By Linda Tancs

If you can’t immediately place Esowista Peninsula, you are forgiven. But give it a short while longer and everyone is likely to be talking about the quiet, little fishing village at its tip along the west coast of Vancouver Island in Canada. Named in 1792 after Vicente Tofino de San Miguel, Rear Admiral of the Spanish Naval Academy, Tofino is roughly 5 hours from Victoria, British Columbia and offers a variety of wildlife, hot springs and cultural tours. Largely dependent on tourism and aquaculture, you can count on year-round saltwater fishing opportunities, with world-class salmon fishing and flyfishing in Clayoquot Sound. Environmental preservation runs strong here. Just ask the locals to point out Eik Cedar Tree, the mascot of Tofino, an 800-year-old Western Red Cedar saved from the brink of condemnation thanks to the activism of its citizens. That may seem like nothing compared with the Hanging Garden Cedar, a living tree with a trunk circumference of 20 meters and estimated to be over 2,000 years old! A tree is our best antique, as the saying goes.

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