Accommodation here varies, with luxurious hotels and boutiques, and there is plenty to do on your stop-over, with well marked cycling trails, hiking, zip-lining and bungee jumping for the adrenaline junkies, and shopping, museums, city tours and ethnic enclaves for those craving a bit more culture.

Vancouver Island is a large and sparsely populated area encompassing the Gulf Islands and a portion of the mainland as well as, of course, Vancouver Island. 97 percent of the population live in the south of the Vancouver Island region, so the north is a barely-touched jewel of emerald forests with pockets of cedar forests and old-growth fir as well as rare, naturally occurring groves of Garry Oak.

Less than a 20-minute flight from mainland Vancouver, there are opportunities to watch orcas and grey whales from a boat, and even snorkel with salmon. Of course, where there is salmon, there are bears and Port Hardy, in the very north, is a gateway to the Great Bear Rainforest where you may spot the mysterious spirit bears. From here you can also access the wild and wet Cape Scott National Park or the tranquil waters of Charlotte and Johnstone Strait, where the Kwakwaka’wak First Nations are the traditional gatekeepers.