The Gorge Waterway - an environmental success story

I am going to start doing some Vlogging as well as posting on this blog.   Here is my first short piece

My Street = Orillia Street

I live on Orillia Street, a completely unremarkable street in the Tillicum Gorge neighbourhood of Saanich.   I have lived in the neighbourhood for 12 years and on this street for 30 months now.

The street:

• is only 900 meters long, for 500 meters of that we have a sidewalk
• has 59 houses on Orillia 
• most of the houses were constructed between 1920 and 1940 but a number of them have been demolished to make way for much, much larger houses
• the oldest house is from 1890 
• has Tillicum elementary school on it
• has one book box
• there is no pedestrian light to get over Burnside even though the bus stop is at the corner of Burnside and Orillia.   There is no light either at Gorge and Orillia even though the main park in the area is across the Gorge from Orillia and the sidewalk on Orillia makes it a street people use to get to the Gorge park
• there is no crosswalk at Orillia and Obed.   People have tried to paint one in since the crosswalk on Orillia and the one on Obed do not connect
• Orillia is a short walk from shopping at Tillicum Mall and at the shopping centre at Gorge and Tillicum.   Pearkes Rec Centre and the Saanich Centennial Library are also a short walk away

Heritage in the Gorge Tillicum neighbourhood and the Saanich Heritage Foundation

I need your help documenting and protecting the heritage of the Gorge-Tillicum neighbourhood.

I am a board member of the Saanich Heritage Foundation because I have a long time interest in the history of the Greater Victoria area.  The Saanich Heritage Foundation primarily looks after the heritage register and provides grants to owners of designated to fix and renovate their houses.   It also has a general mandate to promote heritage conservation, which is why as a board member I want to be proactive in getting more houses designated in Saanich.

There are two levels of heritage recognition.  The first is registration and this puts the house on the heritage register but offers very little protection for the house.  The second is designation.  A designated house gets protection from the municipality and qualifies for funding from the foundation to pay for some of the costs of renovation and restoration.

Too often when people consider heritage only the houses that were built for the rich are considered appropriate for protection but I think this is an error.   In Saanich there are many houses that I believe have heritage value because they are where the average people lived in the past and they have retained most of their look and feel from that past era.  

This is the only photo I can find of the eastern part of the Tillicum neighbourhood when being construted

The eastern part of Gorge-Tillicum is the oldest suburban neighbourhood in Saanich but because most of the houses built as part of the post world war one boom by and for the middle class or working class very few of them have been considered heritage.   The area between Tillicum Road, the Gorge, Harriet Road and Hwy #1 only has six houses registered and a single designated one.    As a member of the Foundation board I want to see this change, I want to see people value the average houses from the past.

I know this neighbourhood still has many houses built between 1919 and 1930 that are still in reasonably good condition.   I know of at least a couple houses that were built in the 1890s.  I know of one house that is an Eaton catalogue house around here as well.   I would like to see many more houses at least become registered, but I need your help.

I am looking for people that can spend some time and look around at what houses there in the neighbourhood that might be worth getting added to the heritage register.

I have had some consverstions with local home owners and two of them are considering designating their homes.  One couple owns a worker's cottage built in 1919 that they have done a lot of work on to restore to the look it would have had in the 1920s.   It is that sort of house I think needs protection because there are almost none of them left.  Our heritage is so much more than Samuel McClure inspired houses from the same era

If you have a house that was build before World War Two I would love to talk with you about why you might want to designate your house.

I can be reached at 778-265-1647  or email me

You can also find me in my home, a 1909 workers cottage at 3079 Orillia Street which is not protected because it is on its last legs.

May 7th 2015 - Swimming in the Gorge

I was in the water today with the boys at Curtis Point and it was 21 degrees

Cuthbert Holmes Park - workparty Saturday, November 30, 2013

This came into my email box, I will not make it because I am at the Winteree at Mount Doug Park:

Hi everyone,

It's looking great in the park, and we're going to take advantage of the great weather and host a workparty in Cuthbert Holmes on Saturday, November 30, 2013 from 10 am to noonish. We will meet behind Pearkes Arena and proceed to the site at Area A.

Although we have some tool and gloves, please feel free to bring your own as well as some water.

I hope to see you out there. Cheers.

Julian

Colquitz Creek fish fence November 21st 2013

I wrote a bit about the record run on the Colquitz, this morning I went down to check out the fish fence.   Today there was only one spawned out salmon, nothing like the record 446 of a few weeks ago.

Here is a little bit of video I recorded while down there today.

Good News for the Day - Record Coho run on the Colquitz

Colquitz Fish Fence - all photos courtesy of the GCTA

One of the Colquitz Coho

The run is not yet done and much larger numbers of fish have migrated up the Colquitz than any previous year I am aware of.   Last year there was a total of 210 fish, this year we are over 1000 already.  In the 13 or 14 years there has been active count on the Colquitz, there have been between 200 and 300 Coho, nothing like this year.  I am told the record was something like 525 a decade ago.

On November 2nd of this year they counted 446 fish, a new record that is much higher than the past recorded record of 162 in one day.

In an inner city suburb it is good when nature is not far off

The fish are counted at the fish fence, which is that bridge like structure just behind Montana's at Tillicum Mall.  It is easy enough to find if you want to go see what is going on.  I have been told the best time to come and watch the action is at around 10 am which on most days is when the count is done.  I will go check it out on Thursday morning.

The recovery of the Gorge waterway and the Colquitz are examples of what can be done when people put their mind to making positive change.   It is a great example that doom and gloom is not the only path, we can make changes to improve the world.   There was a time when the Gorge was filled with raw sewage as well as pollution from the Inner Harbour.   The Colquitz was effectively nothing more than a fetid drainage ditch.   Now we have a strong return of the fish, we see otters and seals in the Gorge, we can swim again in the waters.   In about half a generation we recovered the waterway heart of this region.

These fish remarkably have swum past two bridge construction projects.  They also all swum through the Inner Harbour with all the floatplanes, yachts and the Coho ferry.  

There are reports of spawning salmon on the Colquitz as far as Mann Ave, in the Copley Park area and Swan Creek upstream from Violet ave. The most common place for the Coho to spawn is on a small gravel bed near the fish fence.

I have not heard for certain, but I hear other creeks in the region are having decent salmon runs.

A view of the fish fence in operation

I think it is important for us as people to have functioning parts of the natural world close to where we live.   It is too easy for modern urban humans to become disconnected from the natural world but each time we recover something like the Colquitz we become a bit closer to how we humans managed to exist for hundreds of generations.

The work to recover the Colquitz to what it can be has been done by hundreds of volunteers.  People have done this not because they are being paid to do it, but they have done it because it is the right thing to do.   Humans by nature are cooperative and have a deep need to make the world a better place.  

This recovery of the river is because of the work of many people and organizations
Colquitz Salmonid Stewardship and Education Society
Gorge Tillicum Community Association
Julian Anderson and his friends of Cuthbert Holmes
The District of Saanich
Gorge Waterway Initiative
and others that I have missed.

Chris Bos of the Colquitz Salmonid Stewardship and Education Society at work

Gorge Swimming and the 2013 Gorge Swim Fest

There was a decent sized group down at the Banfield Park all jumping into the Gorge today to swim as a promo for the 2013 Swim Fest on August 11th.

Here are some short video clips

Gorge Canada Day Picnic

The 15th Annual Gorge Canada Picnic was on July 1st in the Gorge Waterway Park.   We finally went last year for the first time.  

What I like about this event is that is not a professional event, but a simple community event, though on a large scale.    There are thousands of people that come for the pancake breakfast, to hear the performers, to take part in the kids zone, and just to see the neighbours.   :Laid back and relaxed is what describes this event.

Here is a bit of my video of the event

Swimming in the Gorge on May 7th 2013?!?!

The Gorge warms up very quickly because the tides move a lot of water in and out twice a day. It means that even two to three days of hot weather bring the temperature up ot 22 to 23 degrees.   With the water this warm we have been in the water twice this week already.

I have been very happy to see more swimming in the Gorge over the last few years.   It is good to see the people in this city rediscover on of the jewels of the region.     Here is a short video of Stephen and Max on the Tillicum Dock and Stephen going into the water.

 

While it is wonderful to have the water warm enough to swim in so early, we should be concerned.   We had temperatures of over 28 degrees on Sunday in Victoria.   A one off high temperature is weather, a pattern of warmer weather in successive years is a change in climate.    We set records all over southwest BC on Sunday, we had 100 year record high temperatures.   The trend seems clearer and clearer to me that we are altering the climate.

While it is wonderful to have mid summer weather at the start of May, the danger in our region is that we are not set up to deal with four months of warm or hot weather.   Our soils on the south end of Vancouver Island do not tend to run deep and consistent long hot summers with droughts will kill off many of our trees among other things.   Forest fires to the west of the city will be coming.

We are lucky in many respects in Victoria because climate change is likely to make life a bit more pleasant in the summers but we are not in isolation in the world.   In BC we are in the middle of an election and climate change is not an issue.   Other than the Greens no other party considers the issue one that matters to us.

Cuthbert Holmes Work Party Saturday January 19th at 10 am

Since I talked about this recently and I am on Julian Anderson's mailing list for the park, I thought I would post the details of the work party in the park tomorrow.


Hi everyone,

 I think one more session and we should be able to tame the privet at the end of Archer’s Meadow.  Privet is appearing in all corners of the park and this particular plant is the largest that I’ve seen in the park and is probably the mother of many others.  Hopefully getting rid of such a large seed source will slow the spread.

We will be hosting a workparty this Saturday, January 19th at 10am.  We will meet at the Dysart footbridge and proceed to the site from there. 

 The weather looks as if it will cooperate once again.  Cheers.

This Sunday 4th Annual Gorge-Tillicum Urban Farmers Seedy Sunday

Seed sharing is a way to get a few interesting varieties of seeds for plants that come from people locally.   Getting your seeds locally should mean a plant better suited to our local growing conditions.

Date: Mon, Jan 14, 2013 at 11:07 AM
Subject: [GTUF] 4th Annual GTUF Seedy Sunday Jan 20th!
To: Gorge-Tillicum-Urban-Farmers


Hello and Happy New Years GTUFers,

Our fourth annual Seedy Sunday Sharing Event is next Sunday January 20th  at our usual location of Saanich Neighbourhood Place in Pearkes Recreation Centre. Turn left as you walk into Pearkes, and then go to the end of the corridor. Schedule:

2:30 - 2:45pm – People with seeds to share come 15 minutes early to help set up tables and put their seeds out.

2:45 - 3:30pm – Seed Sharing  

3:30 - 4:00pm – Growers answer questions about their seeds (varieties, planting suggestions, etc.)

4:00 - 4:15pm – Break - Potluck of snacks

4:15 - 5:00pm – Discuss what to do now for your food garden at home – Facilitator: Kate Rubin

PRACTICAL DETAILS FOR THE SEED SHARING PORTION OF THE MEETING:

For any of you who have attended the Seedy Saturday Event at the Conference Centre in years past - this event is different in that you are NOT required to bring seeds before you can take seeds (we want this open to new gardeners and seed-savers) - but please take only what you will likely need for your own household purposes.

If you are bringing seeds - you can bring them in bulk, or if you have time, packaged.  

In either case please make sure the seed is labeled - either on the packet or on something like an index card in front of the seeds you are sharing - with the following 4 points:

- Your name (so people can ask you their questions about the seed)

- The type of seed and variety if known 

- Date of harvest of seed if known (or date written on the package for expiry date)

- Any outstanding characteristics which you think could be useful to mention

Remember to check your old packets from commercial growers to see if you have excess to share.  Small bedding plants which you might be prepared to share are also welcome.

If you are not bringing seed, if possible we ask that you please bring your own containers or bags. Thanks!
We also ask that everyone takes home anything that is not taken.

 And as is the case at every meeting:

Feel free to bring seedlings or plants that you'd like to give away Please remember to take home with you any items others don't want. 
If you're willing to do so, please come a few minutes earlier to help us set up the space and stay a few minutes after to return the room to its original state and to clean up.
We invite anyone to contribute a snack item for us to eat during our break -- preferably a finger food.  If your item requires it, please also bring napkins or cups.  As per SNP policy, food and drink is to be consumed only at the tables.
We'll also ask for a donation (suggested $5) for SNP to cover our use of their space. We also will have a donation box for our Seed Bank costs.
Notes will be taken during the meeting if someone volunteers to do it. You are welcome to invite people who are not GTUF members to our meetings.
If you think you might buy a GTUF signs for display in your garden / on your home please bring a few dollars with you – either this time or another time.
Thanks to Tom’s efforts, we have a GTUF library that he brings to our meetings.  Feel free to borrow a book – or donate or lend a book to the library.
 We look forward to seeing you there!

 Kate, Brenda, and Julie (Seedy Sunday organizers)

Cuthbert Holmes Park, a potential jewel being under used

Map Cuthbert Holmes Park and related parks around it

I should have written this ages ago, I had meant to submit some of this as my thoughts and comments to Saanich as part of their review of the park last year.

Cuthbert Holmes park is an underused park beside the Tillicum Mall.  Actually it is several parks that abut each other and some other land.  There is the actual Cuthbert Holmes park, then there is  Tillicum Park, which is mainly the land under the arena and Pearkes Rec Centre, there is also Meadow park across a small foot bridge from Cuthbert Holmes,  there parts of Colquitz park that look and feel like part of Cuthbert Holmes, there is private land beside Silver City and finally there are several hectares of Ministry of Transportation road right of way on the northern edge.  All in all, the areas that function as what we know as Cuthbert Holmes park is about 30 hecatres in area.

It is a a park that is effectively neglected and I think underused, yes a lot of people walk in the park, but large parts of the park are at best empty wasteland overgrown with invasive species.   There is a full eight hectares of land that is covered in blackberries and not much else, that is more than a quarter of the whole area.   In all my years of going to the park I have never seen Saanich Parks staff in the park, though admittedly there is not much for them to do as there are no lawns to mow.

The park was created not so much as a park but as a renaming of empty lands in the late 1960s.   Saanich gained control over the area in 1986 and 1987.   Much of the park is actually owned by the Provincial Capital Commission.

The park was named for Henry Curhbert Holmes, the Holmes of the local real estate company Pemberton Holmes

From the UBC website

MAJOR HENRY CUTHBERT HOLMES
Major Henry Cuthbert Holmes, who died in May, 1968, at the age of seventy-seven, lived a full and active life. A native of Victoria, B.C. he was educated at the Royal Naval School, England, at Victoria College, Canada, and Balliol College, Oxford. He served with distinction in the First World War, after which he settled down in Victoria where he was to become a great force in civic and provincial affairs. His service to his city resulted in his being made Freeman of the City of Victoria in 1968. A co-founder of Brentwood College, he was a Governor from 1923 to 1948. He worked continuously for the University of Victoria and was Chairman of the University's Extension Association. His interest in education was wide, as is shown by his Chairmanship of the Fairbridge Farm Schools Committee in 1935. He was active in a score of civic clubs and enterprises. His connection with the University of British Columbia goes back many years. He first joined the Senate for a six-year term in 1933; he returned in 1946 and remained a member of that body until 1955. Finally, he was appointed by the Lieutenant-Governor in Council in 1958 and it was not until 1965 that he resigned. He was a faithful member of Senate with a keen interest in the academic wellbeing of the University and, indeed, of education throughout the province, He leaves three sons and two daughters. This University will miss him as will our sister institution in Victoria.

For a long time I have thought so much more could be done with this park.

Map of who owns what parts of the park

The core of the woods and the area along the river are fine as they are now as a natural area, though it would be nice if there were more work to rid the park of English ivy and other invasive species.   The core natural areas of the park do suffer because a lot of people walking there choose to walk all over the place and make the compacted "trail" areas much wider than they should be.

View of the North East Corner of the park for the road

It is the area along the northern edge that needs help and could be used for more.   It is a large piece of land that is not providing a natural environment or any recreation for the public  At the moment the area could at best be described as scrub land.   Since the 1990s invasive species have utterly taken over the space and for the natural environment to return one would basically have to plow everything up and start again.  .

A major problem is this area is the use by people camping there and people doing a lot of drugs.   It is not an area most people think is a safe to walk through.   I avoid walking there because of the menacing attitudes of the people hanging out there even during the day.   One other problem that happens because of these people is the area is full of garbage which includes broken bottles and needles.   Something active needs to be done to reclaim this area for use as a park for the people of this city.

Ideal would be for Saanich to get formal agreement from the Ministry of Transportation to use their right of way as part of the park.  The reality is that the extra right of way is not of any benefit to the government for road expansion.  The existing constraints where Highway #1 crosses over Burnside Road and Colquitz Creek would make it impossible to use it in any meaningful manner for more road space.   Leaving it formally in the hands of the Ministry of Transportation means the land is not going to get money spent on it by Saanich.

One reason this part of the park could be used for something more is because the area along the northern edge of the park is the area of the least sensitivity to human disturbance.  The area is not critical for wildlife or the general ecosystem of the natural environment.

One thing that I think is needed in Victoria is a space for community gatherings or festivals and this part of the park could function in that way for all of us in the CRD.   There is a three hectare area that could be set aside as meadows and an off leash area for dogs most of the time but at the same time could offer a large open field which allow for concerts or festivals.  With the closure of Beacon Hill Park to community festivals and concerts, there needs to be some other location to have these events.  Most of the parks in this region are not big enough to host a major public event.   Cuthbert Holmes has the space.

It also makes sense to create this as a regional park amenity because of the decent access.  The fact we have Tillicum Mall nearby means there is parking available and good bus connections.  Creating it here works well because it is much more central to the region than anything downtown or in the City of Victoria.

I am not sure why there is no playground.   The mall and rec centre are right there so it is an area that is high family traffic, I am sure many of them would be happy to have a place nearby to go with their kids.   There is the land available just over Colquitz Creek to put in a skookum playground.

My sense of the planning process conducted last year is that there will be little change from how things are at the moment.  I think this is shame because this is one of the larger green spaces in Victoria in the core of the city and is about the only one that has the flexibility to be more than it is now.

Some maps and air photos of our house from 1977 to 20111977

From various online sources I have found some recent maps and air photos of our house at the corner of Maddock Avenue East and Harriet Road

1977 - shows two trees no longer in the backyard

1989 survey map - first time I noticed our lot is not a rectangle, the Maddock Street property line is
50 feet, the other end it is 53 feet

Air photo circa 2005 or 2006

Air photo from 2011

Some weather data for my neighbourhood

I now have seven and a half years of weather data for my neighbourhood from the UVic Weather Network. This is still not enough for clear long term trends, but it does give me some reasonable data for the growing season.

Frost is any temperature below 0, a hard frost is -2.0 or lower.

               First Frost of the Fall          First Hard Frost                   Coldest Frost
2012  November 9th   has not happened yet   -0.9 November 9th
2011  November 1st   November 15th  -4.4 November 20th
2010  November 12th  November 21st  -8.7 November 23rd
2009  October 12th   December 7th   -7.7 December 10th
2008  November 26th  December 13th  -9.2 December 16th
2007  November 2nd   December 31st  -2.8 December 31st
2006  October 30th   October 30th   -6.6 November 29th
2005  November 26th  December 16th  -2.4 December 17th

From this data I think I can comfortably count on October stilling being a growing month especially for the hardier plants.  
   
     Last Frost of the Spring      Last Hard Frost
2012  April 7th   March 7th
2011  April 8th   February 26th
2010  March 18th  March 8th
2009  March 29th  March 21st
2008  April 9th   January 28th
2007  April 2nd   March 1st
2006  March 19th  February 24th

The last frost in the spring is fairly consistently within a three week period from March 18th to April 9th with four times the last frost being in the first 9 days of April.   I think that April 15th is a reasonable day to assume we are safe from frost in the garden.

Length of the frost free period
2012  216 days
2011  207 days
2010  239 days
2009  197 days
2008  231 days
2007  214 days
2006  225 days
avg   218 days

Over the last seven and half years, there have only been 15 days when the daytime temperature did not rise above 0 degrees.   The temperatures have only dropped to -5 degrees or lower on 16 nights in that same time period.

Fish Counts in Colquitz River for 2012

I got this from the Gorge Tillicum Community Association about the 2012 salmon run on the Colquitz river

Total Fish counts in for the year at the Colquitz River Fish Fence: (Behind Tillicum Centre)
71 Male Coho
91 Female Coho
44 Jacks
2 Cutthroat trout
2 Smolts.
TOTAL= 210 fish.
Not nearly as big return numbers as in years previous...those oil spills have taken their toll...

I asked about past data and here is what I got from Scott Karpes:

Last year, (2011) they had to take the counting fence out on about Nov. 25th (due to the oil spill, they wanted to let the fish get up stream quickly, to avoid the contamination.) Up to Nov. 25th, the numbers were:
62-Male coho
119-Female coho
104-Jacks
1-Cutthroat
TOTAL= 286 fish 
'All the other years are in single daily sheets that would take a very long time to add up the totals.'

'From what I can remember we have had a low of about 52 to a high of about 650 or more.' This information comes from Barrie Goodwin (Stream Steward/Volunteer.)

Lights on the Gorge - Sunday December 9th 3 pm to 6 pm

Lights on the Gorge: Multicultural Celebration of Midwinter - This is an event hosted by the Gorge-Tillicum Community Association, the United Way and the Greater Victoria Public Library and organized as part of the Gorge Tillicum Community Table.

The event will be in the Gorge Waterway Park at Dysart on Sunday December 9th from 3 pm to 6 pm

So what is the event?   A good question, I suspect it will be a fairly open ended and free form event with candles, lanterns singing and such.   This is neighbourhood has several fairly laid back and anarchist events each year that just sort of happen such as the Earl Grey Halloween party.

The Sunday before, December 2nd that is, the Saanich Centenial Branch of the GVPL will be hosting a lantern making workshop.  Drop in and create a weatherproof lantern, candle scepter or a clay Diwali diya to light up the Gorge on December 9. Enjoy an afternoon of craft and community with your Gorge Tillicum neighbours. Materials supplied-bring your imagination! Registration not required but if you register, you will get an email reminder of the event.

When I lived in Lillooet there was a lantern event in the mid summer where people made the lanterns at the beach on Seton Lake and then let them float off on the water, I would love to see this be something similar as an event.

So what traditions would I bring?   Ideally some carol singing, in my family a child we would have cake and coffee on each advent and then sing carols, normally friends would come over and join us.   I might also break out the Xmas Tree candle holders and claim a tree to put a bunch of candles on in the park.

If you want to help, which I will try to do, contact Kay Stewart.  

Why did I choose to live in the Burnside Gorge neighbourhood?

3100 block of Balfour Street in Victoria

In 2004 for a host of reasons Catherine and I moved to Victoria.   The decision of Victoria was 75%   Catherine's.   Having decided on Victoria the question was of where we would live and that was heavily influenced by my experience of my days at UVic.

I had lived in Victoria while I attended UVic from September 1983 till January 1990 with a break of bit more than a year in 1985/86 when I lived in the UK and hitch-hiked through the Sahara.   I chose Victoria for university because it was the "near abroad" - it was the closest Canadian university to where I grew up that was not east of the Rockies.   I did not to live with my parents while at university but my responsible cheap side said that if I went to SFU I could not justify living away from home even if I had an hour commute each way.   UBC was never an option for me because their attitude of the time "We are the biggest, therefore we are the best" is the sort of thing that rubs me entirely the wrong way.    Of grad class of 350 from South Delta Senior Secondary, 250 were going to post secondary education but only a tiny handful chose UVic.

I enjoyed my time at university for the experience it was not for the education.  I had a couple of good courses and few brilliant profs but for the most part UVic of the 1980s was an adequate school and nothing more.   Honestly if I were to do it again and known early enough I would have worked to get into a US liberal arts college.  Any of you that know me well know that I do not fit with the mass of society and can not stop myself from challenging it.

I met many people at UVic, people I still like to this day but I also met a lot of people that were in a rut in their lives by the time they were 20.   These people finished university, got a government job and had mentally retired by age 30.   This was not and is not the life for me but I know this city and know how easily it can lull you into a pleasant slumber of "Good Enough".  

I was not keen on Victoria, it is not near the top of my list of places to live in Canada but when we were making the decision in 2004 Victoria was Catherine's number 1 choice by far and for my it rated ahead of Vancouver or Calgary, though only barely ahead of Calgary.

Vancouver was out of the question for two reasons - the climate and the commute.   I hate rain, 18 years of growing up in the Lower Mainland gave me an almost pathological dislike of rain when it is colder than 10 degrees.   My last year in high school in November I walked to school everyday in the rain - I made my decision then Vancouver's climate and I could not co-exist.

I also hate commuting.   Long periods on transit are vaguely bearable, sitting in a car in stop and go traffic makes me angry and stressed out.   When I lived in London in the early 1990s I took the bus to work even though the Tube was faster because the experience on the Tube in rush hour sucks.   When I lived in Vancouver from 1992 to 1996 it had to be in the City itself, a place we knew we could never afford with a family.   Starting in 1994 Catherine and I were looking for some form of an escape from the city to rural BC which we achieved over the winter of 1995/96.

Fast forward to spring 2004 and we realized we needed to make a move to a bigger centre which ended up being Victoria.

It was important to me for us to chose a neighbourhood that was something different that what I had been part of 14 years earlier.    We came and visited the city and drove around.   Most everything east of Douglas was ruled out for being too much of my past but also for being too smugly set in its ways.    The Peninsula and Western Communities were out because commuting was not something I wanted.   Esquimalt was also out because of my past prejudice against it from the 1980s and from that bit of uncomfortable feeling living so close to the base. I am a pacifist from my faith but it is not a black and white simplistic pacifism, it is deep and complex - living there could have lead to me acting in unthoughtful ways and having knee jerk reactions to the military.

It became clear that the only area left was that between the Gorge and Highway #1 - Tillicum-Gorge or Burnside-Gorge.    These were areas of the city I had never been to in all the time I went to university, I knew nothing of the area but it seemed to fit with what we were looking for.

On one of our scouting trips to the city we spent several hours exploring this neighbourhood.    I was not impressed with the streets on the Saanich side because of the lack of sidewalks.    Streets like Wascana, Albina and such all suffer from having this blank negative space between the edge of the street and the properties.   I was not seeing much that was inspiring me to live in the area.

We had started at the Craigflower bridge and worked our way towards town.   It was near the end of the day that we turned onto Balfour Street and I saw the sort of street I like to live on.   Sidewalks and big trees along the street give Balfour the feeling of being an urban residential street and not a suburban one.   I immediately said this is the sort of street I want us to live on.  As luck would have it an acquaintance had a house for rent on that very street.   On July 1st 2004 I moved into a house on Balfour street in this neighbourhood and have lived here every since.   In September 2007 I made a short move two blocks over to the house we now live in on Harriet at Maddock.

After moving in we discovered how good a location was had chosen because of how central it is within Victoria.   I have access to five different bus routes that can take me most places I want to go in the core municipalities.   It is walking distance from both Mayfair and Tillicum.   The Galloping Goose is a short walk away.   The Gorge is right here and accessible.  The roads to the ferry or up island are nearby.    Everything was really right at hand.

Our current house

I can not image living in a different neighbourhood in this city, if I move it will be to leave Victoria and move somewhere dramatically different but I can not see that anytime soon if ever.

More Rental Units on Gorge Road - Trying to Figure Out How it Will Change the Neighbourhood

The section of Gorge Road from about Bridge to Harriet has a whole set of motels along it.  This came about because before the construction of Highway #1 to the Westshore, the Gorge Road was one of the roads into town.   People came into town and were looking for a decent place to stay but as they no longer were on the main drag, they were no longer good properties to make a lot of money from.

When I moved into this neighbourhood a bit more than 8 years ago there were 10 motels along the strip.  There are three motels along the strip that seem to be in decent condition and in the case of the Ramada it is actually really a hotel and trying to be something more upscale.  But the other seven are scarily downmarket. Since then two are gone and replaced with new buildings, one of them is in the process of becoming native social housing and now one more will be torn and replaced with a new rental building.

The old Friendly Inn is going to be replaced with a four story 68 unit apartment building with five townhouses on the site.   The project will be a mix of market and subsidized units and jointely developed by the Greater Victoria Housing Society and the Greater Victoria Rental Development Society.  The two have already partnered on Loreen Place which is the neighbouring property.  

I honestly know nothing about the Greater Victoria Rental Development Society other than they are partners on these two projects.

These two projects add needed population in this neighbourhood.  The addition of 73 more rental units on Gorge Road will likely add about 100 to 110 more people living in the neighbourhood.   To put that in terms of single family homes, it would take about 35 of them to house the same number in this area.   This would take up a total of 6.6 acres of  which 5.5 acres of private land and 1.1 is public land.   This new development achieves the same on 0.95 acres of private land and it abuts 0.25 acres of public land.  Loreen Place has added about 80 - 100 people on 0.68 acres of land.   The two developments together will increase the population by 180 to 210 people.

The fact these are rentals and have subsidized units means that likely there is a higher use of transit about the close to 200 new residents and a reasonable number of them will be children.  I think it is safe to assume 60 kids, which is close to five kids per grade though a bit higher at earlier years.  It should increase the school population of Tillicum School by about 35 kids which is more than a full class.

Other than the kids in elementary school, the rest of the residents are likely to reasonably regular transit users.   This should mean 100 new roundtrip boardings for the #8 and #11 on most weekdays.   This is enough to fill two out bound and two return buses per day.  

These 200 people will spend about something on the order of $750,000 on groceries in a year.   The closest store is the Fairway at one kilometer away on a bus route.  If Fairway gets all of the business, this would be an average close to $2000 more in sales per day.   They will not get all of it, but I suspect they will get the bulk of it.   The Shoppers Drug Mart near the Faiway should see an increase as well but not nearly as much.

I highlight some of these things to show the sort of impact the addition of 200 people into the neighbourhood will likely have.

On a final note, one benefit of the two developments I can not stress enough is the removal of two run down motels which had a clientele that made walking along Gorge Road in the evening scary.

Gorge Swim Fest

Curtis Point on Sunday

On Sunday there was the first Gorge Swim Fest organized by the four community associations bordering on the Gorge.   I have been trying to get more people to try swimming the Gorge for the last couple of years and I was therefore very happy the major goal of the Swim Fest was to get more people in the water.

Stephen the seal

We spent most of the day at Curtis Point, after five hours in the sun without a shirt and no sunscreen I actually got a sunburn.  I also swam enough to have very sore biceps today.  I promised Rob Wickson I would have a canoe on hand for emergencies and be available as one more person with First Aid training.

Part of the dock at Banfield Park

Stephen basically spent the whole day in the water and is getting close to being able to dive properly.  Stephen has been going swimming as often as he can this summer.   Getting kids into the water more often means their own swimming skills improve

People hanging out at Banfield Park

The water at Curtis Point started at 23.5 degrees just before none and then fell about a degree over the course of the day.   The water was cooling because of the incoming tide.

Most of the day there were 30 to 40 people in the water and another 50 to 80 people on land at Curtis Point.  I think it was a decent turn out for a low key community event.   I tried to talk to as many people as I could to ask them if they had been swimming in the Gorge before.   About 2/3s of the people had never done so before which means one of the goals of the Swim Fest was met, getting more local people in the water.

This is me in the water, not a whale

Banfield Park Dock

We checked out Banfield to see how crowded it was, we were only there a few minutes.  This incoming tide meant that it was significantly cooler to be swimming at Banfield Park than Curtis Point and we only jumped in a couple of times.

The Banfield Park location is sort of hidden away at the north west corner of the park and not very connected to the rest of the park though it does have a very nice dock to swim from.

We did not check out the swimming at Esquimalt Gorge Park so I have no report of what it was like.

I could see from the 100" dock from the GVHA that there were upwards of 10 people on the dock at Tillicum bridge where I normally swim