For two summers Solveig Uldall, had worked in a variety of jobs , in the kitchen and garden and later in the hotel and some cabins. A glow came over her face and a sheen in her eyes when her memory ran past pictures and events .
“It was such a beautiful place with comfort and elegance surrounded by a rugged landscape, several beaches and waters teaming with life. We worked long hours but there was always time for a quick swim or walk and even a dance or two. And one day he came,” she said after a pause. “I was listening to the band in the evening and watching the dancers when he stood in front of me and asked me to dance. He said his name was Fred Talbott and he had rowed into Mannion Bay all the way from Coal Harbour in Vancouver. A couple of weeks later he showed up like that again. On his third visit he announced that he had hired on with the Union Steamship Company. The next year we got married and spent our honeymoon in the Orchard., hiking to Killarney Lake past the stables and even up to Honeymoon Lake. When we wanted to be alone we took the deer trails.”
Eventually Fred Talbot became a USSC captain and the couple bought a house on the water in Cameron Avenue. When I moved there in 1964, he had already passed away.
Made curious by Solveig’s stories Marianne and I visited Bowen for the first time later in 1968 on the then fairly new Bowen Queen.
The two-lane Bowen Trunk Road was still lined with a number of cabins on the north side but they were already being engulfed by blackberries. Perl’s Café was open for meals and the Bow Mart for coffee and ice cream. Traffic was sparse. As we drove north on Miller Road we could see a number of cottages to the right in the forest.
On the winding dirt road toward Hood Point we got stuck behind a car at about ten miles an hour. Later we heard that it was Einar Nielsen, who had the local taxi and never took it out of first gear. The vistas were spectacular but the No Trespassing signs began to distract us to the point that we decided, after driving through a clear-cut Bluewater and more unwelcoming signs on the way to Seymour Bay, to return home.
Much later we learned that the Keep Out signs were posted because every fall groups of merry men showed up to hunt accompanied by gallons of home-made wine. By noon they had not seen a single deer and the wine was almost gone. Merriment turned into frustration and traffic signs were used for target practice. Rumour had it that a stray bullet tore a newspaper out of the hands of the someone sitting serenely on his porch. Not long after, Bowen Island banned hunting with guns.
Back then, most of the island’s roads were unpaved and some were truly “rustic.” Waiting for the ferry we had some time to walk through the Orchard and there we caught a glimpse of the past holiday spirit since several cottages were occupied and surrounded by gardens, others were boarded up.
Solveig’s golden past had crumbled and we decided not to return.
Our resolve changed in 1971 when a friend of ours who worked with the Department of Highways had to check out the Arbutus Point subdivision in Bowen Bay.
He left me at the beach. The only sound was the rustle of the receding waves in the gravel. A seal popped his head out of the water and there was golden sand on the beach. I was looking at Vancouver Island and imagined the sunsets in summer and my children in the water….
To be continued…
