Whiffin Spit runs 2.7 km out into the mouth of Sooke Harbour, ocean on both sides, dead flat the whole way. It is a natural gravel bar with the Olympic Mountains across the water and harbour seals playing and catching fish most days.
Whiffin Spit is a flat 2.7 km out-and-back walk in Sooke, British Columbia, on a gravel path that separates Sooke Harbour from the Juan de Fuca Strait. The route is free, has pit toilets at the parking lot and mid-trail, and suits easy seaside walking, dog walking and birding.
- Distance: 2.7 km return, flat gravel
- Time: About an hour of walking. Allow two if you stop along the way
- Cost: Free, including parking
- Dogs: Welcome, within sight and under control at all times. Bags and bins at the entrance
- Accessibility: Flat gravel, suits strollers with bigger wheels and many wheelchairs
- Washrooms: Pit toilets at the parking lot and about halfway along
- Best conditions: Year-round, but fully exposed to the strait. Clearest skies and calmest wind are most common May to October
- Best for: An easy coastal walk you can do in ordinary shoes
A good fit for families, dog walkers, birders and anyone who wants ocean on both sides without a climb. Less good if you came for elevation, forest, or a sandy beach to swim off.
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What the walk is like
The path runs flat gravel the whole way, with water on both sides. On one side is Sooke Harbour, usually calm. On the other is the Juan de Fuca Strait, usually not.
The far end holds a small navigation light and weather station, and the round trip takes about an hour at a walking pace. The shore is rock and driftwood rather than sand, with one small sandy pocket partway along.
Weather decides this walk, not tide. The spit is open to the Juan de Fuca Strait with nothing to break the wind, so a grey, blustery day out here is a different walk from the same day in town. Check the forecast rather than the tide table before you go.
We went on a calm, clear afternoon in November and it was flat the whole way out, which is the version worth waiting for.
Tide matters less here than at most spots on this coast, because almost the whole walk is up on the trail. It counts if you want to get down onto the cobble beach, and the channel between the spit and East Sooke runs fast as the tide turns, which is worth a look on the way past. The Sooke tide tables cover both.
Wildlife on the spit
Harbour seals are the near certainty. They sit out in the channel with just their heads showing, and they are usually visible from the path without binoculars.
Geese, herons and small crabs are common along the shoreline. Orcas, eagles and owls turn up less often, so the water is worth a second look even when nothing seems to be happening.
Driftwood forts near the far end
Driftwood forts have been built and rebuilt near the far end of the spit for years. A large custom fort used to stand out here, and it still turns up in photos and videos, including one by Stealth Camper Steve Wallis. It came down in a king tide, and a new one has started taking shape in its place.
Around the fort site you might notice large cement pilings left from the fish reduction plant that operated here. They are easy to walk past if you stay on the trail, and easy to spot once you know they are there.
Amenities and what is at the trailhead
At the entrance there is a water fountain with a bottle filler, a dog fountain and a bike rack. Benches are spaced along the path, and waste bags and bins sit at the entrance.
Pit toilets are in two places: at the parking lot beside Quimper Park, and again about halfway along the spit.
Quimper Park and the two carvings
Beside the parking lot sits Quimper Park, a small green space holding two carvings. One commemorates the 1790 voyage of Manuel Quimper, who charted Sooke Harbour for Spain aboard the Princesa Real.
The second carving honours the T’Sou-ke Nation, who lived here on food from the river, the sea and the forest. The T’Sou-ke name for the spit is Long Spit.
Sunsets at Whiffin Spit
The curve of the spit opens the whole western horizon, so you get ocean, the Olympic Mountains and the colour change in one view. Summer evenings run long enough that you can walk out, watch it, and walk back in daylight.
A driftwood log works as well as a bench for this, and there are more of them. If you are looking for another sunset point lookout, I recommend Ella Beach just down the road; it has a more westerly view.
How to get to Whiffin Spit
Whiffin Spit sits at the end of Whiffin Spit Road in Sooke, 40 km southwest of Victoria on Highway 14. Drive through Sooke on Highway 14, the West Coast Road, then turn south onto Whiffin Spit Rd.
The sign is small and set back from the road, so watch for the turn rather than expecting to see it.
Parking is free, in a gravel lot at the end of the road. It fills on sunny weekends, but turnover is quick and a spot usually opens within a few minutes.
Plan your visit
- Compare places to stay in Sooke The spit is five minutes from most of them, which makes it an easy first or last stop of the day.
- See the 2-day Sooke family itinerary Whiffin Spit is the flat-walk slot on day one, paired with the boardwalk and the museum.
- Check availability for Sooke whale watching Seals are close to certain from the spit. Whales are not, and this is the boat we send people to.
History of Whiffin Spit
Whiffin Spit is both natural and man made. It formed on its own as a sand and gravel spit, built by longshore drift where waves meet the shore at an angle and push sediment along it, and people have been reinforcing it since 1907. A larger rock breakwater went in during 1995 to repair a breach and slow erosion.
Where the name comes from
The spit is named after John George Whiffin, a clerk aboard the Royal Navy survey vessel HMS Herald under Captain Henry Kellett, which worked this coast in 1846 and 1847. The T’Sou-ke Nation knew it long before that as Long Spit, and the District of Sooke has published a Site of Significance video on that connection.
Local accounts say the T’Sou-ke used the spit as a lookout, watching the harbour entrance to protect a large community and the food sources around it.
Spanish charts, a reduction plant and a whaler’s cabin
Manuel Quimper charted Sooke Harbour for Spain in 1790, three years after Charles William Barkley became the first European on record to enter the Strait of Juan de Fuca. Sooke’s first sawmills followed in 1849 and 1855, in the harbour rather than on the spit.
The spit itself carried working industry into the twentieth century. The Sooke Harbour Fishing and Packing Company stored fish trap pilings here, and from 1923 the Standfast Bible Students, a short-lived communal colony based near Whiffin Spit Road and West Coast Road, ran a fish reduction plant. Local histories say a retired whaler built a cabin at the far end and lived there into the 1940s.
Two sets of ruins are still visible on the walk. The reduction plant foundation sits just past the far washrooms, close to where the driftwood forts get built, and the old breakwater pilings from the 1907 work run along the south side of the spit.
Events and seasons at Whiffin Spit
Since 1995 a single tree on the spit has been decorated each December with handmade children’s crafts and ornaments. No sign goes up and no date gets announced. It just appears, and it is a good reason to do this walk in winter.
The Polar Bear Swim, 1 January
The Otter Point Volunteer Fire Department hosts the annual Polar Bear Swim at the spit every New Year’s Day, with registration at 11:30 and a cannon start at noon. Far more people come to watch than to swim, and the parking lot fills early.
Winter storms
The District of Sooke closes the spit when a king tide and a storm line up; waves can smash right up over the trail. Closures are posted ahead of the day, so check before you drive out in winter.
On a rough day the Sooke Boardwalk or the trees at the Sooke Potholes are the better call.
Surfers do turn up here during winter storms. It is not a regular break, and conditions have to line up.
The view from above
For a harder walk with the spit in the frame, Broom Hill looks down over Whiffin Spit, Sooke Harbour and the Juan de Fuca Strait. It is about 15 minutes away by car.
Worth an hour if you are anywhere near Sooke
If you are in Sooke for a day or two, Whiffin Spit is close to automatic. It fills the hour or two you need to fill without asking anything of you: no elevation, no route finding, no gear.
It also works for whoever you have with you. Grandparents, strollers, dogs and teenagers all manage it, which is not true of most walks on this coast.
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