O Canada

Over the border, they sing O Canada, not Oh, Canada. Well, you know – them Canucks -- don’tcha know, eh? And they say we talk funny!

Last week. Ann and I crossed that border, with fresh test results in hand, left US craziness behind, and nested in Victoria, on Vancouver Island. It was nice.

Looking for whales
in Active Pass 

First was a BC Ferry out of Tsawwassen through Active Pass – no whales to be seen – and into Schwartz Bay ninety minutes later. BC Ferries is twice the size of our Washington State Ferry system, but after all, BC’s coastline and islands are way more than twice the size of Washington State’s. We were parked right on the bow. Those BC ferries are nice. 

   

 It’s a cliché but like so many clichés it’s a cliché because it’s true – Canadians really are nice. They are.

And Victoria is very nice, especially right now with tourism off. But even in normal season, Victoria manages to be nice to, and in spite of, the tourist crowds. Now, a cynical BLM radical like my daughter would say, sure they act nice to you, Pop, because it’s a white enclave you’ve fled to. The charge is fair, though it’s getting less white and more diverse year-by-year. Greater Victoria’s third of a million are still dominantly Euro-Canadian; 13% are East Asian-Canadian, a bit over 1% Afro-Canadian, plus another few percentage of Pacific Islanders, Indigenous First Nationers, and South Asians. But believe me, they’re nice to everybody. It should also be noted that BC is 10% pts ahead of Washington in getting their population vaccinated. The homeless have not reached the tent city proportions of Vancouver or Seattle.

We spent the week in a small, corner condo on the top floor of Mermaid Wharf, harbor-side. Beautifully appointed by its film-maker and interior designer owners, we lived in style and quiet comfort: floor to ceiling windows, fireplace, a small deck, access to private roof-top patio, views of the waterfront with Washington’s Olympic mountains in the background across the Straits of Juan de Fuca. (Yes, it was nice.)  

Johnson St. Bridge,
right next door

Harbor taxis, right down below

      Delusions of Grandeur        

                          (click on a picture to see them in larger format)

Victorians are out-of-doors folk. I know of no other city in the Americas so bike-oriented. The garage ceiling was hung with bikes and racks of kayaks, canoes and shells. The town and nearby Vancouver Island towns and harbors are peppered with marinas. Parks and hiking trails abound. We walked Galloping Goose trail along the outer harbor from downtown to Esquimalt (pronounce the “t”; you’re in BC.) And within easy reach is the Salish Seashore and the Straits; we hiked along the shingle of Ella Beach, in Sooke, and lunched in French Provincial Park, further to the west on the Strait. 

French Provincial Park

Honey mead!

A further reach north on Vancouver Island (nearly ten times the size of Long Island) and you’re into truly wild country with some of the best fishing, fresh and salt, to be found south of Alaska and the Bering Sea. But we didn’t venture far, just to Sidney Harbor for lunch and out to Butchart Gardens. 

These century-old gardens are the tops: fifty-five acres of verdant, stunning colors, beautifully cared for and rotated to fit the seasons. Things really grow here. We saw huge though quite young sequoias planted, like I, in 1934. I’m growing smaller; they, larger. 

We dined well, both in and out. Great Saltspring Island mussels, fat and luscious. A wonderful evening on the patio of Il Terrazzo with a good bottle of Brunello and perfect service from attentive, friendly Adrian. On the way home, we stopped at Taylors Shellfish, state-side on Chuckanut Drive, to buy oysters and fresh-out-of-the-sea black cod. 

But the highlight of the trip was a gracious lunch at the home of Seattle friends Pam and Ron T, Canadians who have just returned to Canada after living 40-plus years in the States. Pam and Ron returned to be near family, not necessarily to leave disfunction behind.  They can watch our mud-wrestling with more dispassion now, though, like most Canadians, they care very much about what happens to us: like a younger brother who is more level-headed and reasonable than we. Their most recent election was just last week. Glamour-boy Justin Trudeau called the early election hoping to gain a clear majority in Parliament, but Canadians are too wary to give anyone that power in these troublesome days, preferring to force on their leaders the collaboration and compromise necessary to a coalition government. His Liberals lost the popular vote but still held a plurality in Parliament. Election campaigning is no less than 36 days and no more than fifty. And electioneering is civil. (Nice.)

O Canada, indeed.  A  granddaughter was graduated by Quest University, in Squamish, BC. Her brother is a sophomore at the University of Toronto. This next summer, I look forward to once again fishing for trout on BC’s Taweel lake in care of Karin and Guido. And Ann and I have beautiful British Columbia just an hour or so north into which to escape and leave US troubles behind for a bit. So nice. 

Government House