A real old-fashioned historic barn – how often do we get to see that scene nowadays? My first experience to see Jane Lunson's barn was in the 1970s when my mother asked me to drive her out to see Jane Lunson on Helgesen Road, to buy some raw wool.
In 1949, Tom and Jane Lunson bought the large property in the DeMamiel Valley where, many years earlier, the barn had originally been built by Christian “Sandy” Helgesen. The Helgesen family, from Norway, had first settled in Metchosin in the mid-19th century, and their son Christian had taken up land in Sooke about 1910. The Helgesens lived in a tent at first, before they built their farmhouse they called Solheim.
Tom and Jane Lunson, Britishers who’d arrived in Canada after the dislocations of the Second World War, set up their farm with a herd of 25 Ayrshires, and along with other local dairy farmers, shipped their milk in cans picked up by freight trucks at the roadside for shipment to Island Farms.
Born in 1907, in the border country of England, Jane loved animals and when grown found herself with a scholarship to the Agricultural College at Newcastle on Tyne. Jane was the lone female among the 75 male students, and it was there that she met Tom, her future husband.
In the large barn pictured, the Lunsons raised sheep and goats. When the couple purchased the farm, the realtors told them the barn, constructed of logs, peeled saplings, and cedar shakes, was called a “Hudson’s Bay” barn. Though it leaked, it served them well for many years. Farming in our area has probably never been easy, and Jane Lunson found herself working as a doctor’s receptionist besides her farm chores in order to cover the bills.
In 1982, when Tom passed away, Jane was left to manage the farm alone, which she carried out with great independence and determination. It was in this period that the barn was to play a significant role in her life. Tending to her goats one winter, Jane had fallen on the barn’s concrete floor, and broken her hip.
Unable to move, she managed to reach out to a pile of hay and pulled hay over herself to keep out the cold. For three days and three nights, Jane Lunson lay there in the barn, still alive when a neighbour came to check on her. With incredible determination, she not only survived the ordeal, but recovered to live independently again until she was 101.
Elida Peers is the historian with Sooke Region Museum.
