Dawley Passage Park is a boat-access BC Parks site at the south end of Fortune Channel between Meares Island and the west coast of Vancouver Island. BC Parks describes it as a quiet location for boaters exploring Clayoquot Sound.
The park is near Tofino and Ucluelet and can be reached by water only.
Dawley Passage is a marine park for boaters, paddlers, anglers, divers, campers, and wildlife watchers. Strong currents in the tidal narrows create high density and diversity of marine life, making the area notable for scuba diving.
Fortune Channel is one of Clayoquot Sound's popular tourism corridors, with opportunities for fishing, boating, wilderness camping, canoeing, and kayaking. The sheltered waters around Dawley Passage are popular with paddlers, who may see seals, sea otters, and bears feeding at low tide. Visitors can paddle from Tofino through Browning Passage or from the Grice Bay boat launch in Pacific Rim National Park Reserve.
The waters of Clayoquot Sound may contain salmon, rockfish, halibut, and lingcod. The park also contains Nuu-chah-nulth First Nations heritage sites and lies within the traditional territory of the Ahoushat First Nations.
Plan around boat travel, canoeing, kayaking, wilderness camping, ocean swimming, Clayoquot Sound fishing, scuba diving in tidal narrows, marine wildlife watching, heritage-site respect, and seasonal hunting in permitted portions.
Use marine chart 3673, check tides and currents, confirm fishing rules, and plan for boat-only access. Wildlife safety matters because paddlers may encounter bears at low tide, and hunting is limited to specific species and portions of the park.
