Canada’s 150th birthday is an invitation to look back and the emerging number of stories cannot be counted. I, too, have a few and one in particular connects me with Bowen Island, the Union Steam Ship Company and the Orchard.
In 1968, Marianne and I lived with one year-old Markus on Cameron Avenue, that dreamy, one-block dead end street off Alma between Point Grey Road and the Water with a view from Nanaimo past Bowen and Black Mountain to the BC Hydro Building . One day in June I received a letter from my mother, Gisela Behm, who had just completed her year as primary teacher in Bella Bella on Campbell Island. She had purchased a wooden life boat and was sending it on a Northland Navigation freighter to Vancouver and asked whether I could pick it up.
We had a VW Bus, but a 14foot long boat would not fit inside. Looking for adventure I decided to row it from the Terminal near Second Narrows to Kitsilano. I asked the Coast Guard how to behave as a transient rower amongst tugs, freighters, and liners and was told to use an outgoing tide, hug the south shore and stay out of the course of oncoming freighters because they would take several hundred meters to stop.
As I received the Lighthouse Boat I saw the shiny bright work of a beamy two seater row boat, flat bottomed, oak clinker with two sets of skull oars. Her lines promised speed.
The voyage of about ten kilometres took me just under two hours with some untold adventures. And now, I suppose you are wondering what this has to do with Bowen Island, the Union Steamship Company and the Orchard…
Well, that story really began when I arrived back on the shores of Cameron Avenue in Kitsilano.
Across from us on the water lived Mrs. Talbot , the chain smoking “Duchess of Shrewsburry,” a lady interested in everybody else’s business on that street and with a sharp tongue, but a golden heart. Hearing my story she let me pull the boat up to the beach at her house. Upon arrival she sat me down with a stiff drink.
“Northland, eh? Do you know, they bought the Union’s Ships?”
She was referring, of course, to the Union Steamship Company. I had no idea what she was talking about and I said as much.
A smile came over her face and her eyes half-closed.
“If you ever want to know what fun is, you should have been there.”
To be continued…
