[British Columbia, Canada]
[This essay was written in early 2020]
I got in line behind some other vehicles and pulled up to the ferry kiosk in Crofton on Vancouver Island.
“This is my first time going to Salt Spring Island”, I said with excitement.
The woman at the counter smiled. “You’ll love it!” She handed me a ticket. “That will be $42.05.”
What? $42.05? Just to get a ferry to that island right there? I could practically reach out and touch it, it was so close. I’m sure I could hit a baseball right over top of it, if I tried! Cougars and bears regularly swim back and forth between Vancouver Island and Salt Spring Island, for goodness sake. $42.05? Lordy.
I smiled and handed her my credit card.
“Have a wonderful trip”, she said.
I waited in line on the dock, grumbling about the bloody cost of just having a simple hiking adventure, when the morning sun peaked over Baynes Peak. I relaxed. It was going to be a glorious day.
Determined to get my money’s worth, when the ferry left the dock, I hustled up to the bow in the cold wind and basked in the sunlight. I looked around, hoping to see some orcas, or any kind of creature for that matter. Everything was new, a feast for my eyes and soul. Soon, I could see a swim of cormorants. Apparently, groups of cormorants can be called a ‘flight’, ‘rookery’, ‘gulp’, ‘sunning’, or ‘swim’, and this group was definitely a ‘swim’, since they seemed to want to stay in the water despite that a big boat was bearing down on them. As we got closer, I started to become anxious. For goodness sake, fellas, take flight! Finally, they did, and the little drama was over. After 25 minutes on the water, we landed at Vesuvius. Perhaps I couldn’t hit a baseball that far after all.
Although I initially went to Salt Spring Island to enjoy nature and to bag a few peaks, I decided that I would take in some of the other sights as well. Now that the credit card had been warmed up, I put my library book and PB&J sandwiches aside; there were used book stores, wineries, and restaurants to add to the agenda.
Salt Spring Island was, and still is, the territory of the Coast Salish, who have lived among the Gulf Islands for more than 5,000 years. This area was rich in food sources – herring, cod, halibut, salmon, oysters, mussels, clams, crabs, seals, sea lions, sea otters, and ducks. There were two ways to catch ducks back then. As described in the book, Saltwater People, the Tsartlip band would lay a net over the water, held up by floats. As the ducks would dive for herring spawn, they would get their heads stuck in the net. Saanich men, however, would guide their canoes into Fulford Harbour, encircling the ducks and slowly closing them into a tight group before unleashing their arrows en masse. There is still a small Coast Salish reserve on the island on the eastern side of Fulford Harbour, but no one lives there today.
By the middle of the 19th century, settlers began working the land, clearing trees and growing crops and raising cattle. According to Charles Kahn, author of Salt Spring: The Story of an Island, by 1860 there were about 70 landowners living on the island, many of them blacks from California and newcomers from Portugal. A decade later, the island saw a significant Hawaiian presence. Sailing ships delivering cattle to Canada would stop in Hawaii to pick up supplies and crew members. Some say that when the ships arrived in San Juan Islands, rather than paying their Hawaiian crew members, the captains simply threw them off the ship. Others say that the Hawaiian seamen were known to jump off the ship and swim to Salt Spring Island, and that it was such a problem that they were chained to the ship as they passed by. Who knows the true story for sure? But we do know that the Hawaiians became known for their raucous luaus.
Over time, Salt Spring Island was slowly and steadily developed; there was logging and mining, but primarily it was still a farming community, with fruits and vegetables being sold on Vancouver Island. Things began to get more interesting in the 1960s when tourists began to look at the low cost of housing with an eye for vacation properties. Others saw the island as a place to raise a family in a healthier community, some giving up lucrative jobs on the mainland to live simpler lives. Communal living, free love, long hair, and recreational drugs were all the rage in the sixties. And what better place was there to escape a conventional lifestyle? As the wealthy began buying up land, the increasing cost of real estate pushed most newcomers out of the market, leading to the development of alternative communities. As Charles Kahn explains, “People seeking an alternative lifestyle with little or no income could live on Salt Spring if they were willing to live communally, give up many conventional comforts, recycle their clothes and other goods, and grow their own food.” I can only imagine that if I had been a young adult in the sixties, I would have found myself on Salt Spring Island. It sounds so darned romantic.
Although many newcomers just passed through, some stayed and eventually saved up enough to buy their own parcels of land. That was more than fifty years ago, but there is a decidedly bohemian feel to the island even today. Driving from Southey Point, which is, no kidding, the northernmost point on the island, to Isabella Point in the south, a distance of about thirty kilometers, I passed dozens of artist and artisan shops. In the main community of Ganges, you’ll find plenty of people in unconventional dress and shops to support them. This island has more than double the rate of entrepreneurs found in the rest of British Columbia. As one gentleman told me in the market, the islanders are property rich and cash poor. But to me, they are real people living their dream lives. It would be easy to go back to the mainland and get a secure job (there are plenty of them now, after all), but they would be giving up the healthy community and simple life that attracted them here two generations ago, and it is not easily given up. Living on such a small island, where my nomadic freedom would depend on the schedule of a pricey ferry, would perhaps not be for me. But I can see why some people love this life.
I climbed six little mountains that day on Salt Spring Island, ranging in altitude from 240 meters (Reginald Hill) to 709 meters (Bruce Peak). After nearly two weeks of daily hiking, I felt that I was starting to get back my trail legs, but by the end of the day, I could feel my legs getting tired and wobbly. I was rejuvenated, however, on Mount Erskine. As I was enjoying the view from the summit alongside a local couple, a crow began to entertain us with his aerial acrobatics, soaring, then closing his wings and diving, rising back up again, closing his wings and diving. I watched him do this for a full five minutes thinking that there must be some purpose to his behaviour. Finding none, I can only assume he really was trying to entertain us for the sheer joy of it. I, for one, was delighted by the show.
Afterward, I wandered into the village of Ganges to eat. Hikers I had met on the trail strongly suggested two restaurants: Dagwood’s Diner, where apparently all the locals hang out, or the Tree House Café, that, despite its tiny-house feel, packs a huge load of flavour. Sadly, Dagwood’s was closed when I arrived and the Tree House Café had a queue all the way outside the door. So, I wandered the streets and found my way into a used bookstore, where I purchased an armload of books about local history, beachcombing, and nature. I even bought a book about the famous creature from the deep called the Cadborosaurus (think Loch Ness Monster and the Ogopogo from Okanagan Lake). I can’t wait to dig into that story.
Eventually, I found good food, atmosphere, and friendship in a restaurant called El Loco Taco, where I chatted at length with the proprietor about the history and culture of Salt Spring Island and where I was assured that it would be very worthwhile for me to return in April, if only to experience the famous Saturday Farmers’ Market. I told him I would, but given the cost of the ferry, I might have to win the lottery first. He laughed and said, “But the ferry back to Vancouver Island is free. You only have to pay once to get here.”
And he was correct. The ferry was free to return to Vancouver Island. I guess I’ll be back in April.
