journal features

the west west coast

the journal of Michael Werneburg

twenty-eight years and a million words

Tofino, 2008.09.30

We made it out to Tofino on the we(s)t coast of Vancouver island today. After catching a morning ferry to Nanaimo, a picnic in Port Alberni and the mandatory stop at Cathedral Grove along the way, we still managed to catch the last rays of the day on the long beach south of the town.

Tofino is a place that bills itself as a beautiful and rugged place on the edge of the Pacific. But it's changed since I was last here. I understand that it's been "discovered" by the jet set. As such, prices have skyrocketed, and as such has become expensive and snooty. It's simply gotten out of hand when a family of three plus a baby can't get seated at any of the restaurants. I almost had the impression that turning up in denim and goretex is beneath the place all of a sudden. We wound up buying a mixed bunch of snack food at the grocery store and eating that in the hotel room!

Vancouver Island is a fine place to visit, but Tofino itself is no longer really worth the drive. Cathedral Grove is a must, but Tofino seems to be catering to strictly those who arrive by air....

rand()m quote

Briefly stated, the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect is as follows. You open the newspaper to an article on some subject you know well. In Murray's case, physics. In mine, show business. You read the article and see the journalist has absolutely no understanding of either the facts or the issues. Often, the article is so wrong it actually presents the story backward—reversing cause and effect. I call these the "wet streets cause rain" stories. Paper's full of them. In any case, you read with exasperation or amusement the multiple errors in a story, and then turn the page to national or international affairs, and read as if the rest of the newspaper was somehow more accurate about Palestine than the baloney you just read. You turn the page, and forget what you know.

—Michael Crichton