Pacific Rim

Declared in 1970, it takes in the celebrated West Coast Trail, a 75 km walking route originally built in 1907 as a telegraph and rescue path for those shipwrecked on the treacherous west coast of Vancouver Island, nicknamed the Graveyard of the Pacific for the sheer number of historic wrecks. The sea otter, hunted to local extinction in the early 20th century for the fur trade, was successfully reintroduced in the 1970s and is once again a common sight in its waters.