BC Summer Activities: Come And Play

For the active holiday-maker, choose western Canada as a place to settle yourself for a summer of fun. BC summer activities take you on the water or out onto rock bluffs. Take a golf club or a wine glass in your hand. You are sure to find something to enjoy about this beautiful province.

Not only do people love BC, returning again and again, but whales love the province too. Take a guided tour or just hop on a ferry heading for Vancouver Island and keep looking. You have a good chance of spotting a pod of Orcas, especially from locations like Tofino, Victoria or Telegraph Cove on Vancouver Island, or Prince Rupert in Northern Canada. Bear watching makes for a popular pastime too, just be sure to know your bear safety rules. Most of the time bears take no interest in humans. Watch out your window while driving east along the Trans Canada Highway. Prime spotting points include the area from Golden to the Alberta border.

For those who want to get closer to the water, the lakes and coastal waters of the province are ideal for kayakers. Tour the many islands between the mainland and Vancouver Island, putting in at inlets and little bays rarely reached by other tourists. Paddle the lakes inland at Wells Grey Provincial Park, Clearwater, or Shuswap Lake at Salmon Arm.

Festivals draw visitors from all over the world to this vast province, including wine festivals. During the month of August head to Silver Star Mountain Resort near Vernon for the Okanagan Summer Wine Festival to learn about and taste numerous wines. Combine wine with golf vacation packages, perhaps trying The Harvest Golf Club in Kelowna for eighteen holes on a championship course. Various communities host a festival for children to celebrate Canada Day on July first. These festivals often include music and draw well-known performers, feature information and safety booths. Buy a hot dog and get your face painted red and white.

Canadian history may not seem to go a long way back, but places such as RJ Haney House in Salmon Arm and Three Valley Gap near Revelstoke make the most of the early days. View restored buildings set-up to recreate nineteenth-century towns. These might have housed railway labourers, gold-panners, or immigrants looking for a new way of life through farming.

BC history goes much farther back than a couple of hundred years when viewed through the eyes of its indigenous people. Explore their early lives and the impact of European settlement at Royal BC Museum in Victoria. Fort Langley, about an hour from Vancouver, takes you back in to a time when people traded animal hides for iron pots or blankets.

Thrill seekers might want to make a few exciting memories for themselves with water sports. River Rafting gives them the perfect opportunity, especially in early summer when the spring run-off has not yet run out of steam. Get very wet, even flipped over, or take a break for a short interpretation of the flora and fauna you ride between at Adams River or inside the desert canyon of the Thompson River.

Follow a day of rock climbing on the Skaha bluffs near Penticton with a more relaxing escape. All skill levels can take part at the bluffs by climbing the up to 250 foot cliffs or merely hiking for a good view. Relax at a Penticton restaurant over some beautifully prepared local food. All in all combining BC golf vacations with exploring the beauty of British Columbia makes for an ideal adventure or family holiday.