Ruckle Provincial Park, British Columbia, Canada
Salt Spring Island
-- Aug 14 – 16, 2-19
A busy Morning
Yesterday Paul removed the sink and part of the cabinets in
the kitchen with the help of Andreas. With no kitchen Simone and her family
were eating in their RV, the hallway is full of cabinets – half our kitchen is
in the laundry room. They left at around 9 am and then Paul started to change
the tail lights of the RV, Gine started loading the RV, did laundry, emptied
more cabinets. Then the tires for the Corvette arrived – time to load the
bicycles: Gine’s new bike didn’t really fit that well – I guess we got it
working (or not). The wall is nearly gone and we are on our way....
By Ferry to the island
When waiting for the ferry, we discovered that Gine’s bike
only hold on by the lock... ok that is something we need to find a better
solution. Then here you walk to the ferry station to buy the tickets – with a
senior and a 21 ft RV it was fairly reasonable – we put Gine’s bike back up.
And then we are on a short ferry ride over to Salt Spring Island.
What is so special about this island?
- It is the largest of the southern Gulf islands with 10.000 inhabitants
- it is the only island not named after an explorer: originally known as Chuan Island in 1851 – but already by 1855 they called it Salt Spring Island because of the mineral springs on the northern part, even while it was named Admiral island, it was always referred to as Salt spring Island and then officially re-titled to Salt Spring Island in 1910
- it was the first island to be settled by pioneers in 1858: mostly by refugee for black Africans who fled here from California, because the land was for free and by the end of the year 117 settlers lived here
- it was part of the Colony of Vancouver Island and allowed settlers to acquire land through per-emption: settlers could occupy and improve the land before purchase and were permitted to buy it for 1 dollar per acre after proofing the they done so. This method of purchase ensured that the island was used for agricultural purpose and that the settlers were mostly families
- during the 1960s (Vietnam War) the island became a political refugee for US citizen
A long way to the Park
and we discovered fairly fast, this is not a small island –
as well there is a huge line up for the ferry back... long wait lines. Guess we
have to make sure, that we are not to late to go back. Along a lot of tiny
narrow roads we have the feeling we drive to the other end of the island which
we kind of what we did. Oh and we discovered that the island is quite hilly
with a lot of cars – likely not the best for bikes either!!
Ruckle Provincial Park
First we drive through farmland – very dry looking, and then
comes the forest and we discover the campsite is in the dark forest and not
very private... ok so we are not so impressed and do not want to stay here for
3 nights. We went to the day use area – make coffee and walk!! quite a bit to a
rocky outcrop: from here you have a nice view on several of the Gulf Islands –
and we see a lot of ferries coming by. Here we also start to make phone calls
and re-organize our vacation, we decided to leave a day early here and then
spend a night before heading back at the RV Resort here on the Island (which we
then cancelled because of not so great weather and there was enough to do at
home).
Sitting on the bluffs looking on the ocean – enjoying the
sunshine and the warm rocks – scrambling a bit over the rocks – it is nice to
relax (but not for swimming!!). After the sun vanishes behind the trees we head
back and check into our campsite – and after supper we walk from our campsite
down to the bluffs to enjoy a bit the evening at the ocean. And Guess what: we
are at the same bluffs – it is shorter to walk from the campsite then from the
day use area!!
Coffee – Sunshine – Ocean – the perfect Morning
with our coffee we went down to the Beaver Point sitting on
the bench in the sunshine enjoying our good Morning coffee. Gine couldn’t sit
still for very long and walked along the shoreline on the nice bluffs towards
the lighthouse we saw last night. It’s such a beautiful coastline – the view on
the islands is super nice. As well we saw a few seals swimming.
The Ruckle Heritage Farm
we stopped then at the old farm buildings and learned:
- the Irish Immigrant Henry Gordon Ruckle came here to homestead in 1872 – with the help of Japanese labourers he cleared the land
- he then built the old house with 2 bedrooms downstairs and 4 more upstairs and he married Ella Anna Christina in 1877: at this time he had 340 acres – finally in 1884 he added a kitchen
- in 1967 the son built a Queen Anne style house – which looks super nice and since then the original house is empty – but we had a sneak peak inside
- they also had an orchard with 600 trees – we were standing under some of the pear trees (by the way: once in 1895 Salt spring island had 3000 fruit trees and was the major fruit growing area in BC, until the Okanagan took over in 1930
- in 1972 the family donated part of the land to the BC parks to create the Provincial park – the family still operates the active farm
- we learned that Henry built all the buildings himself – some together with his son
- Henry died in 1913 and his motto was that you work the land for the next generation
- We saw the red/white milk house from 1912
We went into the old barn and saw some of the old machines,
then we discovered the turkeys and chicken with rooster running around, the
red/white milk house from 1912and forge, and walked over to the original
homestead from 1877 – which is actually quite big.
The Town of Ganges
we had to go shopping today and when we came trough Ganges we
decided to stop and check it out – easier said than done – how about to find
parking: there is nearly no parking in the first place – so if you have a
motorhome then it is even worse... but Paul did found one!!! (a day later we
discovered we parked in a no-parking zone today, that’s why there was a spot)
Then we walked along the harbour which is quite cute –
through the Marine Rotary Park and came by the golden Mermaid... and always
along the water with nice views on the island – as well we discovered a Dingy
dock!!! We then went into the “historic store” where they had some cute old
things from the old historic Moat store as well as an old totem pole with a
thunderbird: which is by the way from 1907 – the current building is from 1912.
Where is the name Ganges coming from?
- It was named by Captain Richards in 1859 after the HMS Ganges and indirectly after the Ganges river in South Africa,\the ship was from 1857 – 1860 under the command of Captain John Fulford. It was the last sailing line-of-battle ship in foreign service
Then Gine found a little park or path along the ocean and had
to check it out: it ended up at a little beachy area... then we visited the
bakery: guess today we will have coffee and some nice treats... and another
cool thing we discovered was the Food garden: where they had a bunch of food
trucks: as where you always find burgers – here you get vegan, organic and
healthy food. As well as a little self-pay-farmers stand – those you actually
see quite a bit along the road – guess here is every one honest.
Beddis Beach
After all that touristy “city” discovering we wanted to relax
at a beach: and since this was the one always coming up first and is kind on
our way we decided to go there: even it said it is street parking...
- by the way this is the islands most popular beach
But before we arrived
there Paul had a lot of narrow roads with a lot of curves to deal with,
especially since here the trees grow onto the road from the side and the top.
And unbelievable we got the very best parking spot (by the way there was a lot
of parking) – we had a quick check and there is the little bay with pebbles and
crushed shells – so we set up and enjoyed the sunshine – and coffee until the
tide came in and chased us a bit back into the shade: that means it is time to
got back to the:
Bluffs at the Ruckle PP
with only a 5 Min walk from our campsite this bluffs and the
bench is perfect for sitting in the sun: watching all the ferries and boats –
enjoying the views – lying back on the warm stones... you don’t really want to
go and have supper... so after supper we came right back to be here again in
the evening.
2025-05-22