If Lake Cowichan is known for one thing, this is it. You climb into an inflated tube, lean back, and let the Cowichan River carry you right through town. It sounds far too simple to be worth doing, until you've done it. Then you'll be the one telling your friends they have to go. For most of the run, the river moves at roughly walking pace. The water is cool and clear, the trees lean in overhead, and the gravel bars invite you to stretch your legs. Every so often a stretch pi

Day Trippers guide to visiting Lake Cowichan

Here's something that still makes me smile. Lake Cowichan is a town of about three thousand people, and within a few easy blocks of each other you'll find five places to get a coffee and something baked. I'd expect that in a city. In a lakeside town where half the doors are shut on a January Tuesday, it feels like a small miracle. The best part? No two of them are alike. Grab a friend (or go solo, I won't judge) and let me walk you through them. Ed's Coffeehouse 67 South Shor

Something I love. This logging town of three thousand+ has hot dogs, a sushi restaurant, a Mexican street food place, coffee, and a bubble tea counter inside a plant shop. All within a few blocks of one another. It's worth saying plainly, because the assumption about small towns is burgers or nothing, and that assumption is wrong here. Come hungry, and bring a friend who likes to share. Lakeside Sushi Unit 2, 78 Cowichan Lake Road The rolls are named after places around the l

I know this might sound backwards: the markets around Cowichan Lake are small, and that's exactly why I love them. It's not a hedge or an apology. At a market this size, you end up talking to the person who grew the thing or made the thing, and that kind of connection simply doesn't survive scale. Bring your curiosity and an empty tote bag. Honeymoon Bay Outdoor Market 10063 South Shore Road, Honeymoon Bay | Saturdays, 10 am to 2 pm This is the anchor of the season. It open

Most golf courses in Canada have a season. This one has a calendar. March Meadows in Honeymoon Bay is a nine-hole par 36 with both nine and eighteen hole rates. It's tree-lined, relatively flat, and ringed by mountains. But the layout isn't what makes it unusual. What makes it special is that the Cowichan Valley holds the warmest year-round average temperature in Canada, so this course plays through months when most of the country has the clubs tucked away in the garage. Let