Last week’s holiday and our little slice of Vancouver Island once shared numeral-oriented identities. Remember when this first holiday of the summer season was joyously known as “the 24th of May”?
Time to plant the tomatoes, open the cottage, go for your first swim, and celebrate it all with a fine display of fireworks — that’s what the 24th of May meant to Canadians.
Sure, I guess most of us knew, in some dark cerebral recess, that the date was also intended to mark the birthday of Britain’s longest-reigning queen, but do you remember calling it “Victoria Day”?
Now, remember when our stretch of paradise from Nanoose Bay out to Coombs and Errington and up to Deep Bay was known by all as “District 69?” Even the youngest among us can recall that our separate and distinct communities, many local organizations, and even businesses carried on under the umbrella of our school district number — District 69.
It was a unique moniker. How many areas of the world do you know that have a number in their name? But it wasn’t good enough for us. We needed something catchy, glamorous, descriptive, and so some powers-that-be adopted “Oceanside.”
I don’t recall that we had a vote on this catch-all phrase with some obvious leaks in its adjectives.
Several years ago, we did have a contest in which residents could enter their suggestions for a more distinguished title.
The winner, unfortunately, dripped syrup from every letter and stuck to its birthing paper, not to mention in the throats of the people in District 69.
Remember “The Island’s Jewel”? It didn’t stand a chance of making a spearhead, a letterhead, or a sign in the area. It simply was too sweet to swallow. I believe a yard care business did adopt the name, and perhaps it does accurately apply to the jewel-like flowers they tend.
Well, the story goes that “Oceanside” was the runner-up in that old contest, and without further ado or consultation it was foisted onto the theretofore complacent, unsuspecting, and distinguished “District 69.”
I’ve never counted exactly how many local entities have followed the tourist promotion line and lined up to put themselves on the side of the ocean. I wonder, too, just how many have dug in their heels and stayed with their original numerical appellation.
Well, how about “Oceanside”? What’s so original and catchy about the name? It certainlLy isn’t unique to our geographical situation — just think for a minute about B.C.’s miles of coastline. Think about those in communities within District 69 that cannot see, hear, or smell the ocean — not even the goats on the roof. Where is this ocean we’re beside anyway? That’s the Strait of Georgia/Salish Sea out there; a relatively narrow waterway separating us from the mainland.
Why did we adopt the name of some little burg halfway between Los Angeles and San Diego (which is on a real ocean, by the way)? Copying something that works in California seems to be a habit with us. Does it give us more class? Hardly that. It puts us in a class of those who follow blindly along with anything the “bottom line” or the “get-with-it” people tell us.
Were there no other attractive options? You bet there were. How about at least copying part of our own and saying we’re Lighthouse Country? From our shores one can see Chrome Island, Ballenas, and Sisters Lightstations, and out in landlocked Coombs there’s a lighthouse model or two to help the connection.
An even better choice could have been Arrowsmith Country, or just plain Arrowsmith — the name of that graceful mountain that hovers benevolently to the west and wrings the moisture from many a cloud before it falls on our parades.
Mt. Arrowsmith is visible from every community in District 69 and it carries the extra cachet of commemorating some of our history and the English geographer after whom it was named by two early trail blazers on our Island.
Alas, “blah” is in, and geography and history are scarcely considered on the “attraction” scale.
Maybe old Victoria would have been happy about having her name on our calendars this week, but it exudes none of the gleeful anticipation found in that magic number, “the 24th of May”!
— Nancy Whelan is a regular columnist. She lives in District 69/ Oceanside/Arrowsmith.
