Vancouver Island Quotes

The forest is blanketed by the greenest ferns and moss and bonsai-like trees, a wild majesty that beckons hobbits and pixies and elves and dreamers.

On two separate occasions he’s told people in Los Angeles that he’s from Canada and they’ve asked about igloos. An allegedly well-educated New Yorker once listened carefully to his explanation of where he’s from—southwestern British Columbia, an island between Vancouver Island and the mainland—and then asked, apparently in all seriousness, if this means he grew up near Maine.

If Canada had a soul (a doubtful proposition, Moses thought) then it wasn't to be found in Batoche or the Plains of Abraham or Fort Walsh or Charlottetown or Parliament Hill, but in The Caboose and thousands of bars like it that knit the country together from Peggy's Cove, Nova Scotia, to the far side of Vancouver Island.

It’s not a hometown, actually, it’s a home island. “It’s the same size and shape as Manhattan,” Arthur tells people at parties all his life, “except with a thousand people.” Delano Island is between Vancouver Island and mainland British Columbia, a straight shot north from Los Angeles. The island is all temperate rain forest and rocky beaches, deer breaking into vegetable gardens and leaping in front of windshields, moss on low-hanging branches, the sighing of wind in cedar trees.

Nearly one-quarter of all orcas captured for display during the late sixties and early seventies showed signs of bullet wounds. Royal Canadian fighter pilots used to bomb orcas during practice runs, and in 1960, private fishing lodges on Vancouver Island persuaded the Canadian government to install a machine gun at Campbell River to cull the orca population.

Orcas can be spotted from the shores of Seattle, Tacoma, Port Angeles, Bellingham, and the popular San Juan Islands in Washington State; and Vancouver, Victoria, Nanaimo, Campbell River, and other cities in BC. These venues not only offer easy access to the whales, they are scenic and pleasant places to live: Researchers who study orcas tend to gravitate more toward this region than, say, Iceland.

When he tells people in Toronto that he’s from British Columbia, they’ll invariably say something about how they like Vancouver, as though that glass city four hours and two ferries to the southeast of his childhood home has anything to do with the island where he grew up.

For in their succorless emptyhandedness, they, in the heathenish sharked waters, and by the beaches of unrecorded, javelin islands, battled with virgin wonders and terrors that Cooke with all his marines and muskets would not willingly have dared. All that is made such a flourish of in the old South Sea Voyages, those things were but the lifetime commonplaces of our heroic Nantucketers. Often, adventures which Vancouver dedicates three chapters to, these men accounted unworthy of being set down in the ship's common log. Ah, the world! Oh, the world!

Travel continues to be the one thing I value spending money on. In the second year of the ban, I traveled to Portland, Oregon; Charlotte, North Carolina; Toronto, Winnipeg, Salt Spring Island, Galiano Island, Tofino, and Vancouver; and numerous times to Squamish (where I would eventually move). And when it was over, I went on a seven-week road trip around the United States by myself. While I have the freedom and money to do something “bigger,” like live and work from a foreign country for a few months, I’ve realized I care more about exploring North America first. It’s far too easy to take your surroundings for granted, and I am blessed to live in one of the most beautiful parts of this continent.

group of passengers aboard a ferryboat near Vancouver Island, Canada, claims to spot a mermaid. Days later, it is revealed to be a hoax. 2004 After a tsunami hits India, an e-mail claims that a mermaid washed ashore. But the e-mail and photo are discovered to be hoaxes. 2009

They would begin shooting in 1914, a year out. Curtis felt renewed. With a fresh bounce in his step, he walked the shore of Vancouver Island, all pulsing tides and overgrowth, more than fifty pounds on his back, and slogged through the rainforest in search of people unaffected by modern life. In one of the wettest parts of the world, the Indians spoke of two broad categories for rain: male and female. "A 'she-rain' is gentle, caressing, clinging, persistent," Curtis explained in an extended note to his daughter Florence, one of the many letters to his children that picked up as he entered middle age. "A 'he-rain' is quite the opposite in all ways but that of persistence.

There he became a Canadian citizen, founded a charter boat business (earning him the title of Captain) and became the science director of a uranium mining company. (According to one account, Hubbard had something to do with supplying uranium to the Manhattan Project.) By the age of fifty, the “barefoot boy from Kentucky” had become a millionaire, owner of a fleet of aircraft, a one-hundred-foot yacht, a Rolls-Royce, and a private island off Vancouver. At some point during the war Hubbard apparently returned to the United States, and he joined the OSS shortly before the wartime intelligence agency became the CIA.

SOS!” I said. “Helicopter out of Salmon Creek. Pilot unconscious. Repeat, helicopter pilot unconscious.” I stopped transmitting and listened. Static. “SOS!” I said. “Emergency situation. Helicopter over Vancouver Island. Pilot unconscious. Repeat, pilot unconscious!” The helicopter dropped again. Corey bent to look at the control panel. “You need to--” “I’m working on it!” Sam snarled. “Here, let me--” I didn’t see what Corey did, but the helicopter pitched to the side, hard and sharp. Corey fell onto the mayor. Kenjii barked, claws scraping the floor as she slid onto the unconscious pilot. Sam swore, her hands shaking as she reached for a lever. “Everyone sit down. Just sit down!” The helicopter lurched again and Sam’s hand hit something. A crack and a rush of air. Nicole shrieked. This time, Hayley joined her. “The door!” Corey said. “Holy hell. The door’s open!

The first people who come for us will likely be the kidnappers. It’d be safer to get to a phone and call our parents.” Everyone looked around. The mainland was a dark blob on the eastern horizon. To the west was Vancouver Island. About a kilometer of water separated the two. “Umm…” Corey began. “Not to question your judgment, buddy, but that’s a bit of a swim. The water’s damned cold. I bashed my knee good in the crash, and I’m not the only one who’s hurting. I get what you’re saying, but the pilot’s radio seemed to be out, so they won’t know where we are. If we light a fire, someone out boating might see us.” “That’s a good idea,” Sam said. “Or it would be. If we had matches to light a fire. Or if anyone was actually out boating.” “Why don’t we just find a place to hide?” Hayley said. “That way, when someone does come, we can see if it’s a real rescue or not.” “How the hell are you going to tell the difference?” Sam said. “Ask them? And no one’s going to find the crash site. You know why? There is no crash site.” She pointed out over the empty water. When the helicopter had dropped over the ledge, it had disappeared. Only a few small pieces of debris floated, already being dispersed by the tide.

Vehicle reservations on Vancouver to Victoria and Nanaimo and Vancouver to the Sunshine Coast routes are optional (but recommended especially for Vancouver to Victoria) and cost an additional C$15 to C$22. There is no

waters off Vancouver Island are home to Chinook and coho salmon, rockfish, lingcod, and the giant halibut—the major carnivore fish of the Pacific Northwest. Now, a new species of carnivore has made this oceanic waterway its home. The orca are transients, the resident killer whales having mysteriously vacated the area weeks earlier. There are six whales in the pod: two mature females, two calves,

I write these last lines on Sauvie's Island - the Wappatto of the Indians - sitting upon the bank of the river, beneath the gnarled and ancient cottonwood that still marks the spot where the old Columbia trail led up from the water to the interior of the island. Stately and beautiful are the far snow-peaks and the sweeping forest. The woods are rich in the colors of an Oregon autumn. The white wappatto blooms along the marshes, its roots ungathered, the dusky hands that once reaped the harvest long crumbled into dust. Blue and majestic in the sunlight flows the Columbia, river of many names -- the Wauna and the Wemath of the Indians, the St. Roque of the Spaniards, the Oregon of poetry -- always vast and grand, always flowing placidly to the sea. Steamboats of the present; batteaux of the fur traders; ships, Grey's and Vancouver's, of discovery; Indian canoes of the old unknown time -- the stately river has seen them all come and go, and yet holds its way past forest and promontory, still beautiful and unchanging. Generation after generation, daring hunter, ardent discoverer, silent Indian -- all the shadowy peoples of the past have sailed its waters as we sail them, have lived perplexed and haunted by mystery as we live, have gone out into the Great Darkness with hearts full of wistful doubt and questioning, as we go; and still the river holds its course, bright, beautiful, inscrutable. It stays; we go. It there anything beyond the darkness into which generation follows generation and race follows race? Surely there is an after-life, where light and peace shall come to all who, however defeated, have tried to be true and loyal; where the burden shall be lifted and the heartache shall cease; where all the love and hope that slipped away from us here shall be given back to us again, and given back forever Via crucis, via lucis.

WARM SALT "A grad student investigates the tragic death of a diving partner and stumbles on a crime ring in Eshleman's debut thriller. An often engaging action novel, bolstered by its exotic setting and realistic protagonist." - Kirkus Reviews ICE BRINE "A diving pro and part owner of a Canadian undersea salvage company tangles with international criminals and multiple intelligence agencies. An exhilarating thriller; Clive Cussler fans will find that Peter Case floats their boat." - Kirkus Reviews CASE CLOSED "In Eshleman's 1980s-set novel, the third in his Peter Case trilogy, Case and sidekick Hal McDonald reluctantly abandon their marine salvage business on Vancouver Island to investigate a series of suspicious deaths. A quiet revenge story that morphs into a high-impact tale." - Kirkus Reviews

Vancouver Island is British Columbia’s largest island,

On Vancouver Island, hitchhiking is considered a perfectly feasible way to travel, prohibited only on the highway, where you could get hit. In Salmon Creek, though, we got stranger-danger classes from kindergarten. Ours were probably a little different from most--we were taught that anyone in Salmon Creek could be trusted; it was the rest of the world we needed to watch out for. Some kids did start hitching rides into town when they hit that awkward “old enough to hang out in Nanaimo but not old enough to drive there” stage. If I’d tried it, I’m not sure who would have killed me first--my parents or Daniel.

Just because you've arrived to Vancouver Island doesn't mean you have to stop your journey to a new life." Mrs. Moresby once again removed her hankerchief from her reticule and dabbed her forehead with it. "In fact, our whole lives are going to be filled with challenges, and our job is to keep growing and seeking after what God has next for us.

It was nice though. Wasn’t it?” I wanted to jump over that island and show her how nice it had been. “Yes. I enjoyed it. A lot.” She smiled a smile that almost took my breath away. “Me too. It might have been in the top five of all my kisses.” “Really? Because that was probably my top kiss.” Now why the fuck had I said that? She bit her bottom lip. “Okay. I just said top five because I didn’t even think I would make your top ten list, but it was definitely my top kiss too.

We’re planning a trip to a little oceanside town on Vancouver Island; we’d like to do a little storm-watching. I think it’s just what I need to get out of this rut I seem stuck in, ocean air brings me to life.

Very early on, in 1794, Captain George Vancouver (after whom the city of Vancouver is named) claimed the islands for Great Britain and hoisted its flag on several of the islands. However, his reports and actions were not ratified by London in time to be of any practical use. Furthermore, the Russians had also staked a claim over the islands of Hawaiʻi. The governor of Alaska at that time sent a vessel to Honolulu, ordering the construction of buildings that were fitted with mounted guns. They, too, hoisted the Russian flag over these buildings. Fortunately, King Kamehameha I built a large fort in Honolulu and expelled the Russians, eventually causing the Russian government to disavow their Russian agents. As the decades passed, the English residents of Hawaiʻi did not approve of or enjoy the American occupation of the islands.

Fur traders reaped in profits from trading with the Native Americans of the northwest coast of America. Expeditions from India, England, China, and various parts of the Americas set out to engage in this trade, with the main rendezvous point being Vancouver Island. The island was located just above what is now the northern border between the United States of America and Canada. The small body of water that lay on the western edge of Vancouver Island was called Nootka Sound, with “sound” meaning a part of the sea that turns into an inlet of sorts.

Vince conjures the gonzo spirit of his small-town Vancouver Island characters and wraps them in the uniquely outrageous beauty and ramshackle cultural norms of the region. His protagonist is just the kind of hilariously rudderless, obsessive, self-absorbed, curmudgeonly, and deftly pure hearted person who settles into those bucolic surroundings. “The Liquor Vicar” is a 20th century-pop-quiz-slap-in-the-face at every turn. It’s way too much fun.” Craig Northey, composer and founding member of west coast Pop masters ‘Odds’.

Pacific Coast and Vancouver Island’s Empress, a stately hotel that held its surroundings like a grand, decorated cake above the seawater in which the island seemed to float.

A particularly gruesome hunt targeted the basking shark, the second-largest fish in the world. At one time these creatures, which may reach fifteen metres in length, were abundant along the coast. For all their size they are peaceable giants, feeding on zooplankton in the nutrient-rich ocean waters close to the surface. They do not eat salmon or any other fish, but fishermen considered them a nuisance because they often became entangled in fishing gear. In 1949 the Department of Fisheries labelled them a "destructive pest" and in 1955 the department was persuaded to take aggressive action against the sharks in Barkley Sound, on the west coast of Vancouver Island, where they were especially prevalent. A large triangular cutting blade was mounted on the bow of a fisheries patrol vessel, the Comox Post. This knife could be lowered just below the surface of the water. When the vessel drove straight into a lounging shark, the blade sliced the animal in half. Between 1955 and 1969, when the blade was in use, hundreds of sharks were slaughtered in the sound. "The great shark slaughter began at noon and continued for hours," wrote a reporter who witnessed one of these excursions in 1956. "We littered the beaches with their livers and the bottom with their carcasses." Other fisheries vessels that were not equipped with the knife had orders to simply ram any sharks they encountered in the hope of killing them. Basking sharks are today almost never encountered in Barkley Sound or anywhere else on the coast.