Point Hope Shipyard

           Happy Fathers Day!!!

Last Sunday I got to do something that I've always wanted to do. It was the 2nd annual Vic West Street Fest (different from Vic West Fest in May, yes we have TWO neighbourhood events now!) and it's held on Harbour Road in conjunction with Dockside Green and Point Hope Shipyard. There's the usual food trucks, music etc. but for me the highlight was to get to explore the shipyard and the docks as the rest of the year it's off limits to the public. The above picture was taken on board a tugboat that we took a tour of. I've always admired these little boats when you see them powering along with some enormous barge or boat behind them; something so poetic about their small size and incredible power. - Fern

                       

                       

Off Season 2

The cute little harbour ferries that are so busy in the summer hibernate during the winter here in the Upper Harbour, just below the Canoe Brewpub pictured yesterday. Without their busy to-and-fro-ing the waters of the harbour and the Gorge seem much less cheerful and busy and I'll be happy to see them come back in the spring.

Off Season

From May til September these tables at the Canoe Brew Pub are likely to be crowded with people eating, drinking, laughing and generally enjoying themselves. But now we are in the off season - the kids are back in school and the cruise ships have headed down south. It's a quieter time of year but it has its pleasures as well.

Upper Harbour

This is a view of the upper harbour that lies between the Johnson Street Bridge and the Bay Street (Point Ellice) Bridge. On the right we can see the two tall ships of S.A.L.T.S. (The Sail and Life Training Society), a charitable organization that works with young people. In the distance is Rock Bay and Victoria's small industrial area. Out of sight on the left bank is a dry dock where all sorts of ship repairs are undertaken. When Victoria is spoken of as being a "working harbour" this upper harbour area is what is being referred to.

Last Call

Victorians are busy these last few weeks enjoying every last drop of summer. This is the patio of Canoe Brewpub and the view from there. Sometimes living in this city is like having won the lottery. - Fern

Canoe Brewpub Marina

Photographs for the last two days were taken from the Canoe Brewpub Marina, just north of the Johnson Street Bridge. Today's photo is of some of the boats that are moored at the marina, including some of the little harbour ferries that are mothballed during the winter season.

Upper Harbour

The Bay Street Bridge (center of the photo in the distance) marks the northern end of the Upper Harbour. It crosses the Gorge at Point Ellice where the Point Ellice Bridge used to cross. (Scroll down to see yesterday's post). The southern boundary of the Upper Harbour is the Johnson Street Bridge, visible below. The Johnson Street Bridge is slated for replacement over the next couple of years. The railway span is now permanently in the up position since it is no longer functional. The tables and umbrellas visible in the photo below belong the the Canoe Brewpub.As you can see in both these photos, while autumn is definitely here we are having some beautiful bright sunny days lately.

A New Day

I've been feeling a little short of inspiration lately. I think it's inevitable after posting one or more photos of the same city every day for more than two years. It's not that the city has no more to offer but that I've got to see it anew or get out of my comfortable ruts. I have no idea how this is going to take place but as a gesture in the direction of new beginnings I offer this shot of my favourite Victoria skyline taken at dawn.

Upper Harbour

The Johnson Street Bridge divides the scenic and tourist oriented lower Inner Harbour pictured so often here from the "working" harbour further up the Gorge, a little of which is pictured here. I may have overdone the HDR processing on this one but I like the way the gritty grungey-ness of the effect adds to the industrial feel. The red brick building across the water is Mermaid Wharf apartments.

Microdrifts

Clear and sunny today but still a wicked wind and below-freezing temperatures. Our snow is only a few inches deep but I wanted in this picture to show how the wind has been forming it into drifts like desert dunes. Below is a photo of the upper harbor taken from the Victoria West side of the Gorge. The large blue building on the left is the Value Village thrift store, from the back window of which I took this photo during the relatively balmy days of October.

...on little cat feet.

In her comment on yesterday's post, Knoxville Girl dissed Robert Frost so today, in a demonstration of Astral-American poets' solidarity, Carl Sandberg punished me with this bit of weather. Thanks KG. May a thousand grackles nest in your eaves.Readers who were not raised on a diet of American poetry are probably wondering what I'm on about here. An American poet, Robert Frost, wrote a poem about walls, the subject of yesterday's post.

MENDING WALL
Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it,
And spills the upper boulders in the sun,
And makes gaps even two can pass abreast.
The work of hunters is another thing:
I have come after them and made repair
Where they have left not one stone on a stone,
But they would have the rabbit out of hiding,
To please the yelping dogs. The gaps I mean,
No one has seen them made or heard them made,
But at spring mending-time we find them there.
I let my neighbor know beyond the hill;
And on a day we meet to walk the line
And set the wall between us once again.
We keep the wall between us as we go.
To each the boulders that have fallen to each.
And some are loaves and some so nearly balls
We have to use a spell to make them balance:
'Stay where you are until our backs are turned!'
We wear our fingers rough with handling them.
Oh, just another kind of out-door game,
One on a side. It comes to little more:
There where it is we do not need the wall:
He is all pine and I am apple orchard.
My apple trees will never get across
And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.
He only says, 'Good fences make good neighbors'.
Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder
If I could put a notion in his head:
'Why do they make good neighbors? Isn't it
Where there are cows?
But here there are no cows.
Before I built a wall I'd ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offence.
Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That wants it down.' I could say 'Elves' to him,
But it's not elves exactly, and I'd rather
He said it for himself. I see him there
Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top
In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed.
He moves in darkness as it seems to me~
Not of woods only and the shade of trees.
He will not go behind his father's saying,
And he likes having thought of it so well
He says again, "Good fences make good neighbors."

**************
Carl Sandberg, another American poet, wrote a poem about fog.

FOG
The fog comes
on little cat feet.

It sits looking
over harbor and city
on silent haunches
and then moves on.

Mermaid Wharf

This sculpture is located on the seaward side of the Mermaid Wharf apartment building, overlooking the Upper Harbor. I suspect because of its location it is meant to suggest wind and waves and... well, gosh, what can I say? It's an interesting piece of work.

////:::\\\\

A couple of people have given me an award and have my thanks for this honor. I haven't quite figured out how I will respond so, in day or two....

Rainy Days II

This photo of the part of the Gorge known as the Upper Harbor was taken the same day as a photo I posted on the 14th of October, from the same vantage point but with the telephoto zoom extended to its full 70 mm. I've grown to like this photo much better than the wide angle one I posted earlier. It has a much rainier and wetter feel to it.