Port Alberni, with its temperate climate, offers a wonderful destination point year round, with numerous well-organized attractions. It is surrounded by mountains, at the end of a thirty five kilometre ocean inlet.

This scenic saltwater fjord, plus freshwater lakes and rivers, makes the Port Alberni Valley one of the prime salmon fishing destinations in the world.

Many travellers make Port Alberni a stopover for their West Coast fishing excursions. Long known for its abundant fish stocks, the fishing is great!

Port Alberni is the largest Pacific Rim community. You will enjoy our famous hospitality everywhere. Our city boasts two golf courses, multi-use recreational trails with views of the majestic Mount Arrowsmith and Mount Klitsa. Port Alberni Valley offers literally hundreds of available trails for mountain biking and free-style cycling.

Port Alberni's museum is a fascinating archive of Nuu-chah-nulth First Nation and European settlements, which is this area's historical past.

Visit the MacLean Mill, site of Western Canada's last working steam sawmill, which is located just north of Port Alberni.

Guided fishing trips can be arranged with prior notice.

Steam Train

On summer days enjoy a ride along the harbour aboard the steam engine Alberni Pacific Ltd. Baldwin 2-8-2 T (saddle tank) located at the restored E & N Railway Station at the entrance to the Alberni Harbour Quay. A powerful engine which carries its own on-board water in a 1,000 gallon tank, the 90-tonne Baldwin is called Number Seven, as it was when it was built in 1929.

The 2002 season will start on June 15 and run until Labour Day, Thursdays through Mondays with 2 runs per day to the McLean Mill.

Located on 13 hectares of beautiful forested land in the scenic Alberni Valley on Vancouver Island's West Coast, the McLean Mill National Historic Site offers a unique look into the past with this 1926 steam sawmill. See the rustic beginnings of today's forest industry and experience the excitement as the Mill steams up and takes you through a close-up look at each step of the milling process, performed with original steam technology. Take a walk through the original camp where the loggers and Mill employees lived and worked in the rugged landscape of the Alberni Valley. There are more than 30 buildings and structures that preserve and interpret the heritage of British Columbia's forest industry.