Bamfield is a community located on Barkley Sound on the west coast of Vancouver Island, 32 miles (52 km) southwest of Port Alberni and 20 miles (32 km) southeast of Ucluelet, British Columbia. The community is divided by Bamfield Inlet and surrounded by Crown Land, First Nations Reserves, and portions of the Pacific Rim National Park Reserve.

Prior to European settlement, the Bamfield area was populated by Huu-ay-aht of the Nuu-chah-nulth, the local First Nation people. Europeans founded a small fishing community sometime in the late 1800s. Most of the Huu-ay-aht now live in the neighbouring village of Anacla about 2.4 miles (3.9 km) south of Bamfield. In 1902, the Bamfield cable station was constructed as the western terminus of a worldwide undersea telegraph cable. The cable initially went to Fanning Island, a tiny coral atoll in the mid-Pacific, and from there continued to Fiji, New Zealand, and Australia. In 1926, a second building, made of concrete, was built on the site to replace the old wood structure. This building, designated a historic site in 1930, is now used by the Bamfield Marine Sciences Centre.

Bamfield Marine Sciences Centre is a marine research station established in 1972 and operated by the University of Victoria, the University of British Columbia, Simon Fraser University, the University of Alberta, and the University of Calgary. The facility hosts undergraduate and graduate courses as well as numerous public education programs in the marine sciences. Read more here and here. Explore more of Bamfield here: