Re development in Victoria's Blue Bridge area

The other day I visited Victoria BC for an hour and spent 10 minutes around one of my favorite disappearing landmarks. Since I'm no longer defending the importance of history of the city and the way it is preserved (the younger generation does not appear to have much worry about that sort of thing, or at least it's their job), I can show photographs of history's disappearance without comments. I'm looking at the Pandora Street bridge. It is half gone, but it's still part of the main arteries connecting Victoria across the inner harbor, ready to be replaced by today's style, which probably is not what the future requires, but that is development, lol.
The bridge and its surroundings make for an interesting area from the early Victoria days that now, for many years already, has old buildings no longer used waiting for upgrading or renewal. The replacement of the area mixes old and new in the facade and that is positive enough. Personally, and aesthetically speaking, I would have liked to see the bridge incorporated in this overhaul. At any rate here is another project that I try to follow and photograph as it develops.
Sometimes I have a camera hanging around my neck, but more often there is just the phone, which I have supported since the first Motorola flip phone with the first camera (I love camera phones and they get closer to some kind of perfection by the day), and even though no longer Motorola, these images are here thanks to the camera phone.

The development of Across the Gorge is recent and I haven't thought, so far, about photographing that side. On the downtown side, however, there are more photos here and here.
And the spring geese often with friends are here year after year as well.

Anyway, walking through Victoria, it is nearly impossible to miss this area, so updates showing major developments will be among future entries in this blog.

Most of Duncan's downtown core was built in the mid to early nineteen hundreds and shows the history of this town. The old buildings are mostly two stories and lend a very spacious small town feel to Duncan. In 2014 I did a camera walk around the half dozen blocks with stores. The results of this walk can be seen here on Flickr. The old buildings are slowly disappearing. The buildings that bite the dust do so for a variety of reasons. They get replaced by taller buildings but so far, I have not seen any that beautify the City of Duncan.
In the center of Duncan's downtown area on the corner of Craig Street and Station Street stood an old store building. Some years ago, a snowplow drove into the building after which the building was condemned.

   

The building was eventually removed and replaced with a lawn. Now of course we wonder what will be built here. Replacing buildings one at the time on small building lots must make any overall planning very difficult.

At any rate later this year I would like to photograph some of the newer buildings that adorn downtown Duncan's skyline. Of course, any development on this lot will not go unnoticed either and these developments will be part of future blog entries.

Sombrio

The other day I spent some time on Sombrio Beach about 10 minutes driving south of Port Renfrew on the west coast of Vancouver Island. The state of Washington shows itself from across the sea. Initially it was rather chilly, but a bit of sunshine warmed the place dramatically. Throughout the day there are at least a few surfers out there on the water. The roar, the crashing, the ebbing and the coming in again of waves, a constant and deafening and beautiful noise, is what I had come to listen to. Whether the scene is tranquil or super wild, wild enough to break sides of mountains, there is always that awesome noise.
And, of course, a classy self-respecting beach has a waterfall. Neither ear nor eye ever gets tired here from listening or seeing.
I took a few photographs with both phone and camera.

Duncan Elementary

One of Duncan's beautiful heritage buildings is its Elementary school building built in 1913/1914. The building was designed by architect William Tuff Whiteway who built, beside many of British Columbia's schools, a variety of well-known buildings at the beginning of the twentieth century. The land for the school was donated by Rev. Holmes (he built St Peters Anglican Church and several more in the area).
I took these photographs around the time the school celebrated its 100-year anniversary. A walk around.

Duncan: The Cliffs on Mount Tzouhalem

There is a brand-new neighborhood on Mount Tzouhalem and this is what the Cliff dwellers look at certain times of the year.