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For months Carrie had been looking forward to Fibrations Victoria, an outdoor craft fair featuring vendors from a variety of textile arts. There were knitters, spinners, weavers, sheep and alpaca growers, basically everything you could imagine related to textiles. Most were local so it was interesting to see the local slant on the arts. There was even a local lady making tamales for sale for lunch. It was a beautiful cool and sunny day so the weather cooperated with a respite from the heat wave.

Carrie had previously signed up to volunteer at Fibrations and Sue agreed to join her. They worked for several hours selling raffle tickets for a huge array of fabric items that had been donated. By the end they were fully familiar with the colors and shapes of Canadian currency (or is it colours?).

While Carrie and Sue worked the raffle Charlie and Leo walked about a mile up the hill and toured Craigdarroch Castle. This Victorian mansion was built between 1887 and 1890 by Robert Dunsmuir, the father of James Dunsmuir who built Hatley Castle around 20 years later. The house is furnished in the style of the period and is open for self-guided tours.

On the way back to Fibrations Charlie and Leo walked around the grounds of Government House, the office and official residence of the Lieutenant Governor, the representative of the British Royal Family in British Columbia. Although Canada is a sovereign nation, Queen Elizabeth is still considered Queen of Canada and you see her portrait here and there in government facilities, always with a Canadian flag behind her. Canadians, for the most part, seem to value their benevolent relationship with the Crown.

Our friends Sue and Leo came to visit for a few days from California. We took them to some of our favorite spots (Hatley Castle, Butchart Gardens, the Inner Harbour) and we also spent a day wine tasting in the Cowichan Valley. We began the day with a stop at the Duncan Farmers Market to pick up a few things for a picnic and for dinner later in the evening, including a fresh berry pie.

We began our wine tasting at Enrico Winery near Mill Bay. We tasted some of their wines, bought a bottle of rose to enjoy with lunch, and then adjourned to their picnic area for our feast. Just as we were finishing our tasting a group of rowdy young women arrived, all with flowers in their hair. The proprietor told us they were a “stagette” party, which we would call a bachelorette party in the States. One of the interesting things about visiting Canada is encountering these little Canadian twists to the language. For example, a parking garage is a parkade, a term I have never heard used in the U.S. A garbage disposal is a garburator.

We then checked out a couple of more wineries, Cherry Point and Unsworth. The wines were not great by California standards but it is impressive that they can produce decent wines at all in their northern climate. The people at the wineries told us that there has been a lot of effort put into developing hybrid varieties that produce well in their region.

We made several trips to the Cowichan Valley, about an hour north of our condo. At the Lavenderfest we spoke with one of the vendors who raises mini-llamas on a farm near Cobble Hill. We learned that she gives tours during the week so we visited her farm to see the animals and her fabric products. Mini-llamas are just what you would expect – small versions of llamas. They are not used as pack animals like their bigger cousins but their soft wool makes them valuable. After the visit we had lunch overlooking the water at Mill Bay. Then, just for fun, we took the small ferry from Mill Bay to Brentwood Bay, about a 30 minute ride. Vancouver Island has an extensive network of small ferries to get people and vehicles around the waterways.

On another trip to the Cowichan Valley we went to the town of Duncan and took a look at their farmers market. Then we spent some time walking around and seeing some of the many totems in town. First Nations people have had totems on Vancouver Island for centuries but by the middle of the 20th century many were in disrepair. In 1985 the town of Duncan began a project to restore and display many of the totems. The Totems Tour now consists of over 40 totems displayed outdoors, mostly in the downtown area.

We celebrated our 44th wedding anniversary with a fantastic dinner at the Sooke Harbour House. Carrie has a friend who is from Canada and he recommended this restaurant on the waterfront in Sooke, a small town about 10 miles west of our condo. We had a window table and we watched the fog roll in over the water as the evening progressed. We had a delicious four-course meal with each course paired with local British Columbia wines.

 

We liked to vary our daily walks so we made a few trips into Victoria to explore the neighborhood to the southeast of the Inner Harbour, near Beacon Hill Park. Charlie enjoyed walking along the coastal walkway leading westward from the park to the breakwater at the entrance to the Inner Harbour. You can walk out on the breakwater and see the small lighthouse at the end, as well as the huge cruise ships moored nearby. On a clear day you can see the snow-capped Olympic Mountains to the south in Washington.

“The Trans-Canada Highway, uniformly designated as Highway 1 in the four western provinces, begins in Victoria, British Columbia at the intersection of Douglas Street and Dallas Road (where the “Mile 0” plaque stands) and passes northward along the east coast of Vancouver Island for 99 km (62 mi) to Nanaimo. Short freeway segments of the TCH can be found near Victoria and Nanaimo, but the rest of the highway on Vancouver Island operates mostly as a heavily signalized low-to-limited-mobility arterial road that uniquely (for the Trans-Canada Highway system) does not bypass any of its areas of urban sprawl, particularly Nanaimo and Duncan. The section of Highway 1 that crosses the Malahat northwest of Victoria has no stoplights yet, but is tightly pinched by rugged terrain that prevents comprehensive widening to four lanes and sometimes forces closure for hours at a time after a traffic accident. The Departure Bay ferry is the only marine link on the Trans-Canada system that has no freeway or other high mobility highway access, instead routing TCH traffic through downtown Nanaimo streets to reach the ferry to Vancouver.” (quote taken from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trans-Canada_Highway)

Carrie preferred exploring the neighborhoods adjacent to the park. This part of Victoria was developed in the early 20th century and there are many beautiful old houses and yards.

We embarked on a full day drive (180 miles) along the Pacific Marine Circle Route. This scenic drive took us north through the Cowichan Valley, inland to Lake Cowichan, through dense evergreen forests to Port Renfrew, and then home along the coast of the Strait of Juan de Fuca.

We stopped at Lake Cowichan and saw a number of people preparing for a day of tubing along the creek. It seems to be a popular activity, as there were commercial vans to shuttle people back to the starting point with their tubes.

The drive from Lake Cowichan to Port Renfrew is very remote. There are no signs of human activity except for clear-cut logging in places. We stopped and walked around in a dense forest that contains some of the oldest and largest trees on Vancouver Island.

By lunchtime we were in Port Renfrew so we stopped at the Renfrew Pub. We had a waterside table on their deck, which was great on a warm day.

The drive back to Victoria was a bit of a disappointment. On the map the route appears to go right along the coast, so we were expecting lots of ocean views and views across the strait to the snow-covered Olympic Mountains in Washington. But in fact the forest is so dense that it obscures the ocean most of the way.

BC Ferries offers a day trip out of Swartz Bay (north of Victoria) on one of the local ferries that serves the Gulf Islands, a series of small islands located generally between Victoria and Vancouver. For only about $12 you get a 4-hour trip stopping at Saturna, Mayne, and Pender Islands, and then returning to Swartz Bay. We took the trip on a nice sunny and calm day. Being on the water helped us to avoid some of the heat wave.

We saw some beautiful island scenery along with waterbirds in the channel. It was interesting to stop at these isolated islands and get a glimpse of life there. Tourism is a major industry and we saw lots of nice looking vacation homes along the water. Other folks raise sheep or operate small craft businesses such as weaving or soap making.

Following the ferry ride we stopped for lunch at Sea Glass Waterfront Grill in Sidney. We had a window table by the water so we continued our nautical day. Sidney is a busy town, the center of commerce on the Saanich Peninsula north of Victoria.

We attended the Lavenderfest at Damali Lavender and Winery. Located about an hour up the island from us near Cobble Hill, Damali is in the Cowichan Valley, one of the warmer sections of the island. They grow lavender commercially to use in products such as soaps and scented oils, and they also grow grapes for their winery in the relatively warm climate.

Once a year, just prior to the lavender harvest, they hold their Lavenderfest, hosting local craft and food vendors and showing off their beautiful lavender fields. We were able to enjoy their fields, taste their lavender-infused wine, and get our lunch from a local taco truck. The chefs make their own fresh tortillas so the tacos were quite good, up to California standards.

We drove past Damali a few weeks later and indeed the lavender flowers had been harvested. We were fortunate to have seen them at their most beautiful stage at the Lavenderfest.

We were fortunate to have several provincial parks nearby. Vancouver Island is a very rural place and it doesn’t take long to get out of town. We enjoyed hiking in the parks and getting out into the forest. The most amazing thing is that everything is so lush and green, but the humidity is low and there are no bugs like mosquitoes or gnats!

Goldstream Provincial Park was only about a mile from our condo as the crow flies but it was a 10 minute drive because there was a big mountain in the way! We enjoyed hikes through the forest along the stream which contained salmon fingerlings born this season. The stream empties into a nearby estuary that leads to the open ocean. In a few years these fingerlings will come back to the same stream to spawn.

Farther away, near Butchart Gardens, is Gowlland Tod Provincial Park. Our favorite trail in this park led through a dense evergreen forest to Tod Inlet, where there is a small beach. At the end of the hike we would sit on a bench and watch the boats, the birds, and sometimes the jellyfish in the water.

Other nearby hikes that we enjoyed were at Langford Lake and at the Galloping Goose Trail at the Sooke Potholes.  Both are pictured below.

Goldstream Provincial Park

Ed Nixon Trail at Langford Lake

Galloping Goose Trail at the Sooke Potholes

Gowlland-Tod Provincial Park

 

Butchart Gardens is one of the most spectacular formal gardens in the world and one of the most visited spots in Canada. Located on the site of a former limestone quarry owned by the Butchart family, it was transformed into a floral garden by Jennie Butchart once the limestone was exhausted. The colors of the flowers are stunning, especially during the summer season.

We purchased season passes to the gardens so we could go as often as we liked, and we eventually went a half dozen times. Butchart Gardens has live music outdoors every night at 8 PM and we attended twice, once for a musician from Senegal in West Africa and once for a bluegrass band from Vancouver. Who would have guessed that there is an excellent bluegrass band in western Canada?

Butchart Gardens also offers a boat tour around the adjacent Tod Inlet, which we took a couple of times. We saw a bald eagle, lots of small jellyfish, and a colony of purple martins that spend the summer in Canada before migrating to Brazil.

With Friends at Butchart