by Anny Scoones
The buskers range from magicians to musicians to mimes to acrobats on stilts. Most of the vendors are First Nations craftspeople who make traditional wares such as the famous knitted Cowichan slippers, mittens, and socks. They usually sit patiently along the grassy knoll in front of the pink daisies that spell out “Welcome To Victoria” and work on their crafts, oblivious to the old grey-and-red Coho docking or bellowing its hollow horn as it slowly makes its way out of the harbour, or the hooting of the bright, slick, red-and-blue Clipper, a fast catamaran that glides down scenic Puget Sound to Seattle every day.
The First Nations craftspeople are very friendly and love telling you their traditional cultural histories. I spoke to a modest quiet woman who made dream catchers and beaded jewellery. She told me she was a Mi’kmaq from Prince Edward Island. Her dream catchers were simple and pretty: a circle of hemp twine woven like a spider’s web with some local semi-precious stones such as the amber tiger’s eye, the opaque green jade, or the pale pinkish-grey rhodonite. Each stone symbolized something special, such as courage or luck. Below the web were elegant feathers; the legend is that when you dream at night, your bad and evil thoughts will get trapped in the web, but your good and positive dreams will filter through the web and down through the feathers and come true for you when you wake up. She also made little dream catchers that you can hang in your car—wouldn’t it be wonderful if it were all true!
I also spoke to Eric, a local First Nations man who sits on the lower causeway every day of the year, rain or shine (if it is raining he sits under his large red umbrella) and carves symbolic animals. His uncle taught him how to carve, with the little sharp tools with wooden handles, and Eric is passing the skill on to his younger cousin. Eric likes to use red cedar but his uncle uses pine. “People like to hear a story,” he told me. “So I tell them that the hummingbird is the symbol of joy and friendship.” He leaned over with great concentration, and finely and patiently eased his chisel along the outstretched fluttering wing of the little bird lying on his lap.
What the Carver Knows
Janet Rogers
he sits on sidewalks
sizing up passers-by
clutching his curved knife
drawing deep confident gouges
transforming yellow cedar
“Bear?” he’s asked
“Beaver,” he explains
and waits for change
we all wait for change
says, he’s been to church, yesterday
they pray for him there
“Worth more than money.
Thank God, it stopped raining.”
two bucks, he thinks is a lot
drinks decaf between wood shavings
red pride has not abandoned him
resides inside, quiet like heart-felt memories
a childhood, good and cared for
a family strong and revered
he is here
he claims the cement as home
on a damp street corner
in a city which sees so many like him
it rolls its eyes as numbers grow
he moans and bleeds
lets droplets fall
onto a thirsty earth
seeping down to meet
the bones of those who’ve gone before
we live envious
of his skills and ability to survive
while we complain daily
of superficial hardships
and spoiled-rotten heart-aches
the beaver bites back
the carver smiles sideways
the rain begins again
while we run for cover
There are all sorts of little extra things to see and to read about on the causeway—the original old street gas lamp, a gift from Britain; the Loyalist Rose bushes, named after the United Empire Loyalists; and one of the seven giant, beautifully crafted spindle whorls that sit at various locations in Victoria, symbolizing the original First Nations villages and hunting grounds. These whorls were used in First Nations weaving. The whorls are lovely, elegant works of public art with a strong and moving meaning behind them; they signify special places in the land of the Lekwungen (known today as the Esquimalt and Songhees Nations). The Native name for each location translates as a description, such as “Place Of Mud,” the lower causeway, which was originally muddy, albeit rich in shellfish; “Warmed By The Sun,” the sunny slope in Beacon Hill Park facing the sea; and “Bitter Cherry,” the area downtown next to City Hall.
You can read all about the various First Nations locations in a beautifully illustrated pamphlet called Signs of Lekwungen, available at various shops and public facilities around town such as City Hall or the Royal BC Museum gift shop.
Of course I have to mention again my hero Captain Cook, who stands handsomely on the upper causeway across from the Empress. George Vancouver got the glitter and the elevation overlooking us all, but Cook stands on the harbour with us. Actually, Vancouver was a midshipman on Cook’s voyage to Nootka, the area where Cook anchored when he visited the west coast of Vancouver Island. Vancouver returned later on a much more detailed charting of our local waters.
Behind the lovely statue of Captain Cook is a series of small brass plaques, each dedicated to a historic ship that graced our harbour during Victoria’s development. And farther along, on the corner, is a pretty peace garden. It’s amazing what you see when you stop and really observe the surroundings—a plaque which describes a shipwreck, a waffle maker, the skyline or the enlarged historic photos of the harbour bathers that cover the Hydro boxes.
Captain Cook
The social history of Cook’s life, both on and off the oceans, makes for very interesting reading, especially excerpts from his and Vancouver’s personal journals as well as notes from their crews. Cook is regarded as the first British man to touch our island’s soil.
Cook wrote kindly about the Native people and noted that the Spanish must have been here first because of the type of silver spoons the Natives had, which they used as necklaces!
Many people do not realize that the multi-talented Cook had charted Canada’s east coast on a previous voyage, including the Gulf of St. Lawrence and Newfoundland, and he did it all patiently with a lead line, measuring the depths, the topography of the sea floor, and the currents. His early training proved valuable—he had worked for years on the coal ships that travelled from Britain across the frigid and wild North Sea and through the fjords of Scandinavia.
Our hero Captain Cook is also known for the care he took of his crew. Cook realized that scurvy was not a disease, but an affliction caused by the lack of vitamins found in vegetables and fruit, so he devised a menu of sauerkraut, brewers’ malt, and “marmalade of carrots” and even brewed a spruce beer at Nootka! Also, every man was given a ration of twenty pounds of onions, picked up en route. At Nootka, Cook and his men found wild garlic, nettles, and wild raspberries. Men were flogged if they did not eat what Cook provided.
Some of the men who accompanied Cook on his voyages had enviable jobs. To record pictorial details, there was the expedition artist, a bit like the war artists who went to war to paint the scenes of history on the battlefield. To study and translate new languages, there was a naturalist/doctor; Cook used the word wakashan, which means “friendship,” often in his personal journals.
There was also the ship’s surgeon, and the ship’s botanist. George Vancouver’s botanist was Archibald Menzies. Menzies collected cuttings, plants, and seeds from all over the world, studied them, and illustrated his journals with beautiful sketches and descriptions.
Punishment on the voyages was harsh, and took the form of lashing. A man would receive twenty-four lashes for insolence on Vancouver’s ship.
Cook’s surgeon, Dr. Samwell, wrote the following about Cook: “Unrivalled and alone, on him all eyes turned; he was our leading star . . . He always kept a good table . . . Was rather bashful . . . His person was above six feet high . . . his head was small . . . his no
se exceedingly well shaped.”
Beyond lower Government Street, people can amble through the quaint, historic downtown area, which is full of busy little shops selling everything from British Columbia jade to English tea to Irish linens to Cuban cigars. British Columbia produces half of the world’s supply of jade, mined in the interior and up north. You can watch an informative video at the jade shop that shows the jade in the glacial veins of the mountains, and the six-foot saw used to slice this lovely green stone. Jade is very hard, so diamond-tip drills have to be used to remove it from the rock. In the 1500s, the Spanish believed that jade would cure ailments in the kidneys so they called the mineral the “loinstone.”
There are ice cream stands and bookshops and pubs. You can buy chocolates, maple candy, hemp clothing, homemade soaps, and glass art (there were some fabulous, delicious-looking, pink, hand-blown-glass cupcakes in one gallery window). Souvenir shops sell beautiful First Nations postcards, smoked salmon, and Cowichan sweaters. I also need to mention Munro’s Books, one of the grandest Canadian bookshops, located in an equally grand heritage building.
Government Street
The sidewalks are lined with carefully pruned trees with ornate iron plates around their bases. At night, the trees are lit with little white lights, and the Parliament Buildings are also trimmed with bulbs that are reflected in the harbour—the place looks like a glittering and magical fairyland. It’s absolutely beautiful—nothing is overdone and there is no obvious neon—there’s something to be said for taste.
Some of the sidewalk surfaces are made up of little squares of purple glass. These purple-glassed sidewalks are of great heritage value, for underneath them is a maze of tunnels strengthened by posts and beams. The passageways were used for coal and supply storage by the local merchants in the early 1900s. The tunnels were lit by the prisms on the underside of the glass blocks, and over time the prisms of glass turned wonderful shades of pink and purple due to the manganese content in the glass when it oxidized with the sunlight. On a sunny day, there must have been moments of beauty in the dim underworld beneath the city.
There are not many purple-glass sidewalks left. One is on the corner of Broughton and Broad Streets. These sidewalks may be preserved by the City of Victoria—there is talk about restoring them and adding illumination from below—wouldn’t that be a magnificent nocturnal sight above?!
Just a couple of blocks up from the water are more shops, and larger and newer office and government buildings. Up the hill is the Victoria courthouse, as well as the grand grey-stone Christ Church Cathedral, and beside it historic Pioneer Square, the oldest cemetery in Victoria, operating between 1855 and 1873. Pioneer Square is a cool, shady, and gentle place to sit and have a little think and is well worth a visit and walkabout.
The cemetery is undergoing a restoration—old tombstones and the graves of important historic characters, politicians, and families are being mapped and preserved, and interpretive signage is being added throughout the little park. There are one thousand three hundred people interred at the cemetery, according to a recent newspaper article.
Originally, Fort Victoria had a little graveyard in the location of what is now the corner of Douglas and Johnson Streets, but nearby pigs began to root up the corpses. (That’s what pigs do, but they can only root so deep, so I imagine that these were shallow graves.) So Governor James Douglas moved the graveyard to higher ground and farther away from the pigs to what is now Pioneer Square. Prisoners who were held at the jail in the town’s Bastion Square had the gruesome task of digging up the human remains and reburying them at the new site.
At the new cemetery, bodies were segregated as to religion and ethnicity; there was a Catholic plot, an Anglican plot (they got a corner for the navy!), a Chinese section, and even a Hawaiian area. Separate sites for religions and ethnic backgrounds—how strange it is that even in death, we cannot rest in peace together, even the navy. When the gold rush hit Victoria, the population increased massively and the graveyard had to be moved to Ross Bay.
There’s a mind-boggling technological method of mapping burial sites called “ground-penetrating radar.” On a grid, the area is scanned with echoes that reflect back as electromagnetic pulses; the archaeologist patiently walks across the area with a high-tech gizmo that measures changes in soil density, i.e., graves.
Informative maps and illustrations can be seen in a lovely little book I came across called Victoria Underfoot—Excavating a City’s Secrets. The local Old Cemeteries Society has also published a fascinating brochure listing famous characters who are buried at Pioneer Square; it describes who they were and how they died. For example, here’s an excerpt: “Wallace Obelisk. Here lie Kate Wallace and three of her children. She was the daughter of Hudson’s Bay Company chief factor, John Work. Her marriage to Charles Wentworth Wallace was unhappy partly because he squandered their money. After they had to sell their home in 1869 Kate died of consumption.”
Oh those cruel old diseases! Gran used to talk about her friend dying of quinsy. Things are so much better now, physically at least.
Christ Church Cathedral
Christ Church Cathedral used to be where the courthouse is now. I have never been to court (except when I witnessed a horse theft on a remote island a long time ago) and the judicial system has always held fascination for me, a combination of drama and justice and emotional suspense. I asked my friend Jane Henderson, QC, to fill me in on justice in Victoria. She works with divorce and separation issues, so what better person to ask about suspense and fairness? And she even offered to give me a tour of the courthouse.
Jane became a lawyer years ago. I remember Mum talking on the phone to Jane’s mother, Barbara (my godmother); Mum was really excited because Jane had just won her first case. She was defending an old farmer who had bought a milking cow thinking it was “with calf” (pregnant) but it wasn’t, and the settlement was that the farmer was given his money back plus he kept the cow!
Jane and I had lunch first at a little Tibetan restaurant near the courthouse—I had to make reservations because it is so popular. We had a delicious mixture of deep-fried vegetables and curry, and rice and breads, and a mild cheese with spinach.
We chatted about current legal trends; marriage disputes are often mediated rather than going to court, and the growing trend now is arbitration. It’s a destructive and sad thing (but I understand it—the emotional upheavals) when revenge and hurt and anger get in the way of common sense and logic at the end of a marriage. A sensitive and patient mediator would be a godsend—what a skill to have, and how good it is for society to resolve a dispute without animosity.
After lunch we strolled up to the courthouse, a tall, square, beige and yellow building with cement steps and rows of plain, rectangular windows. The building really looks as if it could do with a new coat of paint; it looks tired and a bit sooty, as if it belongs in a Minsk suburb.
When Jane and I were walking up the steps, an energetic little man in a red jacket and pin-striped pants bounded up beside us—he looked familiar. Jane smiled at him and said, “Good afternoon, Your Honour.” Then she whispered to me his name and said that he was a very important judge, and that the judges in the courthouse even have their own elevator! But it was great that they also come and go through the main entrance like everyone else.
Inside there was a great, dimly lit hallway, crowded with people paying fines at glassed-in counters, or sitting around waiting for something. Jane gave me a grand tour, starting upstairs in the library, a small area crammed with worn, leather-bound books of law; she found one on a back shelf that she had scrawled in forty years ago when she was a law student.
Then we went into a courtroom. There were two big, burly, tattooed men (Jane whispered, “The accused”) with shaved heads and pudgy necks sitting behind a Plexiglas shield (“in case someone wanted to shoot them,” she whispered again) surrounded by tired-looking sheriffs with ear pieces (and I think one had a gun). These were real criminals! It was exciting b
ut tense. Jane said that the judges and clerks have secret alarm buzzers to press if things get violent. Well, after five minutes of listening to a little lawyer in his great black robe making a case full of legal jargon about a lack of evidence, we crept out.
Downstairs was the small-claims court, where a poor electrician was being sued by a couple who refused to pay him because of some misunderstanding over the extra cost of some kitchen counters in their new basement suite. Nothing had been put in writing and it was revealed that no building permits had been obtained but the judge told the couple that they had to pay the man. He also told them off for not having building permits, and right in the middle of his reaming out the electrician for not having a contract, the courtroom went dark and the computers all groaned to a halt—the power had gone out! It turned out that the power was out all over town because of a lightning strike.
That was my tour of the courthouse, a place of mystery and intrigue, of secrets and bad behaviour, drama, suspense, and crime, all combined with high legal intelligence and enormous respect for truth, fairness, and justice. It’s a mixture of the worst of the worst and the most dignified system of the land. I don’t know which I find more intriguing, the criminals or the judges.
The City has published some very interesting and informative walking-tour brochures, complete with historic photographs; you can find these brochures in the racks on the bottom floor of the mall (the Bay Centre), just beside the escalators. The pamphlets describe various heritage strolls through the downtown streets amongst the many restored historic buildings. The Chinatown stroll is especially intriguing; the map guides you through Fan Tan Alley, named after the gambling game Fan Tan and dubbed “Canada’s narrowest street.” The Chinese temple is exceptional—up fifty-two steps above a Chinese grocery store is a little room smelling of incense and crowded with gold-and-red prayer altars, statues, offerings of fruit, lanterns, and decorations.