Desirable destination, but where do you park?

 

View from the water of Cowichan Bay.

Winter or summer, there’s no parking on Cowichan Bay. Oh, there are cars. There are a lot of them, parked cheek-by-jowl and end-to-end. And there are moving cars too, with drivers who hover as hopefully as circling birds looking for a place to roost. Their optimism touches me.

The parking in Cowichan Bay is often commented on by the local brain trust, the old guys who hang around Rob’s Lighthouse Café every morning and drink coffee and order up Heidi’s breakfast wraps. One of the local brain trust believes in conspiracy theories, one of them believes in UFOs, and the third, George of the Snowy Beard, famously made UFOs during his misspent youth using lit candles and garbage bags. He says he didn’t set fire to anything and more importantly, he didn’t get caught, but he indoctrinated a generation of locals into an unshakable belief in UFOs. Nobody drinking coffee at Rob’s Lighthouse Café sees any contradictions within this conversation.

“The parking situation here is out of hand,” says the man who believes in UFOs.

“It sucks,” says George of the Snowy Beard, who has a gift for cutting to the heart of a subject and also for manufacturing useful things out of household articles – say garbage bags. “Isn’t that your car parked here in front of the Lighthouse, Catherine?”

There is no parking at Cowichan Bay.

“It is,” I reply. “I’m just leaving.” As I drive away, a car behind me dives into the space I’d left, and I knew as sure as tides that upon my return I’d have to park alongside Hecate Park and walk five minutes back to Cowichan Bay. Truth is, there is ALWAYS parking near Hecate Park, but the locals feel compelled to grizzle about something.

So come to Cowichan Bay by boat. There’s transient moorage at the Government Dock, and good mud holding at anchor out in the bay. Even though the depths in the middle of the bay can run up to 200 feet, there are plenty of 60-foot anchorages. If you let out 300 feet of line you will have a good 5:1 rode and in summer there’s not enough wind to knock your boat down to the mudflats and tip you over. Winters are different, of course.
So once you’re anchored, get into your dinghy and look for someplace in one of the marinas to dock.

Tuula’s garden on the dock.

But wait – there’s no DINGHY-parking either. Fortunately, the live-aboards here are fairly easy-going, especially after they’ve finished their morning coffee and breakfast at Rob’s Lighthouse Café, so nobody minds if you tie up wherever there’s an empty length of dock between boats. Then you make your way down the dock in a landward direction. If the ramp ahead of you is too steep (who DESIGNED that fool thing?), turn right at the connecting dock we call ‘Dominion Way.’ We named it after the old tuna-packer, Dominion, which sat at anchor in the bay for a couple of seasons, enraging the local environmentalists. Little did they know there was no danger of fuel contamination from the old Dominion because someone had stolen all the diesel out of her tanks early in her sojourn here, but I digress.

Proceed down Dominion Way and up the ramp with the half-decent slope. To your right on the pierhead you will see Bull Otter Park, a local gathering-place cunningly hidden behind the dumpster and an oil tank, and proceed past ‘The Wall of Shame,’ a low wall beside the dumpster where we forage for useful junk someone else has thrown away. You will then walk through the only paid parking lot in Cowichan Bay. Enjoy it, because only the elite of Cowichan Bay park here. Finally you will arrive at Rob’s Lighthouse Café, home of the Cowichan Bay brain trust and the finest paninis on Vancouver Island. I mean it. There are people who drive here from an hour away to eat Rob and Heidi’s food.

Dominion Way from the ramp.

But even before Rob and Heidi (and they’ve been here for years), The Cowichan Tribes lived here. The First Nations Elders say that their ancestors were twelve people who fell from the sky, encountered spirits through bathing in fresh streams, and built scaffolds for distributing gifts during potlatch. These were people who healed and counselled, and lived a life guided by strict rules of honour. The Cowichan ancestor who fell closest to Cowichan Bay landed on the site of the present Quamichan bighouse. His name was Suhilton.

Every spring the Cowichan people paddled down the Cowichan and Koksilah Rivers to Cowichan Bay in their ocean-going canoes. They travelled to the Gulf Islands to gather shellfish and harvest marine mammals, which they dried and smoked for the winter.

Then the British Naval vessel HMS Hecate arrived with colonists and guns and everything changed.

Among the pioneers there was enough land, lumber, and salmon for everyone, including visitors. The soil and climate were perfect for vineyards; infrastructure crept like grapevines across the landscape in the form of roads and railroads. Catholic missionaries built ‘The Butter Church,’ a small stone building on top of Comiakin Hill, whose workmen were paid from the diocese dairy herd.

But within the village itself began a tradition of mercantilism that has stretched seamlessly forward and blossomed into the charming tourist destination we know today, resplendent with flowers and funk. Cowichan Bay’s first mogul was an immigrant from Italy who lived at and named Genoa Bay. Giovanni Ordano built the old Columbia Hotel (now the site of some condos up the hill opposite the present Oceanfront Hotel) where in later years, American celebrities like John Wayne and Bing Crosby came to rest after a day of fishing for salmon. He also built boats, which he used to transport merchandise and passengers for his business interests.

The beach at Cowichan Bay, looking toward Saltspring Island.

But today you are standing by Rob’s Lighthouse Café in Cowichan Bay. Where do you even start? Food? We have real artisan bread from True Grain, a business founded in 2004 by John Knight – baker, bicyclist, and knitter. John has since moved on to organic farming in the interior, but you catch the sense of his vision. Now owned by Bruce Stewart (an extremely nice man who offered to help me dig my car out of a snowbank last winter), True Grain is a member of the international Cittislow movement that takes its food very seriously indeed. This local business has drop-kicked breadmaking into a category all its own. Bruce’s almond croissants are so sinfully delicious that words fail me. For ten years I was unable to get past them, but I’ve recently tried his cheddar twists, so now when I go into the store I’m torn and conflicted. Life is short. Buy everything.

Next door to True Grain is Hilary’s Cheese, where you can mellow out with a glass of local wine and cheese made from locally-sourced milk. Co-owner Sonja Todd is partial to Happy Goat Tommy Devallee cheese. She doesn’t mind if you come into her restaurant carrying brown paper bags from True Grain because she plans to load you up with blocks of cheese and fair is fair. Later you may decide to buy a bottle of the Enrico Pinot Gris you enjoyed with your Happy Goat cheese, so you walk on to the Pier 66 Market and Liquor Store where Lauren will sell you exactly what you want. You may also want to choose something nice from the Cherry Point Vineyards, or a copy of one of my last three books. Lauren carries them all, bless her heart.

figure at Hecate Park, carved by Herb Rice, Coast Salish Carver.

By this time you are planning a wine and cheese and croissant picnic in Hecate Park, where there are shaded tables and a view across the bay of Mount Tzouhalem, where 150 years ago the HMS Trincomali fired cannonballs in the hopes that the Cowichan First Nations would be too preoccupied with the noise to notice nobody intended to pay them for their land. You will be waylaid at the end of the strip by Udder Guys Ice Cream and Retro Candy Store, where the hand-made blackberry ice cream will blow the top of your head off. Yves makes 24 flavours, each one better than the next. Of the three young ladies scooping ice cream behind the counter, Piper likes orange and chocolate best, Aleah is partial to chocolate nut fudge, and Larissa swears by raspberry. “Although they’re all very good,” Larissa tells me, and I don’t argue with her.

 

Too full of wine and cheese and ice cream to picnic at Hecate Park, you dip into the Invisible Sun Arts Gallery and Gifts to admire local artwork and some of Darlene Edwards’ incomparable Cowichan knitting, and then you swing past Radway to shop for ethically-sourced clothing from Nepal, Thailand, and Africa. The workers in the countries that supply Radway are paid fair prices, given work breaks, and housed in inspected buildings. Radway also sells locally-made jewellery. “And are the Canadian artisans treated ethically too?” I ask, and the young lady behind the counter laughs.

Udder Guys Ice Cream Shop.

At the Mud Room, potter Colleen is slinging pots, each one a work of art. The sign hanging over the Rock Cod Café was carved and painted by world-famous Coast Salish artist and great guy, Herb Rice. Check out his website at
www.coastsalishjourney.com. Within the walls of the Rock Cod, the staff pride themselves on their Halibut and chips, and the Masthead, at the other end of the strip, is a fine-dining epicurean experience you will never forget in the oldest building in Cowichan Bay.

 

 

Inside Udder Guys Ice Cream (left to right) Piper, Aleah and Larissa

For those boaters tired of a week of showers, the Wessex Hotel, on the site of an old cannery (mercifully, unlike the other structures in the village, a modern building), boasts friendly staff and real bathtubs. If you are suffering a boat crisis, Rick at Classic Marine will fix you up from either his well-stocked chandlery or his suppliers’ using fast-moving FedEx drivers. Need provisions? Lauren, owner of the Pier 66 Market, shops for fresh produce for her store every Thursday, her dairy products are always well-dated, and she stocks frozen meat. She also prides herself on carrying one of everything you might possibly need. Duct tape? Condoms? A birthday card? A can of your favourite chilli sauce? Look no further than Pier 66 Convenience Store. When the day is done, drop by the Cowichan Bay Pub for a cold one.

George of the Snowy Beard relaxing at his table in True Grain Bread.

I’ve saved the best for last. Just beyond Lauren’s store is an old ways, which is now the studio of First Nations artist, Arthur Vickers. Arthur Vickers paints, and I don’t mean boat bottoms. His paintings are celebrated all over the world, and one glimpse inside his studio will show you why.

 

 Colleen the potter in her shop.

So there you have it. Cowichan Bay has everything in technicolour, from history to shopping to celebrities to loveable locals. So come visit us at the Lighthouse Café on Cowichan Bay. George of the Snowy Beard hasn’t been dangerous with garbage bags for years.