Sunrise at Willows Beach: A December Morning Back Home
Willows Beach is one of those places that’s wired into me a little deeper than most. I filmed this short piece on a calm December morning, and while the video is only a minute and a half, the place behind it carries a lot more weight for me than I could fit into that timeline.
My family moved from Saskatoon to Victoria when I was a kid, and we ended up living about a block from Willows. For a few years there, it may as well have been our backyard. We were down at the beach constantly — bikes, skimboards, wandering up to Cattle Point, wasting time in the best possible ways. From early teens through late high school, this was one of the main places my friends and I orbit-ed around. A lot of firsts happened here too, though I’ll leave the details of those in the vault.
Even now, decades later, walking down to Willows has that strange mix of nostalgia and familiarity that only a childhood place can have. Nothing about it tries to be anything other than what it is — driftwood, a gentle shoreline, winter light that hangs low over the ocean. It’s one of the few spots in Victoria that still feels exactly the same every time you come back.
We’ve had what feels like seventy-seven straight days of rain lately, so when the weather cracked open for a morning, I threw the drone in the truck and headed straight for Willows. The calm was worth it. The shoreline looked the way I remembered it: quiet, simple, honest. The kind of morning that doesn’t need commentary to explain why it matters.
This short edit is part of a series I’ve been slowly building — quiet corners and familiar places around Vancouver Island, filmed the way they actually feel. Sometimes the stories are small, sometimes they run deep, but they all come from the same place: these are the locations that have shaped my life here.
Thanks for watching, and for following along as I get back to filming the West Coast the way I originally meant to. More Island mornings to come.
Related Stories
Two Calendar Selections — One Very Familiar Sunrise Spot
How a favorite Westshore location ended up on the Colwood community calendar.
Why I Fly at Sunrise — A West Coast Morning Ritual
The quiet rhythm and light that shape so many of my favorite flights.
Vancouver Island From Above — James Bay Athletic Association
A personal story about community, history, and the places that stay with you.
