BCO Coastal Gems: Read Island

Read Island sits in the heart of the Discovery Islands, with Maurelle Island to the North, Quadra Island to the west and Cortes Island to the Southeast. There is a large provincial park at the south end of the island and a government dock is located at Surge Narrows.

The census has approximately 80 people as full-time residents of the island, and there are many other part-time residents with summer cabins and residences.

school house

Read Island is home to Surge Narrows School, serving the outlying areas in the Discovery Islands for School District 72. Like most of the Discovery Islands, Read Island has a rich and varied history, having been home to loggers, farmers and homesteaders throughout the years.

Surge Narrows is at the junction where Read Island, Quadra Island and Maurelle Island meet and merges into White Rock Pass. This is a picturesque and protected location with quick, easy access to services and amenities located at Heriot Bay on Quadra Island or the larger centre of Campbell River on Vancouver Island. From here one is also minutes away from the BC mainland and majestic inlets such as Toba and Bute.

Read Island has a network of internal logging roads, which provide access throughout most of the island and to areas such as Surge Narrows, the Government Dock as well as the community hall and elementary school. Rosen Lake and 1550 acres of Provincial Park are both located on the south end of the island.

White Rock Pass

It’s a Coastal Lifestyle … Live It! 

Interactive Information Packages on BCO Website

BC Oceanfront has always prided itself on the information packages it assembles. These are a definite team effort, from Ed and/or Shelley talking with the clients, visiting the property and taking photos, to Kate working with them to hone the text, to Jennifer pulling together additional information such as zoning and mapping and then creating the packages. The interactive flipbooks take the original PDF packages to a new level online.

You can check out one of these flipbooks on our new listing at 611 Gorge Harbour on Cortes Island. You can easily flip through the pages and there are video clips from the property as well as clickable pages which take you to more information.

Our pdf packages are always available for emailing and printing, but as more and more people are viewing properties on a mobile or tablet device these new interactive packages are easier to view and allow for more information to be accessed. You can also share the flipbooks with others!

You can see a listing's flipbook by clicking on the Interactive Information Package button on the listing page at our website.

It's a Coastal Lifestyle ... Live It!

It's a Coastal Lifestyle ... Live It!

At BC Oceanfront, we talk a lot about the coastal lifestyle. For us, a coastal lifestyle means finding the balance between life and work so that we can enjoy to the fullest this amazing place where we get to live.

Big Picture, this has meant Ed and Shelley finding a way to get some time away in the summer especially, but really all year round, for fishing/hunting/camping/road trips. This may mean one is out of town while the other is covering the office, or it may mean Ed is at his place in Quatsino fishing in the mornings and working remotely in the afternoons and evenings.

On a smaller scale, the coastal lifestyle means week-ends spent outdoors, and often evenings as well. It means stopping and looking out the windows when someone thinks they spot whales, or an interesting boat is going through the passage between Quadra Island and Campbell River.  It means talk about fishing can take up as much time as talk about properties during client meetings, and there are plenty of photo uploads of our week-end adventures to share on social media. It also means that when Shelley and Ed show clients a property they share in the delight a buyer feels upon seeing the wonder of the coast for the first time. After years of living and working on the coast, that feeling of awe and wonder hasn’t gone away.

The coastal lifestyle doesn’t mean you just live on the coast. It means every day you appreciate that coast and the lifestyle it allows you to enjoy. It means you relax a little more often than if you lived in the big city, and you get outside into the beautiful natural spaces around you.

We believe in it, we live it and we love to share it.

It’s a Coastal Lifestyle … Live It!

Campbell River Estuary and Tyee Spit

For decades the Campbell River was used as an exchange and holding area for many logging operations. In recent years efforts have been made to repair and restore the area, transforming the shoreline back to healthy, indigenous vegetation.

The Tyee Spit itself has been transformed into a wonderful park (Dick Murphy Park), complete with walking paths and beach access, a great place to look out over Discovery Passage and across to Quadra Island. It is popular with families as it is a convenient and safe place for bikes, scooters and kites and also popular with dog walkers. The centre lawn is perfect for playing on and the numerous benches provide comfortable spots to rest and look out at the water and marine traffic. The beach along the edge of the park is a nice place to sit and explore.

The park has also become a popular spot for photos!

The estuary and Baikie Island are quickly becoming naturalized once again thanks to hard work by a number of groups.

On both sides the estuary and spit are perfect places to take some time out of a day around town to reconnect with nature and recharge with a little break.

It's a Coastal Lifestyle ... Live It!

Wind Farms on Vancouver Island

Coastal regions do tend to experience a fair share of wind, but creating wind farms is not common on the BC Coast. One of the first is operating on the northern tip of Vancouver Island.

The Cape Scott wind farm, originally known as the Knob Hill wind farm, was built in 2011 and became operational in 2013. It sells power to BC Hydro. To read more about this 864+ acres wind farm, check it out here.

Ed has had a number of opportunities to fly over the turbines while up island taking property photos.

There are other companies looking at sites on northern Vancouver Island, you can see more information at Port Hardy's website here.

It's a Coastal Lifestyle ... Live It!