As I trekked around the maintenance yard area at Beacon Hill Park, I was hoping to find a reminder of some kind: a plaque or sign. It would never have occurred to me that the Park’s most celebrated resident would not have been remembered in some way after surviving 24 years in captivity. Conspicuous by its absence, there is no evidence whatsoever that Ursus, the only Kermode bear in captivity at that time, ever existed; she who entertained, educated, and captivated; she who lifted people’s spirits between 1924–1948: during the Courtenay earthquake, the Great Depression and WWII. This is indeed a shame.

Image C-09769 courtesy of Royal BC Museum, BC
Archives

The six-month-old female cub with the white fur was captured on Princess Royal Island in 1924, and subsequently confiscated at the U.S. border. Shortly thereafter it was placed in the custody of Francis Kermode, Curator of the Provincial Museum in Victoria. According to Janis Ringuette, author of Beacon Hill Park’s Famous White Bear, Dr. William Hornaday of the New York Zoological Society declared the bear a new species, naming it Ursus Kermodei, in hopes that Francis Kermode would feel obligated to send Ursus to the zoo in New York. Much to his credit, he did not.

Image A-02257
courtesy of Royal BC
Museum, BC Archives

Experts have since concluded that the Kermode bear was simply a white colour phase of the common black bear, Ursus americanus. For at least 500,000 years, black bears have roamed this continent, and the black bears of Vancouver Island and Queen Charlotte Islands shared the same common ancestor 10,000 years ago. University of Victoria evolutionary biologist Dr. Tom Reimchen says: “That the white phase has persisted for 10,000 years suggests an ecological advantage."

The Tsimpshian People refer to the Kermode as 'Moskgm'ol' — white bear, and according to legend, when Raven made everything green after the ice receded, 1 in 10 black bears were left white to remind him of a time when the world was white with ice and snow. It is also believed that Princess Royal Island was the paradise set aside for the bears to live in peace forever.

Image courtesy of Janis
Ringuette

Often the centre of heated debates as to whether it would be more humane to return her to the wild, Ursus was the subject of many letters to the Daily Colonist. One letter written in 1944 described her as “pacing her concrete floor until exhausted,” and another wrote that it was “incomprehensible that people can get any pleasure from the sight of animals shut up in cages.”

Four years later she was gone: found dead in her cage by caretaker George Redknap. The next day she was trucked away to the lab at the Legislative Buildings. At that time, Dr. Clifford Carl, Director of the Provincial Museum said, “the skin, skull and a few other accessories would be saved, but that the bear would not be stuffed.” And in 2003, in order to dispel rumours that Ursus had been stuffed, James A. Cosgrove, Manager, Natural History Section, Royal British Columbia Museum confirmed that, “The Kermode bear from Beacon Hill Park is in our research collection as a skull and a tanned hide.”

In the late 1990s, Simon Jackson founded the Spirit Bear Youth Coalition to protect their habitat from logging, and for the past 13 years, biologist Mr. McCory of the Valhalla Wilderness Society has been working on a plan to create a sanctuary of 250,000 hectares, which will encompass Princess Royal's large unlogged portion and a section of adjacent mainland.

One can only speculate as to whether Ursus' captivity helped influence some to pursue careers as zoologists, animal physiologists or ecologists. Perhaps others, or their children, imagined the mysterious and distant place she came from, and considered ways that it could be protected. In any event, Ursus' 24 years at Beacon Hill Park brought many of our parents and grandparents joy, and represents a unique period in the Park's history that should be recognized — not expunged.

References
Isabella, Jude. The Kermode Bear. http://genetics.forestry.ubc.ca/ritland/kermode/isabella.doc [18 July 2008].
Ringuette, Janis. Beacon Hill Park’s Famous White Bear. http://www.islandnet.com/beaconhillpark/articles/118_kermode.htm [19 July 2008].

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Camas Harvest
© 2005 Gordon Friesen. See more here.

The First Nations of the Northwest Coast are most often associated with the salmon fishery and shellfish gathering, but at James Bay the Songhees people, who called this area home, took part in what can only be described as agricultural activity.

In the late spring to early summer families would camp on the shores of James Bay, near the place where St. Ann’s Academy is today. The place was known as Whosaykum, or ‘muddy place,’ because the low tide would expose great muddy banks that were ideal for the harvesting of clams and mussels.

Camas Plant. They can still be found
throughout James Bay in the spring.
© 2005 Gordon Friesen. See more here.

But that’s not the only reason they came here. They also came because much of the land we now call James Bay was covered in a wide open field, which in spring would fill up with a pretty blue flower known as camas. It has an edible bulb, much like an onion, but with a taste similar to sweet chestnuts.

The land was divided into hereditary plots where each family would cultivate and harvest camas. They would select and replant the strongest plants with the largest bulbs and remove the poisonous white camas in favour of the edible blue camas. This work was probably conducted by the women and children while the men were engaged in other activities such as hunting and fishing.

The camas harvests were productive enough to provide an abundant food source for the families who grew them, with a surplus to trade with neighbouring peoples such as the Nuu-chah-nulth of the West Coast of Vancouver Island.

Camas bulb in the ground
© 2005 Gordon Friesen.
See more here.

As part of their agricultural practices these Songhees families regularly burned the camas fields to clear away shrubs and brush while renewing the soil. This practice maintained the beautiful grassy meadows interrupted by small stands of stately oaks that Douglas encountered when he arrived to inspect the site for Fort Victoria in the summer of 1842. It was an ideal landscape in the eyes of a 19th century British explorer and trader causing him to remark “The place itself appears a perfect ‘Eden’ in the midst of the dreary wilderness of the North...one might be pardoned for supposing it had dropped from the clouds into its present position.” (Glazebrook, ed. The Hargrave Correspondence, p. 420). Though Douglas assumed it was a natural park, it was in fact the result of countless generations of toil by the ancestors of the Songhees Nation.

We may regret that this ‘Eden’ has been removed from their care, and so much of it paved over and filled with the bustle and noise of modern urban life, but at least we can remember and be thankful for their hardwork. For without it, it is unlikely there would have been the inspiration to create and maintain Beacon Hill Park these past 125 years.

Further Reading:
Songhees Nation website, www.songheesnation.com/html/history
Janis Ringuette, Beacon Hill Park History, 1842 - 2007, www.islandnet.com/beaconhillpark
Camas Chronicles
Janis Ringuette, “Camas Country” http://www.islandnet.com/beaconhillpark/articles/120_camas_country.htm
Grant Kedie, Songhees Pictorial: A History of the Songhees People as Seen by Outsiders 1790 - 1920. Victoria: RBCM, 2003.

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Historically, James Bay summers are cooler than those experienced by other microclimates of the Saanich Peninsula. This can be attributed primarily to the dominant pattern of onshore and relatively cool southwest sea breezes caused by higher barometric readings over the ocean. For example, the 30-year normal (1971 – 2000) July maximum temperature at Victoria International airport is 21.9 °C, while the average of July 2005 – July 2008 maximums from James Bay Community School is 18.4 °C. Today, however (August 5, 2008), we are experiencing temperatures in the mid twenties, produced by the reverse of this onshore flow: a large ridge of high pressure positioned over the BC interior drives warm northeasterly winds over the Saanich Peninsula.

It is also of interest to note that as I write, Lochside Elementary School in north Saanich is experiencing an 11 Km/hr wind from the NNE, as expected, while James Bay Community School is measuring a wind of 3 Km/hr from the south: a very good example that elements of our microclimate, in this case diurnal onshore flow, can frequently dominate large-scale (macro) weather patterns.

But have James Bay summers actually cooled over the past couple of years? Analyzing the short weather record at James Bay Community School reveals an average maximum temperature for the month of July 2005 of 18.87 °C, compared to 18.19 °C for July 2008. Not a huge difference, and definitely not statistically significant: but enough to prompt further investigation.

Figure 1
Click image for larger view

Climate variability in BC is strongly influenced by the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) and the El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO). This NASA Earth Observatory image (Figure 1) depicts the sea surface temperature anomaly between April 14 – 21, 2008. Measured by a scanning radiometer and compared to baseline data collected between 1985 – 1997, warmer than normal areas appear red, cooler than normal blue, and average are white. Clearly visible are the lingering effect of the year-old La Niña and a classic feature of the cool phase of the PDO: cooler water off the coast of north America wrapping around a core of warmer water. Dr. Steven R. Hare, of the University of Washington, first coined the term PDO in 1997 to describe an extensive oscillation of sea surface temperature in the northern Pacific Ocean that varies on a multi-decadal time scale. The other large-scale climate driver is ENSO, a tropical Pacific phenomenon representing the largest climate signal next to the seasonal cycle, and possessing two distinct phases: El Niño the warm phase, and La Niña, the cool phase. Alternation between El Niño and La Niña events is unpredictable, normally occurring every 3 – 7 years, with the individual events lasting 6 – 18 months.

Figure 2
Click image for larger view

In contrast, the PDO can remain in the same warm or cool phase for 20 or 30 years, with the last warm phase, which began in 1977, shifting to the cool phase very recently. The accompanying graph (Figure 2) depicts anomalous climate conditions associated with the positive phases of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation and PDO modes since 1900. According to Bill Patzert, an oceanographer and climatologist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL): “The persistence of this large-scale pattern (in 2008) tells us there is much more than an isolated La Niña occurring in the Pacific Ocean.” This cool phase of the PDO will have significant ramifications. It will intensify La Niña events, moderate the impact El Niño events, significantly affect the productivity of marine ecosystems, and alter global land temperature patterns — conceivably cooling James Bay slightly for the foreseeable future. Recent research by Dr.’s Goshit and Malanson at the University of Iowa supports this view, identifying a high positive correlation with the PDO and winter temperatures in the Northwestern US.

However, Dr. William Hsieh, an eminent scholar at UBC’s Department of Earth and Ocean Sciences, cautioned against speculating about the connection between the PDO and weather in BC: "The long-term behavior of the PDO is presently not all that clear, unlike the 1950s to 1970s, when it was cold, and late 1980s to late 1990s when it was warm." Hsieh confirmed that the PDO is in a cold phase, but that “there is no clear evidence to link that to atmospheric temperatures.” A high positive correlation between temperature and the PDO can indeed indicate a causal relationship, but there could exist other underlying factors of which we are unaware.

Figure 3
Click image for larger view

If lower sea surface temperatures (SST) off the coast of North America, which characterize the cool mode of the PDO, do indeed translate into somewhat cooler, albeit muted, local and regional temperatures, the longer-term climate change signal becomes masked — more difficult to detect and quantify (Figure 3). Climate scientist and oceanographer Josh Willis of JPL concludes that: “These natural climate phenomena can sometimes hide global warming caused by human activities. Or they can have the opposite effect of accentuating it.” This underscores the importance of collecting consistent and long-term weather records, as only data records that span at least one full cycle of the PDO will reveal the coherent “signal” of climate change that is contained within all natural climate variability.

References
BC Ministry of Environment: http://www.env.gov.bc.ca/air/climate/indicat/appendix.html
BC Climate: Rod Chilton: http://www.bcclimate.com
Goshit, Sunday D. and George P. Malanson. “Patterns of Correlation between the Pacific Decadal Oscillation and the Climate of Glacier National Park, MT.” Department of Geography, University of Iowa. In preparation.
http://www.widernet.org/sunday/researchpaper.htm
Hare, Stephen R. and Nathan J. Mantua. “An historical narrative on the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, interdecadal climate variability and ecosystem impacts.” 20th NE Pacific Pink and Chum workshop Seattle, WA, 22 March 2001.
http://www.iphc.washington.edu/Staff/hare/html/papers/pcworkshop/pcworkshop.pdf
NASA Earth Observatory: http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov
Victoria Weather Network: http://www.victoriaweather.ca/

Figures
1. Courtesy NASA – Earth Observatory
2. Courtesy Stephen R. Hare, University of Washington: Adapted and updated from Mantua et al. (1997)
3. Courtesy Canadian Institute for Climate Studies

The Michigan Street Community Garden was created in 1999 when LifeCycles, the JBCP and interested community members approached the British Columbia Buildings Corporation (BCBC) about constructing a community garden on a vacant greenspace near the NE corner of Menzies and Michigan streets. BCBC, along with the Ministry of Environment, Lands and Parks, generously supported this initiative and entered into a 5-year lease agreement with the Community Garden Collective.

Construction of the Garden was completed in just 3 months, and with an original budget of only $500, the community built 20 raised garden plots, a tool shed (cob house), fence, compost bins, waterwise irrigation, and a communal garden area. Covering approximately 5,000 square feet, and comprised of a mix of individual (75%) and community (25%) allotment plots, the Garden contains more than 60 varieties of fruits and vegetables.

Designed specifically to grow food for distribution within the local community, the 20 individual plots, averaging 4 x 16 feet, are leased on an annual basis, with all gardeners helping to grow and maintain the community plots.
During the growing season, 5 or 6 large trays of fruit, vegetables, herbs and decorative flowers are taken weekly to the JBCP where the food is prepared and either served on-site or distributed to those in need through the James Bay Food Cupboard.

Bordering an existing parking lot, the Garden was built with the understanding that the land could eventually be utilized for further development of the Legislature's South Block under the Victoria Accord Agreement. Connie McCann, Constituency Assistant to MLA Carole James, characterizes this as a "zoning issue." At present, the Garden is zoned as part of the Comprehensive Development Zone (CD-2), and sub-zoned as the Legislative Precinct Comprehensive — LP-2B, which permits multiple uses including commercial-residential buildings and surface parking. Unfortunately, the 5-year lease has expired and is unlikely to be renewed as the successor to BCBC, Accommodation and Real Estate Services (ARES), a branch of the Ministry of Labour and Citizens' Services, expects to pursue other land use options.

In a 2006 Council meeting, the City of Victoria voted to renew the Legislative Precinct Master Development Agreement (MDA) for 4 years beyond June 3, 2006. According to Brian Sikstrom, Senior Planner with the City of Victoria, "the next steps haven't been discussed with the Province yet, and will likely involve reviewing the existing agreement and preparing an updated one." Julius Maslovat, one of the community gardeners, recently expressed that the existing MDA does "not speak specifically to the future of the Michigan Street site" and that a revised MDA is needed to provide a framework for future community planning and rezoning initiatives between the Province and the City of Victoria.

Other cities such as Montreal and Seattle can boast as many as 100 Community Gardens, yet in our "Garden City" we are hard-pressed to protect the handful that we have. In a policy document released September 2005, the City of Victoria pledges to "maintain existing community gardens and protect local food production." The City also recognized the many benefits of community gardens that include increasing the amount of greenspace, the building of communities by fostering interaction and sharing, educational opportunities, and the assistance to low-income people.

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I took a break from the history books for a few minutes today to take a few pictures around my building. I understand that the Lord and Lady Simcoe created a bit of controversy in James Bay when they suddenly appeared about thirty years or so ago. Today they provide a home, for several hundred of us, that's affordable and convenient.

Click on an image for a larger view

Want to show off your James Bay pictures? This space is available for all aspiring and advanced photographers and artists. Simply e-mail me your images along with a brief self-introduction and explanation of your pics, and I can post them here. joel[at]jamesbay.org.

Except where otherwise noted, this content is licensed under a Creative Commons License.