While explored the western reaches of the Canadian Coast, an area called the Sunshine Coast, we found a wonderful out-of-the-way retreat. It's called the West Coast Wilderness Lodge, a secluded "recycled" resort built by Paul and Patti Hanson in 1991.

To say it's near Egmont, BC suggests the local population is greater than moose, elk, salmon and a few tree frogs. Visitors do not come here to be in the middle of activity, rather to surround themselves with some of the last unspoiled, uninhabited wildernesses in the Northwest.

We lived in a small, well-appointed cabin overlooking the northern-most end of the Sechelt Inlet.

You would never know by the rooms or the meals in the lodge that you were miles and a ferry ride for nowhere. This is a little oasis of civilization in a part of the world where indoor plumbing is considered a luxury.

And from the front window of our cabin, the views are tremendous. For as far as you can see, lush green forests of mountains, islands and valleys. We found ourselves just blankly staring our our front window as if it were a television with ever-changing programming. Boats coming and going, fisherman chasing the splashes of rising salmon, the head of sea lions leaving a wake across the inlet and kayakers paddling from island to island.