V is for Victoria

ABC Wednesday
December 9th, 2015

The letter is V
for VICTORIA

V is also for Vancouver, Vanderhoof and Valemont, but I chose Victoria because it is such a pretty city and has probably more history than any other town in British Columbia.

Before the arrival of the Europeans in the late 1700s the Victoria area was home to several communities of Coast Salish people, including the Songhees.

The Spanish and the British began the exploration of the northwest coast of North America with the voyage of Captain Cook in 1767, and the Spanish sailors who visited Esqimalt harbour, just west of Victoria in 1790.

In 1843 the Hudson's Bay Company was looking for a place to establish a fort and chose a spot on the western shore of Victoria Harbour, calling it Fort Camosun, after the 'camosack' a type of wild lily native to southern Vancouver Island.

Later he renamed it Fort Victoria in honour of Queen Victoria, that elegant and doughty lady whose long reign has now been surpassed by Elizabeth the Second.

With the discovery of gold on the British Columbia mainland in 1858 the city became a port supply base for miners on their way to the Fraser Canyon gold fields and the city grew from a population of 300 to over 5000 within a very short time.  However, with the completion of the Canadian Pacific Railway terminus in Vancouver Victoria lost its position as commercial center and began cultivating an image of 'genteel civility'.

The construction of the Empress Hotel by the Canadian Pacific Railway in 1908 contributed greatly to that impression.

and the establishment of The Butchart Gardens in an old coal mining site

Sir Robert Dunsmuir, a leading figure in Victoria, constructed Craigdarrock Castle and his son built his own grand residence, Hatley Castle,  which is now the Royal Roads University after having been used for several decades as a military college.

Craigdarrock Castle

Hatley Castle

Victoria is home to two major Universities and famous for its many museums covering everything from Aboriginal culture to science and nature.

It is also the home of the Legislative Assembly of British Columbia

Known as 'The Garden City' Victoria also has many historic sites and heritage architecture.

Brightly painted Victorian era shop fronts flank both sides of busy Lower Johnson Street - shops which were once home to hotels and stores supporting the gold rushes of the 1850s but which are now local boutiques and restaurants.

the biggest China Town north of San Fransisco

the inner harbour

and at Festival time

Yacht  races

and High Tea each day at the elegant Empress

Totem Poles

Whale watching

Lounging on the beach

A visit to the spas

A wonderful Pacific climate - what more could one ask!

I assure you, you will love it.  We were there many, many times

in our busy days,  mostly going to meetings and seeing government officials, 

but sometimes just visiting.

In these early days Charles was very involved with College business, 

and we were off to Camuson College, which was just being established.

It was a rush to leave home, the children and the farm, -

we were late getting the ferry and in arriving for our booking at the Empress.

The desk had let it go, thinking we would not arrive,

but when we did, at midnight, off the last ferry

they kindly gave us the 'bridal suite' up at the top of the Hotel!!

What elegance - the bathroom was enormous, all tiled with marble,

and the beds...pure heaven....

How to get there.....by ferry from Vancouver (a wonderful sail)|.   Or plane...

Come and be gently civil....

more great Vs here at ABC Wednesday, with thanks to Denise and Roger

and all valiant helpers.

Advent in Music

Most poignant and heart catching rendition I know of......

ABC Wednesday
December 2nd, 2015
The letter is U

U for Ucluelet

Pronounce it "Yew-Kloo-Let.

In the language of the aboriginal Nuti-chah-nulth it means " Safe Harbour"

from stormy seas...

Northwest Native Canoe

Ucuelet seems to have been a fishing village forever, - it was
a First Nations settlement when fur sealers first arrived in the 1870s
Archaeology traces the presence of the Nuu-chah-nulth here
to 4,300 years ago, so when visitors to the area so often
find a kind of spirituality with this breathtaking coast
it's no surprise.

Those who live on this edge of the world are irrevocably tied to the ocean.
The people fished for salmon, cod, halibut and shellfish
and hunted sea lions, seals and whales.

Ucluelet today has a small aquarium, but the nearby Wickaninnish Interpretive Centre
houses a collection of Nuu-chah-nulth artifacts.

Europeans discovered Barkley Sound in the 1770s, in pursuit of whales and seals,
but it took another hundred years for settlers to reach the 'edge'
and confront the challenges of daily living.

Since then Gold Rush miners, foresters, Japanese fishermen, soldier, dreamers
and entrepreneurs have all contributed to Ukee's 'rough and tumble soul'
Ukee is what the natives call the village

The new wave is tourists, and there is much for them to see and do
in this amazing natural community.

Whale watching

Bear watching

kayaking

fishing

surfing

camping and boating

or just making castles on the beach...

nearby is the Wild Pacific Trail, for hiking.

 a birdseye view of the village - downtown Ucluelet

copywrite noted

the lighthouse

You know you want to come!!!!

how to get there - a three hour drive from Nanaimo's Departure Bay ferry,
a five hour drive from Victoria, or for leisurely travellers a cruise of the
scenic Alberni Inlet/Barkley Sound to Ucluelet

For more interesting "U"s visit here at ABC Wednesday
with thanks to Denise, Roger, and their Utterly delightful helpers.

Look! Here comes Christmas!

November 28th, 2015

Tomorrow is the First Sunday in Advent, and although Advent is supposed to be a time of contemplation and preparation for the coming of the Christ Child it is also all mixed up with eternal batches of shortbread for Christmas gifts, writing Christmas letters, buying presents, wrapping presents, putting up lights, decorating trees, Christmas luncheons, Christmas dinners, Christmas drinks parties, and for the little ones great wonder and excitement...

So how do we give to Advent the recognition and honour that is due the season????

When the children were home an Advent Log centered  Sunday Night's supper  table

during Advent.

The candle of peace, the candle of hope, the candle of joy and the candle of love.

The children took turns reciting the advent prayer, and then everybody, parents included, picked the name of another family member from a special container, and were bound to do something nice for that person each day during the coming week, secretly.

Of course there were sidelong glances and sometimes groans, but it did lend a little solemnity and thoughtfulness to the days leading up to Christmas.

There were years when we had very little money, and often December included handicrafts and special secretive projects.  The children received their share of mittens, wooden stick horses, shields and homemade swords, and sweaty little hands plyed needle and thread, making little loving presents. or fashioning little figures or ashtrays out of play dough and painting them bright colours.

And everybody helped clean silver (of which we received great quantities as wedding gifts, having been married directly after the war before electrical appliances became available again) although it wasn't a job anyone volunteered for until David, our grandson stepped up to the plate one year and made the plates and platters and creams and sugars gleam like new.

We had an Advent Calendar as well, but not the  kind where you open the door to the day's treat of chocolate or candy, - instead, behind each door was hidden a message of preparation 

for the Great Day.

I see today a combination of the old tradition of Advent Calendars with an awareness of the true meaning of Advent, and hope does that eternal springiness thing in my heart.

For each day a suggestion for random acts of kindness, opening our eyes to the needs that surround us

and the opportunity to make our spirit more lovingly aware.

These are all lovely memories, but the present finds me contemplating a much quieter Christmas.

There will be no Christmas bake sale and coffee morning at the church this year. but this evening I'm going to make the first of the 'eternal' shortbread that I plan to tuck into every family's Christmas bag, and although there is no Christmas pudding there will be family for Christmas dinner.  No magical midnight Eucharist on Christmas Eve as there was in days of yore, alas,

 - but does the hour really matter?

I didn't really mean to meander so long in memory lane, - Christmas is Christmas no matter which generation is celebrating it, and underneath all the commercialization there is still the matter of the heart, where love and generosity reign, and even if one scoffs at angels and shepherds and magi there is always the longing for Peace on Earth and good will to mankind.

So that's what December is all about, - at least for me, and I hope that for you

 it is happy and full of wonder., wonderful baking smells
and the rustle of wrapping paper and tying of bows,
and beneath it all the stillness that brings peace.

Edward Hays, in A Pilgrim's Almanac says

"Take time to be aware that in the very midst of our  busy preparations

for the celebration of Christ's birth in ancient Bethlehem,

Christ is re born in the Bethlehems of our homes and daily lives.

Take time, slow down, be still, be awake to the Divine Mystery

that looks so common and so ordinary

yet is so wondrously present."

The Immense Journey

Thursday, November 26th, 2015

What am I reading these days?

I'm reading Loren Eiseley, - yes, I'm re-reading once again The Immense Journey and am delighted with the prose and poetry of the words and the vast scope of his awareness of nature and humankind, from the very beginning to the inevitable end....

There was a time when most of Loren Eiseley's books found space upon our shelves, - a time when all the children were in school,  when Charles, with his charismatic leadership was involved right up to HERE with the farm and volunteer work in education and agriculture.

I turned in wonderment to reading, went back to college and became immersed in philosophy, english literature, and the naturalists and philosophers of the day;  Loren Eiseley, H.H. Swinnerton, Robert Ardrey, Ashley Montagu, Desmond Morton, Asimov, Lewis Thomas and Will and Ariel Durant.  A wonderful time, - I had always loved school, and here I was, back to learning and writing and reading, and my head full of new ideas and visions.  Loren Eisely was high on my list of favourites - fascinated with the potential paths he led me down and delighted with his words and imagery....

"...our heads, the little globes which hold the midnight sky and the shining, invisible universes of thought, have been taken about as much for granted as the growth of a yellow pumpkin in the fall"

"we have joined the caravan, you might say, at a certain point;  we will travel as far as we can, but we cannot in a lifetime see all that we would like to see or learn all that we hunger to know."

These quotes from "The Immense Journey"

And then, of course, there is the story adapted from
The Star Thrower (by Eiseley) wherein a an elderly man comes upon a young boy throwing starfish abandoned on the beach by the tide, back into the ocean.

And when the old man remonstrates with the boy, pointing out that the number of starfish
are beyond saving,
 and he cannot expect to make a difference,
the boy replies, as he throws one more starfish
 into the water, -
"Well, it will make a difference to this one.

"A modern moral quotation.

 Loren Eiseley sees the magic and mystery of life, from the time when

we first crawled from water to dry land, and acknowledges its importance to our survival.

"I am sure now that life is not what it is purported to be and that nature, in the canny

words of the Scotch theologue, "is not as natural as it looks."

Says Eiseley - "At the core of the universe, the face of God wears a smile"

and he cautions....

"The need is not really for more brains, the need is now for a gentler, a more tolerant people than those who won for us against the ice, the tiger and the bear.  The hand that hefted the ax, out of some old blind allegiance to the past fondles the machine gun as lovingly.  It is a habit man will have to break to survive, but the roots go very deep."

Terrace, British Columbia

ABC Wednesday
November 25th, 2015

The letter is T for Terrace, B.C.

Terrace lies in the beautiful Skeena River Valley amidst the Coast mountain Range and was named for the natural terraces cut by the Skeena River over the past centuries.

It is literally a city built within a forest, surrounded by National Parks with

endless tracts of trees, sweet mountain air, hanging valleys and beautiful lakes.

The First Nation people of Terrace are one of North America's oldest populations

still occupying the same land as their ancestors did.  

There are a number of First Nation villages in northwestern B.C., 

and closest to the city of Terrace

is the Kitselas and Kitsumkallum, occupied by the Tsimshian people.

Kitselas canyon, a favourite place to explore

and the Kitselas People seated around their Beaver House Totem in 1912

in modern times

                                                                the Kitsumkallum peoples

an Indian canoe on the lake

the Long House

The west Coast of British Columbia abounds in Totem poles, - in Stanley Park, 

Vancouver, in northern villages and the island of Haida Quai

Originally called Eby's Landing Terraxce began in 1901 as a telegraph station on the Dominion Telegraph Line, and in 1905 was a port of call for sternwheelers pllying the Skeen River, establishing the town's important role in future transportation in the Skeena River Valley.

George Little, the founding father of the town, tired of the Gold Rush and settled in Terrace in 1905, built a sawmill in 1911, and established the area economically.  Today

the forest continues to provide the mainstay of the area.

Terrace is home to "Ursus americanus "kermodei", the rare white Kermode Bear, and this statue in the town is dedicated to the "Spirit Bear", honouring the traditional legend that the spirits of these bears help humans in distress and protect then from evil spirits.The Kermode bear is a pale colour form of the black bear, and it is protected by law in B.C.

The area abounds in wildlife

Grizzlies,(there is a Sanctuary) wolves, cougar, black bears, bald eagles

and is a wonderfully inviting spot for fishermen.

The town has a renowned Farmer's Market, a golf course, many hiking and biking trails through  forest stands of Sitka spruce and Western Red Cedar, an Art Gallery, beaches and  interesting Heritage Buildings at the Terrace Heritage Park

 representing the distinct aspect of pioneer life.

How will you get there?  

By air, by rail or by road.....

A wonderful part of British Columbia to explore.

Lots more interesting Ts here, at ABC Wednesday, and many

thanks to all who make this great meme available

week by week.

While dusting

The sun shone quite nicely this morning.  The windows have been cleaned, inside and out, so nothing  there to cast a guilty shadow.  But, ah, the dust!!!

I set aside my coffee, - mopped the floors and started dusting with my nice new scarlet microfibre duster....  

By the time I had reached the book shelves I had lost quite a bit of my original impetus, and I lingered a while, pulling out a book here and there.

Ah, there is Jan Karon, and her 'Continual Feast'

The invitation was palpable!!!

Warm up the coffee and have a little brouse through Father Tim's words of comfort and celebration.......

The face page declares this to be an edition of the words of others,

gathered together to inspire and comfort

and probably to advance the sale of Ms Karon's books

about the beloved Father Tim.

"I have gathered a posy of other men's flowers, 

and nothing but the thread that binds them is mine own".

                                                        John Bartlett

I leaf through the pages and come upon this....

"Great works are performed not by strength

but by perseverance".  Samuel Johnson

Well, I am sure Samuel Johnson was not interested in my dusting

when he referred to 'great works'........

I flip over and find by an unknown author, but in Father Tim's own hand writing

"Eternal God, I thank you that I am growing old.  It is
a privilege that many have been denied. 
 Spare me the self pity that shrivels the soul...  
and grant me daily some moments living on tiptoe,
 lured by the eternal city...."

This sounds more appealing.....I am grateful and I do look for Tiptoe Moments

but I turn the page, and find here some words on Bereavement....

and they touch my heart.

"It is not that we feel cut off from the bigger spiritual relationship which

survives death, but from the hundred and one lesser links which

bind people together, incidental things which when looked back on seem

of enduring significance but which were taken so much for granted

at the time.  The other person's sense of humor, prejudices, moods,

all that has gone.  For the rest of our lives we shall have to do without

his mannerisms, his shyness, his ways of pronouncing things.

The voice is silent - we had expected it would be - but that the

yawns and bursts of laughter will never be repeated is almost more than we can bear...

These moments were not passing moments at all.  

They had something in them of eternity."

Herbert van Zetter, Moments of Light.

I am lost in memories, the duster forgotten for the moment

but the next page I open releases me from guilty idlesness....

"Work is not always required... there's such a thing as sacred idleness, 

the cultivation of which is now fearfully neglected."

George Macdonald

There, not only released, but released into worthiness...

and then I read from Macbeth

"Cans't thou not minister to a mind diseas'd, pluck from the

memory a rooted sorrow, raze out the written trouble

of the brain, and with some sweet oblivious antidote cleanse 

the bosom of that perilous

 stuff which weights upon the heart".

and I sigh a bit, pick up the duster and look out upon the sunshine

and smile at the quail which have gathered to feed.

After the work is done I practise on my new ukulele!!!!

That is another story......

I know all the chords to Silent Night so

am getting ready for Christmas!

Watch for a progress report!