Places
- a tres chic and ultra moderne google map
- Location of our home This is me, standing at the top of the steps up
from the beach to our house. There is a fir log on the
beach in the background. This is being cut for firewood, as winter was coming on,
and the house was heated with a wood stove.
My mother cooked on a oil-fired cookstove. The waste heat from this was used to
heat hot water. We had a gas-engine generator or "plant" that provided electricity
for lighting (and welding). We did not always run the plant for lighting;
we often used coal oil lamps or gas lamps. Water came via plastic pipe from a creek.
When we first moved to Read, we used an outhouse, but we eventually got an indoor toilet!
This marvel was in the house pictured below.
Maurelle Island is in the background.
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- Hacketts
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- Whiterock Pass - the water through here was so clear we could see
ling cod on the bottom. The pass was dredged in the first year we were on the island, and
navigation aids were put in.
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- Tipton's Store - first owned by Tiptons, then Hopkins.
The teacherage, and the Keelings were both close to the water near the store.
The school was back in the bush a ways.
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- School This is the original Surge Narrows School. It had
one classroom and two outhouses. It was lit with propane lights. Grades one to eight were
taught here, with an attendance of around 12 to 15 students.
The field in the foreground was used for community softball games in the summer.
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- Surge Narrows
- Canoe Pass - the smallest pass in the chain of islands in the Surge.
- Steamboat Pass - the largest pass in the chain of islands in the Surge.
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- Whittingtons lived here. The Gansons lived nearby.
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- Evans Bay named after Commander Fredrick John Owen Evans, R.N., of the
Admiralty
Hydrographic Office.
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- Maurelle Island
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- Lamberts lived here, across the channel on Maurelle.
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- Rendezvous Islands - there were two orchards on this little
archipelago. Good apples and a couple of varieties of cherries, plus enormous blackberry bushes.
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- Quatam River - extreme coho fishing. Our
catch phrase describing the heaps of salmon we brought back was
"We caught 'em at the Quatam." My mother canned a lot of salmon, and we sold some
to the fish packers at Stuart Island. Commercial salmon licenses were easy to get
back then.
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- Ramsay Arm
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- Stuart Island - then as now, one could see some
beautiful yachts at Stuart Island. Desolation Sound and the Discovery Islands
has always been a popular boating area, as the Inside Passage is well-protected waters, and the
scenery is fabulous.
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- Big Bay - from here you could see the Yuculta Rapids
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- Bute Inlet - the water in here was a light green, due to
the silt from the glaciers at the head of the inlet. In winter, we would get bitterly cold winds
known as "Bute Winds". They were cold Interior air funnelling down Bute and Toba Inlets.
They blew endless amounts of flotsam, jetsam, wood and Douglas Fir bark onto the shores of our bay. The
bark made excellent firewood, as long as it was not too water-logged. Its a long trip to the head end.
Now, you can take the trip by clicking here, or not,
the trouble
with the WWWeb is things come and go. This link is a little less
picturesque.
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- Sonora Island was named in memory of the Spanish schooner
Sonora commanded by
Juan Francisco de la Bodega Quadra, the Spanish naval officer who explored and charted the British
Columbia coast in 1791.
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- Owen Bay was named by Captain David Pender, R.N., master of the
surveying vessel Beaver in 1864, after Commander Fredrick John Owen Evans, R.N., of the Admiralty
Hydrographic Office.
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- Hole In the Wall - this narrow passage between
Maurelle and Sonora is aptly-named. If you don't know to look for it, you could miss it.
This was the best place to see large numbers of bald eagles, scores of them regularly
fished this waterway.
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- Okisollo Channel
- Octopus Islands - tiny chain of islands near the Okisollo and the Hole in the Wall.
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- Quadra Island named after Juan Francisco de la Bodega Quadra,
the Spanish naval officer who explored and charted the British Columbia coast in 1791.
- Quathiaski Cove - the ferry from Campbell River lands here
- Rebecca Spit - this park was dedicated during the
Centennary
celebrations in 1958. Bob Grey was related to Mary Clendenning, whose family donated the land.
- Heriot Bay - this is were we tied up when we were heading
the
Vancouver Island.
- Ripple Rock - the biggest man-made non-nuclear
blast ever was detonated here
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- Raza Island named for ?? . I once saw a forest fire raging up the side of
this steep-sided island.
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- Cortes Island is named for Hernando Cortes, the famous
conquistador of the Aztecs. Pity about the genocide of the indigenous populations, practiced by all
Europeans as
the plundered North America. We went ice-skating there at a lake on the north end of Cortes.
Here is a quick tour of Cortes.
- Mansons Landing - the south end of Cortes is where the Sports
Day was held
- Squirrel Cove - Dad and I went there once. We fished on the way there and back.
- Marina Island is named for a young Aztec princess
to whom Cortes gave the Spanish name Marina. She became his interpreter, adviser, and lover.
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- Campbell River Civilization.
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headblock