Bigpacific.com's Sunshine Coast

It's like Whistler, before it was Whistler. It's small-town, in a good way. It's artsy, and sometimes fartsy, and can be charming, but not always. It's a REAL place, where REAL people live and come to visit. The Sunshine Coast's got sturgeon, and kayaks, and snowshoes, and crutches that summit Killimanjaro. You'll hear people saying 'Holy Crap!' quite regularly (find the pun, for extra Coastie points). There's businesses going gangbuster that you rarely hear about, cause some like living on the quiet. There are ideological battles, and spirited disagreements, and some of the highest voter turnouts in the province. You gotta take a big ferry boat or a plane to get here (and leave the city behind). There's huge involvement in volunteering for causes that matter. There's hippies, and bankers, and Brits, and First Nations, and suburbs and farms, and more than our share of activists, old folks with a lot of kick, and young people with a lot of heart, and the biggest golf hazard you ever saw (Roosevelt Elk). There's waterfalls, and backcountry, and beaches where you're the only one there. And contrary to our name, it rains. A lot sometimes. Someone from Texas once said: It's so damned green I can't stand it. Once you've been here, you'll know why most of us never leave. If modern life has you glum, come and visit us... you belong here. Oh yeah, and we're Canadian, eh!