Dream Journey ... Edible Landscape on Vancouver Island

View of Sooke Harbour House & Whiffen Spit 

Exceptional outings .... an edible landscape on Vancouver Island, British Columbia.

Botanically-inclined travelers with a penchant for slow food aim for

Sooke Harbour House, an unparalleled retreat that's not to be missed 

when touring Vancouver Island.

 Trace the West Shore’s Old Island Highway from the city of Victoria to Sooke village,

and follow along to the inn.

The Kitchen Garden

Perched on a bluff overlooking the Strait of Juan de Fuca, 

Sooke Harbour House is an idyllic destination, with luxe rooms, and a restaurant that garners accolades too numerous to mention. Guests and the public are invited to tour the 

organic gardens - a vertiable edible landscape.

The gardens & the sea (gooseneck barnacles...sea urchin...geoduck) 

yield ingredients for the restaurant’s imaginative fare. 

Wild native plants - nodding onion, wild thimble, salal berries, the young light green needles of grand firs, licorice fern root - are cultivated alongside leeks and kales, 

herbs and tasty edible flowers.

All contribute to the highly original, regional Northwest coast cuisine served 

at the inn's remarkable restaurant.

Autumn View

The mist-shrouded hillside setting encompasses yet another wonder.  

Meander to the water’s edge for a glimpse of the sinuous Whiffen Spit, a natural formation akin to a work of the Earth Art movement, like Robert Smithson’s Spiral Jetty, or Alain Idoux’s Lavender Wedge in Provence.

I fell under the spell of the sandy spit of land. Waking early, I walked out, my footsteps following the landform’s 1/4-mile curvilinear pattern sketched into sheltered Sooke Harbour. 

Photos:  Sooke Harbour House

The inn features casually elegant rooms: Inviting jacuzzis, fireplaces, and views,

while the serene setting is known for top-notch bird watching,

 and to-die-for vistas of the Olympic Mountains.

Even the parking lot is noteworthy: 

An environmentally-wise, green design of grass turf and a recycled plastic grid set in sand.

Link to Sooke Harbour House on Bay Area Tendrils .... Hotels & Inns 

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