Editorially speaking…
There’s been another change to Vancouver Island maps, this one at Tofino. Mackenzie Beach, named for a previous owner, is now Tinwis, meaning “calm waters” in the language of the local Tla-o-qui-aht Nation, although it’s a combination of the words “tin,” meaning calm, and “wis,” meaning beach.
An online campaign for the name change garnered 2000 signatures.
A spokesperson said the tribe will now apply to the province’s Geographical Names Office which inquires into the reasons for name changes before approving them, a process that usually takes almost a year.
The Ministry of Tourism, Arts and Culture is onside with restoring Indigenous names as part of the provincial government’s commitment to Truth and Reconciliation. Place names reflect an area’s “cultural history and heritage values,” the Ministry told the Times Colonist.
Meaning that we can expect more alterations to our maps and nautical charts. Among the hinted-at changes is Tofino area’s Kennedy Lake, named for Crown Colony Governor Arthur Edward Kennedy of the 1860s.
Goodbye Governor Kennedy? —Wikipedia
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Early in December it was announced that 1000s of trees are to be felled in Stanley Park due to moth infestation. This is sad news for a tree hugger such as I, but I guess it has to be done. It reminded me that Stanley Park would never have existed in the first place had not the colonial government of the day denied logging rights to Capt. Edward Stamp. He and others such as Sewell Moody levelled the massive forests along the shores of Burrard Inlet.
Stanley Park’s most famous icon, the Hollow Tree, gives an idea of the size of the Douglas firs that made up original Lower Mainland rain forests. —City of Vancouver Archives
True, they’d have fallen to the axe because of inevitable development. But not, thanks to some rare foresight by those in authority at the time, today’s Stanley Park.
Someone should tell those pesky moths that some things are sacred...
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Because of the estimated costs of refurbishing the World’s Largest Hockey Stick at the Cowichan Community Centre, it has been offered for sale for likely (hopefully) relocation by private interests. The announcement sparked cries of disbelief and disappointment once it sank in that Duncan could be losing its best-known claim to fame. (The stick is better known than ‘The City of Totems’.)
According to the Guinness Book of Records it’s 62.48 m (205 ft) long and weighs 28.12 tonnes (62,000 lb).
Originally built of prime first-growth fir for Expo 86, it was brought to Duncan after a fundraising campaign initiated by a local radio station owner, Dick Drew. I remember putting up $35, which was more to me then than now.
But, here we are, 2024: it needs expensive repair work and the Cowichan Regional District doesn’t want to foot the bill.
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Repeated references in the news to the dangers of asbestos makes me shake my head when I remember how things were done when I was a kid. Many people in Saanich where I lived, burned wood in their furnaces and in their fireplaces. Furnaces and Franklin stoves required stove pipes and joints which were sealed with asbestos tape that you’d buy at your local hardware store, soak in water, and apply.
A kid could do it, it was so easy—and so effective.
If the job of sealing required more than tape you’d buy asbestos in powdered form. The hardware merchant kept it in a small drum and scooped it into a bag for the customer. I remember buying some just that way for my dad.
Now, powder creates dust. And (usually lengthy exposure to) asbestos fibres in dust create the lethal lung condition known as asbestosis. It’s this danger to human health that has belatedly prompted the federal government to ban it for use in construction where it was long used for fireproofing.
Proof of its threat to health, by the way, made itself known to me in my teens when two of my parents’ friends died within two years of each other. Both brothers had worked in local shipyards through the Second World War as pipefitters.
All the men on my street served in the military through the war but came come.
Both brothers who worked on ships, installing steam pipes and sealing them with layers of asbestos paste, died in their 40s.
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Food for thought: Saw an inspiring quote this morning to the effect, Don’t regret getting old; think of those who were denied. Makes me feel so much better!