By the late 1880s Victoria had enjoyed more than 40 years as the preeminent British, and then Canadian city on the west coast. It was older, though perhaps not by much, than any other center, and had fought off all challenges to stand as the permanent capital of British Columbia.

Victoria was also a significant player in west coast trade and industry, holding its own against its well established American rivals San Francisco and Seattle. The Victoria Albion Iron Works was the second largest foundry on the Pacific Coast. William Pendray owned a soap factory in James Bay, and the Loewen and Erb brewery produced 120,000 galleons of beer every year. There were also a number of other industries operating competitively in the city: cigar makers, carriage and wagon builders, shoes makers, various mills, book binders, meat packers, a vinegar factory, and a corset factory among others. All of this industry was supported by vigorous coastal shipping, which carried goods and people all up and down the Pacific Coast, and for which Victoria was the main Canadian destination. In the early months of the 1890's The National Electric Tramway and Light Co. began to operate the first electric tramway in British Columbia, only the third in Canada, with 9 kilometers of track through the center of Victoria.

Yet despite the energy and bustle, even in the mid-1880s, there were already dark clouds on the horizon. The unassuming settlement of Granville, informally known as Gastown, at the mouth of the Fraser River was chosen as the Pacific terminus for the transcontinental railway. This honour had previously been promised to Victoria, and it is likely that the decision was unduly influenced by speculators holding undervalued Lower Mainland plots. Still it is hard to imagine Victoria retaining its position as a trade and manufacturing hub when its mainland competitors could offer much easier, and cheaper, access to continental markets.

By 1891 Gastown had grown into the City of Vancouver and according to the census of that year its population was more or less equal to Victoria's. Even the prestige of Victoria's fancy new tramway did not last long as Vancouver opened its own system just four months after Victoria's trams began their runs. Vancouver was headed towards its current role as a world-class metropolis, while Victoria turned the corner and slipped into a sleepy, yet dignified, obscurity.

Victoria began to be known for its gardens and gentile high society rather than for its trade and industry. Rudyard Kipling summed the city up in a single sentence after his visit in the early 1890s: "I found in that quiet English town of beautiful streets quite a colony of old men doing nothing but talking, fishing, and loafing at the club." (Rudyard Kipling, From Sea to Sea and Other Sketches, 1899). It was starting to become apparent that Victoria's future would rest on two pillars, providing service to the old men and women who came to do nothing, and the patronage of the government combined with the spending power of the relatively well-paid civil servants.

But in the early 1890s the government by its outward appearance didn't inspire confidence as a replacement to the bustling trade and industry of the past. After 39 years it became apparent that the Bird Cages were becoming even more of an embarrassment. Clerks in the Colonial Secratary's Office claimed the walls were so thin that they could see through to the other side. In the winter of 1893 the legislature was adjourned for a week because the chamber could not be made warm enough for the legislators to do their work.

It was finally decided that a new and more dignified capital was required for the ambitious and growing province. Further, it would provide an opportunity to stimulate the local economy. In 1892 an international competition was opened for architects to submit plans for the construction of a new legislature. To ensure fairness entries were to be anonymous. Sixty-five architects entered plans under pseudonyms such as 'Hopeful', 'Patience', 'Utility and Dignity', and 'Ta-ra-ra-boom-de-ay'. One recent immigrant from Leeds, England, signed his entry simply 'BC Architect.' Well not strictly untrue, it was not entirely honest either. But it was not the first, last or the greatest fib in the flamboyant career of this soon to be famous young man.

Thanks for reading! Now I have a question for you:
Was Kipling right? Is Victoria 'a colony of old men doing nothing but talking, fishing, and loafing at the club'?
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Further Reading:
The Legislature has an interesting interactive website about the history of the legislature. Click here to Visit

Robin Ward, Echoes of Empire: Victoria and its Remarkable Buildings, Maidera Park, BC: Harbour Publishing, 1996.

Martin Segger and Douglas Franklin, Exploring Victoria's Architecture, Victoria: Sono Nis Press, 1996.

Terry Reksten, Rattenbury, Victoria: Sono Nis Press, 1978, 1998.

James Bay Culture Blog #5

Dear James Bay-ophiles,

If you are anything like me, then you have probably taken sweet pleasure in a golden James Bay afternoon...

Do you recall the fresh sea air mingling with the scents of a thousand varieties of floral blossoms? Can your envision the easy sunlight tinting green trees with an aura of pure treasure? Surely, you must recollect the gentle hum of yard sales, spilling from the quaint driveways into picaresque streets, decorated proudly with... horse dung.

We are lucky, in James Bay, to have this plentiful opportunity to experience the fertility of Mother Nature. Acting in my capacity as the Voice of our Community – only thanks to your kind permission, dear reader -- I am overjoyed to offer our gratitude to the many local operators of rustic horse-and-carriage tours.

When I spot a fresh heap & puddle, I simply cannot restrain myself from rushing into the road with wild abandon and bending down to inspect this precious pile of symbolism. In fact, though you might not believe this, the first few times... I even had to prod the warm stuff just to assure myself that I wasn't dreaming.

Our visitors are occasionally perplexed. They do not immediately comprehend our great love for manure... but they will learn. When you actually think about it, it makes perfect sense -- after all, isn't it exactly what the exquisite painters of the High Renaissance period did? Into each scene they placed a human skull, just to remind people about death & decay. The Italians called this “memento mori” -- a memento of our ever-present mortality. Here in the Bay we do the same thing with equine feces. It helps us to remember that the fertile earth is only a few feet below the hard, lifeless pavement -- and not so many years ago all these cafes and apartment buildings were functional farms and gorgeous dirt roads through the forest.

Life rises out of decay. It's the organic way. Today's filthy offal is truly tomorrow's prize-winning roses! We are so blessed to have plenty of these reminders of fecundity – these “memento manuri” -- everywhere we look.

It is not out of place – it defines our place.
It is not ugly – it is the image of Nature herself.
It does not stink... unlike the undigested gibber-jabber that this horse-and-carriage operators spew at the bovine, faux-interested touristing families. Oh, really? You say the lieutenant governor's third cousin lived here very briefly before it was partly repainted in 1973? -- Tell me more...

Now THAT (BLEEP) is disgusting!

Your local cultural explorer,
Pascal.

Value's Test: Is our local tour guide drivel worse than horse manure?
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This week we're pleased to present a guest post from Jim Chapman at www.beaconhillphotos.com. We're sure you will enjoy these sharp and stunning images, and hope you will visit Jim's site for even more high quality photographs from our neighbourhood. --Joel

Beacon Hill Park forms the eastern boundary of James Bay. Throughout the year, it offers our residents a place of quiet beauty, where a morning walk can enrich our lives with Nature’s most amazing gifts. I know this because I walk there from my home in James Bay almost every morning and photograph the animals, lakes, flowers and so much more. The following photos were all taken in Beacon Hill Park. Enjoy! ―Jim Chapman

If you want to see larger views and more photos from Beacon Hill Park, visit my website at www.beaconhillphotos.com. For the convenience of JamesBay.org readers, I have arranged immediate free access to the MEMBERS part of the website until the end of 2008. Simply enter the username: 'resident' and the password: 'jamesbay'. See you in the Park! ―Jim

- - JAMES BAY CULTURE BLOG #4 - -

What do you see in the picture below?

One question: Why?

Another question: How many people even noticed this bizarre scenery? Very strange. It is challenging even to come up with a name for it... “a proud mass of anthropomorphic eroticism?” or perhaps “an arboreal eruption of giddy, plastic pseudo-porn?” Maybe it shows the Biblical Garden of Eden with several naked, coy “Eve”s and a handful of hairy-chested, moustachioed “Adam”s?

Wow. That's a mouthful.

Just to be on the safe side, we should probably call it a neo-pagan monument that consecrates the vegetative sexual electricity of all Nature while simultaneously transcending it in an elevation toward the Sublime Gaze of the Living Heavens.

Assessment of my phrasing: Superior.

Of course, I mean The Superior Café. This local cultural detective stumbled upon this scene whilst strolling near Fisherman's Wharf. This is precisely the kind of strange, depraved thing that happens down by the docks. This strange sight was unexpected and provocative (intellectually, of course). Definitely worth investigating... but how should we go about it?

Out-dated, conventional reporters -- castrated by "Writing Classes" & bent wickedly by the vile indoctrination rituals of Old Media "news professionals” -- would naively phone the Superior: “Say Pal, what can yeh tell me about them naked bodies in that, there, tree?" ------------- No doubt this fool would snap a false-face photo of the Manager, jot down a few details, throw in joke and then go for lunch. Yawn. Despite the retro appeal of such procedures we've got to face the fact that ordinary journalism only reinforces the most simplistic, regressive forms of public self-awareness. A semi-literate, pre-electronic waste of a reader's time!

The fans of this blog deserve better. We need to know more and we must know it more profoundly. The pragmatism (i.e. mindless populism) that dominates mainstream media is the very definition of linguistic junk food – easily absorbed, plenty of marshmallowy facts, and utterly lacking the “nutrient” of depth.

To satisfy James Bay's cravings, we do not have to know “Why did someone put an orgy in a tree?” Instead, we absolutely need to know “Why did WE put an orgy up there?” It is not enough to make a story personal, you've got to make it pre-personal and trans-personal as well!

It hardly matters what Lisa Boehme & Emma May were thinking when they erected this conceptual-sexual tree decor. Nor do we care that these inflatable sex dolls were provided by The Romance Shop. Such data is dull, dull, dull.

This is just more Standard Normalizing Trivia (SNT).

These regressive, socially-retarding, "news whores" (I'm looking at you, The James Bay Beacon! ) are willfully cheating the rest of us out of the raw, organic energy of events and substituting it with an pandering, low-nutrient data-sludge that only occasionally contains a half-decent Crossword or Sudoku puzzle.

Wow. That's a mouthful. Of slander.

Too much? How about this, instead: think about TREES & SEX & PLASTIC BODIES. Blend the ideas together. What does all that suggest to you? Clearly, “trees” and “sex” intersect readily. Druid sex-cults, Witches, Reichian vegetative libido electricity, etc. Victoria has always been a haven for tree-loving, pro-sex schools of contemporary neo-paganism. Let's be honest: our sensitivity to trees and sexiness is one of our best features. But what about the “plastic”? How do industrial masturbation toys jive with the regenerative, organic life-energy that exists in humans and plants alike?

Maybe – My God! A horrible thought! -- this means that our contemporary “permissive” attitude is not as natural as we think it is. Doesn't the appearance of plastic, de-humanized sex orgies in public fit into the same weird category as virtual sex, safe sex, decaffeinated coffee, fat-free chocolate cake...?

The French cultural philosopher Jean Baudrillard (1929-2007) wrote, in Simulacra and Simulation:

"The transition from signs which dissimulate something to signs which dissimulate that there is nothing, marks the decisive turning point. The first implies a theology of truth and secrecy (to which the notion of ideology still belongs). The second inaugurates an age of simulacra and simulation, in which there is no longer any God to recognize his own, nor any last judgment to separate truth from false, the real from its artificial resurrection, since everything is already dead..."

So the danger is not from the entry of carnal energies into the public sphere (as is believed by the least healthy among political conservatives) but rather the threat is from the “emptying out” of all our excitements from the bestial to the angelic (an agenda pushed by the least healthy among political liberals).

Today's Moral Commandment: Thou shalt have all the carnal pleasure thou desireth, even in public, as long as there are no “real bodies” involved!

Do we not have belly dancers in our malls, applauded by Moms and respected by everyone -- with no sense that these swaying hips and tantalizing rotations are erotic? Where has the sense "this is sexually titillating" gone? Is our society decaffeinating its eroticism? ARE WE DECAFFEINATING EVERYTHING???

Now, at last, feeling disturbed, twisted and conceptually over-excited about some minor local art experiment we can rest assured that we have discovered a mouthful of real cultural energy.

Until next time...

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