Island Living

Although Victoria is located on an island (Vancouver Island) I never really have the sense of "island living" except when I need to go somewhere. The first part of the trip is almost always a ride on a ferry to get to the mainland. That sense of island living is mostly absent because of the size of Vancouver Island. It's a big island - just over 12,000 square miles or 31,000 square kilometers - larger in area than some 50 of the world's smaller countries. It's just a little larger than Belgium, for example. It's about 285 miles (460 kilometers long) and averages about 50 miles (80 kilometers) wide. Much of it is wilderness - about half of the population of 800,000 live in Victoria, the rest in a half-dozen small towns scattered around the southern coastline. All of which may serve as a preamble to noting that I traveled to the mainland this last weekend and will be sharing some of what I saw over the next few days.