Skip to content
Join our Newsletter

Super, Neighbours in British Columbia:The Wickaninnish Inn, Tofino Part Six of Six - Charles and Howie

In last year's Georgia Straight BEST OF awards we took home an editor's pick for " Best Navel Gazing Web Site ", and while our non-profit organization that supports our web site ( Vancouver Is Awesome, Inc ) is focused on celebrating all of the aweso

For this first multi-part edition my wife and I visited one of the most amazing places on earth: the Wickaninnish Inn in Tofino. We spent a relaxing 3 days there and we will certainly be visiting Tofino again to do another another installment of Super, Neighbours but this first one is specifically about "The Wick" as the locals call it, and a few of our favourite offerings that it boasts.

Explore this amazing place for yourself on their WEB SITE, then step into Super, Neighbours...

In last year's Georgia Straight BEST OF awards we took home an editor's pick for "Best Navel Gazing Web Site", and while our non-profit organization that supports our web site (Vancouver Is Awesome, Inc) is focused on celebrating all of the awesome things that make up our city one of those things is it's proximity to other awesome places. In this new series of features entitled Super, Neighbours in British Columbia we'll be taking you on adventures to other BC locales that we think you should check out.

In this sixth and final part I'm bringing you the two founders of the Inn, Charles Mcdiarmid and his father, Howard Mcdiarmid. I had the pleasure of shooting these photos of them a couple of years back for NUVO magazine and was thrilled at the opportunity to come back to the Wick for a stay to work on this first in our Super, Neighbours series. I'm sad to say that Howie passed away a few weeks ago but what a life he led and oh what a legacy he left behind!

Charles and Howie opened the Wickaninnish together in 1996 after spending a great portion of their lives there. Howie had first come to Tofino in the 1950's as a doctor passing through on his way to a job in another town on Vancouver Island. There were no roads in to Tofino at the time and as he de-boarded the float plane that he came in on he was greeted on the dock by the mayor as well as a bunch of the town folk holding signs welcoming their new doctor. It was then and there that the mayor invited Howie to be the physician at their newly built hospital, and we can all be thankful that he took the job, and that he stayed the rest of his life there, ultimately teaming up with his son who had become an experienced hotelier. If he hadn't have said yes and had continued on to that other job somewhere else on the Island we would not have this amazing place to visit today. To Howie! Thank you, sir... you will not soon be forgotten.

I hope you enjoyed this first edition of Super, Neighbours in British Columbia and that you consider checking out The Wickaninnish Inn the next time you're in Tofino.