Welcome to the latest series of Super, Neighbours blog posts where we highlight incredible travel destinations in British Columbia!Feast Tofino is back for it’s third year and it’s better and longer than ever. Stretching throughout May, it features “Stay and Dine” packages as well as $29, $39 and $49 “Dine About” set price menus, special events, and celebrates “the abundance of seasonal produce, seafood and sustainable “boat-to-table” practices commonly adopted by the area’s restaurants” and the Tofino-Ucluelet Culinary Guild. In this 5 part series I’m going to show you everything from the ease of travelling to Tofino, to the amazing food you can eat, activities you can try, places you can stay and people you can meet.Here is Part One: Getting There!

I haven’t been to Tofino in almost 10 years I’d say…and after this trip, I don’t know what I was thinking waiting so long. As I’m sure you’ve noticed, our fearless leader, Bob Kronbauer, has frequented this oceanside paradise more than a few times in the last few years, and I’m glad he let me have the chance to cover Feast Tofino this go around!

I had never been to the South Terminal at YVR before, nor had I even flown in a plane to Tofino, so this was all new to me! The kind people at Destination British Columbia set me up with a flight on Orca Airways, and I navigated my way to the terminal with ease: Canada Line to the airport, down the elevator and sauntered over to the shuttle pick up for the South Terminal.

Once there, I checked in, in a matter of 2 minutes (seriously), and decided to have a beer and lunch on the patio (no lies) of the cafe attached to the airport.
Yes, I’m not making this up…it’s the heaven of airports.

I’ve been in a floatplane once before, and flew around Howe Sound last year, but never travelled in one of this awesome little planes that …READ THE REST OF THIS ENTRY>>>

SCENE AND HEARD showcases the independent music scene here in Vancouver. We post weekly guest playlists comprised of Vancouver artists and ‘Last Week in Music’ highlights some of the best concerts happening around the city…

We’re Three Years Old Today! Yay VIAindie…that’s a lot of photos. I’d like to thank the Vancouver Music scene and all of the photographers that have contributed their skills over the last 3 years!

We had a great party last week (I’ll include a photo of the cake!) and then I took off for Tofino, but the wonderful Ben Caldwell (check out HIS band Broken Down Suitcase) took some shots at the tribute to The Smiths at the Biltmore! Thanks buddy!

THIS WEEK IN MUSIC: the Khatsahlano (free) launch party at Zulu Records is on Wednesday with Village, and Gal Gracen. Thursday check out Rococode, with Tough Lovers, and Colourful Language at the Media Club. Friday Small Town Artillery & JP Maurice are at the Backstage Lounge, while Bill Baird is at the Cobalt with V.Vecker Ensemble, and Dissonant Disco. Saturday Sad Mag is having what looks to be like an amazing party with bands covering 80′s, new wave, and electro-pop songs! Finally on Monday, be sure to check out The Shilohs performing at the Biltmore.

Check out VIAindie’s Facebook page for more images from This Week In Music!

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Welcome to the latest series of Super, Neighbours blog posts where we highlight incredible travel destinations in British Columbia! Last summer during Tofino’s Feast BC celebration I went out on THIS salmon fishing adventure with a premium outfit called Cleanline Sportfishing who offer every type of guided fishing trip you could want. The previous April I went on what I deemed THE ULTIMATE FISHING EXCURSION with them. Cleanline has taken me on a couple of unforgettable trips on the water and this last one was no exception; here I learned that “ultimate” is entirely relative. This trip was actually the ultimate family fishing excursion in Tofino, which was also great from a sportfisherman’s point of view.

Our Christine McAvoy was in Tofino this past weekend gathering a Feast BC story to share, so I fiugured I’d better hurry up and write part 2 before we overlap!

So in PART 1 I brought you along with my wife, our 4 year old son and I as we brought up a crab trap then also a bounty of spot prawns. A couple of hours was all our little guy could muster, so we dropped him and my wife (and the haul of prawns and crabs!) off out the dock and headed back out onto the seas to drop some lines.

Our guide Blake on Cleanline’s primary vessel, holding a couple of our crabs

This was the second day that the halibut fishery was open for the year, and so far none of the local guides had reeled any in with their clients. There had been a gale warning for the area the previous day, and the same warning was in place the day we went out, so nobody could even get out into the deeper water where the halibut lurk. It’s my favourite fish to eat and I really wanted to bring one home but instead of risking a shipwreck we put out some lines for salmon fairly close to shore.
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Dear Bob [editor of V.I.A.],

I want to thank you and the readers of V.I.A. for helping to find a home for our BC-made bench. We received numerous e-mails within days of the POST from both people suggesting places they know of, and others with space to offer. We were looking for a space to house our bench until the IDSWest show in September, and the person we got linked up with offered a compatible timeframe.

The man for the job was Mark Brand, then preparing to open No.1 Noodle House, a pop-up restaurant in the old Boneta space at #1 West Cordova. Currently the concept for the Noodle House is a seven month pop-up shop. In addition to providing the bench with a home, Mark has reserved space beside the bench for us to promote the product and our business. This is about people helping people and opening the door to opportunity.

For the next location and potential final home, we really wanted to see the bench in a open environment with lots of light and space around it. I got an e-mail from Jodie Braaten, exhibit designer at Science World, with an attached photo of the prospective space.
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Hey, actor and musician, husband to Mariah Carey, Nick Cannon! High five, Nick Cannon!

Nick was on Breakfast Television this morning talking about America’s Got Talent, Mariah & his upcoming Showtime comedy special that’s taping at the River Rock… and we got our pals over at BT to deliver this virtual high five for you! Check out our slew of other celebrity fives HERE.

We recently released a totally silly iPhone app with our friends at Company Policy and 49 Digital. Eyes on the World is entirely free, free of advertising, and it essentially allows you to add googly eyes to your photos, then share them. We all volunteered our time for this project because we feel it’s very important that you be able to add googly eyes to things. Like your cat. Or your friends. Or random inanimate objects. It is your right to be able to add googly eyes to things, and we want you to exercise that right with ease.

As long as people continue to use the app and share their photos with us, we’ll be running a weekly feature called Eyes on Vancouver. This week’s images came to us from a Vicky Swan who used the “Send to V.I.A.” option within the app to send us snaps of her parents. Thanks, Vicky!

Download the app HERE and be sure to share with us so we can share here on the blog!