Victoria is the capital of British Columbia. As its name, it has a Victorian architecture: rich British houses, with a lot of parks and trees. It’s definitely a rich city. We saw a shop of Rolls Royce, of course.
The European style architecture found in all Canada is funny, big rounded stone, which tries to imitate the time passing.
This castle was built by the end of 1860s by the richest person in the area, who made his fortune by selling woods to San Francisco for the new development while the gold fever. Here are some photos about logging in the area
The city is extending against a forest, so that’s why there are so many deers, in the parks and even in the street.
We walked on the coast to Pacific. There are lots of dry trunks retrieved by the sea and some alien vegetation.
On the other hand, in this golden city there is the biggest community of homeless people. The reason is the mild weather. Here there is nosnow, is the warmest spot in Canada. Due to this contrast of population, the Anarchist movement is very developed.
Mike brought us to an Anarchist fair, where he has a friend who is one of the organisers. He is poet. You can say it after 4 seconds of talk.
There were conferences all weekend about: history of the movement in Vancouver, influence of the artistics movements – why surrealists are communists and dadas are anarchists, about anarchist literature, how to educate kids in the anarchist way – don’t use no’s or threats; don’t give him false choices, how to deal with sexual desire…There was as well a book fair, with an incredible choice.
In the Anarchist camp field, we took a lesson about mushrooms. Hallucinogenic ones. The story is that they grow anywhere, in parks, in the street, in abandoned places. The only thing is to pay attention. But on the other hand is that when you look for them, you cannot find them. But when you find them, you have to collect them right away, because otherwise, when you come back, they know that you are looking for them, so they hide.
It’s obvious, isn’t it ?
After the conference, on the way to Mike’s place, we went to a outdoor party, organised in the court of Art School. Food free, concert almost free, good atmosphere.
We are starving, there is only a hypermarket. We pass the stand with sausages. There is a Hungarian one, which looks exactly like the Romanian one, from Sibiu. I want to test it. It is very different, bad actually. But I cannot decline the invitation to test another one, and another one. She said that if we want, we can test them all. Actually all the sausages are not good at all. And guess what, she became vegetarian !
A Sunday afternoon
There is a very good museum about the native population amongst other things, the Royal British Columbia Museum. In the exhibition, they recreated the XIXth century. There is one part dedicated to the native languages: there are 203 First Nations in Canada, 60% in British Columbia, they speak 34 different languages and 61 dialects. It’s amazing to hear how different they sound.
We are at the end of a classical trip. There are so many Westfalia VW campers ! If you are thinking to cross 66 Route, you should go first here, to get a very cheap car.
So many people cross from East to West, and just a few contrary. And like us …
We hiked a small mountain, 30 minutes far by bus, where from you can see Olympic Mountain in Washington state, and the islands of the Golf, American as well. That’s our next destination.
