Rocky Mountain Books (2025)
There is nothing quite like seeing a place you know well with fresh eyes, which is what happened when I recently ventured to Victoria, British Columbia for a weekend in mid-November. I had Vancouver-based Bill Arnott’s recently published book
A Festive Season on Vancouver Island in hand, which gave me a new perspective on the place I grew up. Arnott is a prolific BC scribe who has a knack for travel writing: guides of a sort, but filled with bits of memoir, local history, and some really cool art. This time, he took a trip to the southern half of Vancouver Island, from Campbell River in the north and Victoria to the south, during late November last year as holiday celebrations were just beginning for the season.
 |
| The Polar Express, Ladysmith Festival of Lights (art: Bill Arnott) |
What makes his books unique is not only his rather free-form galavanting, but also the conversations that he has with locals, allowing the reader to see one layer beneath the usual sightseer’s superficiality. I spent my time with his book in the Victoria area and it got me out visiting places that I’d never really been despite having lived there for the first twenty-two years of my life.
In his Introduction, Arnott is just driving onto the BC Ferries from the Lower Mainland, destination Vancouver Island. This is the third in his “Seasons” travel series (see my review and travels with his book A Season in the Okanagan
here), and he jumped at the chance to partner with
Rocky Mountain Books to create this third book:
“
Vancouver Island. Connected, yet set apart. Accessible, but requiring some effort, assuming you don't already live here year-round. Maybe that heightens the allure. That, and the region’s rare flora and fauna, layer of settler and Indigenous culture and history. All in diverse geography: mountains and forests, with endless expanses of shorelines."
Some of the content is borrowed from his previous trips to the Island to flesh out this festive outing. For example, memories of a previous visit towards the West coast of Vancouver Island tells of a past visit to Port Alberni. The Eastern coast sections are new, and made for some interesting reading. I had to chuckle a couple of times while I read, because there were occasions when Arnott wanted to attend an event but was too late to get a ticket. As always when on vacation these days, you take your chances if you don’t plan far ahead, though perhaps spontaneity is a bit of the fun of travel.
I liked reading about the Nanaimo area, where Arnott disembarks from the BC Ferry to begin his journey. I’ve spent some time there, particularly in recent years for a couple of getaways from Vancouver, and I could imagine the route he was driving around town. He uses his roundabout neighbourhood drive to locate various landmarks of different religious traditions, and uses this as a jumping off point to relate his own research of different holiday traditions, including Christian, Islamic, Jewish, atheist and Sikh.
Arnott drives south, and it’s when he hits Victoria that I take a more personal note of his destinations, because I’m going to choose a couple of his locales and visit them myself.
I grew up in Victoria until I moved to Vancouver for postgraduate studies. I lived in the West Shore community of Colwood, but knew all of greater Victoria fairly well. For this visit, I decided to stop by Esquimalt first, somewhere that I’ve spent a bit of time, but more frequently drove through than stopped in when I was young.
 |
| Esquimalt Gorge Park in fall colours |
I’m sure I’ve been to
Esquimalt Gorge Park, but I have no memory of it, so it was very cool to rediscover it. The day was overcast but birds were out aplenty, and so were a few hearty walkers and dog owners. First, I took a meandering path to visit the Tillicum Road Bridge, which overlooks the Gorge Narrows, an area that has been dubbed the “reversing falls” because of the tidal currents. I didn’t see a lot of eddy action–I must have been between high tidal flows–but I had a lot of fun trying to understand the geography of where I was standing in relation to other areas of Victoria. Arnott has included some interesting Indigenous stories of this area, and I also appreciated a great display that was set up on the bridge that outlined this area of Victoria’s history. Here, a ferry used to run up and down the waterway, and a day spent on the Gorge waterway meant one where social class could largely be put aside for a fun day of swimming or regatta.
 |
| Tillicum Road Bridge |
 |
| The Japanese Garden at the park |
I then wandered back into the park and took some time to commune with the lovely plants in the
Japanese Garden. Kudos to the gardeners, as even in November the garden architecture made this a peaceful and beautiful place to take a few deep, calming breaths while taking in delightful and sophisticated flora. I read some of the history of this garden and the adjacent Pavilion on panels mounted just inside the Pavilion, and learned more about the Japanese history of the area.
 |
| Seabird Park |
Next it was off to Seabird Park, a neighbourhood greenspace at the top of the Gorge inlet. I drove through a small subdivision and parked at the end of a road abutting this peaceful but tiny waterfront park. I was alone, totally. Well, alone with a gorgeous view…and an awful lot of Canada Goose poop. I really had to watch where I was walking! But there were seabirds aplenty, as the park’s name would suggest, and I was glad to rest a moment on one of the benches before heading back to the West Shore.
I picked up my sister, and we drove from the West Shore community of Langford and out towards Metchosin, a small, rural community a few minutes drive southwest, skirting the coastline. Our destination was another that Arnott visited:
Bilston Creek Farm.
“
Stroll under apple trees, branches still loaded with fruit, the festive look of holly with berries. A monstrous arbutus centres the property, with lavender fields in perfect round shrubs…”
 |
| Lavender at Bilston Creek Farm |
 |
| Yuletide Market at Bilston Creek Farm |
Bilston Creek Farm is a family-run lavender farm with a storied history that is well outlined on their website. It was totally reinvigorated after it was bought in 2004 by the Penn family, and I’d never been. We were fortunate to catch their Yuletide Market open in mid-November, and a $5 entrance ticket can be used for a drink or any Bilston Creek lavender products. I loved the undulating curves of the browned, fall lavender plants framed with Christmas decor. The misty grey so common to the West Coast fall was the perfect atmospheric backdrop. The market was small, cheerful, warm and welcoming, and we finished our visit with a wander outside, noticing all those massive apple trees–still laden with fall apples–before heading back to our car and finishing my Arnott-guided wanderings.
 |
Bill Arnott's depiction of the lavender at
Bilston Creek Farm |
There is plenty of beautiful art in this book all courtesy of Arnott. He photographs then digitally paints the photos, and they add so much visual interest to the books! One thing I’d love to see at some point in this series is a small index at the back of the books, as it can be difficult to find the section that I need if I’m at a particular location and want to read Arnott's words as I take in the scenery.
Overall,
A Festive Season on Vancouver Island presents a meandering journey of southern Vancouver Island that makes for some nice holiday reading, particularly if you’ll be visiting the area, or are familiar with some of the landmarks and towns that Arnott visits. Personally, I think that his travel books have served me well in that I have used them to spur me to local adventures that I wouldn’t have embarked on. I like the stories that accompany the visits: they bring a welcome local colour and provide just a bit of historical backstory to enliven the journey.
I’ll be in the Courtenay/Comox area on Vancouver Island soon, and I’ll be sure to take a read of his travel suggestions for that area before I go.
 |
| Seabird Park (art: Bill Arnott) |
Comments
Post a Comment