Category Archives: Destinations

Finding Free Camping On Vancouver Island: Exploring North of Campbell River

Posted by Nov 16, 2025 Destinations , , , , , , , , , Leave a Comment
Finding Free Camping On Vancouver Island: Exploring North of Campbell River
free camping on vancouver island

Vancouver Island Recreation Sites: North Of Campbell River

So I’ve been working a lot lately writing a lot of blogs for RV LIFE and RV Trader. But today I decided to take a break and go exploring. Because for me that’s what life is all about finding new places meeting new people and just enjoying everything that life has to offer.

The best things in life are free, especially when it comes to camping on Vancouver Island, on the West coast of BC. I decided to go a short drive north of Campbell River to find free campsites that are both RV accessible and dog friendly. Elk bay and Stella Lake offer beautiful free campsites.

I wanted to see if I could get my class a RV down to these recreation sites. That said, it made sense to go exploring in my jeep Wrangler first because my jeep can pretty much handle anything the road has to offer.

The two sites I had in mind were Elk Bay recreation site right on the shore of Johnstone Straight and Stella beach recreation site on Stella Lake. Both offer free campsites just a short drive north of Campbell River on Vancouver Island, BC.

Rustic Camping

Both campgrounds offer rustic camping with an outhouse and no hookups of any kind. if you’re going to check them out be sure to fill your freshwater tanks ahead of time. Dogs are welcome here, but be sure to use discretion with letting your fleet footed fur friend off leash because the area is home to deer, bears, wolves, cougars and a few other species of wildlife.

Jeep Wrangler at Stella Beach Recreation Site North of Campbell River, BC

Travel Directions

There are two ways to access these two free public campgrounds. One is by the Elk Bay Main, the first main logging road on the right after the Roberts Lake along Highway 19, 20 minutes north of Campbell River.

The Elk Bay main has some rough sections and one very steep downhill section. However, it would be easily accessible with a truck with a camper, a small to to mid size travel trailer, or a camper van. Smaller Class As and Class Cs should have good suspension and lots of ground clearance for the sections with a lot of pot holes. I won’t be driving my Class A on this route, because I love her too much, but everyone has their own comfort zone.

When you reach the bottom of the very steep section, turn right at the T intersection and follow the signs. Turn right to follow the logging road when you reach the log sort.

Free Campsite at Elk Bay Recreation Site
Elk Bay Recreation Campsite is Spectacular photo: Lynne Fedorick

Elk Bay Recreation Site

Love waking up to spectacular views? Look no further! Elk Bay recreation site has 8 trees sites with picnic tables and fire pits. Most of them are nestled along a beach that overlooks Johnstone Straight, and enjoy spectacular views. This would probably be a great spot to watch whales or launch a kayak. This trip is definitely worthwhile.

Rock Bay Main

Easier access would be via the Rock Bay Main. To access this logging road go about 5 minutes north of Roberts Lake on highway 19. Watch for the sign on the right side of the road. This road will take you to Stella Lake Main. Turn right on Stella Lake Main and follow it past Stella lake on the right hand side.

Stella Lake-Stella Beach Recreation Site

Stella lake boasts a gem of a recreation site with 10 free campsites along a sandy beach with crystal clear water. I want to bring my paddle board up and paddle around for a week. If you stopped here, I wouldn’t blame you. It’s good to have choices.

To get to Elk Bay, keep following the Stella Lake Main until it turns into Elk Bay Main. There’s good signage along the way.

Check out my Youtube video on the RV Adventure Guide Channel below for more.

youtube placeholder image

Final Thoughts About Free Camping On Vancouver Island

Recreation sites are entirely user maintained, so pack out what you pack in. For goodness sake, don’t leave toilet paper around for the next camper to recoil from.

These logging roads are work zones, especially from Monday to Friday from 7 AM to 5 PM. This means you should be prepared to encounter logging trucks along the way. Their drivers are almost always in a hurry and the forestry company they work for literally owns the road. Be careful out there.

Estimated reading time: 5 minutes

Goat Yoga In Black Creek: Perfect Combination Of Fitness And Fun

Posted by Oct 15, 2025 Destinations, Events, RV living, Tips , , , , , , , Leave a Comment
Goat Yoga In Black Creek: Perfect Combination Of Fitness And Fun
goat yoga class with baby goats and yoga with yoga mats
IMAGE: Lynne Fedorick

As the sun sets on another beautiful day in Comox Valley, 10 kids are getting ready to go to work. And by kids, I mean baby goats. The doors to the yoga studio open, and then in pour the yoga instructor’s gang of adorable assistants. These kids weren’t born yesterday, (well maybe 2 or 3 of them were) so they get to work immediately. That meant jumping into laps and onto backs as we students stretch (and laugh) through about 15 different yoga poses.

I’d heard about Black Creek’ famous baby goat yoga program for years. It is, after all, taught at the very same hall where I spent years teaching thousands of puppies and their humans. I think I ran the only course for circus dog tricks there too. But tonight, there is no room for fond reminiscences of puppies and their people. It was time to focus on my downward facing dog, pigeon pose and the happy baby pose. All while an army of tiny toddler caprines ran and hopped over the whole affair.

Anyone who had naively considered keeping a straight face during this class would know better by the end. Watching baby goats cavort around, over and under neighbouring students is not conducive to improving your balance in Vrksasana or any other pose. However, that’s definitely not the point of this exercise for most of us here.

As students, we’ve all come here as a ind of “mini-break”. It’s a little vacay from lives that are often filled to the brim with achieving perfection in one form or another. And The goats bring a levity into these classes that makes it so much fun that you forget how good the actual yoga is for your body. By the end of class, my muscles were telling me I’d I’d had a great workout. But I knew that now there would be only one type of yoga class for me- all the others would be missing baby goats.

Black Creek Baby Goat Yoga happens every Saturday night at 7 PM. It’s run by Barnyard Party Animals on Miracle Beach Drive in Black Creek. You can sign up for a class online via their Facebook Page.

Check out the featured video in this post to see a visual description of the class.

youtube placeholder image

Good Morning! from Coastal Black Winery In Black Creek, BC

Posted by Jul 7, 2025 Destinations, News, RV living, Uncategorized , Leave a Comment
Good Morning! from Coastal Black Winery In Black Creek, BC
Coastal Black Winery, Black Creek, BC

I’m not normally what a farmer would call an early riser. However, travel days that involve ferry travel frequently involve being woken from a perfectly sound slumber in the first

I’m not normally what a farmer would call an early riser. However, my travel days that involve ferry travel frequently involve being woken from a perfectly good sleep before the light of dawn. 

Coastal Black Winery

That’s because Daisy Mae is a long, overheight vehicle, so ferry fares at most times of the day are well over $350. That said, I shop for super saver fares to get fares as low as $145.  The only pain point here is that these fares are only for salings before 7:45.  Today this meant waking up at 3:30 am.  At that hour, I was surrounded by the ethereal morning beauty of the Coastal Black Winery farm.  

The Sun Blinking Away Darkness

The sun was just beginning to blink away the last of the darkness. This is when all the colours of the world are muted, diluted in varying tones of bluish grey with the black silhouettes of trees stretching toward the skyline.  Vague hints of colour stretched out beyond evergreens that marked perfect rows of a huge market garden.  These rows would soon produce a wealth of beans, onions, carrots and fresh corn. There is no doubt that this is a truly magical time of day.  Every time I get up that early, I resolve to do it more often. Sometimes I actually do.

Some people are early risers

3:30 AM is a normal waking hour for a dairy farmer.  That said, Coastal Black Winery was once the site of one of a handful of Black Creek dairy farms.  As I waited for coffee to percolate on the stove, I heard the putting of a farm vehicle coming through the opalescence of the coming day.  I looked outside to see my bearded host on a side-by-side. Alongside this ran a stunning black and tan german shepherd who seemed happy to run alongside.  I greeted the dog and the farmer equally. He’d come by on his way to morning chores to wish me a good morning and give me directions to get out of the gated property.  

This level of friendliness is typical for any of the Harvest Hosts locations I’ve stayed at. I  highly recommend getting a membership to the Harvest Hosts & Boondockers Welcome if you travel a lot in an RV. A $200 annual membership gets you unlimited free stays at thousands of host locations wherever you happen to be. 

Dental Destination Tourism

Posted by Jul 1, 2025 Destinations, RV living , , , , Leave a Comment
Image: Pexels

So,the day had come, I realized, as I sat in the examination room of the Campbell River dental clinic. I’d outlived my teeth. The dentist carefully explained they were worn beyond making simple repairs. I needed crowns. I needed root canals. I needed an extraction. And to get these I needed a bigger income( or a sugar daddy). And the second option is only there for comic relief.

So I asked him how much would it be to get them all fixed. Dr. Rivers sighed, and then sheepishly said “actually what you could really use is a smile makeover but that’s tens of thousands. But for now we can plug away at the essentials. Four crowns and root canals, one extraction. “So how much is gonna be?”I asked although I didn’t know why. It was going to be more than I had anyway. “

Oh, we’re going into pretty close to 12000 for the crowns and root canal we can do right now. To do the rest of your teeth isn isn’t going to be cheap.” Now my curiosity was piqued. “So whats “not cheap”? Doctor Rivers frowned. And he started to scuttle out of the examination room. Staying over his shoulder oh we’re talking more than $50,000”.

Well, that was kind of out of the question for me. But I had to find some way of fixing my teeth. And after talking to three other dentists in Campbell River, it was an apparent that I could not get this work done in Canada. The Canada Dental plan wouldn’t cover the root canals or crowns, but would cover extracting the five teeth that were urgent. But since I bought my own dental insurance, I wouldn’t qualify anyway.

I started looking around for dentist in Mexico after hearing great reviews about dentists there. I got a quote from one has fantastic reviews and decided to get my teeth fixed there. For 20 crowns and three root canals they would charge me $350 for each of the crowns, plus $300 for each root canal and $100 for the extraction. In US dollars it would be about $10,000. That I could swallow.

The dentist was in a little town called Los Algodones, across the border from Yuma in the middle of the desert. The only reason for the town’s existence seemed to be for dental tourism. More than 250 dental clinics have set up shop in Los Algodones. They cater mainly to dental tourists from the US and Canada. It’s earned the town the nickname “Molar City”.

Friends offered to care for Annabelle and Jolene so I could make the trip. and it was set.