Editorially speaking...
I’m sure that not many Chronicles readers grew up in post Second World War Victoria as I did so they won’t remember downtown businesses as I knew them in my childhood and teenage years.
I’m reminded of those rose-hued “good old days” by a recent news item. The Hudson’s Bay Co., itself a Victoria icon in my early memories, which owns the Zeller’s brand, is opening new branches of this seemingly dormant discount department store across the country “amid a wave of nostalgia”.
When I was a lad, downtown Victoria was the home of a Woolworth’s (later Woolco and later again, in Saanich, Walmart), a Kresge’s, an Eaton’s and the aforementioned Hudson’s Bay Co. department stores.
I most remember Eaton’s basements. Note that I use the plural; there were two because Eaton’s straddled both sides of Broad Street with a neat tunnel connecting the two buildings.
Downstairs in the eastern store were the grocery and meat departments with—best of all, by far, for a kid—a doughnut machine that dunked and drip-dried doughnuts before your very eyes. I doubt there was a more eye-catching, mouth-watering display in all of Victoria. I can see it in my mind’s eye now.
Ah, the good old days. Too bad they’re not making them any more.
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Another news story and another memory, this one about an archaeological dig underway at Cordova Bay. My tenuous connection was with a 1960’s “dig” at Cadboro Bay.
Archaeological artifacts in the possession of the Royal B.C. Museum.
—BCArchaeology/Royal B.C. Musem
My friend’s sister and brother-in-law owned a beachfront home and had allowed (as I remember) the provincial museum and university anthropological students to conduct a search of their gardens for evidences of long-ago Indigenous habitation.
No property owner is likely to do this voluntarily today as it’s now done, with or without their consent, at their cost. Probably the surest way to discourage the hands-on investigation of other potentially promising archaeological sites that you can think of.
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Proof if ever you needed it that I fall behind in my keeping up with the flood of current news items that have historical roots are these two clippings from last summer.
Coincidentally, these stories appeared in the Times Colonist just a day apart. The first noted that civil rights pioneer Viola Desmond, who’s commemorated on our $10 bill, has been further honoured. This time it’s a plaque installed by Parks Canada in the former Nova Scotia theatre where she was arrested for sitting in a whites-only section in 1946.
Oscar Peterson at the keys., 1950. —Wikipedia
The second item reported that the legendary jazz pianist Oscar Peterson has become the first Black Canadian to appear on a circulation coin issued by the Royal Canadian Mint. No fewer than three million of the Peterson ‘loonies’ have been minted In honour of the pianist who was known as “the man with four hands” for his mastery of the ivories.
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They’re planning to replace the 1922 Holt Creek Trestle on the Cowichan Valley Trail.
Although it has lost much of its original appearance from above there’s no mistaking that the Kinsol was a railway trestle when viewed from the side or from below. —Author’s Collection
The former CNR span just beyond Glenora Trails Head Park has, according to a 2017 engineering study, come to the end of its life and it’s better to replace it than to continue repairing it.
Sigh...
The artist’s conception that appeared in the Times Colonist appears to show the original concrete supports intact but the bridge itself seems to have lost all semblance of its original service as a railway trestle.
I know, I know, there are those who complain that the Kinsol Trestle has been transmogrified beyond recognition to meet safety conditions for the 100,000 people who visit it each year.
They’re referring to the structure’s deck, railings and highly visible steel corset, all of which have stripped the trestle, at first glance, of its original appearance.
But that’s just on the surface, the deck, as I say. You just have to glance down and to the side, or go below and look up, to see that, no mistake, this was a railway trestle just as you’ve seen elsewhere in real life or in 100’s of photos.
Holt Creek appears to be going to lose its recognizable railway provenance. This, to me, is regrettable. Both the Trans Canada and Cowichan Valley trails are former railway lines, the CNR and the E&N (CPR). That’s part—I would say, a lot—of their charm.
It’s this heritage that gives them even greater allure and persona than their being just hiking/cycling trails.
But, there I go, editorializing again...
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