Vancouver Island Bed & Breakfast in the Cowichan wine region

High school rowing has a big profile in the Cowichan Valley on Vancouver Island in April and May of each year.

On the last weekend in April, April 29th through May 1st, the 41st annual Brentwood Regatta will take place at Brentwood College School on the open waters of Mill Bay, BC.  Brentwood College rowing is well known internationally and the program has produced numerous Olympic rowers and Olympic medalists over the years as recently featured by the Rick Mercer Report on CBC Television.

The Brentwood Regatta is the largest athletic event hosted by a single high school, and I’ve heard mention that it may be the second largest  high school rowing regatta in all of North America.  It is an official event sanctioned by Rowing  BC.  Typically there are about 1500 athletes participating, plus coaches, plus parents who come to watch their kids and help out with the teams.  Numerous teams come from the Vancouver Lower Mainland area, but also from Washington State, Oregon, California, and of course Vancouver Island.  Over the years teams from Australia, Bermuda, Ontario, and the UK have also participated.  This regatta is probably the biggest event of the year taking place in the region, with Cowichan Valley Bed & Breakfasts and hotels/motels in Mill Bay, Cobble Hill, Shawnigan Lake, Cowichan Bay and much of Duncan all filling up for this exciting sporting event.  At Cobble House Bed & Breakfast we’ve had the pleasure of hosting parents from Eugene Oregon, St. Georges School in Vancouver,  Sammamish Rowing, Green Lake Rowing and Everett Rowing in Washington State.  We’re looking forward to welcoming some of last year’s parents back to this year’s event!

near the finishing line at the Brentwood Regatta

Two weeks after the Brentwood Regatta the focus shifts to Shawnigan Lake where Shawnigan Lake School will be hosting its annual regatta.  Rowing is also a flagship sport at Shawnigan Lake School, making for some real competitiveness between the two private boarding schools, which are located just a few kilometers apart.  While the Shawnigan Regatta is a much smaller and more BC centric event, it too offers high caliber rowing, a sport practiced year-round on Vancouver Island.  Canada’s national rowing team trains primarily at Elk Lake in nearby Victoria, but also comes up to train on Shawnigan Lake.  There are several regattas held at Elk Lake every year and also on the Gorge, and a small regatta at Maple Bay in the Cowichan Valley on April 16th.  The relatively mild climate on Vancouver Island is definitely a factor in making this area a prime rowing environment.

If you’re in the area for either the Brentwood or the Shawnigan Regattas, do come out and check out some terrific Vancouver Island rowing!

It may surprise you to hear that on Vancouver Island, and in the Vancouver area, dozens of small farms are making maple syrup.  Traditionally, areas of Quebec and Ontario are known for making the famous Canadian maple syrup from sugar maple trees, but in the last decade tapping big leaf maple trees, especially on Vancouver Island, has become a growing agroforestry business, boosted by the “100 mile diet” and niche food production.  Many farmers involved in the production of maple syrup are hobbyists, but the business is growing and demand is far outstripping supply at the moment.

Big leaf maples are a different species than the sugar maples in eastern Canada.  There are some differences in the sap and how it can be collected.  There is a lower sugar content in Big Leaf sap and the syrup that can be made from it varies from golden in color to a dark chocolate tint.

On Saturday February 5, 2011, the BC Forest Discovery Centre in Duncan will host the 4th annual Big Leaf Maple Syrup Festival.  Events run from 10 a.m to 4:30 p.m.  Visitors are invited to participate in workshops featuring tapping demonstrations, presentations and displays.  Cooking with maple syrup will be featured, as well as maple food.  There is also a maple syrup competition, judged by celebrity chefs from Vancouver Island, awarding ribbons for Judges’ Choice, Best in Show, and light, medium and dark syrup.  More than 2000 people attended the 2010 event and all the syrup available for sale sold out.

Vancouver Island maple syrup is obviously becoming a very popular local food product.  Spend a weekend at Cobble House Bed & Breakfast in the Cowichan Valley and explore this new industry.  If you have time left over, visit one of the many award-winning wineries and enjoy fabulous gourmet dining at several excellent Cowichan Valley restaurants such as Amuse Bistro, The Masthead, Steeples or the newest addition to fine dining in the Valley, the Stone Soup Inn.

Last Sunday I took a drive out to Keating Farm Estate, a property acquired by The Land Conservancy about 5 years ago.  The farm is located on Miller Road near Duncan and is only open to the public on Sunday afternoons between 1 – 4 pm during the summer, until September 19th.

The property is about 32 acres with a number of heritage structures, the most important one being the farmhouse.  The original house was quite small, but was doubled in size when Andrew Keating bought the property around 1888.  Keating hired architect John Gerhard Tiarks who designed a huge addition in the form of a great hall.  The hall has a vaulted ceiling supported by carved beams that arch across the hall.  It is intricately panelled and built with first growth cedar and fir, which maintains its original 1894 finish.  There is also a massive 10 ft. tall fireplace. 

There are numerous outbuildings on the property including the hay barn which may have been built in 1894, and the attached dairy barn built by the last owner, Hugo Tews, in 1949.  There is a orchard with many heritage apple varieties as well as a nut orchard.  At the south end of the property are a creek, a wetland and a wooded area.  The old CNR right-of-way spur to Cowichan Bay runs through this part of the property and connects to the Trans Canada Trail.

Keating and two of his sons died in 1901 in the shipwreck of the S.S. Islander.  Strangely enough architect Tiark also died that same year, from a fall off his bicycle in Victoria.   The farm then had a number of owners before Hugo Tews, from whom TLC bought the property.

TLC has started restoration work on the farm house, as there currently is scaffolding in the Great Hall.  Much remains to be done, but the farmhouse is also still occupied by a descendent of Hugo Tews.  Tews farmed the property and won many awards at Duncan’s Cowichan Exhibition with the grain that he grew on the property.  The dairy barn that he built is closed up as it is home to a rare colony of blue-listed Townsend’s Big-eared bats.  After the bats migrate in the fall, TLC will install a webcam to monitor their behaviour when they return in the spring. 

The farmland is also being put back into agricultural production through the Keating Community Farm Cooperative established by TLC in 2006, to create a multi-functional community farm and heritage site.

It’s great to see this slice of Cowichan Valley history saved for future generations.  As a Bed & Breakfast innkeeper in the Valley, I appreciate all the interesting history in the area which I’m then able to share with guests staying at Cobble House B&B.

Earlier this month rehabilitation work on the historic Kinsol Trestle was finally begun.  The trestle is the missing link in the Cowichan Valley Trail, the local section of the Trans Canada Trail.  A local Cobble Hill company is the timber specialist contractor on the job and has started work on the core structure, replacing timbers to make the trestle safe once more.   The completion and official opening is scheduled for late spring of 2011.

The Kinsol Trestle was originally completed by Canadian National Railways in 1920.  It was officially named the Koksilah River Trestle, and the more popular name “Kinsol” came from the nearby King Solomon copper mine.  The trestle is the highest and largest surviving timber trestle in Canada and reportedly one of the four largest wooden structures in the world.  The last train crossed the trestle in 1979 and a year later it was abandoned.  In 1988 a fire burnt part of the trestle.  In recent years the Cowichan Valley Regional District conducted several studies to decide if the structure should and could be saved.  In 2009 a fundraising campaign was launched, and $3.8 million dollars in provincial/federal government funding was announced, as well as $1.0 from the Island Coastal Economic Trust.  The public campaign to raise the remaining $2 million is ongoing even as the work has begun.

I took a drive out to the north access of the trestle this week, as the south access from Shawnigan Lake is closed for the duration of the project.  You follow Riverside Road, off Koksilah Road, for about 10 km.  The road is paved for the first several kilometers and then becomes sand and gravel.  Just when I thought I must have missed a turn off I arrived at the parking area.  The main trail to the trestle is blocked off and you take a little path through the woods to get there.  They are still working on putting in box steps on the actual path, and have also just started constructing the viewing platform.  I was able to get down to the water and look up at the trestle, but it involved crossing a steep slope with lose gravel, so a bit of tricky manoeuvring was involved to get close.  Even in the state of disrepair the trestle is in, it is an awesome sight and it’s going to be so exciting to see this historic structure repaired and open to the public.  The new completed Kinsol Trestle will include landscape improvements, a walkway down to the canyon and an information kiosk.  At the same time during the project, the area will be carefully managed to maintain the important heritage elements of the trestle.

The Kinsol Trestle will be an added reason to visit the Cowichan Valley.    Bring your bicycles when you stay at Cobble House B&B, and cycle the completed trail next summer.  For now, keep an eye on the progress of the rehabilitation, and if so inclined, support the fund raising campaign to make the Kinsol Trestle complete!

Come and celebrate Canada’s birthday in the Cowichan Valley with a stay at Cobble House B&B, and check out some Canadian artists and artisans during the Visions Cowichan Valley Summer Tour & Sale from July 1 – 5.  This annual tour is now in its 26th year and invites you to visit 20 artist studios from Mill Bay in the south to Saltair just north of Chemainus.  The artists work in every medium and range from potters to painters, fabric arts to jewellery, photography to woodturning , painted glass to lampshades, and everything in between.  Studios are open from 10-5 daily during the tour and brochures are available throughout the Cowichan Valley or you can find them online at the Visions Art Tour website. 

26th annual Visions Summer Art Tour

The Cowichan Valley is a wonderfully relaxing place to wander around, either by car or on the bike.  In between artist studios, you can check out the Saturday market in Duncan, and tour some of the Cowichan Valley wineries.  Enjoy a glass of award winning wine while relaxing over lunch at Merridale Cidery’s La Pommeraie Bistro, Cherry Point Estate Wines Bistro, Thistles Cafe at Glenterra, and Vinoteca at Vigneti Zanatta.  Locally grown produce and products are featured at many of the local restaurants, and we’re very fortunate in the Valley to have access to so many specialty products grown at home.

What better way to celebrate Canada and Canadians than a relaxing weekend in the beautiful countryside, tasting some canadian grown goodness!