Salt Spring Island

Ruckle Provincial Park

After a week of busy conferencing in Victoria I decided to detour back to Nanaimo through Salt Spring Island.  I drove north from Victoria to Sidney which is on a peninsula demarcated by the Saanich Inlet. I grabbed some basic supplies in Sidney and then made the crossing from Swartz Bay to Fulford Harbour on Salt Spring Island.  My plan was to camp at Ruckle Provincial Park as I had brought both my tent and sleeping bag to Victoria with the idea of camping afterwards.  So moving from the Chateau Victoria to a tent in Ruckle Provincial Park was fairly painless.

I was a bit concerned I might not get a spot at Ruckle as it was the Canada Day long weekend, fortunatly I arrived early on Friday and had my pick of spots in this beautiful campsite.  In the park is a hike which goes north along the coast.  I made it as far as King’sCove on Friday evening, the trail gets smaller and more rugged near this point and as the sun was setting I turned around.

On Saturday I explored the Salt Spring Island Saturday Market  which features crafts, local goods and music from the island.  This is one of the largest markets I have been to on the islands with many rare riches and treasures.  The artisans are happy to share the process of their work and I had many interesting conversations, including learning about new ways to use hemp.  I started my Christmas shopping at the market too!

While at the market I spotted a book which seemed relevant to my line of work.  The book ‘Lightweb Darkweb: Three Reasons To Reform Social Media Before It Re-Forms Us‘ written by Raffi Cavoukian was available for sale and the author was on site to talk about his text.  I asked him about the book and shared my interest in the topic.  The author then offered to sign the book, which I was surprised to hear, but accepted regardless.  It was not till about an hour later, while having coffee and reviewing the text, that I realized that the author was “The Raffi” of Baby Beluga fame.  I would have loved to have had a chance to tell Raffi what a fan I had been in my early years, and how I had danced with so much passion to Baby Beluga that I fell down and had to have stitches on my forehead.

Saturday afternoon I hiked up Mount Maxwell from the trailhead at Armand Way.  The hike was gorgeous throughout as it passed through old growth forest and featured amazing views of Burgoyne Bay and the Samsum Narrows.  The last stretch was particularly tough and was near vertical!  At the top I joined the many who had driven up (which is also an option) to share in the magnificent views.