The Masthead Restaurant in Cowichan Bay, British Columbia, Canada | Restaurant

Welcome to The Masthead Restaurant, Cowichan Bay, Canada. They say that if you do what you love to earn a living, you never work a day in your life. The Masthead Restaurant owner/manager Luke Harms might agree with this premise, if I ask about it at the end of one of the many 14 hour days he regularly puts in at this Cowichan Bay Restaurant.

Set in a building built in 1863 as the Columbia Hotel, the exterior has survived largely intact. A door under the eaves on the second floor opens not to a stairway but a perilous drop to the boardwalk below and there is no record that it has ever been any other way. I always look up before I walk in, just in case.

It's less than an hour from Victoria now, but this was one of many roadhouses that provided comfort to travelers heading north on the island, when a journey from the capital to Cowichan Bay took a full day in good weather. When the railway was built a few years later and business fell off somewhat, the owner had the foresight to take advantage of the local fishing industry by turning the main floor of the hotel into a machine and tackle shop and a building a small shipyard on the water. It survives today as a picturesque marina.

Sit in the casually elegant Restaurant today (or on the deck in the summer if you can get a table) and gaze past the assortment of boats and float homes to a view that has captivated the likes of Bing Crosby, Bob Hope and John Wayne, whose boat was regularly anchored in the waters here during the 1970's. After a lengthy career that has included stints at the Deep Cove Chalet and the Aerie resort, where he met wife Denise (who also puts in lengthy hours at The Masthead Restaurant), Harms took the reins in late 2004, putting his own stamp on the place.  response of "I don't know, but I'll see if I can find out."