Ruckle Provincial Park is one of the most beautiful parks in the southern Gulf Islands. Pitch your tent in the grassy meadow overlooking Swanson Channel then lie back and relax, watching pleasure boats and ferries sail by in a stately and colourful parade.
With its 7 kilometres of shoreline, rocky headlands and tiny coves and bays, Ruckle Park provides hours or even days of enjoyable exploration. A mixture of forest, field and shore habitats makes it one of the most productive wildlife viewing areas on Salt Spring Island. Watch for sea lions and killer whales out in the sea, and mink and river otter cavorting along the shoreline. Tidal pools are filled with a brightly-coloured world of crab, mussel, limpet, oyster, sculpin, starfish and more.
Ruckle Park protects a variety of habitats resulting in a high diversity of wildlife species using the area – in our case, this meant a large number of Canadian geese who enjoyed sharing our campsite with us.
The Canada goose is a large wild goose species with a black head and neck, white patches on the face, and a brown body.
Yellow plumage of gosling
