The perfect storm: Canada

After breakfast, menacing clouds bruise a grey sky as ancient cedar trees start to creak and shiver in a rising wind. Spray from booming surf is blown against rocks and hotel windows. Giant tree trunks, tossed up by previous storms, tangle on the beach as if the gods have abandoned a giant game of pick-up-sticks. The temperature plunges. By early afternoon, snow is in the air and a gale howls. Hotel guests are gleeful. They haul on yellow sou’westers and Wellington boots, abandon fireside whiskeys and head into the storm. The holiday weather could hardly be better on the wave-battered coast at Tofino.

The moody skies over the beach at Tofino, Vancouver Island are exactly what holidaymakers are after.

Generally speaking, holidaymakers hunt for sunny climes and hope for cheerful skies. But Tofino is the storm-watching capital of Canada, and what people really want here are black billowing clouds, and violent breakers that surge unchecked from the wide-open North Pacific to crash on the coastline. Visitors want a spectacle of storms, a lashing of fresh British Columbia rain on their glowing cheeks, and the taste of wind-blown sea salt on their lips.

Tofino: the storm-watching capital of Canada

Throughout most of the winter, Tofino delivers. It sits on the west coast of Vancouver Island, as far west as you can go in Canada, squarely facing the North Pacific, backed by snow-dusted mountains. It’s the last halt on the Trans-Canada Highway, an end-of-the-road town of scrappy weatherboard houses, crab-fishing boats and visiting floatplanes. In winter, the Blue Heron pub provides warmth and improbable conversations with eccentric fishermen and tangle-haired tree-huggers. Funky SoBo Restaurant dishes up excellent chowder, thick with smoked salmon and chunks of crab.

You also get wet-weather gear and boots to battle the elements, after which it’s good to know that a malt whiskey at the bar, deep soak in your bath, or a rack of lamb in the restaurant await.

Tofino is a quirky destination, but being in a wild landscape doesn’t mean going without creature comforts. Check into the Wickaninnish Inn and you’ll enjoy one of Canada’s best hotels, whose clever marketing helped put Tofino on the map during wintertime. It might be the only resort in the world whose guests are disappointed to wake up to sunshine. The Wick Inn, as it’s affectionately known, sits on a promontory surrounded by foaming waves with fabulous views over the storm-tossed coast. Guests are equipped with binoculars so they can sit by their windows and sweep the sea like naval captains on a ship’s bridge. You also get wet-weather gear and boots to battle the elements, after which it’s good to know that a malt whiskey at the bar, deep soak in your bath, or a rack of lamb in the restaurant await.

The Wickaninnish Inn

Guests are provided with wet weather gear to battle the elements.

The Pointe Restaurant at the Wick Inn

Save room for dessert.

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The Wick Inn almost seems a natural part of the landscape. It has cedar-wood roof beams, driftwood-fashioned chairs etched with old nail marks, and antique Japanese fishing floats, improbably collected from the sea, that make beautiful decorative pieces. In the coffee lounge, the bar top is a tree trunk whose roots at one end create a glorious, sea-eroded sculpture. It’s a joy to shuffle through the common areas to inspect the native artworks and (in the library) copies of Captain Vancouver’s exploration journals and a scale model of his ship Discovery. The hotel’s talkative owner Charles McDiarmid is worth talking to for his insights into the west coast’s early history, native art and Tofino’s eccentric present-day residents.

The inn’s Pointe Restaurant eschews posh décor and white linen for hand-woven tablemats that adorn rustic tables made of cedar chunks. Service is flawless but informal; everything takes second place to the battered coast beyond huge windows that soar to a cathedral ceiling. You can work your way through a six-course degustation that might include shrimp carpaccio with blood orange and fennel; roast hazelnut soup with pan-fried sweetbreads; and duck breast with chestnuts and potato gnocchi. The menu changes with the seasons and is big on local ingredients matched with good British Columbian wines.

The sand trembles as huge waves surge, and you might have to lean into the wind.

With views like this, you'd be hard pressed not to enjoy a walk along Chesterman beach.

At the end of the day, though, the best thing about this place is right outside the window and the Wick Inn knows it. Views take centre stage from every window and even from the showers in the suites. It encourages you to head out into the wind and rain. Misty beaches run for 20 kilometres along the coast between rocky headlands, and the hinterland forest entices with boardwalks that meander between ferns, boulders and moss-stained trees. Locals with water-drenched coats walk their dogs and hardy Canadian surfers — astonishingly — take to the wild waves.

Walks along the beaches are exhilarating. You can inspect driftwood and oyster shells and great hunks of kelp coughed up by the waves. The sand trembles as huge waves surge, and you might have to lean into the wind. Nature is wild and glorious and, when the chill sets in, you can retire to your guestroom and sit by the fire and watch the storms from behind glass. No need to complain about bad weather on this holiday: rather, look upon it and rejoice.