Ross Bay Villa

The beautifully restored house above is the Ross Bay Villa. It is directly across the street from the Ross Bay Cemetery and is one of the few remaining buildings in this area dating from the 1860s. It is now owned by the Ross Bay Villa Society and is open to the public. It's a beautiful old cottage and well worth a visit if you are interested in Victoria's early history and heritage buildings.

Ross Bay Cemetery - Terry Reksten

While most of the graves in Ross Bay Cemetery are of historical figures from the 19th and early 20th centuries, here is the stone that marks the relatively recent grave of a writer very important to Victoria's heritage and history. This is the grave of Terry Reksten, who deserves a place alongside the historical figures that lie nearby because she actively worked to preserve what they created and wrote about it so feelingly. Her books of BC and Victoria history were and still are very popular. Much of the little I know of our local history comes from reading some of her numerous books.

Ross Bay Cemetery - John Dean

John Dean was a pioneer businessman active in many areas of life in 19th and early 20th century Victoria. He had a house in Esquimalt but in later years he bought a hundred acres in Saanich and built himself a cabin there on Mount Newton. Later he donated much of the land to the province (its first donated parkland) and it became the basis for John Dean Provincial Park. It is home to the last surviving old growth timber on the Saanich Peninsula. John Dean was a colorful character and had his tombstone made to order before his death. Here are the words he had inscribed there:

"It is a rotten world, artful politicians are it's bane. It's saving grace is the artlessness of the young and the wonders of the sky."

John Dean Provincial Park is a splendid wild park and we are very indebted to John Dean and other early Saanich settlers who also donated lands for this park. I did not get a chance to visit the park this year but here is post about it from a few years ago.

Ross Bay Cemetery - Emily Carr

I was touched to see the perfect mementos devotees have used to decorate the grave of one of Victoria's best known and best loved artists and authors, Emily Carr. The pens and paintbrushes are just one expression of how much she is remembered and revered even today 70 years after her death. At times her grave is adorned with children's drawings. Like many great artists her paintings and books are probably more popular now than when she produced them.

Ross Bay Cemetery

Regular visitors here will know that I often like to browse among the graves in our oldest colonial cemetery on Ross Bay because so many of the city's founding citizens are buried there. I spent a few hours there on Sunday and passed a part of the time with this splendid Blacktail Buck. Some people consider deer in the city to be a problem. I love to see them, especially when they are as calm as this one. He seemed quite unperturbed by passersby even when they approached quite closely.

Ross Bay Cemetery

On the eastern side of Clover Point is a large semicircular bay called Ross Bay. It's named after one of the early factors of the Hudson's Bay Company who had a farm on the shores of the bay. That farm became the Ross Bay Cemetery after the death of his widow and it contains the graves of many Victorians who were prominent in the early days of the city. Next week we'll look at what I saw when I recently spent an afternoon there.

Amanita muscaria

Here is a kind of mushroom that I look for every year because they are so colorful and have such a long and controversial history. Consequently I was very happy when I was alerted to this group growing in one of Victoria's residential neighborhoods. These beauties are both poisonous and psychoactive. They are called Amanita Muscaria or Fly Agaric and are probably the mushroom that most people think of when they think of wild mushrooms.

NOT the Coit Tower

Whilst riding around the Fairfield neighborhood the other day I decided to visit Moss Rock Park, a small rocky hilltop, also known as Fairfield Hill. Photographers are a bit like goats in wanting always to get to the highest point available. Anyway, while I was up there I noticed a very tall strange looking tower that I hadn't really noticed before. Aha, I thought, the Coit Tower! Then I remembered that the Coit Tower is in San Francisco. After leaving the Abkhazi Garden (also in Fairfield) a few days later, we decided to try to get close to this mystery tower. It's in the Rockland neighborhood, off Laurel Lane, but it's not possible to get to it since it is surrounded by private homes. It's a water tower, 128 feet tall, built in 1909. It's no longer in use though for 25 years it bore a 22 foot neon flame that celebrated the centenary of the City of Victoria. This information comes from the Rockland Neighborhood Association Heritage Walking Tour. It's an interesting structure. The photo to the left was taken from Moss Rock Park to show this tower. (Click to enlarge.) The large gray house to the left of the tower is Government House, the official residence of the Lieutenant Governor of British Columbia.

Gourmet Garden

I've posted about the Abkhazi Garden and its romantic past before but I revisited it the other day for a wonderful surprise. Not only is it a spectacular garden with hundreds of rare and beautiful plants, but it offers outstanding food. After wandering in the garden for an hour or so we decided to try the lunch menu. It's hard to find superlatives adequate to describe how good their food is. That's tomato soup on the right there, but what a soup! Garnished with spicy little (chive?) flowers, fresh goat cheese and a drizzle of basil oil...splendid is an understatement. The pasta was also superb.

Visit this place - for the flowers and other plants and for the magnificent garden in which they grow, but make sure you arrive in time for lunch. It's beyond delicious. You can read a little about the Abkhazi Garden on The Land Conservancy website, by clicking here. Other information is available here.

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The sharp-eyed amongst you will have noticed the bottled sparkling water above with the cute name "O de Vie." I had originally ordered Perrier but decided to try this since it was local. It's drawn from an aquifer in Vic West. Great water! Yay Vic West!

Gonzales Bay

Sixty-six meters below the observatory on Gonzales Hill (yesterday's post) is the small beach of Gonzales Bay. It's also known as Foul Bay. Even the color version of this photo looks monochrome since I was shooting directly into the Sunday's brilliant sun so I decided to go with black and white. But I promise, with all the spring flowers I've got some pretty colors for us tomorrow.

St. Ann's Academy

St. Ann's Academy was the first school in Victoria. It opened its doors When the BC gold rush was just beginning in 1858. The red roofed neo-classical section was added in 1886 to the older mansard-roofed section on the right. A few trees remain from the orchard intended to provide boarders at the school with fruit. The buildings are no longer used as a school. Much of it is now occupied by government offices and areas of historical significance are open to the public.

St. Ann's Academy is located in downtown Victoria on Humboldt Street. This street is one of the oldest in Victoria and was first called Kanaka Street because many of the residents were from the Sandwich Islands (Hawaii). I suspect the name was changed to honour the explorer and scientist, Alexander von Humboldt, who was very highly regarded in the nineteenth century.

Yellow Peppers

OK, here's a confession. I don't like cloudy, cold damp weather. I know that good photographers say that bad weather is a blessing because it provides all sorts of interesting lighting and dramatic skies and discourages dilettantes, but I like sunny skies and bright colors anyway. I have to search really deeply inside me to find anything inspiring about a landscape that looks like it has had all the life and color drained out of it by forty days of drizzle. In the midst of yesterday's downpours I happened upon this bit of sidewalk sunshine, some glowing yellow peppers provided by the Ambrosio Market in Cook Street Village here in Victoria.

The photo below is what the weather was really like yesterday at the foot of Government Street, where it meets the Inner Harbour. This vicious driving rain turned sleety while being photographed.... This is March.
Those of you who are watching this blog with eagle-eyed interest may have noted that yesterday's photo ("Big sky...." below) was uploaded not by myself (Benjamin Madison) but by the "Front St Gang." The latter is my daughter, Fern Long, who has kindly agreed to contribute some of her fine photos to this blog.