Gulf Islands

Know the region

The Gulf Islands guide

Scattered through the Salish Sea between the big Island and the mainland, the Gulf Islands each keep their own personality and their own pace — measured less in minutes than in ferry sailings. Salt Spring, Galiano, Mayne, Pender, Saturna, Gabriola, Denman, Hornby, Quadra, Cortes: mild, dry, arbutus-fringed, and home to more artists per capita than anywhere else in Canada, or so the islands will happily tell you.

Landmarks & attractions

Salt Spring's Saturday market in Ganges is the islands' great gathering — makers, growers and musicians filling the harbour village every week from spring through fall — with Mount Maxwell's lookout and Ruckle Park's shoreline camping nearby. Hornby Island keeps two of BC's most loved parks: Tribune Bay's white sand and Helliwell's cliff-top loop. Galiano's Montague Harbour and Bodega Ridge, Gabriola's wave-carved Malaspina Galleries and petroglyphs, Quadra's Rebecca Spit and its excellent Nuyumbalees cultural centre, Cortes's Hollyhock retreat and lagoon beaches — every island has its icon. Much of Mayne, Saturna and the Penders falls within the Gulf Islands National Park Reserve, where quiet sand spits and warm-water coves hide in plain sight.

The islands

Salt Spring is the big one — villages, farms and a real winter population; Gabriola is Nanaimo's artsy neighbour, twenty minutes from downtown; Quadra and Cortes answer to Campbell River; Denman and Hornby stack in a two-ferry hop from Buckley Bay; Galiano, Mayne, Pender and Saturna string along the southern route from Swartz Bay.

Getting here & getting around

BC Ferries reaches the southern islands from Swartz Bay and Crofton, Gabriola from Nanaimo, Denman–Hornby from Buckley Bay, Quadra–Cortes from Campbell River. Sailings shape island life — check schedules, and in summer, arrive early.

Living here

Island life means water catchment and community halls, studios and stands on the honour system, and neighbours who notice. The verified businesses below are the islands' working locals — many seasonal, all genuine.