At Anchor, Cowichan Bay
Originally published March 04 2011
A shortage of freight has put parking at a premium for those ocean going bulk carriers calling on ports in the Vancouver area.
Burrard Inlet, the normal staging area, is packed full. There’s simply no place for them to go at present. It costs plenty of money to keep a ship riding on station in open waters particularly when storms roll through and so we’ve been playing host to more than our regular share of these behemoths this winter season. In Cowichan Bay over the last few months we’ve had as many as seven at a time swinging at anchor.
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George Weeks aboard his home, Cowichan Bay Village.
George Weeks has lived on the southern end of Vancouver Island and around the Cowichan Valley most of his life. Born at the Duncan Hospital in 1937, it wasn’t long before he and his mother were ready for the car and boat ride home to Caycuse, where his father was a steam locomotive engineer and logger.
Today Caycuse is a mere shadow of it’s former self. Located about 20 km past the community of Lake Cowichan on the south shore, it was originally a float camp. It was was an isolated logging camp across the lake from Youbou, owned by the Empire Lumber Company around 1910. In 1926 Gilson & McCoy took over the operation and moved it to its present location at Nixon Creek.
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Inuksuk
Name: Inuksuk (Inook-shook)
Type: Blue Water Capable Sailing Ketch
Length: 44 feet (14.65 m)
Weight: 23.5 tons (47,000 lbs)
Hull: Ferro-Cement
Owners: John and Catherine Dook
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The Dominion I
The Dominion I has been a political football in Cowichan Bay since it first arrived in 2007. The story has been a long one. Below is an incomplete chronicle of events, those stories I was able to save from the shambles of The Current after it suffered a database crash in December of 2012.
Since these articles were written, the vessel has been through two prospective “owners” Robert Hall is no longer involved. It dragged anchor twice and is now moored against the deep-water shipping dock where lumber was once loaded onto freighters. It continues to float albeit at an odd angle, defying those who predicted it’s imminent sinking.
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