Vancouver Island Cave Exploration Group

the island

Here we have a fortuitous combination of often thickly bedded limestones, heaps of rain, dense vegetation, thick soil cover and mountainous topography - all necessary ingredients for fine cave development. Vancouver Island has more than 1,000 recorded caves, so many that it is sometimes referred to as the "Island of Caves". Vancouver Island is the largest island on North America's west coast. It's about 500 km long, with an area of some 32,100 square kilometres and 4% or about 1,200 km2 of this surface area is karst. This represents just over 0.1% of the total carbonate rock surface in Canada or 1,200,000 km2 (about the same as China). There are probably more explored limestone caves here than in all other Canadian provinces combined. Some of Canada's longest and deepest cave systems are found on Northern Vancouver Island. Hundreds of caves have been surveyed since systematic exploration began in the 1960s, including some with over 15 kilometres of mapped passages. Deep solution shafts are not uncommon, ranging up to 100m deep.