Salt Spring Island Archives

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Audio

Park Drive

Don Cunningham, 2016

Accession Number
Date 2016
Media digital recording Audio mp3 √
duration 36 min.

331_Don-Cunningham_Park-Drive_2016.mp3

otter.ai

15.02.2024

no

Outline

    Local history and geography in a small town.
  • Frank Speedo's house on the corner of Park Drive and Swamp Road was discussed.
  • Speaker 1 describes how a creek near a school was developed into a hydro field, leading to the property being sold to a company.
  • Speaker 1 recounts childhood memories of a creek on school property, now piped underground.
    Local history and landmarks in Ontario.
  • Speaker 1 describes how the area behind their house used to flood during high tides, and how the issue was addressed by filling in the area and installing a better drainage system.
  • Speaker 2 adds that there are several creeks in the area, including Ganges Creek and Swanson Creek, which flow into the ocean near the church.
  • Speaker 1 reminisces about skating on Swanson Park and Nicholson's Bond in the wintertime, mentioning that these areas were low-lying and would freeze over.
  • Speaker 2 asks about the VISTA area, which was previously a thermal guesthouse, and Speaker 1 provides information about Carl Sandoval and his wife running a beauty salon and later converting it into a bed and breakfast.
    Local history and landmarks.
  • In 1919, George's Church was built in the current location, with the church manse (minister's residence) located nearby.
  • In 1950s-60s, the high school was built on three properties: Jack Gerard's, Mrs. Allison's, and Bill and Daisy Evans's.
  • In the 1960s, the school and hydro office were built on land previously owned by the King family and other individuals.
    Saltspring Island history and turkey farming.
  • The history of a high school and other buildings on Saltspring Island, including their original uses and changes over time.
  • Speaker 1 discusses the history of the waterworks in North Saltspring, including its previous locations and the evolution of the public works department.
  • Speaker 1 describes how their friend Blake raised turkeys on a large farm, using feeders and tractors to distribute food and load turkey meat onto trucks for processing.
  • Speaker 1 and others helped corral turkeys into cages for processing, with up to 6 turkeys per cage until a truckload was full.
    Farming and poultry business in Australia.
  • Speaker 1 details their experience working with turkey farmers in NSW, Australia.
  • Speaker 1 describes how farmers in the past used to make money by selling milk, eggs, and poultry, but it was a challenging and risky business.
  • Speaker 2 mentions the Smith family's theory farm and how it was a successful venture.
  • Speaker 1 discusses the history of chicken farming in the area, including the Parsons family's poultry farm and the use of chicken manure for gardening.
  • Unknown Speaker 0:00
    Oh, go for it.

    Unknown Speaker 0:06
    We were gonna do a little thing about this neighborhood. I'm living in, like Park Drive and so on. And I just wonder what you know about it

    Unknown Speaker 0:20
    a little bit. Oh, yeah. It used to be the old Frank. Frank cross to new direct crop fields in orchard ridge down there. All the orchard along there is Oh,

    Unknown Speaker 0:36
    yeah, wasn't that the Frank's got

    Unknown Speaker 0:42
    French and German coffins combined.

    Unknown Speaker 0:46
    Oh, I see. Yeah.

    Unknown Speaker 0:50
    French got it started at controlled and came across and drum across zip came up village terrorists. And in that area they're down towards the well back of Frank Speedo place where I'm not sure it was in there now.

    Unknown Speaker 1:09
    What is it that

    Unknown Speaker 1:11
    there's a house there? It's right on the very corner you go in the hall, a frank speed house. And he was a first world war returning bat. And he I'm not sure whether he was gassed during the First World War or what? Anyway, he couldn't do that much way of farming. So he became an accountant and he works at a software company. Not sure if that was the house on the corner just don't promote the kindergarten school is there's a house in there kind of a Green and White House. Well, I guess it's been renovated, but a bit of an hour period in there. And we used to call up deals. Or when Dermot Croft I got out of it. Swamps through took over. And that's why it's called swamp through roads and swamps is ponds knowledge area in there. Oh

    Unknown Speaker 2:07
    yeah. What about Swanson? How did that come to be?

    Unknown Speaker 2:12
    He did he he was a kind of a developer. And he came in and he thought he could clear up this kind of a valley because there was fruit trees and everything in there. And he's Oh no, I've got to hold on. I'll do a little bit of filling. So he does and deepened what he's called forms his pond. And a lot of the fields that came out of that went into that area where Jim Spencer is and where Gordy Lee is and all of that. Then they built it up so that it was it didn't flood because it was always kind of a low area where there was a kind of a creek ticking down all the time. It started about around the end of where Sunnyside is in Oslo Farms is there's kind of a drainage area comes down and it seems to drain down to the valley there is a drain down there and

    Unknown Speaker 3:13
    that creek that went down to cross the hydro field. Into behind gets together with Dante's Creek by barbed funds.

    Unknown Speaker 3:32
    When I was going to school, it was quite a creek that came down there was a lot of water came down and because we're there what they call a hydro field is now that was kind of like open meadow area. JB forester who was the principal was a school he lived up in behind what is now winter plywood lumber yard up there. And after he left and then he left it to his daughter Louis when she married Harvey Reynolds and they raised their girls there and then Harvey sold it to the company and he moved on to property that he got down off of Cushing Lake Road. So then it became winter Pi was like that well then the school needed more playing fields. So it went across the road and it hit purchased a property across the road with this creek on it. Well you you really don't know there's that much of a creek because basically it's all piped underneath there. There's probably a culvert just down from where you are. There's a cover that goes underneath that field and it comes all the way up just about right across you can see a bit of a pipe showing there but when I was going to school back in the 40s That was quite a raging Creek all the time because I can remember as a little guy a bunch of us little guys who go up with some boards and we'd make a little bit of a raft and we filled down this creek. And it was not that wide I guess your VMO maybe, oh, maybe eight feet wide and about maybe two foot deep water in it floater under the raft down we grab our chunks of wood that are wrapped. Two of us or one of us will get on and we've looked down maybe 50 yards that it was that was on the school school ground property a bunch of rose bushes that my teachers are always on my case because I was always coming into class at one o'clock soaking wet

    Unknown Speaker 6:02
    Yeah, I guess Creek comes up just the jam factories

    Unknown Speaker 6:09
    Yes, well, that's that's jam packed. Was guesthouse and they were about apartments he called it and it went down to between the OBC tell office which was coffee Italia and it went through an unnamed behind the church and went in and actually joined the creek. They're behind barbed wire. Right? You see when you go on the other side of barks that used to flood really badly during the high tides in the wintertime and even when they got some really high tides in the summer. Oh

    Unknown Speaker 6:55
    yeah, they filled it all up I guess.

    Unknown Speaker 7:00
    They actually back filled it but they also put a better system in to get rid of the water.

    Unknown Speaker 7:08
    Because what they did, I can remember was a young boy there. McAfee Shopware Gansey. Ali is now what they call a title gate there. And what it was it was like a wooden culvert.

    Unknown Speaker 7:29
    I guess it'd be about maybe two foot square, a two foot square culvert and then it was on a hinge. So when the tide came in, it would close this gate over the end of the culvert. The water couldn't get through that much into the end behind barbed buns. A lot of seepage and etc. And then the amount of water that came down past your place and through there would pull up and what is while we're Creekside isn't an area they would pull up. So all in behind the old cell station and our BBs was was all pretty well, like a marsh on the time. It was always pretty well underwater all the time. And then of course when the tide went out, then that door will open and all that fresh water would go out.

    Unknown Speaker 8:22
    Oh, yeah. Yeah, I had when they drove pilings and for the years to be Calypso carpet that all used to flood Yeah, when they put pilings in there. They drove the parents into old cars or whatever.

    Unknown Speaker 8:43
    Right? I wouldn't know that is all the things they did. Probably today wouldn't apply. But I know there's either a number of little creeks that came down that all seem to kind of ended up what is now again just Creek I get to go out to drink. And we're the Escapade spaces there. Yeah,

    Unknown Speaker 9:06
    yeah, that's Ganges Creek, and there's Swanson Creek. Swanson Creek. That's the one that goes to the church, metal

    Unknown Speaker 9:15
    church, Swanson Creek go down to the torture center. We did actually originate basically just about by and behind. Meadowbrook and Sunnyside, Dr. Brown Foster. Oh, the headwaters would have would be probably a spring or drainage area all the water comes down to a beach property.

    Unknown Speaker 9:43
    So do you have any idea when Swanson Park was was dug up? When Bill fall

    Unknown Speaker 9:57
    back in the 50s it was done. Oh yeah. Because I remember after was dug up, we used to delight in going down there in the wintertime. Because this now would freeze over and you could go skating on it, right? There was that there was a map. If you wanted to go skating, you'd have to go what the call is over the temp ground is over there. Just at the head end of Long harbor road, there's kind of a lower area where this tent tent ground is now. Oh, where there was a guy like climbing something that's right. Everything is and that used to be called kings flats because that we used to be kings dairy farm, and all of those areas of an Amazon call farm fields and of course, it was low lying. And so when orders I would settle for Apple water, and it would freeze up and then you go skating there in the wintertime and it was there and Swanson's bond. And Nicholson's bond, which was just the other side of the golf course there. If you had done Baker road, you look back down there's a bit of a bond. Well, that's the other point that we used to skate on quite often.

    Unknown Speaker 11:15
    What about the the VISTA area used to be a thermal guesthouse? Yes. What do you know about that?

    Unknown Speaker 11:28
    Well, okay now just trying to think now that was trying to go build that. I think it was shadow actually the bill. Yeah, Carl, Carl Sandoval. And even if

    Unknown Speaker 11:55
    it was a radio anyway, they had a number of girls and boys and they have children. And she used to run what's called a Dutch beauty salon, which is now where the Shaw cable. Oh. And that needs to be there to really sell on. And that's where they live. Well. Carl was a carpenter and that was when they sold their their beauty salon. And they decided they were she in Mississauga more decided that she would do like a b&b. So that's what she did. So in centimos guest house. And then later on became Wisteria. Right? Was it a rest home for elderly people? That one was too Yes. Before it became a b&b. I think it was more of a respite place for people to come. Like this, like the precursor DegreeWorks.

    Unknown Speaker 13:06
    nother thing St. George's Church,

    Unknown Speaker 13:08
    right.

    Unknown Speaker 13:09
    When was that built?

    Unknown Speaker 13:12
    Oh, that was built in 1919 1940. The other one that was the reason it was built where it was. It was built on your theories. You go down with a buddy All Saints Church is now right across the street. There's a there's another building that used to be a church hall that was insured to George's Church home. And the church would turn around for infirmaries now and it was there, assuming there were 1995 I believe it was it picked it up and they moved it across to where it is now. Because the the church Manse was the roof, family place that's where the minister used to live. And so he just walked down and the church was right there when they owned the property cover majority churches are all saints is now tonight area that they all know that and they also own that middle section. On the other side well, they got nickel brothers and 95 to pick up that shirt turned around and move it over and expanded to make AllSaints where it is today.

    Unknown Speaker 14:33
    Park Drive used to be called the Church Road was it at one time Yeah. It changed.

    Unknown Speaker 14:42
    I believe that changed in around 95 I think it was when they moved it over they decided to kind of prototype because it was not a church road anymore. No connector road Hey, it used to come all the way through, and it would come up and it would turn in service for you were there. But at that time, there was no high school there. Were the high school is comprises of like the jack Gerard place. Mrs. Allison's place, sticks Allison's white face. And then there was Bill and Daisy Evans's place. And that's basically those three properties made up what is now the high school. All right.

    Unknown Speaker 15:40
    Daisy Evans, that's Margaret's mother. My mother each grandparents, grandparents Oh, I see. Oh, I see. Nowadays

    Unknown Speaker 15:50
    the evidence married 10 year and that's why we came days a year okay. And then they lived further along it really the upside of the rainbow roadshow whether it's a mobiles etc in there and that was where Ted and Daisy gear first live when they came to the team 50

    Unknown Speaker 16:24
    behind the pool not

    Unknown Speaker 16:27
    behind this No, no, no, no, that was later later, that was the the the old battle Laurie place and then pass Marguerite moved up there. Now usually behind the pool lac went a little bit from that house over was where Laurie mode is about all useless

    Unknown Speaker 16:57
    and then then you went if you would have with a pool driver, he is now if you went down a little bit further, was the Leon King property and he was a cousin of the the kings who had changed dairy and then the next property down from there was to take your property and later on when Ted and Davey moved out Peter arnelle and his wife bought it and became the NLP and then in due course on the school took over they took over pretty well all of that land in their

    Unknown Speaker 17:43
    Encino ensino winter plywood where it is now that was covered in lumber now, that was there was nothing there. That was next to the for the hydro building used to be and that was what a hydro office was. Basically, BC Hydro that for their maintenance yard was really for the school maintenance or repair shops and maintenance building. That's the old BC Hydro. shop to do their research on their transformers and stuff like that one of them when the big major big power line went through. Then they moved up to power lines because they own the right away.

    Unknown Speaker 18:38
    Were the skate park is now. Yeah, there was a building their house. Yes.

    Unknown Speaker 18:50
    Archdeacon homes used to live. He was the Minister for the church and that tree he used to live before the church house build where it is now.

    Unknown Speaker 19:02
    It was a family place. Now it was permutations

    Unknown Speaker 19:06
    now, that was built. When you see what happened was the school. Elementary school there it was an elementary, high school, but I was going there. Well then the early 60s. They needed a high school. So what they did is they took the land next to it where it is where they found a middle school. And they made that into the high school took all that land in and of course that would take in what would be part of the or I've taken home and his wife is there. And so they knew doo doo high school went in and then they decided they needed to shop so they need to put in the kind of like to commercial shop there was woodworking and metalwork and that's really nice to be teaching woodworking spectrolite all of that but that's

    Unknown Speaker 20:33
    taken almost left what is that the same house that the cranks got

    Unknown Speaker 20:41
    that was free French cops originally were French and French it was kind of a two story shake roof and candles on the outside and it was I think it was a three or four bedroom house

    Unknown Speaker 21:03
    that was used for a while by this school I think as a as a kindergarten or something a one time

    Unknown Speaker 21:09
    I think the Phoenix school was in there one year

    Unknown Speaker 21:12
    it could have been a new they started something new it was an honkanen school

    Unknown Speaker 21:19
    Rita dance had it for a while

    Unknown Speaker 21:22
    for a while too That's right

    Unknown Speaker 21:31
    changed a little bit all that area there upon the unemployment behind what is for the family places now there used to be when he went mom lived up there there was

    Unknown Speaker 21:51
    uh, he was the one of the guys that was on the kind of the portal the CEOs for, for Saltspring waterworks. And his son in law, Peter Clark, right, where they had the guys. And then later on Mike Larmour got involved and Peter Cartwright. And then Mike took over and now of course, it's gone from where it is now in North Saltspring. But the waterworks used to be downtown. They used to have it in the office downtown. But then as things got busier and busier than they moved up to Central in behind what is now the Department of Highways yard. Right. Yeah. And that used to be that was a public works. As always, remember, as long as I can remember, Central has always been the public courtyards always been there. And right on the very corner ready for that middle grader is old gas pump that we used to call to call the red shed. And it was a big, red, kind of a barn type building that the highways kept their, their equipment in repairs, etc. But then they tore all that down and built their their new yard. And then after that, I think they liked privatization and it was main road but at one time it was far from the highways and Ken Stevens was the at that time he was the road foreman at that time and iniquity turned it over to mainland

    Unknown Speaker 23:45
    there's a lot of things a lot of people don't know No, one of the church maps in the very beginning was right behind. Like you'll just cave if you look across from the golf course and you cross to the snowboarder house in any kind of a metal metal barn

    Unknown Speaker 24:05
    where the turkey farm or used to be in

    Unknown Speaker 24:08
    Turkey from that was that was summer long turkey farm. And they took in everything from that mind over the hill and down towards Baker road and then went to cross took in what is now all of the Portlock Park and that was all turkey farm. Remember when we moved up to the farm to drummer brother is now Milner's Lake, Arthur Milner, Nick like Joel Miller had bought it and he was returning. At that time. The church minister they decided to add housing in Ganges so that's why the stone there. And so that house became available so he bought it and until he raised turkeys there so as a young as a youth my early teens I used a melon farm boy well because I was very friendly with their younger their only boy, they can con some of his friends into giving him a hand to feed his father's flock of turkeys. It was amazing because I think he had at that time I think he had anywhere between 20 503,000 turkeys. And he would be really surprised because the soccer fields would come in every week once a week with a five ton truck of feed because they think they really put on the like they really ate like to say there's nothing dumber than a turkey because I always thought they're quite a sophisticated bird until I started helping them this friend of mine, Blake beat these things. Tell me that maybe eight, eight feeders in the various fields. And you could omens a farm tractor was a was a trailer and you haven't loaded up at all this turkey balance with turkey meat and you proceed to load these kind of like feed self feeders around the ground. Well, as soon as a turkey supposed to come over to their feed, they'd all come charges over in a great herd and it would take about 15 or 20 minutes to realize that that wasn't the only reading statement that we were distributing food and other feeders do but they would be two or three turkeys deep trying to get to defeater there is a really, really stupid animal or bird and then come off. We'd have panic call and 22 together make the poultry processing people come in they have their big tandem trucks with cages and we'd have to go in corral these turkeys up and put them in the in that barn which was recalled the catching barn and then we catch these turkeys and then new stuff. I think it was five or six or more turkeys in new each cage until they had a truckload of Turkeys head off for the processing plant. And then of course he added hatchery there too so he had all his own eggs that he asked for. For sure. So he always had a backup plan for taking into power went off he always had a generator plan to make sure he never went down. And he also had a a walk in coolers. And he's he he was one of I believe who went to five or if not for turkey farmers on the app. It was great years turkey farm down and footprint on furnish row there was Humphrey Cathy farm called Long harbor row and there was Miller's turkey farm. And I'm not sure if the other one there was another one some are the ones they would have liked are nice to the to the local stores and into the various meat shops in Sydney Victoria

    Unknown Speaker 28:37
    fresh turkey you put your order in and I can remember when I started first working for the cleaning company that was part of the apprentice meat cutters job was to clean turkeys at Thanksgiving and Christmas and you'd have all these turkeys arriving in there people put their orders in and of course they're all gone New Earth dress which meant they were they still had all the entrails inside them and but they were plucked and wait and then you the new bunch of Turkey then the butcher or whatever to draw the turkey so we used to have to investigate them and then we would pull all the tendons in the legs and get them ready for you and that was it. They were always fresh turkeys and they were always really nice because they were probably walking around today people you got they will have fresh

    Unknown Speaker 29:43
    hope did you send them? How could you sense them?

    Unknown Speaker 29:46
    I believe they used a used to use kind of a paper you'd pay like a paper like rolled up like this paper was paper on them and then they would just take an A when they when you pluck the feathers off then then you would send them with this paper like it just kind of fires run around take all the little fires off it's

    Unknown Speaker 30:17
    just like the paper on fire and

    Unknown Speaker 30:26
    all these little tricks like that and then what happened was he was he was doing pretty good business there and the price of FIFA and up I think two cents and the price of Turkey went down two cents and that was the profit and loss right there and that when when it went that way he was our business and a lot of different it was pretty close to the bone meal or the profit and loss when he ran a poultry business or any of the farmers it was the only ones that seem to kind of well I would say make any money were for those that had some orchards and even then they didn't make that much money and I can remember in the dairy business we were supplying milk to the to the various stores in town we would have already had a large herd of cattle we would all fell over like the others were all washed and milk was cooled and bottle filling and capping machines and then it would be sold door to door 25 sent to court and if it didn't if it was cold weather you had to be very certain that the customer took pros in the cork would the cap would come off you'd have a tower of frozen cream on top of

    Unknown Speaker 31:57
    ice cream that was up up the hill there was also the Smith's theory farm

    Unknown Speaker 32:08
    just pass the Legion the Legion King is what the there was a Smith before that maybe pass past Norton's have

    Unknown Speaker 32:30
    a right we're going back into the 20s now

    Unknown Speaker 32:33
    okay okay

    Unknown Speaker 32:37
    Smith finance right

    Unknown Speaker 32:40
    took that one over well okay, I guess I pump your brain enough for to fill up my little brain

    Unknown Speaker 32:54
    a lot of changes like people don't realize that a lot area where you are down and those are old orchard for many years ago. And in those days, we were pretty well the fruit breadbasket for Vancouver and Victoria are sold like they would be CPR in the market. And it wasn't until the 30s when the Okanagan started to really start to produce

    Unknown Speaker 33:36
    the amount of money during the 30s in the very early 40s are all Japanese market gardens. So there were a lot of chips from the Japanese farms like tomatoes on either side salad vegetables, a lot of your different crops like that would be shipped poultry and everything because Parsons is chicken farm no that was on both sides of a mental road. There were somewhere in the vicinity of 25 or 30,000 chickens at that time that he had the chicken parm was

    Unknown Speaker 34:21
    that the crypto was locked

    Unknown Speaker 34:25
    well that became a white weakness later on called White means poultry farms. Both sides have overs now, maps are road. I don't think any of the old chicken barns are left anymore. They've all been torn down but I can remember in the 70s going with the neighbors still wanted to do chicken barns. Where choice David Parsons. She was one of the wives of a one of the The owners you go in there for five or $10 you get a whole truckload of chicken manure. And really good for your garden. The only the only problem was you can do a lot of chickweed but it was all well rotted to come in or be maybe have to protect on the floor there. And then every few years, you'd have to go in and shovel all these chicken barns up. And man, it was beautiful on the field because it made everything really grow. Anyway, those are things that exist anymore.

    Unknown Speaker 35:46
    Okay, well, I'd better like to go and

    Unknown Speaker 35:51
    like try to give you a little bit of overview, like down there but

    Unknown Speaker 35:57
    yeah, I'm sure I'm gonna have more questions later on, but

    Unknown Speaker 36:00
    hopefully I got answers for you. Okay. All right.