Looking Northwest

Yesterday's view from the summit of Mount Douglas was looking westward and south over the city. Today's view is looking westward towards the north, up the Saanich Peninsula with the San Juan Islands on the right.

Landscape 2 - "Views"

This is a classic landscape meme - the view. It always involves getting up on some eminence so as to be able to overlook the landscape. We instinctively like views - our eyes apparently relax when they are not required to focus on nearby objects. However, aesthetically it is hard to do much with a view. It seems the best approach is to make sure there is something in the foreground that gives the viewer a place to stand. The view above is from the summit of Pkols (aka Mount Douglas) looking northwest. That's the Saanich peninsula on the left and the San Juan Islands on the right.

The "Pacific" Coast

Reading about the devastation caused by Hurricane Sandy on the Atlantic Coast makes me appreciate how generally peaceful our ocean is on this coast. Here's a scene from a few days ago taken from the beach below Mount Douglas Park looking towards the San Juan Islands.

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.