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.

Butterfly Days

After a notably wet and chilly June, Victoria's been having a wonderful summer full of sunny days when it seems like you spend a few minutes pottering about in the garden amongst the buzzing bees and fluttering butterflies and suddenly it's sunset. I hope your summer's as full of these lazy days as ours is.

The View from Pickles' Bluff

I mentioned in yesterday's post that Fern and I visited John Dean Provincial Park in Saanich. The park consists of the summit of Mount Newton and is about a half hour's drive from Victoria. The parking lot is fairly close to the summit and we chose a trail that led to Pickles' Bluff. It overlooks the eastern side of the Saanich Peninsula. The two nearest islands are James Island and Sidney Island, both in the Canadian Gulf Islands. Further out we are looking across the Canada-USA International Border. The sandy looking island is in the USA. It is Spieden Island, one of the San Juan Islands. It is currently home to a number of exotic species of sheep and deer whose ancestors were imported during the 1970s as prey when the island was a private game preserve. Hunting is no longer allowed on the island. That is Mount Baker that can be seen in the distance. I have not been able to discover how our viewpoint, Pickles' Bluff, got its name but the apostrophe leads me to think that "Pickles" was the name of an early settler who homesteaded nearby. There are several other homestead sites on the mountain, one of which was owned by John Dean, after whom the park is named.