History of our Vancouver Island Vacation Rental Location

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sunrise in JanuaryThere is so much history on this location and the construction of Inn The Estuary. We are often asked how we could possibly build a house in a sensitive setting like this!!!

Well, here’s the story…..[short version] full version under Construction Hurdles, bottom of this page.

When we bought this property about 5 years ago, this was a meadow that was dyked off about 30 years prior.

We had originally intended to design a driveway and intentions for selling the property to someone who would build a house on the slope. Then one day we went for a walk from the ocean to our property and when we arrived, we thought what a beautiful view, why don’t we build here ourselves???

We got our building permit and away we went. Our purpose was aesthetic and environmental. We wanted to restore and enhance the Estuary to what we, with the help of a couple of Biologists, thought it would have been naturally before it was dyked off. This was a timely and expensive procedure. Because the studies showed that part of our property was sensitive land, we needed to gather a lot of people on board. Biologists, First Nations, local Stream keepers, Engineers, Ocean and Fisheries and the RDN all had input to guarantee the restoration and enhancement would be successful. But WE RAN INTO TROUBLE because our neighbours [who originally owned the property] didn’t want anyone building a house in front of their 30 year old view. This caused many delays and expenses. Lots of news articles, TV, etc. We were constantly defending our ambition and plans. Eventually we won the battle and it was obvious that we were enhancing a once destroyed wildlife habitat. So we proceed. We hauled in over 850 truckloads of fill to raise the building site and road and to maximize the area to be made into wetlands. Harold has had a lot of experience in working with streams and creeks, so a lot of this planning came easy for him. Truckloads of Iris’ came from a RDN job that needed to be disposed of. Hundreds of plants were relocated by Harold into the ponds areas from other parts of the Estuary. The results took three years. Now we are proud to see the Sticklebacks in the fresh Artesian well fed front pond, the many varieties of birds, fish, plants, and other wildlife making their homes in the Wetland ponds, of brackish waters that surround the house. We even witnessed Chum Salmon spawning in the gravel entrance to the side pond. ENHANCEMENTSUCCESSFUL!!!

The forgoing write-up was for the purpose of informing the 500 or so people who toured our home with the fundraising event by Bart to Broadway Theater Group.

Update August 2011: Nature has gracefully taken over the landscaping of our property. Everything has filled in amazingly. We are learning so much by living here. We noticed how some native plants will grow only in a small zone of the estuary. They can’t have too much salt ocean water, but require a certain amount to live. They only live in the high tide zones, while other plants  require fresh water but will live in salt water once in a while.

FIRST NATIONS

History of Nanoose

Nanoose Bay is a small community at the head of the bay; for the purposes of this record, the area covered by the centennial grant is considered to be Nanoose Bay. It is the area served by the Nanoose School and by the rural mail route, beginning at Eby road and extending to Craig’s Crossing. The population of Nanoose fluctuates around 250.

In 1859 the name Nanoose Bay appeared officially on the map, and the meaning is “the bay tending inwards,” derived from the Indian word “Nuas” meaning “to push or work in.” There have been several other meanings put forward but this is the one accepted by the archives.

Indians

Prehistoric stone sculpture leads us to believe that there were a native people on Vancouver Island long before our present Indians. As the Coast Salish people have no knowledge of these carvings, and their features do not resemble the Salish, it is believed that they were not the ancestors of the Salish. The Mitchell Stone, donated to the archives by Mrs. D. Green (found near Nanaimo by W.W.R. Mitchell, once owner of Dorcas Point), is one of these carvings. The petroglyphs at Englishman’s River and Nanaimo are others.

Some of the first written material about the Nanoose Indians is written in 1862 by Commander Mayne. He said, “Between Nanaimo and Fort Rupert are several tribes – among them the Nanoose, Camoux, Nempkish and Quaw-quilt. Of these the Nanoose inhabit the harbor and district that name and include an area of fifty miles from Nanaimo. The Nanoose Indians muster at Nanaimo for trade, and all of these tribes being more or less at enmity with each have frequent war-like encounters between themselves. All the Indians of the area lived in canoes, causing them to have a well-developed stature from the waist up (from paddling) but had poor physique otherwise.

The sea was the source of life to all the island people. The waters of the sea were their highways. The early settlers can remember the salmon being so thick in our creeks that the Indians could walk across, scarcely touching water, and the herring being knee deep on the shores. The Nanoose Indians used to spear their fish and once the white man came used them to trade for other produce. The women prepared the fish for use later. They filleted them and smoked or sun-dried them on large racks. Baking was done in an earthen pit lined with hot stones.

Much information about the Nanoose tribe has been obtained from the life of Nanoose Bob who lived to be 108 – the oldest Indian in British Columbia, and possibly the oldest in Canada at that time. He knew that the Nanoose tribe lived here prior to 1800 from the stories of his own people.

About 1823 there was a terrible massacre on Berry Point (Powder Point). The Indians had gone there on a berry picking expedition and were surprised while at rest by a tribe from the north. Alberni Indians have been blamed for this raid but Mr. G. Clutesi of Alberni says “The East-coast and the West-coast Indians were continually at war with each other, but strange as it may seem, the Qualicum-Nanoose tribe were always the allies of the Alberni Indians. That was a recognized fact.”

Nanoose Bob was a small boy of possibly three of four years at the time of the massacre and his nurse or slave was taking him for a walk further along the beach. She managed to keep him hidden and took to a cave in the hills with him, where she remained in hiding until all was well and she could locate others who had not been on the expedition. This was a slave hunting expedition, for all the males were killed and the women and children were taken captive. If it had been a revenge war all would have been killed. In 1912 during the excavation for the power house and oil tanks of the Powder Works between thirty and forty skulls and sets of bones were found. All the skulls were cracked on top and to the side of the eye socket. Death had evidently been caused by a stone of metal hammer-like instrument. The Historical Society put up a plaque at this spot and the bones were re-buried.

In his youth Nanoose Bob was a celebrated hunter. In the 1850’s Mark Bate, Nanaimo’s first Mayor received gifts of skins and elk-horns from Bob. Mark Bate wrote about Bob saying that he was a very determined person, and would never accept defeat when in the quest of game. He was known to stay in the woods for days when tracking a bear or a deer. A bow and arrow was the only weapon he knew for hunting. When fishing and catching seals, which were plentiful at Nanoose, he used a spear.

For clothing Bob kept about a dozen long-haired dogs. These were shorn, and the dogs hair was mixed with swamp grass or shredded cedar to be woven into clothing and bedding. Each family had one bed. Covers were made to fit them 0 some up to fifty feet wide. Bob made a fire by rubbing two thin cedar sticks together. He was a remarkable old man. Dried herring, dried in twigs close to a steady fire, was his favorite food. He was very fond of eggs too, and used to trade meat and fish for eggs with Mr. Russel.

He married first at the age of sixteen, but had seven more marriages after that one. He used to claim that all his wives were celebrated beauties. Someone asked him if all his wives died. He replied, laughing “Not all – some died – they were good ones – some get out – leave me – no good. Lots more left” Mary, his last wife was a good one, he said. She lived to be 97.

Old Bob has many sons, daughters and grandchildren as well as many great, great grandchildren in various parts of the province. Today they are entering more and more into the life of the community and are becoming less distinguished as a people with a different way of life. The Bob children are now attending the public schools. Two of the little girls have been charming flower girls to Parksville’s May Queen. Shirley Bob won the 1957 Citizenship Award at Nanoose bay School and in this centennial year Walter Melvin Bob has been accepted into the navy as a rating in the Engineering Mechanics Branch. Melvin has been a good student at High School and was very popular with all his classmates. Tommy Bob father of Shirley, is the present chief, and as most of the Indians do, derives his living from fishing and logging. In February, 1958, Jimmy Bob (the oldest surviving Bob) died at the age of 68 at his home and was buried in the Indian cemetery at Nanoose Bay.

Fred Cross – Peg Leg Annie, who made herself a new leg out of whittled fir and deer bone, wrecked her canoe in a south eastern at Wallis Cove. Mr. Cross revived her with coffee and brandy, and saved the old lady from death.

Qualicum Jim – married Ellen, daughter of Nanoose Bob

The Tippets – an Indian trail from one bay to another went through their property and the Indians always wanted to take their pretty blonde daughter, Ellen, home with them. They brought fish to trade on their way through.

The Craig’s – In 1892 a bank of Indians was camped on the beach at Beaver Creek. They were hunting deer for market. I have seen them have thirty huge bucks, fat as butter, hung up at their camp at one time

Parker Belyea – A chief called Old Peter. He was a hunch back.

Elsie Wall – The Indians, buried at Beaver Creek, were covered with sharp trap rock in shallow graves. This sharp rock would prevent animals from digging into them. Bill Roberts dug up a skull one day while getting sand.

Frank Beaudette – Remembers smell of the oil in the troughs Nanoose Bob used to extract from fish, and sell to the loggers to grease their skid roads. He left the fish in the sun in a series of large wooden troughs and the sun melted out the grease 0 but oh! The smell! Bob got a dollar a gallon from the loggers. Frank also remembers another memory of Nanoose Bob in Dick Wallis’ top hat. Bob had fancied the hat so asked Dick for it. Bob wore it on special occasions for the rest of his life.

Nanaimo early settlers said that the Nanoose Indians used gold bullets. In the hills behind the Indian reservation are seams of copper that look as if the copper had boiled out in some volcanic action. It is from this that the Indians molded their bullets. Another early settler remembers tasting a small hard cake made by the Indians from salal berries. It was good – just very dark in color.

Spaniards

The first men known to have been in Nanoose, other than the Indians were the Spanish map makers. Jose Maria Navarez came up the coast in 1791 and reached as far as present day Comox. In the map of Galiano, drawn in 1795, the Straits of Georgia are named Caval Del Rosario, Point Grey in Vancouver is Pte. De Langara, Departure Bay is Bova de Winthuysen, Englishmans river is Rio de Grullas, French Creek is Punta de Leonardo. Soundings were taken every few miles from Nanoose Bay (unnamed) up to French Creek, Nanosoe Bay being the deepest part noted. All the small islands such as mistaken, Amelia, and even little Maude Island are clearly drawn in. Their boats were small and crowded. To map as much as they did, the Spaniards must have spent days in this area.

In 1792 Juan Francisco de la Bodega Y Quadra was governor at Nootka. He and Captain Vancouver became great friends and exchanged much information about the coast. To commemorate their friendship, Captain Vancouver said, “I named that country the Island of Quadra and Vancouver, with which compliment he seemed highly pleased”. – Thus the island received the word “ Vancouver”. After a few years Quadra was dropped and it became Vancouver’s Island and later still, Vancouver Island. In 1866 it was united with the mainland to become part of British Columbia.

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More to come!!!!

official website for SnawNawAs
www.nanoose.org

CANADA’S ONLY HOSTILE EXPROPRIATION

Nanoose Bay is the site of the Canadian Forces Maritime Experimental Test Range, chosen for easy recovery of the unarmed torpedoes from the ocean bottom. The torpedo testing range in the Georgia Strait off Vancouver Island has been operating since 1967, testing torpedoes, sonar, sonobuoys and other maritime warfare equipment. The federal government owns the land used for the range. The foreshore is owned by B.C. and used by the federal government under a sixty-year agreement signed in 1988. The Nanoose Bay seabed was also owned by British Columbia and leased to Ottawa.
Ottawa allows foreign governments – principally the U.S. Navy – to use the facilities. Nanoose Bay has four test ranges, the most important of which is called Whiskey Golf, measuring 24 kilometres long by eight kilometres wide. This range is used to test air, ship and submarine-launched torpedoes, usually between 500 and 800 each year. In 1996, the U.S. Navy indicated that it had saved $2 billion over 30 years by using the Nanoose Bay range. Unlike test ranges in California and Hawaii, Nanoose Bay’s average depth of 410 metres, and the unique seabed, makes it easy to retrieve torpedoes.
To protest U.S. overfishing of B.C. salmon, British Columbia issued a 90-day notice of cancellation of the licence in May 1997, unless the U.S. agreed to sign the Pacific Salmon Treaty. Only the federal government has the authority to evict the U.S. from Nanoose Bay, but B.C. owned the seabed, and without the seabed, there is no testing range and no base. This initiated a series of court challenges, culminating in Ottawa’s announced expropriation of Nanoose Bay in May 1999, the first hostile expropriation of provincial land by Ottawa in Canadian history.
In September 1999, the Government of Canada completed its expropriation of 217 square kilometres of Georgia Strait by filing papers in the Land Title Office. BC was offered $1.88 million in compensation. Three months later, Canada announced a ten-year extension of the agreement with the United States to allow the U.S. Navy to continue being the primary user of the Nanoose Bay testing range. All this in little Nanoose Bay!

CONSTRUCTION HURDLES IN BUILDING OUR HOME
We made an offer to purchase this property from the bank in 2004. It seemed to us there was virtually no good building site on this piece of property. The higher ground was real wet and soft, the lower meadow where our house is located now, was in a flood plain and scattered with driftwood, and the potential for a septic field seemed not possible. Our plan was to build a driveway, cleaning the property up and try to sell it for a profit. While we were waiting to see if our purchase was accepted by the courts, we accessed the lower meadow by way of the ocean beach. We stood on the grassy meadow and looked around then Marianne said, “why don’t we build here ourselves?” First of all, I didn’t think she would want to move away from Long Lake, and secondly, I didn’t think we would be allowed to build in the flood plain.

The following day I dropped by the Regional District of Nanaimo, [RDN], planning department to inquire where a building on the property could be constructed. They told me to my surprise, that I could build anywhere on the property, except I had to stay a minimum of 30 meters from the top of the stream on the southern edge. In addition to this, the building had to be constructed above the high water mark to a prior established elevation. They also commented that the building permit application had to be in before a new Nanoose Bay Official Community Plan was adopted. That plan was scheduled to be adopted the following spring.

We were reluctant to accept the fact that a house could be built in that location, structurally and environmentally. Therefore, I went to the Ministry of Environment and asked them to come and look at the situation and give us their input. I was informed that the Federal and Provincial governments and RDN had come up with an overall plan as a joint project that is administered by the RDN. They said the only reason the Ministry of Environment would come out and take a look at our property was if the RDN needed advice. They also gave me a lot of reading material and a CD generally on the subject of best practices of working around the water. I then went back to the RDN and got more information, including a map of the Inventory of Natural Environmental Features. After taking a closer look at the site conditions, I found to my surprise the actual water table was quite low and a gravel base was only down about half a meter.

This new information changed our direction., First of all, now it was even more important to us that the courts accepted our offer, and if so, we had to get going on some building plans. The courts then did accept our offer, so we proceeded to get a topographical plan done by McCallan Construction Survey. The following February we travelled to Mexico for a month vacation and while we were there, we did conceptual drawings. When we returned home, we worked with Ken Brault of Straight Street Design, drew up our final drawings.

Meanwhile, the area director for the RDN in Nanoose Bay had left, so there was a delay in the adoption of the new Official Community Plan [OCP]. This was good news for us as we didn’t want to really start building a new house at that time. We finally applied for a Building Permit in June 29, 2005, just two months before the new OCP was adopted. This saved us having to go through the Development Permit process to obtain a building permit. Now that our permit application had started, we had to get to work on fulfilling all the requirements of the RDN and sending some time of the environmental aspects of or future home. Having enough water was not a problem, but when it came to addressing the septic field, it was. We hired Randy Hartford, an engineer from GeoForce Engineering together with Kurtis Curns from Wetlands Pacisfic to design a wastewater treatment plant that would take up little room and was environmentally perfect for out situation. Randy also helped us determine suitable floor elevation for our house that ended up being approximately one meter above the required floor elevation requirements. He also looked after the earth structure for the base of the foundation.

During the next few month of 2005, we turned most of our attention to designing the environmental aspects of our property. We built an access road to the construction site and stripped off the soil to get ready to start importing rock for structural fill. We imported some rock from Fairwinds. I met on our site with a member of the Nanoose First Nations who is a local Nanoose Stream keepers and another member of the Nanoose Stream keepers and a local Biologist to get some input on how we could benefit the estuary, in terms of Salmon habitat.

We finally fulfilled all the requirements with RDN for our new building permit and received our permit in December 2005. Early in 2006, we were off to Mexico again and spent much of our time making design changes to our future home. Most of the time drawing ponds and streams designs to be later submitted to the appropriate authorities. As part of the requirements of our new building permit, we had to start construction with 6 months of the issue date.

Soon after our return from Mexico, we stopped by or new property and saw our neighbours digging in their yard. They [the same neighbours] had originally owned our property, dyked it off from the ocean, farmed it, subdivided and sold it in several parcels. I walked over to say a friendly ‘hello’ and was quickly presented with a question. Our relaxing pace and atmosphere of our future dreams was about to end abruptly! “What are you intending to do with your property? June Rosen asked. I replied, “same as I mentioned
before, we are building our home here.” Her response was that there was a new regulation in force which prohibits our building anything on that site. I told her we already had our building permit. She responded with, “If you build there, we will become enemies! Tell Marianne that you are crazy!” Our new planned home was one story and placed on the property in such a spot that it would not inhibit too much of the view of the ocean the neighbours had had for the past 30 years or so. Next thing that happened was that we received a call from the RDN requesting an emergency meeting. I went to their office and soon came out with a ‘stop work’ order! I had to stop construction until I could prove our property was well away from the natural boundaries of the ocean., The Rosens had apparently contacted the Federal Ocean and Fisheries and the RDN and presented them with a picture of our property in extreme flood conditions and wanted our construction stopped. We then hired a legal surveying company, JEAnderson and Associates to establish natural boundaries that they found to well over 30 meters of our building site. They also noted a manmade ditch along the south and west edges of our property. Note: these ditches were originally constructed by Rosens with the ditch on the west side being re-excavated a couple of years prior to our purchasing our property They had also removed a small dam in the same brook in 2004 all with appropriate permits.

At the beginning May 2006, I met with RDN and Ocean and Fisheries on site to review the building site, and subsequently got our ‘stop work’ order withdrawn. Not much time to relax however, as a complaint was filed with the Professional Engineers and Geoscientists of BC about or Engineer, Randy Hartford, in an attempt to disrupt our Waste Disposal and Building Permit. Then A Channel News at our door, followed by a TV broadcast, Parksville News story, “Neighbours Try To Sink B&B”. At the same time an article in the News Bulletin, “RDN Enters Dispute Over B&B`. I found the articles to be all fair comment, but what really got to me was the posting in our local community Post Office of a fabricated letter to the RDN Board Member. This letter was on the agenda of May 29th 2006 RDN Electoral Area Planning Committee. See attachment No. 1. This put us in a defensive mode, so we fired off a letter ourselves to the RDN May 18th. See attachment No. 2. We also got a copy of a letter dated ay 29th 2006 from the Ministry of Environment Nanaimo , to Rosens`. This letter had some interesting information. First of all, Rosens original permit had not been followed properly. Secondly, it mentioned our intention of creating fish habitat. And if you looked closely at the old drawings attached to this letter, compare to the drawings attached to the May 9th letter, see attachment No. 1, you’ll notice the last line under the heading `legend`, was removed. The removed words were, Pipe and Ditch. By having these terms removed, the wording in the letter submitted by Rosens` were replaced with Streams and Brooks. That added credibility to waterways that were never before significant. It was a very interesting observation, that those so `important` Brooks running through and along our neighbour’s property were missing from the OCP Inventory of Natural Environmental Features Map. The fact that the streams didn’t exist on the OCP Map, is the main reason the RDN didn’t know the streams existed during the permit requirement process. There was originally a lot of effort developing the OCP Map with input from sources including the Nanoose Bay Official Community Plan Advisory C ommittee, of which June Rosen was a member. Soon thereafter, I was made aware of the importance of this stream by the Ocean and Fisheries. I requested to move our building site and received permission. Moving our house away from the stream now would block more of our neighbours view that we originally had intended to preserve. Our new house location proved to be better for us as it provided us with more room to develop ponds and driveway.

I contacted the area director of our area and invited him to come over and see what our development intentions were. He said that he leaves it up to his staff at RDN to deal with these types of issues. I thought that to be a bit strange, but fair enough, as the RDN staff had been supportive with our issues so far. On May 23rd, there was regular board meeting with the RDN where it was decided that our issue be referred to staff and a report prepared for consideration at the next Electoral Area Planning Committee meeting. Then the staff, to their credit, hired Streamline Environmental Consulting to come and do an assessment, which they did do June 15th 2006, see attachment No. 3. The staff came out with memorandum for the board, see attachment No. 4.

Ross Peterson sent a letter requested the RDN revoke our building permit, see attachment No9. 5, June 8th 2006. We had submitted a letter to the board on June 7th 2006., see attachment No. 6. Another news article titled, Critics Try To Turn Tide On Builder, June 27th 2006. Finally on June 27th, the RDN board voted not to revoke our Building Permit. Now that that was over, we got a letter from Ocean and Fisheries, titled, Unauthorized Works On Tidal Foreshore at 2991 Northwest Bay Road, Nanoose Bay, see attachment No. 7.

Ocean and Fisheries letter was a shock at first, but after a careful reading, I felt we could work with the second and third options as they were what we had actually wanted in the first place. I had been working with a Biologist, named Rupert Wong, on a new fish stream for the RDN at the time, so we hired him to do a Fish Habitat Inventory Assessment, see attachment No. 8. Next December 2006, another news articled titled, Construction Goes Ahead On Nanoose Estuary. I`m sure this article was how Fred Davies, the news reporter, saw it and probably our mistake for not commenting on it at the time. After re-reading this article again now, in 2010, I have the following comments. Firstly, the area director had never been on our property to my knowledge and certainly has never talked to me about our plans. He states he hoped the DFO, Department of Fisheries, would have stopped our construction. That is a strange thing to say when we did everything according to the RDN requirements and his staff had agreed to that in the report. Secondly, the comment on our agreeing to restore the streams. There was no such agreement, only the proposal that this was what we had intended to do from the beginning. We had not damaged any streams and we were planning to restore and enhance streams damaged years before we bought our land. We also wanted to mimic the other estuary streams. Thirdly, the comment of us agreeing to absolve the RDN`s responsibility was never agreed on, only that I agreed to think about it.Poul Rosen’s comments were predictable. I totally disagree with his statement that DFO were not doing anything to protect the environment. I had regular correspondence with the DFO, lots of visits and input on creating a new habitat for the fish. Loyola Hearns, Minister of Ocean and Fisheries, said something incorrect that I have to comment on. Our property at the building site was not inundated on a regular basis with high tides. March of 2007, Rupert Wong’s first report on Fish Habitat Inventory Wetlands Assessment was reviewed with the Ocean and Fisheries. Ocean and Fisheries wanted us to now propose fish habitat restoration work, so off we went to get the next report done by September 3rd of that same year.

Later that spring another article in the news, titled, Engineer For B&B Fired by APEG. Our engineer lost his licence eventually because of the unprofessional conduct related to providing the investigation committee with information or records as required according to APEG. Eventually, APEG reviewed the work submitted by the Engineer regarding our waste disposal system and found it to be fine. We had to hire another Engineer to complete the work and sign off on the project.

We finally got our report from R.Wong and Associates, September 3rd from Ocean and Fisheries, attachment number 9, permitting us to proceed on the enhancement work. Receiving permission to proceed was a huge relief to us although it was late in the year as far as weather goes and the salmon were soon to arrive. This meant a lot more precaution would have to be taken while working around the streams. The RDN exempted us from the normally required Development Permit to do the ponds and stream work because the work was now falling into the Federal Fisheries related requirements. Over the next few months our son and I spent all our time completing most of the site work. We have hauled in over 870 tuck loads of material and planted hundreds of plants. The salmon arrived within a couple of months of starting the earth work. We had the Chum salmon spawning next to our house! We now have a new habitat for wildlife such as, Mink, Beaver, Muskrat, Otter, Red winged Blackbirds, Geese, Ducks, Stickleback fish, Trout, Salmon, Heron to name a few.

Finally, the newspaper article we were happy to see was printed December 1, 2009, by Fred Davies, News reporter. It was titled, Estuary Improved Under Nanoose Bay B&B.

All the newspaper articles can be seen on our website under the Media category.

Permalink | December 14th, 2009