Grice Road & First Street Dock
To continue this walk proceed up First Street and make a left on Main Street, heading east to Tofino Sea Kayaking and the Paddler’s Inn - originally, the Tofino Hotel.
Tofino Waterfront — Grice Road
This spot is where the village of Tofino had its beginnings. In 1893, John Grice pre-empted Lot 114, a 206-acre parcel of land on the tip of the peninsula. Grice, from Newcastle-on-Tyne, England, arrived in Victoria, BC in March 1891 with his 13-year-old son, Arthur. John quickly gained employment in the fur sealing industry and later that year, was reported as one of the crewmen on the Mascot, a sealer that had been missing since July 1st. But John and his mates were alive and well. Within a few years he was carving a life in Clayoquot Sound.
It would be almost 20 years before Grice’s wife, Jane, joined John and Arthur in Canada, but in the interim Grice established himself as a prominent figure on the west coast. Over the years, he held various positions—and almost every government job available—serving as Justice of the Peace, tide and rain gauge supervisor, fisheries officer, customs officer, and shipping master.
Grice and Jacob Arnet, another early settler who owned an adjacent tract of land, laid out the first plan for the village that would eventually become Tofino. Over the years, people began to settle on the peninsula and this spot, today called Grice Road, became the hub of the growing community.
The Grice home was on the west end of the road—originally a boardwalk—where the hostel is today. Besides the Grice’s home, there were several other homes and buildings along Grice Road.
This was the location of Tofino’s first store, which was in operation by 1901. The store was owned by Dan Yuk Ling, but was run by Sing Lee, who also worked on sealing schooners and local mines in the area over the years. Lee died in 1906, and by 1907, James Sloman and John McKenna were running the store and fur trading operation as Sloman and McKenna’s.
The rival store agitated Walter Dawley over at Clayoquot and the new owners further rankled him given that Slogan had been Dawley’s employee for years (running a branch store at Nootka) and that McKenna was Thomas Stockham’s (Dawley’s one-time partner and now full-time thorn in his side) brother-in-law.
When the store got Tofino’s first post office in 1909 it meant that people on the peninsula no longer had to call at Clayoquot for mail or groceries.
A thriving store was an important kernel of the new community and slowly more settlers came to call the area that is now Tofino home.
Dr. John Robertson had one of the area’s first medical offices beside the store in the early 1930s. Since the building was so tiny, patients waiting for the doctor used the porch of the store as a waiting room. Moisture ran down the cliff, making it necessary to encase the instruments in Vaseline to prevent them from rusting.
In 1926, surveyors declared the corner of Grice Road and First Street to be the terminus of the Trans-Canada Highway. It was an ironic dedication since Tofino’s “road” at the time petered out in the bush less than one kilometre from here. The highway connecting the west coast to Port Alberni would not be completed until 1959.
Up the hill, Načiks is a lookout point for Tla-o-qui-aht and later, the site of Monk’s house.
Oral history interview:
Lois Warner, whose family later owned the Grice’s property, describes the early waterfront and growing up in Tofino in this interview with Ava Hansen on behalf of Tofino Clayoquot Heritage Museum. After the Grices, the property belonged to Dick Cooper, who took in some of the survivors from the SV Carelmapu, a fully-rigged Chilean ship. It foundered on Gowland Rocks just offshore from Radar Hill in November 1915. The captain and crew of the steamer, Princess Maquinna were prevented from a daring rescue by worsening storm conditions and swells.
