Wisely wearing rubber boots, he leads us through spring mud and past more than a hundred varieties of apple trees, some of which were showing the first signs of spring growth.īurton says he was captivated by Salt Spring when he visited from Northern Ontario many years ago. As we arrive, owner Harry Burton holds back his dog while welcoming us through a deer-proof fence and into his untamed orchard. I am reminded of this as we follow the road signs to Apple Luscious Organic Orchard on Salt Spring Island. There’s a mild, Mediterranean-like climate, a vibrant art and food scene, and bucolic scenery-and island life has a way of embracing the creative and quirky the way no urban centre can. Some are born into life in the small island communities, but many more choose to make the green and rocky islands home. Gulf Islanders themselves are an improbable bunch of people. The Gulf Islands are a refuge to a huge variety of bird life-here a heron takes flight. But thanks to a fleet of drive-aboard BC Ferries that run to many of the islands in the Sea’s Canadian archipelago, a trip through the Gulf Islands is a float-drive adventure that combines whale watching with winding country roads dotted with farms and villages.

Roadtripping isn’t exactly what comes to mind when you think of the Northwest’s Salish Sea, a series of interconnected waterways and islands that separate Vancouver Island from mainland Canada and the U.S. I was ready for spring, and I could think of no better way to welcome it than to head off to the islands of my childhood and revisit a mystery. I suddenly longed to stand under those gnarled old trees again, feeling soft sunshine on my face. Recently, when munching through a flawless but near-flavourless supermarket apple-while staring at yet another accumulating snowdrift-I recalled that fruit.

At the time I wandered from tree to tree, trying to figure out what type of apple I was eating, and wondering how the old orchard had been forgotten. But the crunchy apple tasted of a sweet, sunny memory. The apple trees were gray and mossy, with withered leaves and scabby misshapen fruit. I found the fruit when I wandered out of a forest and into an overgrown orchard on British Columbia’s uninhabited Portland Island. That might seem like an odd reason to head off on a Gulf Island road trip at the tail end of the winter-that-would-not-end, but the memory of that apple crops up at the oddest times.

Trade Island for apple instal free