Holy Cowichan!
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 The Aerie Resort & Spa’s two-hour Journey to the Horizon treatment is appropriate for a resort overlooking the ocean. This facial exfoliation and body wrap uses several of the 250 species of local seaweed, which you’ll also find on the menu in the dining room. (Our tip: Book a private pre-massage class with the Aerie’s resident yogi.)
 When she’s not whipping up country breakfasts, chef
turned-food activist Mara Jernigan of Fairburn Farm Culinary Retreat and Guesthouse leads workshops on such specialties as preparing spring lamb and cooking in the backyard brick pizza oven. Rooms are appropriately rustic, though the espresso machine isn’t. We fuelled up before collecting our morning eggs from a tiny gypsy caravan-shaped chicken coop.
 Home to yoga, belly dancing and ceramics studios, Richards Trail, north of Duncan, is like Vancouver Island concentrated. At potter Margit Nellemann’s workshop, open to the public on weekends, the vases, plates and lamp bases are made freehand and with the least glaze possible for a labour-intensive technique she calls “slow clay.”
 Ocean Ecoventures, departing from the Dungeness Marina in the seaside village of Cow Bay, equips its whale-watching boats with hydrophones. If you’re lucky, these underwater mics will pick up a resident group of orcas known as J pod. In early spring, transient greys and humpbacks start migrating through. (Keep your eyes out for porpoises posing as the big guys.)
 On the region’s burgeoning wine trail, Venturi-Schulze Vineyards in Cobble Hill is less frequented than Blue Grouse or Saturna Island. Giordano and Marilyn Venturi ask guests not to wear perfume to wine and balsamic vinegar tastings so the scent won’t interfere with the bouquet of their Millefiori (or the flavour of the True Grain heirloom-wheat bread that they serve with it).
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