What Are the Southern Gulf Islands?

The Gulf Islands sit in the Salish Sea between the British Columbia mainland and Vancouver Island. The ones people mean, and the ones the ferry passes, are the Southern Gulf Islands.

The six

• Salt Spring — much the largest and busiest, with a proper village at Ganges and the Saturday market that is the islands’ best-known single event. The easiest to visit and the least remote-feeling.
• Galiano — long and narrow, forming the north side of Active Pass. Ridges, bluffs and a lot of shoreline for its size.
• Mayne — the south side of Active Pass, small and walkable, with the Georgia Point lighthouse looking back into the strait.
• North and South Pender — joined by a bridge, quiet, with much of the shoreline in the national park reserve.
• Saturna — the least visited and least served, which is precisely the point for the people who go.

Parts of several islands lie inside Gulf Islands National Park Reserve.

What they are not

They are not a cruise destination and they are not a day-trip circuit. There is no boat that takes you round them. They are small rural communities with limited accommodation, limited transport once you arrive, and ferry schedules that thin out sharply outside summer.

If your plan is to see them, the ferry through Active Pass does that in ninety minutes. If your plan is to visit them, choose one and stay.

Which one to choose

• First visit, want somewhere to walk to dinner: Salt Spring.
• Want the passage scenery and hiking: Galiano or Mayne.
• Want the park and the shoreline: the Penders.
• Want to be genuinely left alone: Saturna.