Baynes Sound, Fanny Bay, BC. high tide. |
There
was a particular part of Vancouver Island that interested me, the area north of
Parksville, BC up to Courtenay, BC. Between these two smaller cities were
little hamlets like Qualicum Beach, Deep Bay, Bowser, Fanny Bay, and Union Bay,
all seaside communities.
My
father, who spent almost all of his adult life living in Montreal, had a friend
who lived in Fanny Bay on Vancouver Island. They had both been officers in the
Canadian Army during the Second World War and had palled around London
together. I believe they were both attached to the 9th Field
Ambulance Corp. My father’s friend was a man named Jim Lunam who was a doctor.
Originally from New Brunswick, Jim and his wife at the time, Margaret, migrated
west to the small city of Courtenay on Vancouver Island after the war. It was
there that they raised a family and Jim practiced medicine. Later on, in
retirement, they built a house of their own design on a waterfront lot in the
small community of Fanny Bay about a half hour south of Courtenay.
Jim Lunam in London, England 1943 |
Captain S.T. Paterson London, England 1944 |
I
vaguely remember Jim Lunam visiting our home in Montreal. It was sometime in
the late fifties or early sixties. I think my father gave Jim one of his
paintings at the time. My guess is Jim was probably fairly familiar with
Montreal. I think both he and his father before him, who was also a doctor, got
their medical training at McGill University. I was to later learn that Jim also
visited my father shortly after the war.
I
first went out to the west coast in 1968. Over the next number of years I lived
and worked in other places but was always drawn back to Vancouver. I finally
settled there more permanently around 1976. Knowing that I was living on the
west coast, my father suggested a few times that I look up his old friend. I
did just that around 1978 one summer’s day when I was poking around Vancouver
Island.
Fanny
Bay is a small peninsula and is surrounded on three sides by the ocean. Just a
short distance away is Denman Island that is only accessible by ferry. I asked somebody who was out taking a walk if
they knew where Doctor Lunam lived and they directed me to a waterfront house
at the end of Shipspoint Road. It was a pretty impressive location. I knocked
on the doctor’s front door and explained who I was. There was moment when the doctor had to sort
it out in his mind what my connection was.
I
was invited in and I spent a few hours with Jim and his wife Margaret. They
gave me a tour of the house and Jim shared some of his memories of my father.
Jim’s wife was an ardent environmentalist and she proudly pointed out their
composting efforts and organic garden.
Jim Lunam's former house in Fanny Bay. |
Over
the next few years I took Jim and Margaret out for dinner a few times, once at
a quaint restaurant called The Old House in Courtenay and another time at a
seaside restaurant at Qualicum Beach. I thoroughly enjoyed the evenings. They
seemed like a happy couple. Margaret had lots of opinions on politics and
environmental protection. I was quite surprised to learn a year or two later
that they had split up and had sold their house in Fanny Bay. I never saw
Margaret again.
Jim
remarried to French Canadian women who had worked at the same hospital when he
was practicing and they bought a riverfront house in Courtenay. For the next
several years I would visit Jim about once every year or two. By this point
there was infrequent mention of my father other than the fact that he had
passed away in 1981. Jim was now in his 70s and his mind was still very sharp. He
always had a few jokes to tell, perhaps a skill he had picked up that made his
former patients more comfortable.
Jim
was a lean kind of guy with sharp features. He had a great appreciation for the
outdoors, walked a lot and avoided driving unless it was totally necessary. He
also belonged to the Sierra Club.
I
always enjoyed my visits with Jim. I never considered him a father figure or a
substitute parent. He was simply a kind older fellow who was a good
conversationalist and was very comfortable to be around. I felt a bit guilty at
times about turning up unannounced. I kind of reconciled that with the fact
that it was usually not a planned visit but an afterthought when I would find
myself in the area where he lived. He never seemed off put when I turned up.
It
was about 12-13 years ago and I was once again poking around and found myself in Fanny Bay one
summer’s weekend. I was kind of half curious about what houses were going for.
I was on a road called Baynes Drive (named after Rear Admiral Robert L. Baynes
who had been in the Crimean War and later took part in establishing the 49th
parallel boundary between the US and Canada. The town of Ganges on Salt Spring
Island is named after his ship. TMI?)
I
noticed a house for sale on a pretty piece of property but decided not to inquire
about it as there was a camper van in the driveway. I didn’t want to disturb
the owners. Instead I got out of my car and took a look at another property
that was for sale a few lots away. This piece of land had a shack on it and I
stopped to take a look more out of curiosity than anything else. The shack made me think of the infamous
American the “Unibomber”. The camper van up the street pulled out and the
driver stopped a few feet away from me. It turned out that he didn’t own the
other place but was a realtor from Victoria who was up seeing the air show at
Comox Air Force Base for the weekend. He invited me over to take a look at the
place.
The
outside of the building was covered in cedar planks. It had a peaked tin roof.
It also had a windowed room that was an addition that ran almost from one end
of the building to the other. There was also a deck. It wasn’t until I was
inside the house that I realized it was a trailer. It had an open plan
kitchen/living room and two bedrooms. I quite liked the place. I liked it even
more when I was told what the price was and that it included about ½ of an
acre. $85,000.00. Wow! That was certainly affordable.
My house at 68 Baynes Drive in Fanny Bay. |
I
wasn’t particularly impressed with the realtor guy and the fact that his buddy
owned the place. I decided to get my own realtor to protect my interests. I had
noticed somewhere in a Vancouver Island newspaper that an old roomie of mine
from the Banff Springs Hotel was operating as a realtor in the area and I got
him to negotiate on my behalf. I paid exactly what the seller wanted. After I
bought the place both realtors had a dispute about who deserved what
commission. Realtors are not my favourite people.
For
the next 3 years I would go over to Fanny Bay from Vancouver about twice a
month on weekends. I even rented it out several times. The place didn’t have a
phone or cable TV. That was fine with me. I started to buy cheap DVDs at
Wal-Mart with most of them being old black and white movies that I love. My
kids and I would stay in Fanny Bay for about a week for the next few summers. I
started to do some improvements around the house including painting. Bunk beds
and other furniture completed the interior of the house.
Livingroom area of house. |
When
I went over to the island for the first few years I would usually cut out at
about noon on a Friday so as not to be caught in the ferry line-up. I always
had a feeling of excitement and anticipation when I took the hour and half
drive from the ferry at Duke Point south of Nanaimo to Fanny Bay. I just
couldn’t wait to get up there. For several months I had a girlfriend who lived about
a half an hour from the ferry in a town called Ladysmith. We developed a
pattern. She would come up to Fanny Bay for the weekend. On Sunday afternoon
she would head back to Ladysmith and catch up on some chores. It also gave us
some time to ourselves. On Sunday night I would head down to Ladysmith and
spend the night. My girlfriend would set the alarm for 4:30 a.m. and I would
catch the 5:15 ferry back to Vancouver avoiding the common Sunday night sailing
waits. The only passengers at that time of the day seemed to be me and some
truckers.
I
started to get more familiar with the area. Sometimes we would go for a walk
along the beach. All of the beach area surrounding Fanny Bay is leased to oyster
farmers. Initially it was seeded in the 1920s with oysters coming from from
Japan, Fanny Bay oysters have a world-wide reputation as being some of the best
tasting bi-valves. We also discovered a place in the nearby woods known as the
“Enchanted Forest”. Some guy, who I never met, spent years creating bazaar
looking things mixed in with the trees. There was a bus stop with a bench and
an old suitcase. What looked like old books were stuck in cut outs in tree trunks. Old pieces of machinery could be
seen in odd places. There was an old bike or two along with things that some
might call folk art.
Bus stop in the Enchanted Forest. |
For
many of years there was a former cable laying ship called the Brico that was
beached at Fanny bay. About 30 years ago the Brico was operating as a
restaurant but that venture didn’t last long. My understanding is that it was
towed away a few years ago and sunk close by and that where it now lies is a
diving site. The government dock was about 100 feet away from the Brico. They
rebuilt the dock a few years ago and if you wander out onto the pier you can
see and hear the sea lions that make the Fanny Bay area their home for a good
part of the year. They are very noisy buggers and their barking can be heard
from a fair distance away.
The Brico. |
Sea lions. |
Another
landmark at Fanny Bay is the FBI, otherwise known as the Fanny Bay Inn. For
many years it was a biker hangout on summer weekends. The old Island Highway
runs right through Fanny Bay and is close to the ocean in most spots making it
a motorcyclist’s perfect day trip. The FBI used to have a bit of a reputation.
They sold some rather vulgar tee shirts (what rhymes with “shuck them”?) and it
was quite common to see 30-40 Harleys parked outside on a warm summer’s day.
When I lived in Fanny Bay I never hung out at the place because it seemed to
cater to the local drunks. I did go to a few Sunday afternoon jam sessions. I
once heard a story about a former owner who got naked one night and tossed
around some glasses. The place has been redone. is under new ownership, and now
seems to cater to more genteel kind of folks.
On
one vacation at Fanny Bay with my kids I decided we should all take kayaking
lessons up the road a few miles at Union Bay. After getting some instruction,
the 3 of us headed off to Denman Island across the sound. We never got close to
the island and my daughter Leah eventually had had enough. I think she would
have beaten me with her paddle if she could have got close to me. Over the next
number of years I rented a kayak several times in Union Bay. The owner Sean was
more of a diving guy than a kayak guy and he has moved his operation to
Courtenay. If you like diving, Sean is your guy. He can be reached at seashelldiving@shaw.ca or at seashelldiving.com. I always like
to promote local businesses.
Fanny Bay Inn. |
My son Dean taking a break while kayaking. |
My
doctor friend had moved to Courtenay before I bought the place in Fanny Bay. I
invited him and his newer wife down to Fanny Bay for dinner around the same
time I took the kids kayaking. The doctor had just sold his place in Courtenay
and they were just about to move to Victoria. We had a nice visit over a
spaghetti and meatball dinner and it was the last time I ever saw the good
doctor. I later learned that he had died in his mid-nineties in Victoria. I
talked to one of his sons briefly on the phone a year or two ago.
I
was about 58 years old and living in Richmond, BC when I decided to pack it in
as far as the business I owned went and remaining in the Vancouver area out of
the question. I was renting a large house in Richmond that also contained my
office. The house had a pool and required a lot of maintenance. The rent was
pretty high and I decided to rent out a few of the rooms. This was a big
mistake and a lot of trouble. I had one problem after another with crazy
renters. One day I decided I had had enough. I sold my business accounts to my
supplier who was both a retailer and a wholesaler. I had a huge garage sale and
got rid of a lot of furniture. Fanny Bay was where I wanted to be.
About
a year before I left Richmond I had purchased a golden retriever pup from a
lady out in Chilliwack, BC. His name was Cooper. I remember my last trip from
the Richmond house to Fanny Bay. My GMC Safari was packed to the hilt and there
was hardly any room for the dog. A girlfriend, who I was to dump about a month
later, came along for the ride. She went home after the weekend.
There
was some guilt on my part about leaving my kids behind. They were about 15 at
the time. (They are twins, a boy and a girl). Both were involved with a lot of
activities and there was a bit of an extra burden on my ex in her having to do
a lot of the driving of them from place to place. I had always been very
involved in their lives including coaching some of teams my son played on. For
the next few years I would go over to Vancouver once a month and spend a few
days at my ex’s and do all of the driving. At 15 the kids were becoming more
and more independent and preferred spending time with their friends a lot more
than with their parents. My ex deserves a lot of credit for being as
understanding as she was about my move.
It
was about 3 days after the move. I remember it as being a perfect kind of day.
The sun was out and it was the end of September. I was out for a walk in Fanny
Bay with Cooper. Back then we would sometimes go for 2 or 3 walks a day. We
were walking down a road and I was admiring all the neat looking houses that we
passed. We hiked along a dike area next to a marsh and I looked out onto the
ocean. A feeling kind of washed over me. This was it! I had found the perfect
place to live. I couldn’t imagine a nicer setting.
Dyke area at Fanny Bay. |
The
colder weather started to come and I bought a cord of firewood for the Franklin
stove that stood between the living room and the kitchen areas. I got the cable
guy in and had the TV hooked up. Unfortunately the NHL went on strike so there
was no hockey that winter. On the upside, I could now watch Turner Classic
Movies. For the next two years my dog Cooper and I were bachelors in Fanny Bay
with only occasional visitors. Cooper slept on my bed and we made adjustments
for one another on the couch when I switched positions. It was a really cosy
place to live with a fire going and being nice and toasty with the rain or
light snow falling outside.
I
never got to know many people in Fanny Bay other than my next door neighbour
and an older very conservative ex-farmer from Ontario who I would sometimes go
for dog walks with along the power lines a few miles away. The next door
neighbour was quite handy at repairing equipment. He had a very large garage
with a couple of old trucks in it. He also couldn’t handle his alcohol very
well and could become a sloppy drunk after a few drinks. I have to give him
credit for being a volunteer fireman but in all honesty I never cared much for
his demeanour.
I
had a few garage sales and got rid of a lot of excess furniture and other
stuff. I sold a phone system to an artist who lived a few lots away. Her name
is Judy Wild and apparently she is quite well known. She has since moved
somewhere else.
Other
than going over to Vancouver once a month to see my kids I would go on dates
now and then with gals I met on the internet that lived on the Island. There is
no doubt that I liked my own company but I also needed some….well you know.
People
mostly stayed to themselves in Fanny Bay. Every now and then there would be
some kind of community event up at the hall but I never got involved. Most of
the residents in the area were retired and getting on in years. Occasionally, I
would have a short chat with the older sorts while they were out walking their
dogs. I got the impression that many of them thought there was nothing but
mayhem and killings going on in Vancouver that they had deduced from watching
the evening news. One day on a dog walk, I was talking to an older couple on
the opposite side of the road when a car passed us by driving down the middle
of the road. I remember the old lady getting upset about the guy’s driving. I
pointed out to her that he was driving down the middle of the road to avoid
running over either of our dogs but it didn’t seem to register with her.
My
first spring came around at Fanny Bay and I wanted to make the property look
its best. I ordered in some gravel for the driveway. The driveway had a nice
rock wall. There were a number of tall fir trees around the property and one
beautiful mountain ash at the end of the driveway. A big rock sat in the middle
of the grassy area in front of the house. Why I have no idea? I decided to
reseed the front lawn and spent hour after hour ripping up the turf. It was all
a wasted effort. By the following year all of the moss had returned.
Veggie garden. |
Other
things I did around the property included building a fire wood shed, redoing
the wood exterior of the house and repainting it, and building a boxed
vegetable garden.
Over
the next two years my kids brought their friends over on some weekends. I don’t
know if my son Dean cares to recall our hiking trip to Denman Island when we
all got thoroughly soaked not once but twice. (For some reason I think my kids
think I am Mr. Outdoors Guy.)
Every
now and then I would take my dog Cooper over to Rosewall Creek which was about
15 minutes away for a swim. My old doctor friend once told me a story about
getting clipped by a car while walking along the side of the highway near the
creek and being out of commission for some time as a result. Linda and I have hiked up the trail by the
creek a number of times in the past few years. There are some very pretty
waterfalls in the area.
My kids and their friends at Fanny Bay. |
Leah with Cooper. |
Cooper swimming at Rosewell Creek. |
Fanny Bay doesn’t really have a business area or stores other than a small gas station. About 20 minutes away is the Buckley Bay ferry landing to Denman and Hornby Islands. There is a Petrocan gas station at Buckley Bay that seems to do very well. They also sell liquor and have a Subway franchise. I remember visiting some people who had a summer place on Denman Island and coming back at night on the last ferry. The ocean was completely still and the moon shone down over the mountains onto the water. It was one of those perfect moments in time.
Buckley Bay ferry to Denman Island. |
After
my first year in Fanny Bay I started to have second thoughts about the whole
deal, maybe even sooner. I absolutely loved where I was living but it was
somewhat like living the life of a hermit. Was I supposed to send away for a
mail order bride? (Just joking.) I started to think that Fanny Bay was the kind
of place to be when one was living out their last years. There was still a lot
of “giddy-up” in me. I wasn’t even 60 yet.
Even
though I had sold my business accounts in Vancouver I kept the company name. I
made a few road trips on the Island and opened a number of accounts. It was
hard slogging as another company had most things sewn up and I was nowhere near
the center of commerce on Vancouver Island in Victoria. There was no way I was
going to make a living working out of Fanny Bay.
I
decided to put the house up for sale but there were no bites so I decided to
put the selling of the house on the back burner for a while; probably because
the warmer weather had come around again. By the 2nd year I knew I
had to get more serious about selling the house. I was going through my savings
pretty fast and I had to figure out a plan B.
The
Fanny Bay/Courtenay area has long been a depressed area as far as employment
goes. Nobody was looking for a person with a business background like mine. If
I found any kind of work it would be in the service industry and even at that
an older guy like me probably wouldn’t be what they were looking for. My plan
was to find any kind of work until the house sold.
I
managed to secure a job as a night security guy at a spa resort called the
Kingfisher Lodge just south of Courtenay. I didn’t realize at the time what I
was getting myself into. The job was for 3 nights a week. The guy who trained me
was the other night security guy. He often had his bible open on his desk and
his hobby was taxidermy. Some of my chores included breaking up late night
rowdy parties, picking up the dirty dining room laundry in a golf cart,
checking the readings on some meters in the electrical room, washing the floor
in the lobby and reception area floor, doing an hourly walk around the site,
and straightening out the lounge chairs at the beach area. It is pretty creepy
walking around in the dark with a flashlight knowing that a few feet away in
their rooms the guests were sawing logs.
My
coffee breaks were spent with a gay kitchen night cleaner and an older gal who
cleaned up at the spa. I often wondered how long I could stick this job out. It
took everything in my power to keep my eyes open. I also thought about how low
I had stooped just to pick up a few extra bucks. The resort took an hour off of each of my
shifts for my lunch break even though I couldn’t leave the property in that
time and was effectively on duty. One morning on my way back to Fanny Bay a car
came directly at me in my own lane and I barely missed a head on collision. It
should have been a warning to me.
One
evening I spotted water coming out of the electrical room. The manager was out
of town and I figured out that my best bet was to wake up the former resort
owner who lived on the next property. He put on his rubber boots and waded into
the electrical room. I was having none of it. Water and electricity are not a
good mix. The former owner seemed like a pretty decent guy. Sadly, his wife had
committed suicide a few years earlier nearby.
There
was a new manager at the resort and I learned that some of the staff was not
exactly thrilled about him. One day he gave a speech about all the hotels he
worked at around the world. One of the jobs he did was spy on hotel employees,
not the most endearing kind of thing to tell his new staff.
After
I was there for about a month the manager told me he was very happy with my
performance and perhaps they could offer me additional work like picking up
guests at the airport. His opinion of me was to change drastically about a
month later.
One
night a guest and his wife turned up about 1 a.m. They were expected and I gave
them a room key. At about 3 a.m. my cell phone went off. A number of guests
were complaining about a commotion going on outside their rooms in the lower
section of the resort. The manager had told me to call him any time at night if
something got out of hand. I went down to where the commotion was and found the
guy I had checked in straddled over his wife outside of their room. He wasn’t
hitting her but he was certainly controlling her. There was a lot of yelling
going on. First I phoned the cops and then the manager. The manager didn’t seem
too pleased about my waking him up.
The
cops turned up and handcuffed the guy. The wife went into her room. A few
minutes later the manager turned up. He started to engage the guy in handcuffs.
The guest was clearly psychotic and telling him to be quiet was clearly a bad
move on the manager’s part. I tried to tell the manager what had happened but
he didn’t want to listen. Instead he told me to get the kitchen cleaner to come
up. I felt really stupid repeatedly calling the kitchen cleaner on the walkie-talkie.
Like he was going to be any kind of help? I knew that he took the walkie-talkie
off when he was using heavy duty cleaners. Then the manager took it upon
himself to go into the guest room where the wife was. Another really stupid
move I thought. He wasn’t a cop. He didn’t a clue what he was going to find in
there.
Later
on the manager expressed his being upset with the cops’ performance. I have no
idea what he expected them to do other than remove the guy from the property. I
wrote a long letter about the manager’s handling of the event that day and I
was fired a few days later. I was way too old for this kind of nonsense. It
turned out the psychotic guy was an ex RCMP officer. I really detested the
arrogance of the resort manager.
Some
people like to go to spas I guess. I was never impressed with the cleanliness
of the kitchen or dining area at the resort. The buffet area had soiled
carpeting and in the kitchen area the croutons sat out in the open close to the
floor where industrial cleansers were used. (My last jab at a place that
totally freaked me out!)
After
the spa deal it took about another 5 months to sell the house. I stuck with the
same realtor even though he seemed to have other interests like writing screen
plays and becoming a developer. I checked out a local realtor in Fanny Bay but
she was only interested in exclusives. I think it was September when I finally
sold the house for close to $200,000, way more than twice what I had paid for
it.
The
couple that bought the house were from Calgary. When they turned up to see the
house the realtor was nowhere to be found. I took them for a tour of the
surrounding area including the oyster beaches. I don’t think the realtor was
too thrilled that I did that but I had been in sales for a long time and knew
about selling the sizzle not just the steak. The man in the couple was
supposedly an Italian count. He boarded small dogs in his home in Calgary. Not
what most counts do I don’t think. He was pretty easy going but his wife was
quite aggressive. At first I kind of liked her gusto. After they saw the house
the 3 of us went kayaking. I remember when we got back from kayaking and were
about to go back to my house. The count guy asked if he could ride with me and
pulled out a cigar a moment later and I kind of thought that it was a bit of a
statement about his own independence.
I
never got a thank you from the realtor for sticking with him for so long. Screw
him anyway I thought. As the new owners lived in Calgary I offered to screen
potential tenants for them. Quite a few deadbeat types applied. In my last days
at Fanny Bay the wife of the couple got more and more demanding as to my
finding a tenant for them and I finally told her to screw off. The favour I had
offered seemed to now be a duty.
I
had a few drinks with two of my neighbours, rented a moving van, and said
goodbye to Fanny Bay and set off to Victoria where I rented a place near the
university.
Yes,
it wasn’t the perfect ending to a perfect dream. I will never forget the time I
lived in Fanny Bay. I still think it is one of the more gorgeous places
anywhere. It just wasn’t right for me at the time. I still take the cut off to
Fanny Bay when I am up that way and check out what new houses have been built.
Sometimes I get out of the car and take a walk along the beach. Each time it
seems more and more like a distant memory. I am glad I got to experience the
adventure.
My
stay in Victoria lasted about a year and a half. I met a gal from the Nanaimo
area and we decided to live together about 6 years ago. I have a feeling this
is my last stop.
More pics.....
More pics.....
Fanny Bay peninsula. |
Mac Oysters Fanny Bay. |
Oysters ready for market. |
Autumn at Fanny Bay. |
Bike. |
Me at a liitle island off of the tip of Denman Island. |
Very interesting read. Dr. Lunam was my doctor in the early 70's here in Courtenay and delivered my first child. I'm glad you have fond memories of my hometown.
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