Sailing Magic Carpet · video

What this video covers

Ocean Falls, a boat-access-only ghost town on the remote central coast of British Columbia, receives Maya and Aladino aboard Magic Carpet in 2025.25:36 The town, reachable only by water or a BC Ferries service running roughly every two weeks, averages 200 rainy days per year and holds about 40 year-round residents.1:56 Founded as a company town around a pulp and paper mill, it once supported a hotel with a bowling alley and ballroom, an indoor swimming pool that produced Olympic-caliber swimmers, a Hudson's Bay Company store, a hospital, and paved and wooden-boardwalk roads.0:24 Crown Zellerbach abandoned the mill in the 1970s; the BC provincial government bought the town, ran it seven years, then closed it in 1980 and bulldozed most structures.14:44 What remains includes the crumbling Martin Hotel, a functioning marina with electricity and water, a post office, a gift shop, the Old Bank Inn guesthouse, and a bitcoin mining operation drawing on the still-operational 1920s hydroelectric dam.18:58 Maya traces a personal connection: her teenage sailing mentor, originally from Hungary, built a sailboat in the woods near Ocean Falls and spent roughly 20 years cruising the BC coast aboard it.23:09 The town's wooden roads have rotted away; surviving buildings are privately owned structures the government could not demolish.15:21

More from Sailing Magic Carpet

We're Starting to Lose Our MindsOct 2026We Found An Old Map Leading Us To Hotsprings...Oct 2026A Mysterious Presence on this Northern IslandSept 2026Sailing Northern Canada | Alone and at PeaceSept 2026

From Sailing Magic Carpet — see the channel’s boat, crew, and every analysed video.

The Sailing Directory Newsletter

One email with the fleet's best finds — the moments, boats, and stories worth your watch time. Enter your own address to get your own copy.