You’ll hear it now and then—in the hum of a café conversation, murmured between friends on a seaside trail, or drifting through the ferry lineup to Quadra: “It’s worth the second ferry.”
“It” is Cortes Island, and it’s true: something shifts when you embark on the journey to Cortes. As the roads narrow and the noise fades, you enter a different rhythm—one that moves at the pace of tides, the moonrise, and the waves lapping on the shore. Nestled at the gateway to Desolation Sound—one of the world’s top boating destinations—and surrounded by beaches, old forests, and quiet inlets, this is a place where civilization slowly dissolves into the coastline.
For some, the road leads all the way to Hollyhock. Situated on the southeastern shore of Cortes Island, Hollyhock Retreat Centre has been quietly drawing seekers, learners, and change-makers for over 40 years.
It is a place that doesn’t announce itself loudly. But if you’ve been, you know. There’s something here, something hard to name but easy to feel.
In the deepest sense, magic is an experience. It’s the experience of finding oneself alive within a world that is itself alive.
– David Abram
There’s a certain kind of magic at Hollyhock that is woven into its very essence. The heritage garden, tended by the same wise hands for decades, always seems to be weeks ahead of the rest of the coast. In early summer, towering hollyhocks brush your shoulders, roses bloom wild and abundant, and garden beds are bursting with kale, calendula, and rainbow chard. The three full-time production gardeners who work the soil here know every curve, leaf, and petal. They’ll show you around and answer your questions about flora and fauna as if you were old friends.
Harvests from the garden travel straight to the kitchen, where meals are crafted with care and creativity. Even a simple lunch, brightened with edible blooms and served on the oceanside deck, feels like a gift from the garden in the salty breeze.
On lucky nights, bioluminescent plankton light the shoreline, and on luckier mornings, a humpback’s breath echoes in the channel. The land is a place of possibility—where old-growth trees hold space for new ideas, and where strangers often arrive as guests and leave as collaborators or friends.
Programs at Hollyhock include offerings such as Creative Expression, Wisdom Teachings, Health & Healing, and Leadership Skills. But even if you’re not attending a full program, you can still experience the beauty of this place. Locals and visitors alike are welcome to enjoy a meal on the oceanfront deck, explore the gardens, or spend the day on campus and relax in the ocean-view hot tubs or cedar barrel sauna. Some come for a day and end up staying the night. Others find themselves returning each season, drawn by the land, the community, and the sense that something deeper lives here—something just below the surface, waiting to meet you.
So if you hear it in the lineup, or read it between the lines—yes, it’s worth the second ferry. And maybe more than that: it’s worth opening up to the magic.
Looking for a place to unplug and reconnect? Come enjoy the campus or stay overnight on a self-led retreat—join morning yoga, walk forest trails, swim, soak in the hot tubs, unwind with a massage, or simply enjoy the quiet stillness of the land. With three nourishing garden-to-table meals daily and the freedom to move at your own pace, this is your invitation to slow down and return to yourself.
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