There have been discussions about new highway directives being planned for where Idlemore Road meets Sooke Road, adjacent to Sooke Harbour Cemetery. We’ve heard there’s talk of a traffic light or a roundabout, and it brings to mind a scene from many years ago, at just about this spot.
Our image today shows a small portion of the 1921 Saseenos Subdivision Plan 2434, with side roads identified, though many were not actually in place then. Idlemore Road had not been built, although Kaltasin was in place. Saseenos School had not even been dreamt of. At the corner of Kaltasin and Sooke roads, there was what we called “the gravel pit” where trucks would load up with gravel to spread.
When I was a small child, the area was heavily wooded between the gravel pit and the cemetery, and right next to the First Nations Reserve. My family’s home was on Parklands Road (on the map) so when I was six years old and walking to Sooke School in 1938, this was our route.
One day I noticed a campsite in the trees, and being naturally inquisitive, I walked in to see a woman sitting on a camp chair with an easel, painting. She was in front of a sort of caravan, and while I can’t describe it, it was not a tent.
This was exciting for me, as it was not customary to meet a stranger in our small community. We chatted briefly. Being so long ago, and me so little, I am not clear on the details, but I do remember a scene with tall fir trees, yellow violets, pink lady slippers and sword ferns. Her campsite was about as close to the T’Sou-ke Nation as she could get.
At that time I wouldn't have known the artist who would become internationally famous, Emily Carr. Later, I got to understand some of the history of this distinctive artist, who had sometimes stayed at the Belvedere Hotel across the river before it burned down in 1934. We learned that at the hotel she had offered, for a pittance, her paintings done on wood fungus.
The other location where we know Emily Carr stayed was at Malahat Farm, just before you reach Muir Creek. We know that much of her famous work was done further up the coast, and focused on the Indigenous peoples she met.
The quiet chat in the woods along a gravel road seems an incredible contrast to the busy highway of today where officials are trying to find a safe solution to the intersection that now sees a constant flow of traffic.
Elida Peers
Historian with Sooke Region Museum
