Points North 3

By James Fife

The Essence of James Bay...

It's hard to isolate the many individual impressions and incidents that added up to convince us that we wanted to buy a home in James Bay. It was really a culmination of the whole package that is Victoria, refined by the particular combination of quaintness and a vibrant community spirit that exuded from that "nice area west of the Legislature Building." That's how my wife Marilyn and I originally referred to James Bay, not learning its name until our third or fourth visit to Victoria. We first got a close-up view of "that nice area" when we decided it would be much better to walk to Government Street from our cruise ship docked at Ogden Point. We had been to the city enough times to know that there is some enjoyment in going by foot wherever you can, since there is always some very picturesque sights best appreciated at a slower pace than a bus full of tourists anxious to get their shopping done. 

We were on our first cruise, despite my deep reservations about the whole enterprise.  Cruises and all the (very true) stereotypes attached to them did not appeal to me. Marilyn was not so negative (she's always the more adventurous one), but I had heard things, and heard them in a way to believe they were true, that cruises would not fit my natural ethos: the waste, the phony glitz, the persistent efforts to 'hype up a happy' at every stage, a Las Vegas cum Disneyland afloat that is just not my style. But two things lessened my concern and convinced me to adopt Marilyn's adventurous attitude (or least to remain agnostic): the ship would spend days at sea, boding some good down-time, and it would stop at Victoria. That sealed it. Along with other attractive ports of call: Vancouver, Seattle, San Francisco, Santa Catalina Island, and ending at home in San Diego. Along with these stops, Victoria added a promise of the cruise being palatable. Heck, I might even remain positive enough to appreciate the total unknowns among our stops (e.g., Nanaimo--what is that? Is that a town or type of laundry detergent?).

Mollified into keeping an open mind, I was willing to enjoy what I could and keep grousing to a minimum. The pre-cruise stay in Vancouver was great, as expected. And the first stop in Nanaimo was better than expected (as nothing was expected--it was an unknown). Nanaimo's port area that we could walk through in our time ashore was quaint and neat and even a bit quirky in its quaintness. It was perfect to frame my mind for going to the next level of quaintness that was awaiting at our second stop: Victoria. 

As I said, we pointedly ignored the purser's announcements to scuttle ashore in time to make the tour buses. We took our time, planning on hoofing it to downtown and other spots we had already come to know from our previous, short visits to Victoria. "That nice area west of the Legislature" we had only glimpsed in our previous stays, like getting a fleeting look at an attractive wood while on a hike and thinking longingly how you want to return some day and actually plunge in. Well, today was to be the day, since a specific reason to decline the bus was to see "that area" personally and leisurely on our way to the tourist crucible that is Government Street in summer.

To say we were not disappointed with the decision is a massive understatement. To say we were impressed with "that area" is nearly as tepid. We were smitten. As we strolled along various tree-lined, James Bay streets (long before we had any business knowing their names), we kept repeating the same stock phrases about "Isn't this really nice?", "Look at that pokey little place. It's so quaint.", and--with ominous prescience--"Wouldn't that be a great place to live?" It seemed an hour or more we weaved a path through those streets (Simcoe and Michigan and Quebec, as I can now surmise they were), but, of course, it doesn't take that long to reach Menzies Street, even at the slowest pace. When we did see the Legislature Building looming up as a familiar landmark (every trip Marilyn feels the need to photograph it), we felt we had just come out of a pleasant dream, feeling almost a physical delight with the beautiful, charming "area" we had just come through. We knew we liked Victoria, had for years, but had never been to this part. Our general reaction: "Who knew?"

Then the one-two punch. We passed down Menzies to the Harbour and decided to take the familiar, scenic path on the lower causeway around to the Tourist Office and so into town. As luck would have it, the vending and music and buzzing activity was in full swing. The VICTORIA flower-sign was in bloom, the sun out, and the whole area humming. We came first to the stretch of Native artisans and we lingered there to look more than we usually would. Something about their presence here, the First Nation people, as Canadians intriguingly acknowledge them, fit into the experience we had just had. The quaint "heritage" houses (another Canadian term we later learned) we'd just seen, clustered all along our path from the ship, spoke to one time, the artisans and their wares to another. And yet they were somehow the same, because they were parts of this one place. That realization immediately made me comprehend a depth to Victoria I had not appreciated on our prior fleeting visits: the depth of time and its present intertwining, adding a very delightful savor to the place. It was the first, conscious realization about what a special city Victoria is and the first slow stirring of that desire to live there that has now led us to set up our two-nation lifestyle.

As we wandered on, checking out the stalls offering keychains with BC flag tags or whale-watching tours or Water Taxi rides or Machacek prints, I had a strong feeling that I had seen sights that embody the essence of James Bay (as I finally learned it was called, not just "that area"), that mix of old and new, aboriginal and later, quaint and vibrant. It was the beginning of that decade-long process that has now brought us here as residents. Residents of this appealing, alluring "area" just west of the Legislative Assembly.