VIP 2010

Ladysmith was, as usual a pretty good time. Paula and I headed up-Island on the E&N about 8:00am with two inflatable kayaks and a couple of backpacks, and got off the train just after 10:00am to find John, Louise, Marlene, and Tracy just getting the lay of the land.
The trip up was uneventful; the usual drinking tea and relaxing in big seats while the train rocked its way over the Malahat. As usual, the engineer stopped the train in the middle of each of the two trestles in order to let us all get a good look at the stunning views. The only excitement was provided by the three idiots walking across the second trestle as the train came upon them. But there are refuges provided and, thankfully, the three young men (I've a guy, and even I'm disappointed in these young men who seem to take the laws of self-preservation less seriously) were smart enough to actually get out of the way on the tracks.
The train pulled in to Ladysmith on time, and it took us only moments to hop off—even with the kayaks. We were a bit loaded down because Paula was leading a discussion on inflatable kayaks Saturday afternoon and so we were camping overnight in Transfer Beach Park, along with a couple of dozen other people. From the train stop to the beach was a fairly short walk (had we wished, it was a shorter walk across the highway to a motel we'd scouted out on a previous trip). The organizers allowed us some space to cache the kayaks until the discussion, and a little while later I had the tent set up. Before I could even tell Paula about it, she'd found it and changed into her paddling gear and was off to test out boats.

Transfer Beach

    I'm still interested in boats, but more from a design standpoint these days. I ended up interviewing John Rogers from 8 Dragon Custom Kayaks (who builds beautiful wooden boats), and then cruising the gear sales and checking out new boat designs. Among the more interesting ones was Delta's new Catfish design: a catamaran hull sit-on-top. It looks like a well-thought-out fishing boat, and was one of the few boats I would ave been interested in trying out. Not because I'm looking for  a catamaran hull sit-on-top, but just to see how well the design translates into function.

The Catfish

After renewing my acquaintance with Insomniac Coffee's coffee wagon,  Marlene and I settled in for a bit of a mid-day nosh, and were joined by a couple who had earlier recognized John and Louise from the blog. We ended up having a great conversation and were slowly joined by the rest of the group, more food, and a couple of bags of fresh-made mini-doughnuts.

Louise and Marlene talking to Mike Jackson

The afternoon passed in usual Paddlefest style, with meeting new people, discussing boats and paddling, and generally spending a sunny afternoon with a couple of hundred un-met friends. John, Louise, and Marlene decided to leave about 3:00pm, but not before Louise won a double kayak rental from Sealegs Kayaking—which apparently means at least one more trip to Ladysmith this year. Paula hosted her discussion on inflatable kayaks which made up for its small attendance with brisk and wide-ranging conversation.




    After the discussion, Paula and I packed up her boats and headed into Ladysmith to find dinner. We ended up at Robert's Street Pizza, where we were delighted with a very good pizza.
Roberts St. Pizza

We had several choices of restaurant, but found ourselves wanting something simple and light instead of some of the more elaborate meals on offer. Although the Greek restaurant, Transfer Beach Grill, received a good review the next morning from the couple with whom we had breakfast.
Eventually we wandered back to Transfer Beach and, after chatting with other campers, we went to bed early and slept late.


The next morning was bright, and the night had been warm (much warmer than I'm used to experiencing when sleeping in a tent), and Paula came back to the tent chatting with a woman. We ended up at In The Bean Time with the other couple and had both a great breakfast (In The Bean Time would definitely become my second home if I lived in Ladysmith) and great company.

In The Bean Time

 Almost regretfully, we four found our way back to the beach, where Paula inflated a kayak and took off for an extended paddle around the bay. I threw a few things into my new pack, and set off to break-in both boots and pack with a hike around Holland Creek.
The hiking trail extends from the marine trail that follows part of the bay, under the highway, and up through Ladysmith to one of the entrances to the Holland River trail.

The trail itself consists of three loops; the main loop, with one side being handicapped accessible and the other with some steep sections; the lower loop, which is fairly short and extends south from the Dogwood Road bridge (in itself a short and enjoyable hike); and the upper loop which is fairly difficult and takes you past Heart Lake (a lake advertised by the Ladysmith Chamber of Commerce on their website, as a “good place for skinny dipping”).  Taken together, the three loops are about 14 or 15 kilometres long. The Marine Trail would add a few more kilometres to that.
I ended up hiking both the lower and main loop, although I ran out of time to make the upper loop. It was a great hike, And as the river is a salmon-spawning stream, there are warnings about bears in the fall, and the area is kept pretty pristine, making it a great hike. And right on the edge of Ladysmith —you could spend the night in a motel or B&B, spend the day hiking, have a swim, and spend the night indoors again, and have had a great time.



All in all, I'm very impressed with Ladysmith; from the support for keeping the historic buildings in downtown, to the free trolley making its rounds, to the beautiful park at the beach, the town has done several things correctly, making it a great place to visit. And the kid's playhouse I spotted in town was unbelievable.

Yes, its a playhouse

Eventually, Paula and I met back up, packed up, and caught the E&N back to Victoria. We'd had a great weekend, and I'd had the chance to explore a bit more of the Island.

Car-Free--Up-Island and Beyond

So, Paula and I spent last weekend up-Island and over on the mainland. We took the train up to Nanaimo so that Paula could attend a conference on Children's Literature at the Van Island University (it used to be Malaspina College, but apparently this name sounds better for a university). I got a day and a half to explore the downtown/Old Quarter of the city: there's been a lot of money spent over the last decade to restore and reclaim the downtown and it was interesting to see the results.

The shoreline is pretty much parks and marinas and is doing quite well; there are lots of expensive boats and they are being serviced by both the old (the old Nanaimo shipyard is still there and still going) and the new (there's a new boatyard that boasts a 45 tonne hoist that picks your boat up and deposits it in a marked parking stall in the parking lot, where it is then worked on—strange to look at first, as it's all angle parking and way too open and clean to be a proper boatyard, but clearly a huge investment of $$$$$$ that someone expects to pay off). The city has been smart enough to put in a decent walkway down the length of the shore, making it not only accessible, but an enjoyable walk as well. Very smart. And they are (imagine a shocked look on my face...) maintaining the walkway as well! It was clean, well marked, and had a minimum of graffiti and garbage.

The original downtown area, now bypassed by the highway instead of being the target, was obviously suffering. There are a lot of old buildings in the area, but buildings they decided to restore rather than destroy. Hard to think of an equivalent in Edmonton with the exception of Strathcona. Anyway, lots of windy streets, old “vernacular” architecture (means old building styles brought to a new place and modified to suit—think Newfoundland), but no longer any reason for any of them to exist. Except, of course, that they feel better than new designs, they are more human sized, and people just like them better than the corporate glass boxes we're surrounded with these days. Little touches like cornices or brick-framed windows, three or four stories maximum height (because that's all that people are really willing or able to walk up), smaller footprints and quirky styles make these buildings people scaled and people friendly.

So a lot of money was again spent on fixing things up, cleaning up the streets, repairing potholes, upgrading the buildings (painting them....), and just generally doing a decent urban renewal project. Then they made it possible for great little stores to move in—no chains, all local—put up a lot of signage, encouraged restaurants and coffee shops, built a theatre, expanded the library and art gallery, and sat back to await the revitalization of the area.

And are still waiting. It's kinda worked—the shops look great, but there are a number of empty storefronts. Tourists have somewhere to go (witness me...), but an appreciable percentage of the population are still the unwaged and homeless. The mall on the edge of the Old Quarter has numerous empty shops and the “big” department store anchoring it is a Fields (to be fair, they do have a London Drugs as well) and they majority of the people in the food court seemed to be the dazed and confused, rather than the hip young urbanites that were supposed to be attracted to the area.

So what went right with the harbour and wrong with the downtown? Why the difference? Admittedly I was only there a day and a half and didn't really talk to anyone about it, but it seems fairly clear to me. The harbour has no choice—it has to be on the water. Whoever was in charge of the redevelopment recognized that, and didn't allow the waterfront to be completely given over to the blight of high-rise condos (although there is one that's going up—twenty stories or so—that's stealing light and views from a big chunk of its neighbours). By upgrading services like power and water etc. to the harbour and stabilizing its future (no condos), the marine industry was quite willing to do its own upgrades. Knowing that the harbour was going to remain a harbour left money confident enough to invest in the area for what it was—not as an investment into what they might be able to turn it into (condos again. Low to moderate risk, high rate of return—high social and public cost, but that can be fobbed off on anyone but the investors). So a stable environment, the lack of options for relocation (can't exactly move a harbour when the land prices rise too high), and upgraded services to support the industry meant that investors with a good business plan would see a fair return over the long term. As long as the zoning allows only marine-based services in, the market could be trusted to develop a vibrant waterfront.

Why doesn't it seem to have worked in the downtown/Old Quarter? There's a not-awful mix of residential and commercial zoning. The city worked on the service upgrade (upgrading and repairing the public side of things like sidewalks and roads, developing signage, advertising, and imposing some consistency on the area), and clearly modified the taxation and development rules to encourage the restoration and repair of the various buildings. So why the mediocre response?

I think it's because its not a harbour. The city has continued to expand—indeed, encouraged expansion—and allowed the kind of awful commercial development we've seen everywhere in North America over the last fifty years. Larger and larger chain stores, bigger and bigger parking lots, and continued movement into suburban development with its reliance on the car and all that that has implied. You can't restore life to the downtown core while sucking the life out of the city and spreading it out through suburban development. After all, it's called sub-urban for a reason. It is less urban and less than urban development. I'm not yelling about the public and private encouragement for individual home ownership (although that lead to the sub-prime mortgage crisis), I'm just saying that suburban sprawl leads to problems, and the reliance on the car as the primary for of transportation multiplies those problems a thousand-fold.

The trip up and back on the train was really quite nice. The roadbed has been unmaintained for decades, so the train's speed is restricted and it rocks and rolls a lot, so the trip takes about 2½ hours—a good hour longer than it needs to. On the other hand, it is still very small-town: if you're waiting to get picked up at one of the smaller stops, you wait until you see the train coming and then flag it down. Getting on and off is really relaxed—as is the schedule. Late is not a big deal; if you can't afford 15 minutes, don't ride the train. The cars are old, but clean. The lock on the bathroom door is a cotter pin shoved into a hole in the latch to block the handle's movement. There's no services (no coffee or snacks, for instance), but there's also no stress. Exactly my speed. Now if I could only take my bicycle with me, it would be perfect.

After Nanaimo, we took the ferry to Horseshoe Bay at the north end of Vancouver, and then another ferry to Langdale where we were met by friends and driven the 4 km to Gibson's Landing. Donna and Clint were celebrating their birthdays, and we attended day two of the party (okay, it was a brunch, but still part of it all).

Gibson's is where The Beachcombers was filmed for 16 years, and we had brunch at Molly's Reach, the restaurant at the middle of the show. Next to it was Bruno Gerussi's boat from the show, the Persephone, mounted and on display. It was Kind of strange to be looking at the actual Molly's Reach and the Persephone was a lot smaller than I had thought it would be. Was it cheesy? You bet, but it was good Canadian cheddar! Really interesting to visit a place that was pretty much a myth from my childhood. Maybe the Beachcombers is why I felt so at home when I got to the coast....

We did some hiking on one of the smaller islands (Keats Island) which meant taking a water taxi across the strait. Tony, the operator, was a lot of fun, pointing out local landmarks, discussing local history, and generally being a bit of a character.

Tony dropped us on Keats, which is mostly privately owned, with a couple of small areas marked off as provincial parks. We, Paula and I and another couple we've met before, Katie and Joseph, hiked a couple of miles around one end of the island, exploring a mini-beach and clambering over rocks to get to viewpoints. You know, all the basic things you do when exploring a new area.

The island has kept track of its own development, having its own water system in place and a summer bible camp providing a focus. The roads are mostly goat trails, with a few places set up for car traffic (??? it would take less than two hours to walk the perimeter of the island, so I don't get the need for cars. Even one of those four wheel ATVs would be understandable—although horribly noisy, polluting, and unattractive). There were dozens of sailboats—all parked in yards 15 to 25 metres above the ocean for the winter.

After we walked around the one end of the island, we came back to the dock and then walked across the island, following Tony's instructions. We found a really nice bay, all fissured and water-worn rock with no beach. The bay was filled with surf scoters, little black duck-like birds that we'd seen flying along just above the surface of the ocean while we climbed the end of the island. Here, they were clustered in a group on the water, stretching out in a long curved line from near-shore to beyond the headlands at the entrance to the bay. We had a half-hour or so to kill, so we sat in the sun and just watched the action on the water.

We couldn't really figure out what the birds were doing; they just swam about in smaller groups in this long line. The curve seemed to be following something, but it was nothing we could see or even guess at. We chatted away, relaxing, until someone noticed that the scoters were starting to dive. Not all of them, just some of them in the middle of the line. And they didn't all dive at once, but more like an Esther Williams / Busby Berkley musical, they dove in small lines, maybe 10 at a time, sequentially. Like the girls going off the edge of the pool at the beginning of a production number in a movie. One group, bloop. Next group, bloop. Next group, bloop. Until 40 or 50 birds had dove under water.

Now, normally its hard to see the little buggers come back up. They dive, they swim after stuff—or try to escape from the threat they perceive from you—and they come up far from where they started in unexpected directions. This time it was different. This time the first couple of birds came up not far from where they started. Then some more in the middle of them. And unless you watched very closely, you wouldn't see the birds resurfacing. Instead, the group seemed to magically expand over a short period. The scoters that surfaced later tended to come up in the middle of the ones that had already come up. So the early birds masked the return of the later ones, making it look like the density of the birds was magically increasing.

What were they doing? Still don't know for sure, but back at the dock in Gibson's, there were people fishing under the wharf for “shiners”, small fish that are suitable for bait for bigger fish. I think the scoters were feeding off a large school of something similar (probably herring, as there were people fishing them off bridges in Victoria the last couple of weeks). The big curve the birds were floating in seemed to be the edge of an eddy line, where two currents were meeting as the tide moved the water past the bay. It ended up being a fascinating half-hour bird watching.

The trip back was pretty much the same as the trip there, only in reverse. Clint accompanied us back to Horseshoe Bay and then it was another ferry ride , a quick connection to the train, and back to Victoria. We walked a couple of blocks and took a bus home.

The secret? Pack light--we took our Acer Aspires and a few clothes. And extra money. That way if we really needed anything, no worries. There were stores everywhere we went. And without stuff to worry about, we could concentrate on enjoying the trip and the people. And added only minimally to our carbon footprint.