The wild ocean -- Cabin Point, East Sooke Park

The wild ocean -- Cabin Point, East Sooke Park
Originally uploaded by Mary Sanseverino

East Sooke Park showed her beautiful side last Sunday (Mar 22). The sun came out, the sea looked tropical, and some of our native wildflowers put on a show. We were out for a hike with Arthur (Mike's brother) and Rita who were visiting from California. Dave, another of Mike's brothers also came along. Dave was visiting from Edmonton. We started at Aylard Farm and went up Babbington Hill. From Babbington it was down to the Coastal Trail at Cabin Point, then around to Beechey Head. We came back to the car from Beechey via an interiour trail -- all in all we were out for six hours.

I love taking visitors hiking in East Sooke Park. They get to experience a number of southern Vancouver Island's key ecosystems all at once. On this day we started off with a walk through Douglas Fir, Western Hemlock, and Red Cedar forest. Heavy canopy, dappled sunlight, nursery logs -- the walk up to Babbington has it all. Once on Babbington proper we are into the sunny, dry, rocky ground so favoured by Arbutus and Garry Oak. Shore Pine likes this outlook too. Finally, we went down on the coast making our way over 25 million year old gabbro and basalt rocks. Here moist seeps in the cliffs are perfect habitat for many native wildflowers. On this trip we saw Saxifrage, Shooting stars, Sedum, and Monkey-flowers.

This park also gives a glimpse into human use of this area -- the petroglyphs carved into the rocks at Alldrige Point were done by the Coast Salish First Nations people. I don't know how old the carving are, but I have heard anything from 200 to 1000 years.

Cabin Point is another example of mankind and the environment. The Point has an old "trap shack" on it. In 1902 the Canadian government allowed canneries to build huge fish traps in the Juan de Fuca Strait along the coast of southern Vancouver Island. This was to stop American fishers from catching salmon destined for the Fraser River, which is in Canadian waters.

A fellow by the name of Charles Fox Todd had five traps in this area. They were huge -- built of wire netting and lots of fir pilings, they ran nearly a kilometre out to sea and trapped salmon as the fish tried to migrate through them. Todd's traps were very successful and he could net up to 300,000 salmon in a season (the ocean was abundant back in the early 1900s!). But, his huge catches didn't win friends amongst the other fishers in the area and he had to put in guard houses to keep an eye on his traps. The old "trap shack" at Cabin Point on the Coastal Trail in East Sooke Park is one of these.
For more info on this see Ross Crockford's blog Unknown Victoria , or get his book.

East Sooke Park also includes an old farmstead -- Aylard Farm was acquired by the Capital Regional District (CRD) and added to the Park in 1972. The old orchard is still around today.

This Park is one of the most versatile in our area -- the trails range from an easy ramble on the sandy beach at Aylard Farm to the rugged 10 km long Coastal Trail. I think I have been on every trail in the Park (over 50 km of them), but I still find new and interesting things to look at and do every time I return. The CRD was thinking ahead when they reserved this wonderful area from development. If you get out to the Victoria area, and can only make it to one park, I recommend this one.

A few links of interest:
An overview of East Sooke Park
Park map and info
More pictures from East Sooke Park

Some pictures from our East Sooke Park hike: Sun, Mar 22, 2009