Then and Now: Christmas at The Ledge

There are few things that liven up the holidays more than seeing the The Legislature building in Victoria lit up in Christmas colours. Dad took this shot in 1974.

Here's a Christmas shot of The Ledge I took in 2012.

1971 Victoria White Christmas

Yes, Virginia, it sometimes snows in Victoria. This is our back yard after the surprise Christmas morning snowstorm of 1971. Victoria rarely gets a white Christmas; the chance of one happening is only about 11%. There wasn't another one for 20 years. The last one was in 2008 when the entire country had a white Christmas. (And technically, the Blizzard of '96, one of the biggest snowfalls in Canadian history, began on Boxing Day, and so doesn't count as a white Christmas.) The bridge in the photo (Admirals Road over Colquitz Creek) was replaced a number of years ago.

Slide and Negative Comparison

I mentioned a while ago that my dad often shot with a slide film, but got it developed at a place where he get both slides and negatives back. This was a rare thing, usually most places would offer you one or the other, not both.
And I realize that to most of you under 30, the terms "film" and "slides" are meaningless. But that's another story.
A while ago I published a couple of photos by dad of the fountain in Centennial Square. That original post was scanned from slides. Recently, I discovered the negatives of the same shots. Now you can compare the two. I've done no tweaking to them; these are straight off the scanner. Both hold up pretty well for being 40 years old, but it does look to me like the slides' colour is starting to go a little to the pinkish side, something I found in a lot of dad's old slides.

Negative:

Slide:

Negative:

Slide:

Then and Now: The Postcard Shot

The Empress Hotel 1971 as taken by dad:
The Empress Hotel 2014 as taken by me:

Then and Now: Mile 0

In 1971, not long after we moved to Victoria, Dad snapped this shot of the Mile 0 marker. This marker designates the Pacific terminus of the 8,000 km long Trans-Canada Highway. Sometime between then and now, the maker has been replaced. I took a picture of the new marker this past summer: And if you're dying to know what the backside of the marker looks like... Eagle-eyed viewers will notice that something has been added directly behind the Mile 0 marker.

Then and Now: Victoria Harbour 1971

This is a shot my dad took of Victoria's Inner Harbour in 1971, and below it is a shot of the harbour I took a few weeks ago. My, how things have changed.

In the foreground, the most obvious change is the rearrangement of the docks. Seaplanes still come into the harbour, but they don't dock in this part of it anymore. In the background, well, nothing's the same. All the buildings are gone, and the big piers jutting out into the harbour are gone. The MV Coho that dominates my photo docked on the other side of the harbour in 1971. The only building that remains is the old CPR Steamship Terminal building in the top left corner. In 1971, it was the Victoria Royal London Wax Museum; after recent renovations and seismic upgrading it's now the Robert Bateman Centre. Missing entirely now is the Undersea Garden (seen behind the seaplane in dad's photo). The Undersea Gardens was a long-time tourist attraction in the harbour. It's a 150-foot purpose built vessel where, according to Wikipedia, visitors "....descended 15 feet (4.6 m) beneath the ocean surface to look through the many viewing windows of the aquariums that surrounded the vessel and see the various marine life of coastal British Columbia, in their natural and protected environment." It was originally opened at the Oak Bay Marina in 1964, then it was towed to the Inner Harbour in 1969, but closed last year. We saw it this past January while kayaking in the harbour. It was towed to a shipyard where it sat waiting to be scrapped or sold.

Then and Now: Across the Harbour

A 1971 shot looking across Victoria's Inner Harbour taken by my dad.
As we can see from a recent photo that I took below, from this angle the harbour looks like it hasn't changed much with the exception of the addition of the looming Grand Pacific Hotel. But looks can be deceiving; this is probably the one view, towards the Legislature whose blue domes you can see in the trees, that hasn't changed radically through the years.

Sealand of the Pacific

These are pictures my father took at a show at Victoria's Sealand of the Pacific in the fall of 1971. I'm not positive which whale is pictured. It might be Nootka, who was captured in 1970, but my guess is it's probably Haida. It's not Tilikum, the most infamous of the Sealand whales, who wasn't captured until 1983.

Then and Now: Fountain

Here's a couple of pictures my father took of the lighted fountain at Centennial Square in Victoria in 1974. I assume they were taken at the same time as the set-ups look identical.



Here's a picture I took of the fountain tonight during the Great Freeze of 2013.

Fishbowl

Traditionally, the Victoria transit system makes changes to its service on Labour Day, and 1974 was no exception as the new 26 Crosstown route was introduced, and service to the Gordon Head area was revamped. While much adjusted since then, the basic routing on the Crosstown and Gordon Head service remains to this day. This shot was taken on Shelbourne Street at McKenzie Avenue in front of the University Heights Mall. The greenhouses you can see on the other side of the street through the buses windows are long gone now, replaced by condos. Serving the then-new 28 Majestic route in Gordon Head was venerable bus #794, a 1973 GM "New Look" diesel bus (also known as a GM Fishbowl). It only served Victoria streets 2 years before being transferred to the Vancouver fleet where it served out its days.

Snakes On A Plane...Actually, It's a Fence. And There's Only One Snake

When I was a kid, we used to see these small snakes in the yard all the time. We don't anymore. We usually only saw then in the garden or lawn, but I remember this one. It slithered along the fence, and Dad ran for his camera. He was quite proud of the shot with the tongue sticking out. And rightly so.

Puffins!

Puffins are rare in these parts, so rare that I've never seen one in the wild. But obviously, there were a few hanging around Willows Beach in 1971 where Dad took this photo. Or perhaps not. A reader believes these puffins are from the old Sealand of the Pacific marine attraction, and I think she might be right. I found some other pictures from the same period from Sealand, and they will appear here one day in the future.

Funky Phone Booth

Who ya gonna call? In 1971 along Government Street in front of the Empress Hotel in Victoria, if you were going to call someone, you'd plunk your dime (yes, only a dime) into this nifty looking pay phone. And look, kids! It has one of them old-timey rotary dials!

Then and Now: Centennial Ledge

Anyone want to guess when this picture was taken? Why, yes. 1971. How could you tell? 1971 was the 100th anniversary of British Columbia's entry into Confederation and Victoria was all decked out in Anniversary decorations. Dad took this pic of the Ledge in the fall of 1971. Compared to the picture below that I took of the Ledge last summer, not much has changed. The trees are bigger, of course. But the other change I see is that vehicle traffic is no longer allowed along the walkway right in front of the main stairs.

Thetis Lake Kayakers - 1974

Today, I have a two-fer for you. Taken from a pair of slides, these two images show kayakers playing kayak polo at Thetis Lake in 1974. I've taken up kayaking in the last few years and kayak at the lake all the time, but I've never seen this many kayaks in the lake at one time! Check out the second picture. You can see that the paddles have holes in them to catch and throw the ball with. You can see that one kayaker has caught the orange ball in the hole in his paddle and is getting ready to throw it.