Editorially speaking...
When is a heritage home or building not a heritage home or heritage building?
Why, when they get in the way of development, of course.
The provincial government’s obsession with creating more (if not more affordable) housing has it leaning on municipal and regional governments to relax their zoning and building codes to allow for in-fill and other block-busting concessions.
One victim of the inevitable collateral damage is the impending demolition of a stately rooming house in the Quadra-Tattersal area of Saanich.
The beautiful manor-style house and its seven current tenants are just SOL. Too bad, so sad.
Pioneer Victoria druggist Thomas Shotbolt. —Temple Lodge, No. 22, Duncan, B.C.
In Victoria’s Old Town, the ca 1876 Thomas Shotbolt building is also about to come down to make way for new development. This structure, so it’s claimed, has been “altered so much” over the past century and a-half “that it is no longer historically significant”,
To be honest, you’d never guess the building’s provenance by its present appearance.
But I’m reminded of when mature trees finds themselves in the way of progress. An arborist is always called in to examine its state of health. Wouldn’t you know it that, almost every time, the tree is found to be diseased? Despite all appearances of health, it suddenly has root rot or some other impairment that makes it a threat to public health and safety.
Cynical, who me?
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Eric Brighton, author of the best selling book Lost Kootenay tells me that he’s writing a review of the late Glen Mofford’s third book, this one on B.C. Interior hotels and saloons. Glen, who died suddenly in 2022, was the author of two previous books on Victoria and Vancouver Island hotels and saloons, Aqua Vitae and Along the E&N.
Glen came up with 100’s, perhaps 1000’s, of old photos, postcards and advertisements that are always a treat to the eye for those who enjoy history and/or nostalgia.
I have the first two titles and shall be ordering the latest.
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Cobble Hill’s historic Bench Elementary School is celebrating its 150th anniversary this coming weekend.
150 years as far as Cowichan Valley history goes, is a long, long time!
Former students are invited to attend and “relive your memories”.
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One of the many wildfires now burning in B.C. is said to be the third largest on record. The Donnie Creek conflagration north of Fort St. John in northeastern B.C. is estimated at more than 2400 square kilometres.
It is surpassed only by the 2017 Plateau Fire (5210 square kilometres) and the 1958 Kechika Fire at 2853 square kilometres.
—www.cbc.ca
One of the most-read post on my alter ego website, www.twpaterson.com, is the Great Vancouver Island Forest Fire of 1938.
The saddest, most infuriating thing about forest fires is that so many of them are human-caused—carelessness, out-and-out stupidity, arson.
But there I go, being cynical again...
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