Roadbook: Delta to Vancouver

Vancouver Island is definitely worth a visit on a round trip, and there’s no better way to explore it than on the Pacific Marine Circle Route. “There you’ll find untouched landscape, lonely, winding roads, and the beautiful province capital.” Before embarking on our journey, we’ve consulted Garth Webber Atkins, the President of the Porsche Club of America’s Vancouver Island chapter. For her, the route is an absolute dream, alternating between a modern big city, lonely coastal roads, and untouched forest.

But the word “island” is deceiving. Vancouver Island is 100 kilometers wide and 450 kilometers long, making it a little bigger than Belgium. We have two ferry crossings to choose from for our trip, each about 1.5 hours long. Our plan is to head to the south of Vancouver, a city with a population of around one million, and take the ferry from Tsawwassen to Victoria (Swartz Bay), explore the spectacular nature on the southwestern tip of the island, and then take the ferry back up to the north of Vancouver from Nanaimo to Horseshoe Bay. Our road trip will kick off in the city of Delta, which is named after the Fraser River delta. Our car of choice is the Porsche Macan with the Canadian performance design in traditional white with black accents, which we pick up nearby. The SUV is spacious, but also compact enough for narrow roads, and suitable for occasional excursions on gravel tracks and stretches of beach, making it the ideal vehicle for our purposes.

Before boarding the ferry, we take a brief detour to Steveston Village in southwestern Richmond, a city bordering Delta. There’s a brisk wind as we explore the fishing port and the surroundings of the city with its population of 220,000. We meet Sasha Shkolnik, a jeweler who immigrated to British Columbia from Ukraine via Germany years ago. “Life is just slower here,” she says about her new home. “Fish is sold directly from the boat, and boutiques have popped up alongside a selection of restaurants.” The 54-year-old has found a place to call home.

We get back in the car and head toward the Tsawwassen ferry port, which is just a stone’s throw from the US border. Once on Highway 99, we cross two arms of the powerful Fraser River, which carries 112 cubic kilometers of water and more than 20 million tons of sediment into the Pacific every year and, like many other rivers, is fed by melting snow from the Rocky Mountains. On clear days, the mountains form the fascinating panorama of the metropolitan region on the Pacific Coast.

Our route takes us over the sea. The ferry port and the city district are named after the Tsawwassen First Nation, which roughly translated means “people with a view of the sea.” This is the home of the Tsawwassen, who belong to the Coast Salish, a group of ethnically related Indigenous peoples on North America’s Pacific Coast, with a history that goes back thousands of years. Once the ferry has wound its way through the smaller islands off the coast and docked at Swartz Bay, we head for Oak Bay Marina in Victoria, which is just over 30 minutes away. A small delegation of the local Porsche Club, including President Garth Webber Atkins, is waiting for us at the parking lot. The Porsche fans of Vancouver Island have had their own chapter with over 600 members that’s separate from that on the mainland since 1996. They have a range of club fleet vehicles with them, from the 968 Clubsport and a 928 to the classic 911.

“What a joy and honor it is to receive visitors from Stuttgart,” Webber Atkins tells us. After the warm welcome, we have the opportunity to get better acquainted with Victoria, the province capital, where the port extends deep inland.

We take our leave and head for Sooke, a small town with surfing beaches, where we spend the night. The luxurious East Sooke Tree House located in the heart of the dense forest is like nothing else. We have the road there almost entirely to ourselves. Even though the bridges have just one lane, we never have to wait. Highway 14, which was an unpaved logging road until just a few years ago, follows the coastline to Port Renfrew. A higher vantage point provides a wonderful view of the Strait of Juan de Fuca and, beyond that, the Olympic Peninsula in the US. The West Coast Trail follows the shoreline and was created in 1907 as a faster route for assisting shipwreck victims. Storms and high waves can shift the kilometer-wide sandbank, which used to make that stretch of the coast unpredictable for sailors. They say there’s more than a hundred shipwrecks on the ocean floor in the area once referred to as the “Graveyard of the Pacific.”

With its ups and downs, hairpin turns, and dips, even the highway itself can be challenging, but on nice days it offers unadulterated driving pleasure. The Macan’s steering translates the driver’s impulses to the road with precision, while the all-wheel drive offers plenty of traction when accelerating on tight turns. Distributing the power to all four wheels gives us peace of mind when we decide to take the Macan directly onto the rocky beach. The sporty SUV feels right at home on the fist-sized stones.

Here we’re surrounded by the spectacular nature of Vancouver Island – the salty air of the Pacific, mere yards away the slightly musty, highly earthy smell of the rainforest that surrounds us and filters out much of the sunlight, and then the strong, resinous fragrance of the warm pine needles on the forest floor.

Here, Highway 14 turns to the mountains in the north. The lonely forest road passes through 60 kilometers of untouched nature. The tourist infrastructure is only available again once you reach the town of Lake Cowichan on the banks of the lake of the same name, with its population of just under 3,000. There are a variety of waterfront eateries to choose from, from the traditional North American diner to the upscale fish restaurant. After a meal, we continue our drive to Departure Bay in Nanaimo, where we make our way back to the mainland. As we approach Horseshoe Bay, we’re treated to a breathtaking view of Vancouver and the surrounding massifs. Even Mount Baker, which is around 150 kilometers away, is visible.

And the view of the skyscrapers across the way is remarkable – Vancouver House designed by Danish architect Bjarke Ingels, in particular, is hard to miss. Built on a triangular plot, the 150-meter apartment building begins in a triangular shape and transitions to a rectangle as it reaches the top third.

This is where our journey comes to an end, a journey along a route that combines tradition with modernity as well as nature with grandeur. And where there’s still so much to discover.