All roads connect in Sooke
One way or another all the roads around Sooke connect.
“They may not connect in the conventional way, you may have to take a quad or a game trail but eventually the roads all meet up,” said Morgan, a 50 something, strong as an old growth cypress lifetime Sookite.
We walk the back of his property, I ask him about the magic spots around Sooke, he steps off the trail, plucks a chanterelle mushroom, smiles and seems to lose 40 years as his eyes become cedar clear.
“There are fishing holes, dog walks, majestic hikes that will blow you away, just carry a machete to clear brush, oh and if a bear starts clicking his jaw, walk away briskly,” he said.
Morgan tells me that there is trout fishing towards the top of Muir Creek.
“I heard about that,” I said, “So I went up to have a look a few months back, but after 45 minutes, I ended up on a steep goat trail heading away from the creek so I turned around.”
Morgan shrugs his shoulders and said, “You should have stayed left and gone down the hill but if you would have kept going you would have ended up on Anderson road, because like I said, all the roads in Sooke lead to one another.”
Morgan has lived in Sooke all his life and remembers things like the old Sooke airfield near Edward Milne School, where this Howard Hughes type of fella built a plane and powered it with an old VW engine.
“He did get it about 50 feet in the air, but then guess how that worked out?” he said with a wry smile. Morgan knows some of the best fishing spots in Sooke, like the bluffs where he pulled out a coho hat trick earlier today. He told me the fish hang out there this time of year because the rains help the fish get back home.
Maybe to a wily Sookite like Morgan and his fishing buddies, all the Sooke roads are connected. Maybe you can get to Ucluelet via Butler main road, but for a five year Sooke rookie like myself — ha! I remember how defeated I felt commuting to Victoria for work. Like the spinning odometer on my van, I kept spinning promises on how I’ll make time to understand the smile lines, scars and the colours of Sooke. The seasons would change, the smile lines would deepen but I would keep to the surface of Sooke’s beauty. Then one day, everything changed, the commute stopped and when it did, my own heart started beating.
Maybe Morgan’s roads are people like you and I who have come to Sooke in search of something more than home equity. Perhaps as we connect and strengthen the ties to family, friends and community we can also explore and have a deeper connection to Mother Nature.
Email: sookeheartbeat@gmail.com
