Chesterman Beach ~ Pix to Words & Song

I spent a few magical days in and around Ucluelet, British Columbia, a small town bordering Pacific Rim National Park on Vancouver Island. A particularly wonderful afternoon unfolded during a long walk along Chesterman Beach, a bit further north in the town of Tofino. The sand there had these remarkable patterns of light and dark which fascinated me, and my camera.

The dark was the sand itself, while the white particles turned out to be shell flakes from clams, pulverized by the ocean waves. These were lighter than the sand, and on Chesterman’s long, shallow beaches — where the waves fanned out for dozens of yards in thin sheers of salt water — fantastical patterns of light and dark were created.

I captured several dozen images from Chesterman Beach, and they have proven a great source of inspiration for poems and stories, a series from which I share five examples here.