Race Rocks is a group of nine islets, including North Rock, West Race, Great Race, and Rosedale Rock, located about 1 mile (1.6 km) off Cape Calver on the southern tip of Vancouver Island in the Strait of Juan de Fuca, roughly 12 miles (19 km) southwest of Victoria and 11 miles (18 km) southeast of Sooke, British Columbia. Race Rocks were named in 1846 by Captain Henry Kellett aboard HMS Herald for the fast-flowing tidal races that develop large waves and eddies. Race Rocks and the north shore of the strait consist of metamorphosed sediments and igneous rocks overlain by a thick sequence of Eocene age (about 56 million to 34 million years ago) submarine volcanic flows of the Metchosin Igneous Complex. The Metchosin formation covers most of the southern tip of Vancouver Island south of the Leech River Fault and comprises three rock units: a basaltic sequence, a sheeted dike complex, and gabbro plutons. In the strait, these extrusives are overlain by nearshore marine sediments of Oligocene age (about 34 million to 23 million years ago) and Pliocene age (about 5 million to 2.5 million years ago). During the Pleistocene, about 2.5 million to 12 thousand years ago, the eastern strait was occupied at least four times by lobes of continental ice; the last was the Vashon Stade glaciation, which lasted from 19,000 to 16,000 years ago, when ice advanced westward and southward as the Juan de Fuca and Puget lobes, respectively.

Because of the unusually strong currents, the area is notoriously difficult and dangerous to navigate. Great Race Island is the site of a historic lighthouse built by the crew of HMS Topaze, the only lighthouse on the British Columbia coast constructed of rock and painted with distinctive black and white bands. Race Rock Light was designed to work in tandem with Fisgard Light; construction of both began in 1859 on the initiative of colonial officials, with partial financial and technical support from the imperial government, which provided expertise. The lantern and lighting apparatus, a second-order Fresnel lens, arrived from England aboard the Grecian in August and were installed that fall atop the completed tower. The original light flashed white once every ten seconds from a focal plane of 118 feet (36 m). The colonial government oversaw site selection and construction according to a plan combining tower and dwelling. The Race Rocks light tower is British Columbia’s second-oldest operating lighthouse and a forerunner of the extensive system of navigational aids built over the following century along Canada’s west coast. The Canadian Coast Guard automated the station in 1997; scaffolding was erected in 2009 and the lighthouse was restored and repainted over the course of that year. Students in marine-biology courses at nearby Pearson College regularly visit Race Rocks and were instrumental in having the area designated an ecological reserve.

In 1980, the province of British Columbia, under the authority of the Ecological Reserves Act, established the Race Rocks Ecological Reserve, protecting 768 acres (311 ha), including the nine islets and the ocean seabed to 20 fathoms (36.6 m), though the land leased by the Canadian Coast Guard for the foghorn and lighthouse is excluded. Ocean dumping, dredging, and the extraction of nonrenewable resources are prohibited within the reserve. In recent decades Race Rocks has become an important haulout for northern elephant seals, the largest pinniped in the Northern Hemisphere. The species lives in the eastern Pacific Ocean, spending most of its time at sea and coming ashore mainly to give birth, breed, and molt — activities that take place at rookeries on offshore islands or remote mainland beaches, mainly off California and northern Baja California, Mexico. Hunted relentlessly for their oil in the 19th century, elephant seals were thought to be extinct until an 1892 Smithsonian Institution expedition found eight individuals on Mexico’s remote Guadalupe Island. Under federal protection the population has recovered dramatically, from a handful of survivors to roughly 200,000 today, and their breeding range has expanded from Mexico through California’s Channel Islands and into the Pacific Northwest, as far north as southern British Columbia. The first elephant seal births at Race Rocks were recorded in 2009. Read more here and here. Live webcams are available here. Explore more of Race Rocks and the Strait of Juan de Fuca here: