Фотограф Адриан Дорст выпустил книгу о 50-летнем романе с дикой западной береговой линией Канады

Photographer shares 50-year love affair with west coast in new book Published 5:00 am Wednesday, August 12, 2026 Adrian Dorst alighted from his vehicle on Vancouver Island one June day in 1970, having driven 5,000 kilometres from Ontario for a camping trip. It was his first glimpse of the Pacific Ocean. At that moment, he fell in love with Canada’s wild, west coast. Five decades later, Dorst has written a book about his love for the region. The Wild West Coast: Long Beach, Tofino and Clayoquot Sound in Photographs was recently released by Harbour Publishing. The hardcover contains some of Dorst’s photographs from his favourite places on the west coast along with descriptions and personal insights. “Standing on the bluff at Florencia Bay, that was my first sight of the open ocean, the Pacific,” he said. “I camped at Wreck Bay for a week and it was just magical. I fell in love with the region and still am today. That’s the thing that hasn’t waned.” For more than 50 years, Dorst has wandered the windswept shores, sheltered streams and ancient forests with camera in hand. He has seen Tofino transform from a sleepy fishing village to a summer tourist destination attracting more than a million people per year. Alongside a visual narrative of historic and current photos, Dorst reflects on the 1980s grassroots movement dubbed “The War in the Woods”—a fight to keep Clayoquot wild in the face of exploitative old-growth logging practices. “The logging was very upsetting to me,” he said. “When Meares Island was going to get logged we took a stand and the Friends of the Clayoquot Sound were formed. We decided to fight back.” He’s grateful they did. Even now, outside of the development around Tofino and Ucluelet, “most of the countryside has really not changed that much…we saved a lot of the forest.” Many of the photos in the book are new or have been taken in the past five years; Dorst had a large selection on his computer to choose from too. Having written several other books (including Clayoquot on the Wild Side in 1990, Reflections at Sandhill Creek: Meditations on the Wild West Coast in 2009 and The Birds of Vancouver Island’s West Coast in 2022), he thought it would take him several years to compile Wild West Coast. His first book about the War of the Woods took him five years. He spent another seven on a book that was never published. In 2024 he started toying with the idea of writing another book about Clayoquot Sound. He came up with all sorts of reasons not to do it: it is hard work, takes a long time, it’s not a big financial return. In the end, he thought, “it’s what I do. “As soon as I made the decision to go ahead it was like taking the handbrake off and it was full speed ahead,” he recalled. “I thought I could do this in nine months. Three months later, I had it done. I had everything ready for the publisher.” Dorst hopes to share the beauty of Clayoquot Sound through the pages and photos of Wild West Coast. “It’s a large area and to really understand what’s here—even a lot of residents don’t. They haven’t been to a lot of the back corners, they haven’t seen all these wilderness valleys that are still intact. Places like the Megin (Megin River watershed) and the Moyeha (River, at the head of Herbert Inlet) still have their primeval character (after) hundreds of years. They still have the old growth, they still have the wildlife.” Dorst will launch The Wild West Coast on Thursday, Aug. 13 at the Clayoquot Sound Theatre, 380 Campbell St. in Tofino. Admission is free to the event, which will run from 6-8 p.m. Through stories, photographs and reflections, Dorst will explore the resilience, history and beauty that have shaped the west coast. Those attending his launch can expect a reading, a question-and-answer period, light refreshments and a book signing.