Canada and BC Archives - Page 5 of 35

by Marja-Leena

Family Day

Well, the predicted snowstorm turned out to be just a light fall overnight. I was awake in the wee hours after midnight and noticed that a little wet snow started falling. A couple of hours later, I was again awake and found it was raining. Last week’s cold snap is broken. I do rather miss the bright sunny days though.

Today was the second annual Family Day holiday in our province. The mountains had reportedly many happy families enjoying some new snow cover after a shortage of the white stuff this winter. We stayed home enjoying our visiting family. This evening they prepared a lovely dinner to celebrate my birthday a day early – always a delight for me not to have to cook for a change! Tomorrow my husband is taking me out for dinner at a nice restaurant as is usually our tradition in combining birthday and Valentine’s. We might even pop in to see one or two exhibitions…

Have you noticed the days getting longer already? The snowdrops in the garden have been out for weeks. The photo above however is of my supposed-to-be-for-Christmas paperwhites which bloomed late – a touch of spring indoors instead. Life is good.

February 10, 2014 in Canada and BC, Home by Marja-Leena 28 Comments »

by Marja-Leena

at the desk

a test photo taken with my hand-me-down iPod, of the view to the right of my computer…
I know, it is not of great quality…just practising

slow starts with Christmas preparations
first wearing of winter coats and mitts
outdoor lights onto shrubs and trees
a wreath at front door and in solarium
bought a tree to bring in later
and some paperwhites to pot up

spoke to family in Victoria
on the other side of Salish Sea
all excited by some snow
hope daddy gets home safe from London
before any snowstorms

December 5, 2013 in Canada and BC, Home by Marja-Leena 4 Comments »

by Marja-Leena

rainforest walk

As hinted in the previous post, I came across several forgetten envelopes of miscellaneous photos from many years ago. I don’t remember if these were originally of a yellow cast or if time’s hand had changed them that way so I thought I’d have fun and make them into sepia images. I quite like the result – the atmosphere of mystery, of wondering what is around the corner of that path and beyond those moss covered trees.

These, I remember well, were taken in Pacific Rim National Park, on the wild west coast of Vancouver Island. If the date is correct on the envelope it was in May 1999. This walkway was located near the Wickaninnish Centre and led down to Long Beach. On subsequent visits over the years, that boardwalk slowly disintegrated and disappeared into the earth.

Seeing these photos has brought back many wonderful memories and a desire for another visit to this very beloved place.

November 24, 2013 in Canada and BC, Nature, Photoworks by Marja-Leena 4 Comments »

by Marja-Leena

a petroglyph photo

possibly a petroglyph on Hornby Island?
found amidst photos from another place where we’ve not seen petroglyphs
(evidence of non-existent photo filing in pre-digital days)

November 23, 2013 in Canada and BC, Photography, Rock Art & Archaeology by Marja-Leena 8 Comments »

by Marja-Leena

old technology

I have been revisiting some of my husband’s photos taken inside the Sointula Museum. He only had his camera phone so unfortunately they are not very sharp. I’m quite intrigued by a couple of examples of very old technology.

The card on the switchboard says:

Telephones first came to Sointula January 23, 1956. This is the ORIGINAL SWITCHBOARD used by the North-West Telephone bilingual exhange telephone service. Sointula jumped from eight telephones on one party-line to one hundred telphones and a switchboard managed by operators who were fluent in both Finnish and English. It is believed that Sointula is B.C.’s first bilingual telephone exchange.

Below, as labelled, is a Finnish typewriter, patented 1912.

I asked myself, does it have a Finnish keyboard? I blew up the image to try to read the worn out keys. I could tell it’s not our current English keyboard. With the help of a little photoshop sharpening, I think that the two lower left keys are an ä and ö, very important letters in the Finnish language.

November 17, 2013 in Canada and BC, Finland, Estonia & Finno-Ugric, History, Tools and technology by Marja-Leena 10 Comments »

by Marja-Leena

Alert Bay Res school: details

Details of the walls and windows of the now closed St. Michael’s Indian Residential School in Alert Bay. This kind of weathering and aging activity is a very fascinating subject for me to record. Yet these images are a deeply disturbing record and reminder of what happened behind those walls so I’m not sure I could bear to ever print these.

November 16, 2013 in Canada and BC, Photoworks, Textures, Urban by Marja-Leena 2 Comments »

by Marja-Leena

Deer Lake Park

After visiting the exhibitions at the Burnaby Art Gallery, we ventured out for a walk in Deer Lake Park which this gallery overlooks.

The brilliant coloured leaves are still clinging on the trees even as they carpet the ground below. That yellow is like sunshine on our cloudy day!

The stroll by the lake always invites many pauses to look closely at the shoreline and the water grasses. No water birds this time but the chickadees were cheerfully singing and flitting in the shrubs.

The water lilies are shrinking back in preparation for winter. They are spread out far out in the water.

Still some colour on those leaves.

The stunning red leaves of the Japanese maples are my favourites.

November 11, 2013 in Canada and BC by Marja-Leena 4 Comments »

by Marja-Leena

island hopping, days 4-6

After a very full and fascinating day of exploring Sointula and Alert Bay, the next morning we had to leave Port McNeill and head south to our next destination, Victoria. It was a pleasant drive of about 450 km. (5 to 6 hours) including stops for a picnic lunch and in Chemainus to see some of their famous murals. Our German visitors kept commenting on how many trees there are, especially in the northern portion of Vancouver Island with its lesser population. As we approach the south, the populations increase, with ever more towns and farms.

The town of Chemainus is famous for its murals, and this one is my favourite.

The venerable old Empress Hotel by the Inner Harbour

We checked into a nice hotel (not the above) in downtown Victoria near the Parliament Buildings and the Inner Harbour, a unique and pleasant experience for my husband and I, for we’ve always stayed, quite happily too, with family or friends when here. We had wonderful visits with everyone and our German visitors were given the grand tour by a niece and her husband.

On Cordova Bay, a temporary ‘beach hut’ installation with all manner of humourous found objects, apparantly made every summer by the family living above it.

Our last afternoon was spent celebrating daughter Elisa‘s birthday with family and friends at their home by a charming little lake with lily pads.

Goodbyes, then one more ferry ride back home to Vancouver! The next day our German visitors headed for the airport to catch a flight to the US for the next leg of their holiday.

So, that concludes the saga of our island hopping holiday. Total ferry trips: eight in six days!

Should you have missed some of the island hopping posts, here they all are in their confusion (along with ferry counts, heh):

Day 1 – ferry Vancouver to Nanaimo, drive to Campbell River

Day 2 morning, and more – ferry to Quadra Island, ferry back, then drive to Port McNeill

Day 3 morning – ferry from Port McNeill to Sointula on Malcolm Island, with more about Sointula, then ferry back

Day 3 afternoon – ferry to Alert Bay on Cormorant Island with several posts:
more Alert Bay,
colourful Alert Bay,
Alert Bay history,
the residential school and
the seaside
then the ferry back to Port McNeill.

And lastly this post of course as
Day 4 – drive to Victoria
Day 5 – in Victoria
Day 6 – ferry from Victoria to Vancouver

November 8, 2013 in Canada and BC, Travel by Marja-Leena 6 Comments »

by Marja-Leena

Alert Bay seaside

Islands mean water, water means boats, fishing, swimming…
And waiting for the ferry back to Port McNeill and our last evening in the area.
The next day, the long drive to Victoria

November 6, 2013 in Canada and BC, Travel by Marja-Leena 12 Comments »

by Marja-Leena

Alert Bay’s Residential School

Some time before our own island hopping journey last month, some dear friends had done a similar trip a bit earlier going farther north but also visiting Sointula and Alert Bay. They warned us about a very disturbing sight at Alert Bay. Indeed, as we approached Cormorant Island on the ferry and saw the village, we were stunned by the vision of a huge prison-like brick building standing out above the smaller structures.

This is St. Michael’s Indian Residential School. It operated from 1929 to 1974. When the school was closed, the First Nations residents of the island took over the ownership and decided to leave it standing, its deteriorating condition being a horrific testament to a tragic past of cultural genocide.

The Indian residential school system was implemented in 1879 by the Canadian government to eliminate the “Indian problem”—that is, to absorb the Aboriginal population into the dominant Canadian identity, and to impose Christianity, English or French as the primary languages, and the abandonment of cultural and family traditions. St. Michael’s Indian Residential School in Alert Bay was one of 140 Indian residential schools that operated in Canada. (quote from the Museum of Anthropology page regarding an exhibition I just learned about and must go see.)

It is located right next to the U’mista Cultural Centre which I wrote about yesterday. One side about a loss of culture, pride, language and family connection, the other about reviving pride in one’s culture, language and history.

Viewing this was all very very disturbing for us all, and quite the eye opener for our European visitors. It still remains with me, making this a difficult post to write. Man’s inhumanity to man.

This scene is in the grassy treed area in front of the school. In its innocence, it still made me sad when thinking of the long ago suffering children, yet suggesting hope and happiness for today’s.

We were to learn that while we were here, back in Vancouver was a huge gathering of First Nations from across Canada for the Truth and Reconciliation Week. There were many many articles in the media about this event, but I’ll just post a few below should you be interested. Do at least visit the first one, a heartwarming story by a local well-known blogger who was there:

Walking Reconciliation by Chris Corrigan

CBC: Seeking Truth and Reconciliation in Vancouver

To Break Residential Schools’ Dark Legacy, Understand Why

ADDED later: more photos of St. Michael’s

November 5, 2013 in Canada and BC, Culture, History, Travel by Marja-Leena 10 Comments »