{"id":383,"date":"2016-09-23T15:18:26","date_gmt":"2016-09-23T22:18:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mytruths.ca\/?p=383"},"modified":"2016-09-23T15:18:26","modified_gmt":"2016-09-23T22:18:26","slug":"all-in-my-back-yard","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mytruths.ca\/?p=383","title":{"rendered":"All in my back yard…"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"20131016-020-sooke-hills-lr\"<\/a>If you take a walk through the woods in behind my house, before long you\u2019ll come across a large concrete pipe winding its way among the trees.\u00a0 It\u2019s old, covered with a layer of moss in places, but still remarkably intact.\u00a0 In some places, it lies directly on the forest floor, in others it\u2019s raised on a gravel bed, and in places where it crosses ravines and gullies it rests on pilings and trestles.\u00a0 When I first \u201cdiscovered\u201d the pipe, not long after moving into our new home (now, almost twenty years ago), I was intrigued.\u00a0 What was it?\u00a0 Where does it come from, and where does it go to?\u00a0 I followed the pipe, in both directions, as far as I could, until the terrain became impassable, but the pipe just continued on, far off into the distance.<\/p>\n

With a diameter of about 3\u00bd feet, in most places the pipe rises above much of the low forest floor vegetation, and it just beckons you to walk along it. \u00a0It takes a minute or two to get used to walking along a bit of a curved surface, but then the pathway becomes very enjoyable.\u00a0 Rather than slogging through underbrush, scratching your legs and tripping on hidden snags, this was like a stroll down the avenue. \u00a0Judging from the wear pattern on the concrete and on the way the moss grows, it\u2019s clear that I\u2019m by no means the first along this way \u2013 this has been a favourite pathway for many years.<\/p>\n

With a little research, it doesn\u2019t take long to find out that this pipe is known as the \u201cflow line\u201d.\u00a0 It was once the main water pipe, built in the early 1900\u2019s, that brought fresh water to the City of Victoria.\u00a0 It ran from Sooke Lake, way up in the Sooke Hills, to fill the newly-created Humpback Reservoir that became (and is still) the source of Victoria\u2019s water.\u00a0 I didn\u2019t know much more detail about the pipe until just recently when some friends gave me a fascinating little book for my birthday \u2013 Bringing Water to Victoria<\/em>, by Charles Tolman, published by the Sooke Museum in 2015.<\/p>\n

The book chronicles the efforts to get a good, clean and reliable source of drinking water for Victoria during its early days as a city.\u00a0 It\u2019s a fascinating story of determination, incompetence, ingenuity and greed, of local champions and outside experts; a story of stops and starts and indecision stretching over decades. (For those of us who live in the Victoria area, it\u2019s all just a bit too reminiscent of modern-day infrastructure projects, like the sewage treatment fiasco and the McKenzie interchange \u2013 history, indeed, repeating itself)!<\/p>\n

But once the decision to go ahead was finally made, in 1911, it took less than four years to complete the entire project \u2013 including determining the route, acquiring the land, building the infrastructure to lay the pipe (including several railways to transport the pipe), building the pipe itself, preparing the intake at Sooke Lake and then building not only the flow line itself, but also the dam and reservoir at Humpback and a further pressurized (steel) pipeline from the dam into Victoria.\u00a0 A remarkable achievement accomplished by a bunch of remarkable people for the total price of about $2.5 million \u2013 and all right in my backyard!<\/p>\n

I was never much of a fan of history when I was in school \u2013 or, at least, I wasn\u2019t much of a fan of the way it was taught.\u00a0 It never had much resonance for me, and trying to memorize dates and obscure European locations and interminable border skirmishes was, frankly, tedious and rather boring.\u00a0 It wasn\u2019t until quite some time later, that I began to perceive history differently.\u00a0 I began to see it all around me, in the buildings, in the shape of my community, in the remnants of things left behind and the shadows of things that were no longer there.\u00a0 And the ever-nagging question: \u201chow did this come to be\u201d?<\/p>\n

History, for me, became much more fascinating when it came home.\u00a0 In my view, history is not just dates and obscure locations, not just about great battles, world-shaking events, the comings and goings of kings and queens and presidents. \u00a0\u00a0It\u2019s also about the lives of the people who lived here before, their struggles and triumphs, their thoughts and ideas that nurtured their families, built their communities and shaped their world.\u00a0 It\u2019s about the stories my grandfather told me, and those from my neighbour.\u00a0 We all have stories in our lives and they are, in their way, as full of drama and intrigue as any of the great sagas of our history classes.\u00a0 But it is our stories that shape us, that make us who we are.<\/p>\n

Our history \u2013 our heritage \u2013 is best lived and experienced, understood through the things we can touch and feel, passed on in a way that touches our hearts and our imaginations.\u00a0 It\u2019s why we need to work hard to conserve and appreciate our heritage, not just the castles and stately mansions, but the miner\u2019s cottages and the old pipes as well.\u00a0 Those remnants have stories to tell.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If you take a walk through the woods in behind my house, before long you\u2019ll come across a large concrete pipe winding its way among the trees.\u00a0 It\u2019s old, covered with a layer of moss in places, but still remarkably intact.\u00a0 In some places, it lies directly on the forest \u2026<\/p>\n

Continue reading<\/i><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-383","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ians-posts","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nAll in my back yard... - My Truths...<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/mytruths.ca\/?p=383\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"All in my back yard... - My Truths...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"If you take a walk through the woods in behind my house, before long you\u2019ll come across a large concrete pipe winding its way among the trees.\u00a0 It\u2019s old, covered with a layer of moss in places, but still remarkably intact.\u00a0 In some places, it lies directly on the forest \u2026 Continue reading\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/mytruths.ca\/?p=383\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"My Truths...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2016-09-23T22:18:26+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/mytruths.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/09\/20131016-020-Sooke-Hills-lr.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Ian Fawcett\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Ian Fawcett\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/mytruths.ca\\\/?p=383#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/mytruths.ca\\\/?p=383\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Ian Fawcett\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/mytruths.ca\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/43b21b4a3b2f8997ae5fc5973066d00a\"},\"headline\":\"All in my back yard…\",\"datePublished\":\"2016-09-23T22:18:26+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/mytruths.ca\\\/?p=383\"},\"wordCount\":870,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/mytruths.ca\\\/?p=383#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/mytruths.ca\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2016\\\/09\\\/20131016-020-Sooke-Hills-lr.jpg\",\"articleSection\":[\"Ian's Posts\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/mytruths.ca\\\/?p=383#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/mytruths.ca\\\/?p=383\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/mytruths.ca\\\/?p=383\",\"name\":\"All in my back yard... - 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