Brooks Peninsula Provincial Park is a stubby 9-mile (14-km) finger of land that juts out into the Pacific Ocean on the west coast of Vancouver Island, northwest of Kyuquot.
This peninsula is unique in that it is the only part of Vancouver Island to escape glaciation, and today produces plant species found nowhere else. There is much to discover in this huge and remote wilderness park (51,631 hectares), which is best explored with the services of a knowledgeable guide.
Visitors can spend solitary, lazy days exploring the wild ocean coastline, pristine estuaries, long sheltered fjords, old-growth forests and rugged mountain ranges or join a multi-day sea kayaking expedition.
Also known as Muquin/Brooks Peninsula Provincial Park, features of the park vary from intertidal and beach areas to alpine and subalpine regions. Archaeological sites containing the remnants of cultures that thrived here over the past several thousand years have been identified in the area. The park falls within the boundaries of the Kyuquot/Checleset and Quatsino First Nation peoples. This area is spiritually significant to these First Nations, and has long served as the traditional hunting and fishing grounds for the Che:k’tles7et’h’ peoples.
The park is home to the Marbled Murrelet that nests in the thick moss of old-growth coastal rain forest. These birds spend their entire life at sea except when they venture ashore to nest. The natural nesting habitat of the Marbled Murrelet has been severely threatened by the mindless clearcut logging of ancient coastal forests.
Like the nearby Checleset Bay Ecological Reserve, the shoreline waters of Brooks Peninsula are home to BC’s recovering sea otter population. Decimated by the fur trade in the early 1900s, and extirpated in BC by the late 1920s, sea otters from Alaska were transplanted to the northwest coastal waters in 1969-1972. The present sea otter population around Vancouver Island is estimated at 2000.
Recreational opportunities include hiking, kayaking, boating and wildlife viewing. There are no vehicle-accessible camping facilities at this park. Wilderness, backcountry or walk-in camping is allowed, but there are no developed sites and no facilities are provided. This park is accessible year round. There is no fee for winter camping. There are no day-use or picnic facilities at this park.
Visitors can see a variety of marine mammals in the area, including Gray whales, sea lions and sea otters. Seabirds, including Rhinoceros auklets and Marbled Murrelets, are found in abundance in this park, which features miles of remote, uninhabited sandy beaches and an old growth coastal rain forest. Access to the adjacent ecological reserve on Solander Island is prohibited.
Muquin / Brooks Peninsula Provincial Park is located approximately 20 km southwest of Port Alice on northwest Vancouver Island, British Columbia. The park is accessible primarily by boat, north from Quatsino Sound and south from Kyuquot Sound.
There is no boat launch in the park. The nearest boat launch is at Fair Harbour. Sheltered anchorages are also available in Nasparti and Ououkinsh Inlet in the southern part of the park. In the northern portion of the park, sheltered anchorages can be found in Brooks Bay and Klaskish Inlet.
Boaters can reference marine chart #3683 (Checleset Bay) and #3680 (Brooks Bay) for more information on this area. Water taxis and air charters are available from Kyuquot and Zeballos.
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