CLAYOQUOT SOUND

Located on the west coast of Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada, Clayoquot Sound is home to rich and terrestrial and marine ecosystems, and diverse cultures. The unique qualities of Clayoquot Sound were internationally acknowledged with its designation as a UNESCO Man and Biosphere Reserve in January, 2000. This designation distinguishes the area as having significant qualities for promoting and demonstrating a balanced relationship between people and nature.

Coastal temperate rainforests cover the 265,000 hectares of mountains, valleys, and islands in Clayoquot Sound. Among the most biologically productive places on earth, coastal temperate rainforests are considered rare ecosystems, originally covering only 0.2% of the earth’s surface. This ecosystem is important habitat for many species, including black bears, roosevelt elk, marbled murrelets, cougars, wolves, bald eagles and red legged frogs.

The coastal temperate rainforest of Clayoquot Sound is part of the largest remaining tract of temperate rainforest in the world, which stretches from Oregon to Alaska along the Pacific Coast of North America. It is estimated that approximately 44 percent of this stretch of forest has already been lost due to logging and other activities (Ecotrust, 1995). On Vancouver Island, Clayoquot Sound contains the largest remnant of ancient temperate rainforest. Out of the ninety watersheds (larger than 5,000 ha) on the Island, it is estimated that five remain pristine. Three of these watersheds are located in Clayoquot Sound.

The marine ecosystem of Clayoquot Sound is as productive as the terrestrial. The six deep, fjord-like inlets of Clayoquot Sound are protected from the open ocean by an archipelago of forested islands with rocky coastlines and sandy beaches. The result is a vast and complex marine ecosystem with rich intertidal and subtidal zones, extensive mudflats, giant kelp and eelgrass beds, and strong tidal currents. These waters provide habitat for many species, including migrating orca, grey and humpback whales, basking sharks, Dungeness crabs, geoducks, various shellfish, wild salmon, herring, ground fish, otters and sea lions, and migrating shorebirds.

The natural abundance of the area provided for the Nuu-chah-nulth people, who have occupied Clayoquot Sound and much of the west coast of Vancouver Island for the past several millennia. Of the Nuu-chah-nulth Nation, the Ahousaht, Tla-o-qui-aht, and Hesquiaht tribes live in Clayoquot Sound. First Nations comprise approximately fifty per cent of the population, primarily residing in the communities of Hot Springs, Opitsaht, Esowista, and Marktosis.

Read about the Clayoquot Consortium Here

Find out how your group can stay at the Clayoquot Field Station...

Clayoquot Sound takes its name from the Tla-o-qui-aht people. The name has been said to mean "people who are different from who they used to be."

“You can try to understand the living world with your head, but sometimes the heart is a truer field guide. Here in Vancouver Island’s Clayoquot Sound, a million-acre amphitheatre where mountainsides embrace a fjord-fingered, island-strewn reach of the sea, you don’t have to choose, for everyway of knowing nature seems to come into play.”

(Douglas Chadwick, "Pacific Suite", National Geographic, Feb 2003)