Last week I was so engrossed in my weekend activities that I actually forgot about writing the Rural Report until it was past due. I had my laptop with me to enable me to fulfill my commitment, but alas my lapse did me in. I might add that I was not in my usual environment, so I offer you my humble apologies.
It has been a while since I wrote a Wally Smith column. I was rooting around in his stories when I came across one that I enjoyed. I think it is something we all can relate to.
It is dated July 9, 1970. ” It’s nice to be back home in the Okanagan. Vancouver Island is lush and beautiful, but after 36 years in the Southern Okanagan the Valley casts a spell that makes one feel he could not be content in any other place.
I’ve heard the same thing said of the Yukon, India ( Kipling wrote poetry about it ), the green English countryside, and the Arctic barrens. Seems the mind becomes conditioned to a certain environment which is then preferable to any other.
Agriculture is of little importance in the section of Vancouver Island that I saw — Chemainus, Courtenay, Comox and Nanaimo. The economy is dominated by logging and sawmill operations.
At Chemainus we went through the huge MacMillan & Bloedel sawmill on tidewater, said to be the largest in the British Commonwealth.
Farming in this area is chiefly concerned with hay land and pasture for dairy stock, mostly black and white Holsteins ( quite recently I learned there is a red and white registered Holstein breed ).
I saw sprinklers operating in several hay fields. Apparently summer rain is not a dependable source of moisture.
As everywhere, farms have been subdivided and sold as residential lots. The younger generation finds the weekly paycheck more attractive than the uncertain and usually low income from the farm. ”
This next part Wally wrote to Don Sommerville who was the editor of the Oliver Chronicle at the time.
” Dear Don: A couple of weeks ago, in your ‘Oliver Town’ corner, you said: unless there’s an early change in attitudes and action, it looks like there won’t be any new hospital here for years…. if ever….
A few weeks earlier I said much the same thing, suggesting that Health Minister Loffmark’s policy of cutting hospital expenditures might set back the local hospital building program two or three years.
Mayor Dick Topping jumped on me with both feet, declaring my statement to be “juvenile” and “idiotic”. So, welcome to the Idiot club, Don: I wonder what Loffmark thinks.”
End of Wally’s column.
The reason Wally and Auntie Kay were in Chemainus was because Auntie Kay had a sister whose husband was a saw filer for Mac & Bloe. Some times at Christmas we would receive something he had made from a worn out saw blade. It was always good quality steel.
In 1970 Wally had sold the original 12 acre orchard and pasture land, but he kept the 3 acres he bought from Mr. Jardine, the neighbor to the south. The 3 acres didn’t have cherries, just peaches, apples, prunes, and apricots. That is why he was able to leave the farm and go on a vacation instead of gearing up for the coming busy season.
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