there,” Hanthorn says of the inspiration for his business, “and think, Wouldn’t this be an amazing place for a sauna, where people could come out and not only be exposed to the elements, but would not have to wear clothing—which makes it extra, extra, extra visceral?”
Of course, British Columbia isn’t the world’s only storm-watching destination. McDiarmid suggests other possible options—“Maybe somewhere in Chile, Fogo Island in Newfoundland, Post Ranch Inn in Big Sur,” he says—but he insists Vancouver Island has many advantages for connecting with Mother Nature at her gnarliest.
“We have access to these incredible beaches and the rocky shoreline and the huge temperate old-growth forest behind us that’s never been cut,” McDiarmid explains. “We’re in the heart of a UNESCO biosphere reserve here in Clayoquot Sound, we have Pacific Rim National Park here at our doorstep, [plus] thousands of hectares of provincial park and an Indigenous population that goes back 5,000 years. All those things together—well, if they don’t make you want to respect nature, nothing will.”
