Salt Spring Island is a 70 square mile (180 sq km) island in the Canadian Gulf Islands situated in the sheltered Gulf of Georgia on the British Columbia Coast. The island is 20 miles long by up to 9 miles wide.

Cape Keppel is the Southernmost point of the Salt Spring facing south/west over Satellite Channel with 180 degree views and beautiful sunsets. The land gently rises from sea level to 160 metres of elevation at the top with flat plateaus for each housesite. The land is a triangular shape with 1865 feet of waterfront and two converging sides of 2460 feet and 1600 feet.

Salt Spring is Canada’s Caribbean and this Cape Keppel property boasts the driest microclimate on the Coast with no more than 35 inches of rain per year, hot summers and mild wet winters.

The idyllic Gulf Islands lie in the rain shadow of Vancouver Island Mountains, protected from moisture-laden storms that blow from the open Pacific. There are some 200 Gulf Islands, but most are small, uninhabited, and without ferry access. Off the north end of the Saanich Peninsula, however, Salt Spring Islands is home to approximately 11,000 permanent residents, about on-quarter of them retired. While some workers commute daily to Vancouver Island, trade among tourists and retired people still supports much of the islands’ burgeoning economies.

The people who live here come from widely varied backgrounds, bringing an interesting, and often controversial, mixture of ideas, vocations, avocations. There are farmers and fishermen, bankers and lawyers, sculptors, authors, shipwrights, realtors, contractors, painters, and poets. These islands are one of those rare places where you choose your own lifestyle, set your own pace.

Seaside resorts and bed-and-breakfast homes make the Gulf Islands an appealing destination any time of year. You can drive through valleys of pastoral farmland surrounded by forested mountains. From peaks of 700 metres you can watch ferries weave their ways through island channels. There are sweeping scenes of woods and water, gravel and shell beaches, cottages clustered around quiet coves, sheep and old farmhouses.

The intricate network of waterways among the islands and islets are usually sheltered enough for canoes, kayaks, and other small boats. A rowboat or car-topper gets a lot of use on any Gulf Island. Hiking boots, gumboots, daypacks, and binoculars also come in handy.