TRAVEL | CANADA | NATURE

Thick Air and Green For Miles —Life Abounds In Canada’s Rainforest

A new appreciation for the clean environment where we once lived full-time

Dense life exists in the coastal rainforest of Canada’s West Coast. Photo Credit:

Jillian Amatt - Artistic Voyages

It was January of this year when we booked our flights to Vancouver, Canada. We had been traveling around Europe for the winter, and knew that we needed to return to Canada sometime in March. Instead of flying into Alberta, and the throes of winter, we decided that we would land on the West Coast instead — a place that is very familiar to us.

The average temperatures in this region are much warmer than those in the rest of the country (don’t tell the others, though.) While much of the country experiences temperatures below 0 °C (32°F) for at least 6 months of the year, the West Coast basks in an average winter temperature of around 6 °C (43°F).

We both spent most of our adult lives living on the coast, and we knew that spring would have started there by March. Although we arrived in rain and cooler temperatures than we remembered (I blame the dampness for making it seem colder than it was), there was no snow, and flowers were already blooming — a far cry from the rest of the country, which was still in sub-zero temperatures. Exactly what we had hoped for.