Arbutus Ridge, Cowichan Valley

Arbutus Ridge Seaside Community for Active Adults is an age-qualified, gated community located on the southeastern coast of Vancouver Island in the Cobble Hill Electoral Area of British Columbia's Cowichan Valley Regional District. “Arbutus Ridge was the first comprehensive retirement community built in Canada and it subsequently became the template and proving ground for what has become recognized as an accepted and commonplace age-specific form of housing.”LocationThe community is constructed on a 60ha site on a ridge, rising 100m+ above sea level, overlooking Satellite Channel of the Strait of Georgia in the Salish Sea. The bordering seawater is part of Parks Canada's proposed Southern Strait of Georgia National Marine Conservation Area announced in 2011 to ensure ecological sustainability of the marine environment.The community is 50km north of Victoria and 70km south of Nanaimo. A BC Forests Ministry scientific brochure compares the climate in this area to other locations in Canada: “This small corner of the province enjoys perhaps the finest climate in Canada. Sheltered by the rain shadow of the Vancouver Island and Olympic Mountains, and warmed by the air from the Pacific, the area basks in a Mediterranean-like environment of warm, sunny summers and mild wet winters. Unlike more exposed coastal areas, this zone experiences long, dry summers, a major factor in its ecology.”. Month-by-month historical averages are reported in the "Climate" section below.