It's grey and wet and windy and cold today on Vancouver Island or what we like to call "normal." An ability to tolerate these conditions month in, month out, for much of the year is a prerequisite for living here. There is a good reason the region is called the Wet Coast.
We usually get two, occasionally three, good summer months when it can turn sunny and warm, even at times hot. We call that "tourist season." When the sun goes, the tourists don't linger.
A good many of us just love the place, even during the Rain Festival (runs every October to July, tickets subject to availability). It's the mighty Pacific, the fresh ocean air, the vast emptiness, even the rocks and Christmas trees that blanket the island from one end to the other.
Even quirky Victoria, nestled at the southern tip, is endearing. I like the way Times Colonist scribe, Jack Knox, wrote of his town this morning.
"...Victoria itself is a city of misfits, the last refuge of the disaffected and the disconnected, people from somewhere else looking for something else, stopping at the water's edge down here in the lower left-hand corner of Canada only because any further migration would result in drowning. Vancouver Island is where the snowy part of Canada shovels its flakes."
Sigh.
2 comments:
Not that I don't agree, totally (Cowichan Valley, myself,) but puh-leeese, less praise, more kvetching...too many people moving here already...
Let's keep this ugly grey soaking wet piece o' Paradise to ourselves...if it's not too late already.
Fair enough, C.P. I have your point. When I escaped the North Shore 10-years ago the place was dead quiet. We used to get a chuckle at what I called "island cars." These were all 15-years old or more, usually had one working headlight and, quite often, one or more doors that didn't match the others. Now they're gone. New stuff everywhere and loads of it.
Vancouverites used to bitch about the Lions Gate bridge and all the inconvenience. We in West Van came to see that bridge as our great defender, keeping the hordes at bay. Now I rely on B.C. Ferries to do the same thing.
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