Brian admires the flowers. Lake Cowichan
The first inklings of the fall season have come to Cowichan Bay village. We’ve been offered a bit of a preview as it were, of what’s in store over the next few months. The beautiful “blue sky” weather we enjoyed through much of June, July and August has been broken now by several days of dark clouds and just a little rain. It’s not as warm this week either.
Never fear however, this weather won’t last – it never does. September – October promise to be as beautiful as always, with cool crisp mornings giving way to occasionally bright and sunny afternoons. However, since the ground is damp today and the chances of getting soaked while hiking are fairly high, we find ourselves turning to indoor pursuits.
This is perfect weather for visiting one of our nearby museums.
The Kaatza Station Museum and Archives.
So Brian, Pete and I once more piled into the pickup, this time for the short drive to the town of Lake Cowichan, there to visit it’s rather impressive museum. When we pulled into the parking lot, we noticed that we had the place more or less to ourselves. Tourist season dies awfully hard here on Southern Vancouver Island.
The museum itself is a delight to tour. Run more or less by a group of dedicated volunteers, many of them retirees, it’s housed in the town’s old train station. The main building, built in 1913 for the Esquimalt and Nanaimo railway, is divided into several distinctive sections which the visitor tours in the course of a short walk.
Peeking in the Kitchen
You can visit the original telegraphers office, an early settler’s home, the general store, the post office and a barn shed. There’s even a very compact display depicting early mining efforts along Cowichan Lake. Each area has artifacts suited to the location, while the adjacent wall space is literally plastered with poster sized enlargements of archival photographs.
Another building, the former Mesachie Lake schoolhouse which was moved to the museum grounds after decommissioning, boasts a splendid collection of power saws, logging equipment, saw milling artifacts and items associated with the Canadian Pacific and Canadian National railways. As in the main building, the walls here are almost completely plastered with a remarkable series of photographs.
Wayne describes the Power-saw room
We would have missed the power-saw display entirely had it not been for Brian’s quick thinking. He visited the Museum some time ago, and when he spotted a volunteer headed in the direction of the old schoolhouse, he asked if we might see the display.
Wayne the volunteer in question, was more than happy to oblige. It was plain to see that he was an enthusiastic member of the museum staff. He was keen to explain things, tested our skill at identifying odd bits of logging equipment and in general was a most congenial host and representative.
Celio
We spent a good hour and a half touring the exhibits before coming to the conclusion that it simply wasn’t possible to see everything comfortably in one go. A second trip will be needed, there is just too much to see.Sure you can walk through the entire facility in about 15 minutes if you skim the surface. To see everything however, to have the photographs register in one’s head, to really come to grips with what life back in the early 20’th century was like in the Cowichan Valley, well that probably takes at least three hours or so.
On the way home, we stopped by the local pub for a bit of lunch. Beef Dip Sandwiches with side salads hit the spot.
On the way back to Cowichan Bay Village, we visited the camera shop to have a few pictures printed. We had three digital images of Pete’s cat Celio done, one of them as an 8×12 which Pete wants framed for wall hanging.
As usual, the trip was a great success, the only improvement we could think of was to have had George Weeks with us; this was his childhood stomping ground after all.
