Why I love Victoria, BC
Sitting on my couch in pensive mood this morning, enjoying the bliss of solitude, I thought about why I love this place. In no time at all I came up with ten reasons why I love Victoria. Here's the first.
It's a walking city.
Moreover, he hath left you all his walks,
His private arbors and new-planted orchards,
On this side Tiber. He hath left them you
And to your heirs forever – common pleasures,
To walk abroad and recreate yourselves.
There are walkers everywhere – on the streets and in the parks - slow walkers, fast walkers, power walkers, walkers alone and walkers in groups, walkers with walkers, walkers with dogs, and even walkers with cats.
If you have to take your dog for a walk in the wee small hours of the morning, you will pass someone else doing the same thing. And I used to pass a man walking his cat in the middle of the night. The cat was very timid, and would disappear into a front yard if anyone approached. This would leave his master standing alone on the sidewalk speaking into the darkness. I gave him a wide berth until he explained what he was doing.
In Victoria, motorists stop for pedestrians. They stop for you if you're on a crosswalk, or even if you're not.
You can walk around the harbour, along the ocean front, on the beach, in the city, or through the leafy suburbs looking at heritage homes and modern mansions. Or you can walk in the park.
I maintain without fear of contradiction that Victoria has more parks than any other city in Canada. And I'm not thinking of genteel parks like Beacon Hill with its cultivated gardens, duck ponds and petting zoo. I mean serious parks with real hiking trails like Mount Doug or Thetis Lake or John Deane Park, where you can be in old-growth forest within 20 minutes.
We enjoy these parks today because of the foresight and generosity of our ancestors. The colonial Brits set aside tracts of crown land as public reserves, and some of them have survived subsequent governments and developers. Mount Douglas is one such park. Others like John Deane Park were bequests to the municipality on condition that they never be developed.
In Victoria, you can walk any day of the year. And that is a hint at the second reason why I love this place.
It's a sunny city.
Fear no more the heat of the sun,
Nor the furious winter's rages
Victoria is a sunny city. Don't laugh. It is! Victoria is the sunniest city in Canada outside the prairies. And when it's sunny on the prairies, it is usually so bloody cold that it freezes your proverbials.
Victoria is sunnier than Montreal or Toronto, and all those other soggy cities down east. It ranks sixth in the list of sunny cities in Canada, in the average number of hours of bright sunshine, the average number of days with some bright sunshine, and the percentage of daylight hours that are sunny. That's sixth out of the 26 Canadian metropolitan areas that have a population of more than 150,000.
Not only that, but everyone knows that the City of Victoria is much sunnier than anywhere else in the capital region, which is measured in the survey. It can be sunny in Fairfield, for example, when it’s raining cats and dogs in Saanich. So the more northern parts of the peninsular with their greater rainfall have skewed the stats, and the City of Victoria is probably higher on the list than sixth. Perhaps it's really the sunniest city in Canada.
Rare are the occasions when the sun doesn't peep through the clouds at least once during the day. It's something to do with the little microclimate we enjoy on the tip of the island. The clouds swirl around, driven by conflicting winds which blow the rain away. It can be raining one minute and sunny the next.
It's not unusual for rain to be forecast but not to arrive and it's sunny instead. I call this kind of day - when the weather forecast is delightfully wrong - an ARDIV: another rainy day in Victoria.
It's a railway city.
After the first powerful, plain manifesto
The black statement of pistons, without more fuss
But gliding like a queen, she leaves the station.
Victoria is a railway city. Or it was. And will be again soon, I hope. Real towns have railways. The Esquimalt and Nanaimo, the Island's one remaining railway line, is temporarily out of action, but it's supposed to reopen next year with commuter trains running south to Victoria.
Until last year when the poor condition of the track forced closure of the service, you could set your clock by the "whistle" of the little diesel train pulling out of Victoria at eight o'clock in the morning. You couldn't set your clock by the sound of its return because it was rarely on time. But that was part of its charm.
This was a train you would catch for the pleasure of the journey, not to arrive anywhere on time. It would amble along, swaying from side to side on dodgy rails, stopping, before crawling across the ancient wooden trestle above Goldstream Park. It would begin and end at the quaint little station just on the Victoria side of the Johnson Street Bridge, where, alas, it will stop no more, since the short-sighted authorities have failed to fund a railway line across the new bridge.
There is nothing quite so much fun as walking along a railway line, balancing on the rail, imagining the hordes of navvies building the line a century ago and hearing the old steam trains chugging along.
Victoria was once the terminus for a number of lines running north to Sydney and east to Sooke as well as up to Courtney. Would that they still ran! Three ran up the peninsular, one to Deep Cove and two to Sydney. Parts of these discontinued lines have become the Galloping Goose and Lochside Trails and the path on the west side of Elk Lake. All that remains of Victoria's glorious railway history are the rusty rails of the E&N. For now, all is silent.
It's a dog city.
The birds around me hopp'd and play'd,
Their thoughts I cannot measure,
But the least motion which they made
It seem'd a thrill of pleasure.
Now old Shep has gone where the good doggies go.
Everywhere in Victoria, people walk their dogs. There are even five dog patrol officers to make sure those dogs are licensed. Along parts of Dallas Road the dogs run free, prancing around and chasing each other, fetching balls, and having such fun. Some of them go down to the beach and dive in the sea and proudly swim to shore with a stick or even a small log in their mouths.
Religious sceptic and rational being though I am, evolution doesn't explain for me the ineffable joy these and other animals display as they bound about.
I don't think I've seen so many or such a variety of dogs in any other town.
I used to have a dog with a more outgoing personality than mine. Her name was Tia. Today, when I walk down the street by myself, few people stop and chat. Some even look the other way. But with my dog, it would take me some time just to walk just a few blocks down to the coffee shop. Everyone would stop to pat her. Teenagers would find her cute. Old ladies would tell me about the dog they had lost and we would share our stories.
The veranda of the Moka House on Cook Street was chockers with dogs having coffee with their companions. Big dogs, small dogs, a cross section of the canine kingdom from little lappies to lumbering labs. Tia was less friendly with members of her own species than with humans, so we often had to run the gauntlet to find a spot.
Tia loved the coffee shop. Even in her last days, she wanted to go down for a coffee. Truth to tell, she loved the scraps she would pick up off the floor. She would pull me down the hill in quick time, but on the way back she would take forever. Eventually, it became a one-way trip: I would have to arrange for us to be picked up in the car.
Really, the Moka House is somewhat shabby in appearance, dark inside and rather wooden without, a coffee shop from an earlier time. But the dogs give it colour and character, and you don't notice its dullness. Once, a health inspector banned the dogs from the veranda, and for several months afterwards it was barren and bare. Business dropped off by 25%. Apparently, the health inspector had responded to a complaint from a unsympathetic member of the public. Now who would be so miserable? Eventually reason prevailed, and the dogs came back. I hope the health inspector was reprimanded for not exercising discretion.
I still go to the Moka House from time to time, but it's not the same. I sit alone without a dog.
It's a walking city.
Moreover, he hath left you all his walks,
His private arbors and new-planted orchards,
On this side Tiber. He hath left them you
And to your heirs forever – common pleasures,
To walk abroad and recreate yourselves.
There are walkers everywhere – on the streets and in the parks - slow walkers, fast walkers, power walkers, walkers alone and walkers in groups, walkers with walkers, walkers with dogs, and even walkers with cats.
If you have to take your dog for a walk in the wee small hours of the morning, you will pass someone else doing the same thing. And I used to pass a man walking his cat in the middle of the night. The cat was very timid, and would disappear into a front yard if anyone approached. This would leave his master standing alone on the sidewalk speaking into the darkness. I gave him a wide berth until he explained what he was doing.
In Victoria, motorists stop for pedestrians. They stop for you if you're on a crosswalk, or even if you're not.
You can walk around the harbour, along the ocean front, on the beach, in the city, or through the leafy suburbs looking at heritage homes and modern mansions. Or you can walk in the park.
I maintain without fear of contradiction that Victoria has more parks than any other city in Canada. And I'm not thinking of genteel parks like Beacon Hill with its cultivated gardens, duck ponds and petting zoo. I mean serious parks with real hiking trails like Mount Doug or Thetis Lake or John Deane Park, where you can be in old-growth forest within 20 minutes.
We enjoy these parks today because of the foresight and generosity of our ancestors. The colonial Brits set aside tracts of crown land as public reserves, and some of them have survived subsequent governments and developers. Mount Douglas is one such park. Others like John Deane Park were bequests to the municipality on condition that they never be developed.
In Victoria, you can walk any day of the year. And that is a hint at the second reason why I love this place.
It's a sunny city.
Fear no more the heat of the sun,
Nor the furious winter's rages
Victoria is a sunny city. Don't laugh. It is! Victoria is the sunniest city in Canada outside the prairies. And when it's sunny on the prairies, it is usually so bloody cold that it freezes your proverbials.
Victoria is sunnier than Montreal or Toronto, and all those other soggy cities down east. It ranks sixth in the list of sunny cities in Canada, in the average number of hours of bright sunshine, the average number of days with some bright sunshine, and the percentage of daylight hours that are sunny. That's sixth out of the 26 Canadian metropolitan areas that have a population of more than 150,000.
Not only that, but everyone knows that the City of Victoria is much sunnier than anywhere else in the capital region, which is measured in the survey. It can be sunny in Fairfield, for example, when it’s raining cats and dogs in Saanich. So the more northern parts of the peninsular with their greater rainfall have skewed the stats, and the City of Victoria is probably higher on the list than sixth. Perhaps it's really the sunniest city in Canada.
Rare are the occasions when the sun doesn't peep through the clouds at least once during the day. It's something to do with the little microclimate we enjoy on the tip of the island. The clouds swirl around, driven by conflicting winds which blow the rain away. It can be raining one minute and sunny the next.
It's not unusual for rain to be forecast but not to arrive and it's sunny instead. I call this kind of day - when the weather forecast is delightfully wrong - an ARDIV: another rainy day in Victoria.
It's a railway city.
After the first powerful, plain manifesto
The black statement of pistons, without more fuss
But gliding like a queen, she leaves the station.
Victoria is a railway city. Or it was. And will be again soon, I hope. Real towns have railways. The Esquimalt and Nanaimo, the Island's one remaining railway line, is temporarily out of action, but it's supposed to reopen next year with commuter trains running south to Victoria.
Until last year when the poor condition of the track forced closure of the service, you could set your clock by the "whistle" of the little diesel train pulling out of Victoria at eight o'clock in the morning. You couldn't set your clock by the sound of its return because it was rarely on time. But that was part of its charm.
This was a train you would catch for the pleasure of the journey, not to arrive anywhere on time. It would amble along, swaying from side to side on dodgy rails, stopping, before crawling across the ancient wooden trestle above Goldstream Park. It would begin and end at the quaint little station just on the Victoria side of the Johnson Street Bridge, where, alas, it will stop no more, since the short-sighted authorities have failed to fund a railway line across the new bridge.
There is nothing quite so much fun as walking along a railway line, balancing on the rail, imagining the hordes of navvies building the line a century ago and hearing the old steam trains chugging along.
Victoria was once the terminus for a number of lines running north to Sydney and east to Sooke as well as up to Courtney. Would that they still ran! Three ran up the peninsular, one to Deep Cove and two to Sydney. Parts of these discontinued lines have become the Galloping Goose and Lochside Trails and the path on the west side of Elk Lake. All that remains of Victoria's glorious railway history are the rusty rails of the E&N. For now, all is silent.
It's a dog city.
The birds around me hopp'd and play'd,
Their thoughts I cannot measure,
But the least motion which they made
It seem'd a thrill of pleasure.
Now old Shep has gone where the good doggies go.
Everywhere in Victoria, people walk their dogs. There are even five dog patrol officers to make sure those dogs are licensed. Along parts of Dallas Road the dogs run free, prancing around and chasing each other, fetching balls, and having such fun. Some of them go down to the beach and dive in the sea and proudly swim to shore with a stick or even a small log in their mouths.
Religious sceptic and rational being though I am, evolution doesn't explain for me the ineffable joy these and other animals display as they bound about.
I don't think I've seen so many or such a variety of dogs in any other town.
I used to have a dog with a more outgoing personality than mine. Her name was Tia. Today, when I walk down the street by myself, few people stop and chat. Some even look the other way. But with my dog, it would take me some time just to walk just a few blocks down to the coffee shop. Everyone would stop to pat her. Teenagers would find her cute. Old ladies would tell me about the dog they had lost and we would share our stories.
The veranda of the Moka House on Cook Street was chockers with dogs having coffee with their companions. Big dogs, small dogs, a cross section of the canine kingdom from little lappies to lumbering labs. Tia was less friendly with members of her own species than with humans, so we often had to run the gauntlet to find a spot.
Tia loved the coffee shop. Even in her last days, she wanted to go down for a coffee. Truth to tell, she loved the scraps she would pick up off the floor. She would pull me down the hill in quick time, but on the way back she would take forever. Eventually, it became a one-way trip: I would have to arrange for us to be picked up in the car.
Really, the Moka House is somewhat shabby in appearance, dark inside and rather wooden without, a coffee shop from an earlier time. But the dogs give it colour and character, and you don't notice its dullness. Once, a health inspector banned the dogs from the veranda, and for several months afterwards it was barren and bare. Business dropped off by 25%. Apparently, the health inspector had responded to a complaint from a unsympathetic member of the public. Now who would be so miserable? Eventually reason prevailed, and the dogs came back. I hope the health inspector was reprimanded for not exercising discretion.
I still go to the Moka House from time to time, but it's not the same. I sit alone without a dog.
