Keats Island viewed from Gibsons, Sunshine Coast

The communities on Keats Island (3 square miles/8 square kilometres) are clustered around the two government wharves; Keats Landing on the west coast facing Gibsons, and Eastbourne on the southeast shore.

Population: 50

Location: Keats Island is located in Howe Sound, opposite Gibsons on the Sechelt Peninsula. Visitors to Keats Island can catch a BC Ferry from Horseshoe Bay north of Vancouver to Langdale Ferry Terminal on the Sunshine Coast.

• Plumper Cove Marine Provincial Park is one of the oldest marine parks on the BC coast, and a very popular anchorage in the summer months. The 57-hectare park is located on the northwest shore of Keats Island. The park has a well maintained hiking trail system, a grassy upland picnic area and forested walk-in campsites.

• The unique scenic seaside village of Gibsons acts as the gateway to the Sunshine Coast of British Columbia. Located just minutes south of the Langdale Ferry Terminal, Gibsons harbour is everything it should be, chock full of boats, with an atmosphere as thick as fog on a fall morning.

• The Sunshine Coast is split into two portions on either side of Jervis Inlet. Roughly speaking, the southern half between the ferry slips at Langdale and Earls Cove occupies the Sechelt Peninsula, while the northern half between the ferry slip at Saltery Bay and Lund sits on the Malaspina Peninsula. The beautiful coastline is deeply indented at Jervis Inlet, Desolation Sound and Howe Sound.

  The Sunshine Coast lives up to its name. With an annual total of between 1,400 and 2,400 hours of sunshine - that's an average of 4 to 6 hours per day, depending on where the measurements are taken - bright days outnumber gloomy ones by a wide margin.