Coombs is famous for its “Goats on the Roof” aka Old Country Market, which is way too popular for the location it’s in. There’s almost always a traffic jam on that small drive around the market with very limited parking. Honestly, I feel the market is probably only worth a visit if you haven’t seen goats intentionally kept on rooftops.

However, Coombs is also home to some very interesting and unique attractions. Thanks to Amy and Aaron’s research, we visited two very memorable places.

North Island Wildlife Recovery Centre

Located just east of Coombs, the North Island Wildlife Recovery Centre was a non profit whose missions is to rescue and release injured wild animals, and to care for those who cannot be released. The 8-acre facility was very well kept and highly educational.

There was an eagles’ flight cage, where the recovering eagles can practice flying. The viewing windows were of varying heights, and we had to rearrange the kids so they could all see. Reminded me of the meme cartoon of kids standing on stools to look over a fence, depicting equity vs. equality.

Some of the animals were sadly permanently injured and could not be released, so they stayed as a part of the centre’s public education program.

There was also a resident bear who is too accustomed to humans so she couldn’t be safely released. To minimize this problem, the centre keeps orphaned bear cubs in separate dens with minimal human interactions.

When it got too hot, we escaped into a theatre building and learned more about what they did.

Overall, it was like visiting a super ethical zoo, where all the animals were there because they had serious injuries and would probably die otherwise. Instead of feeling guilty about visiting bred or captured animals in cages for entertainment, we get to feel good about supporting a good cause too.

Butterfly World

A pretty random but quite fantastic attraction in Coombs was Butterfly World.

The butterflies were bought from Costa Rica and the Philippines as chrysalis and hatched in the facility in front of visitors.

We weren’t patient enough to sit by the hatchery window to watch them but we did watch the staff release newly hatched butterflies.

The greenhouse was well kept and the variety of butterflies were impressive.

Besides butterflies, they also pretty randomly kept a tortoise named Samson.

Getting the education on!

Finally there was a small koi pond and we were given some fish food to feed them. Reminded me of my childhood in Taiwan where smart businesspeople would sell the fish food to customers to feed their fish. Talk about double dipping! Here they gave us the fish food for free.

This is a part of our 2022 BC Coastal Circle Tour. Read on!