Fort Rodd Hill and Fisgard Lighthouse NHS, British Columbia, CanadaWeirs Lagoon July 3 –
7, 2023
In the new RV
Let’s start at the
beginning: last year we sold our Truck and camper after coming back from Alaska
and so when we came back from our trip Paul started to look around for a
motorhome – we wanted one not too old, not bigger than 24 ft, no slide outs,
big storage underneath, storage inside, not a round couch and not too
expensive. And that was a hard find – but we did find one and picked it up at
Fraserway RV – yes they went down nearly 10.000 $ for us!!! And we were amazed
on how much storage it has – perfect for us. So we got it – by that time it was
too late to book any Provincial Park campgrounds so Gine looked around for
options and one was that we came here – we were here during the COVID and Gine
thought it would be great to come here again. After last week camping we did
some more packing – slowly it will be perfect.
A late start
Originally Gine said
let’s go around 09.30 – as Dee needed to leave around 10, we decided to wait
until she is gone otherwise we are moving too often the cars around. Still we decided
to pu the new truck along the side of the house and move the sportstrack in
front of the house – so nearly ready to go we discovered with forgot the
chocolate – which is a big “no” and so Paul got it. And then finally we are on
the road.
Lots of traffic
heading south
As we were driving
south we had several times when we were standing in the traffic and decided
that is not the greatest and who did develop a highway with so many traffic
lights!!! Really!!! So nearly 3 hours later we did arrive at the south coast of
Vancouver Island. Oh and you know there is a lot of traffic if you have time to
admire the rocks along the road.
First time: Full hook
– not for cheap
Lots of new things to
check out: Full hook up for the first time and so far all is working – but
overall we did start a list with all the things that need to be done and fixed
or repaired or we are still missing. And here in the south all RV parks are
super pricy!!! I mean you can get a hotel for those prices (or not).
Paddling through
seaweed
Gine did up the
paddleboard and decided to check out the area – Paul decided to use our new
Costco Beach chairs to relax in the sand. The only downside is, that the
seaweed gives you a real ocean smell.
Enjoying the view
And yes we did pay to
have a oceanfront site as the view is everything here – that means view when
cooking and eating supper, having a view when reading and relaxing…. I guess
that is called a Mini vacation.
A frog concert at
night
As we headed inside
and it got dark we heard all this noise – and no it was not crickets – I think
we have a frog choir outside our RV… it was kind of cool to hear.
Canadian breakfast
with Canadian Bacon
Waking up to
sunshine??? Yes and no – it is like a haze or is it smoke is hanging over the
ocean and we are unable to see the mountains today – it looks kind of weird.
Today we decided to have a real nice breakfast all Canadian with Canadian Back
Bacon – I mean what is better than that when you have it with ocean views.
Along the Ocean Road
Gine said we do some
exploring and so we headed along the coast – and soon came to the ocean road –
the fun part about this road is that one side is the ocean and on the other
side is the Esquamalt lagoon – it is really cool. Over the bridge and we are
at:
A NHS: Fort Rodd Hill
- This is part of the Victoria – Esquimalt Coastal Defense system and at one time hat 20 fortifications - It is the best preserved one and the west coast artillery fortress was in use from 1895-1956
- It is named after John Rashleigh Rodd who was the 1st lieutenant on HMS Frigard
- The British Royal Navy started using the Esquimalt harbour in the 1840s first only to anchor and to get lumber & water, but then started to built 3 hospitals during the Crimean war of 1854-56 – and today it is still a Royal Naval base – I thought it is very interesting that the Royal Navy moved its Pacific base here from Valparaiso in chile (What!!!)
- It got reinforced during the San Juan Island Pig war of 1859 with the US
- They started to built permanent fixed coastal defenses during the Great Eastern Crisis of 1877/78 when tensions between Russia and Britain increased
- With Esquimalt harbor being a busy center of the Royal Navy in 1893 the British war office decided to built a coastal defense – Fort Rodd hill was part of it. Here we had 3 batteries the upper and lower with the “big” guns and the Belmont Battery. Each of the Batteries had their own commander and on top was the Fortress commander
- If you look at a map you can see on how many of those defense post they actually had on south Vancouver Island mostly to protect Victoria and Esquamalt – the most they had was during WWII with 22 stations
- By the way on June20, 1942 a Japanese submarine attacked Estevan lighthouse north of Tofino – fortunately there was no major damage and no casualties
- In 1958 it became a national historic site
Exploring the Past in
German
Greeting by a Canadian
beaver we ask for some info to start our
tour we got told that they are out of English info sheets so our choice was
French-German or Spanish – we went for German!!! And then headed out to check
out the first
The Upper Battery
The first thing we saw
was a gun which came here after the Pearl Harbour attack as it got discovered
how important it is to defend a Naval Base. Ok so I didn’t really know what to
expect but we did walk right through a huge gate behind the concrete walls with
holes for the guns (looks like in an old castle) complete with gatehouse and
then up to where the big gun was placed – no question that thing is huge and it
is fun to walk down into the underground storage for the ammunition. Oh and the
view is super cool too!!! Especially if you are in the kind of underground
“bunker” or where they had the lights. And then we saw one super heavy gun – I
think Paul tried to lift it.
- Here was one of the 6-inch guns – which is called the disappearing gun, the gun weight 5 tons and after loading 8 men were needed to put it in the firing position using a hydraulic system. It could then fire a shell up to 9.5 km and would cause the gun to drop back down and out of sight (hence the name) and below they reloaded it to lift it up again
- The walls to the upper battery were thick enough to stop a bullet
- And the guardhouse also had a bedroom which could be used as a holding cells for misbehaving soldiers or for short term prison (guess then the guards didn’t had a bedroom)
- The watertank we walked by could hold 7500 gallons of water
- And they also had a defence light from 1902 two on Fort Rodd Hill and two on the other side of the harbour which could light up the whole area outside the harbour
- The 9inch gun which weight 28 tons – how do you move it up the hill it is called man-power
Living quarters
In front of it was a
Willy Jeep – one of the once left from WWII. In case you wonder the WWII
Officers Quarters got built in WWII and today are the Bathrooms in it – at one
time 20 of those buildings were around. And there is this huge brick building –
they say it is British style!!! Guess it is not so bad if you are the top
commander here. A quick stop at the Blacksmith or fitter’s shop – someone has
to look after the equipment and then up on a hill to the Battery Command Post –
from here the commander looked out as he was responsible in firing the gun:
they had 2 telephones going to each of the batteries from here. We enjoyed from
here the views on the Garry oak trees (by the way in the old days they were not
here as he needed a clear view)
Via nature to the
Belmont Battery
We then walked the
Nature trail – really it is only a 10 Min walk – but what is unique that here
is literally a Garry Oak forest – and I don’t think we ever saw so many old
Garry oaks. At some point there were some super unique cool ones. With some
glimpses we reached the Belmont Battery – and no we couldn’t go up on the tower
– what a shame. We could go inside and saw a lot of “ammunition”. It was cool
to stand near those guns and walk around them – being in the hot sun and
enjoying the view onto the lighthouse
- This Battery was built to prevent small fast torpedos slipping under the guns of the Upper and lower batteries. They had two 12-pound quick firing guns here (by the way the last short was fired here in July 1956 (that was only 67 years ago)
- During WWII even it had outdated obsolete guns it was important for the harbour defence
Along the ocean to the
“fisherhut”
We then walked a super
cool walk towards the fake fisherhut – which looks so cute and by some old
rusty steel needing – all looking super cool – yes we know there is some
history behind it – but overall at the moment we enjoyed the super cool views
and photo ops!! – like Paul with the two big balls!! Overall we do have to say
none of the waters around here look very inviting because everything is covered
with seaweed!!! Let’s not forget the little welcome circle which is like a huge
compass: the directions are benches with some native benches – belnding into
the surrounding nature
- During WWII they had 17 searchlights along the coastline and to camouflage them they built this “fisherhut” with a boat in front of it, so no-one would think there is something: we are here at the #6
- Also during WWII they had a steel mesh netting a “anti-torpedo” and “anti-submarine” between the lighthouse and the other side of the harbour, it was hung from floats (haha I think they are heavy – no clue how they not sunk) – there was also a gate to allow the own ships to go in and out
At the lighthouse
This one looks super
cute out a little rocky outcrop – and no we couldn’t go all the way to the top
– but we could go on the first floor – walk around it – enjoy the views, climb
on some rocks for nicer views and pull a lever to blow the lifhthouse horn!!!
- It is the oldest lighthouse on the Pacific coast of Canada built in 1860
- The light came with the first lighthouse keeper from Britain – and was in use until an automatic one replaced it in 1928
- Did you know that Augustin Fresnel who designed bridges and loved to play around with light, discovered how prism bent light and lenses focussed light into a strong beam. In 1822 he presented his new invention to the world it got called the Fresnel lense and is used in lighthouses. By 1835 most lighthouses in Europe used this lense some flashed and some were fixed lights. The largest once were 4m talls and 2 m wide.
- The light by the way blinks every 2 seconds
- The HMS Fisgard was in the pacific from 1844-47
- The goldrush in the Fraser river caused major traffic jams on the waterways leading to Vancouver Island. By 1858 fewer than 300 Europeans lived in the Victoria area by the end of that years hundreds of ships carrying more than 20.000 gold seekers passed through Victoria harbour
- The last lighthouse keeper rowed away in 1929 and it became a NHS in 196o
- And yes it is still today a functioning lighthouse
- By the way it was from here that the first Canadian Arctic Expedition left in 1913
Exploring the lower
Battery with the Plotting room
And we now enter the
lower Battery – and interestingly here we learn more about the recent history.
First we went into the plotting room and we really wonder on how you can plot
with that huge thing – as per Gine it reminds you a bit of the Wolfs Liar with
the huge concrete thick wall rooms (only there were way more of those monstrous
concrete bunkers). And once more up on the top to see where more guns were once
placed as well more munition underground bunkers
- The plotting room is a bomb proof and gas proof room (it had its own degassing plant) built in 1940/41. It had its own telephone system and even under attack could feed information to other batteries
- The plotting machine weight ½ ton – once radar was introduced after the war, the plotting machine was obsolete and in 1951 the room became an Anti-Aircraft operations room for the Victoria-Esquamalt defenses – it closed in 1954.
- How does the Plotting machine work: on other fortress locations they looked for enemy ships this info was send to the plotting room and the course and speed of the vessel was entered into the plotting machine, which then was able to calculate quickly and accurately the coordinates for the targest intersection. It was a complex machine and you could track a ships direction and updated information was constantly phoned to the room. It was like an early computer telling the soldiers where the guns should target, which then was transmitted to the commander who then called instructions to the gun batteries – so the gunners to fire even if they couldn’t see the target themselves.
Women at War!!
Also in the lower
Battery where once the Casemats barracks wa for 54 men with parade square,was
an exhibition about WWII and the cold war – as well women in the war – Gine
thought some of the advertisement was not totally fair when the guys got the
gun and women not, but then they also had some cool staff like the Victory cook
book (that is how you learn to cook under food rationing), or starting a
Victory Garden – this is how you can help Canada!! As well who says recycling
is new during WWII they had the 3 R’s: Reduce – Reuse – Recycle. How about the
“We make bombs”
- In 1941 the Canadian Women’s Army’s Corps was formed and by the end of the war over 21.000 women were in it. Their motto was “you can free a man to fight” and they took over men in clerical and communications jobs, they were cooks and mechanics, they also served in the Anti-Aircraft operations room
- When the last shot was done in 1956 that was the first time when they had mixed crews with men and women to operate the searchlights and the guns
The Engine Room
And finally we went to
the engine Room – which is kind of funky as it is like walking into an
underground cave. Inside were some big old engines – so funny they had 25
horsepowers and as it looks like on of the searchlights – I mean it is huge
besides all the fuel they had stored. But still it provided the power from
1902-1956
- Like a lot here – it was all about camouflage – the landscape with the rocks was used to hide what is here – this means also this engine room was built behind an outcropping of rocks which protected it from being seen by a warship – they even had to filtration systems so you couldn’t see any exhaust smoke
- Important to remember before Radar was invented searchlights were used to find the targets in the dark
The Garry oaks:
As we walked back we
had more of the Garry Oaks to admire – and it made us curious about that tree,
as we know that if you have one you are not allowed to cut it down.
- Did you know that you can’t compost Garry Oak leaves they have a waxy layer on the leaves
- They grow on South-East Vancouver Island and the gulf Islands – the oak tree grows in the Pacific Northwest from South California to BC. In Oregon it is called Oregon white oak and in Canada it is called Garry oak
- Before the last ice-age they were part of an extensive hardwood forest in BC
- The Garry Oaks were considered sacredto the god of thunder
- It grows from sea level up to 200m elevation
- David Douglas discovered it in the 1820s and named it after Nicolas Garry
- It is a drought tolerant tree/shrub
- It is the only native oak in BC, Washington and Oregon
- The tree branches often have twists and corkscrew like turns
- Once they are around 30 years old they start to produce acorns
A stop along the ocean
On the way back we
stopped along the waterfront when driving along the ocean road – but we decided
that we head back where we can plug in and have a lazy afternoon.
Relaxing back at Weirs
Lagoon
We learned from our
next-door neighbors, that sometimes after a lot of wind and storms the seaweed
gets pulled out and then comes with the driftwood here and that normally the
Weirs lagoon is a huge empty sandy beach and super clear water – maybe we are
lucky and the seaweed is going away. Nevertheless we have a wonderful sunny
lazy afternoon…..
2025-05-22