BY JOEI CARLTON HOSSACK
Little Town
The
that DID
I
was in Nanaimo working my way down to British Columbia’s capital city of Victoria on Vancouver Island and
occasionally stopping to check my e-mail at various Starbucks’ Coff ee Shops. On the trip I was delighted to learn that I could use my Starbucks’ card for two hours of free internet every day along with a strong cup of “joe” that would keep me awake all day and most of the night. Since the start of my summer travels, hosted in part by T e Camping and RVing BC Coalition, I made sure that I updated my website as oſt en as possible and it was starting to get some serious lookers and commentators. For the third time in as many days I
received an e-mail asking if I had stopped at Chemainus and I had to confess that I hadn’t. Temporarily I didn’t give it another thought until I had passed Ladysmith on the way south on Highway 1. T ere I saw the turnoff to Chemainus. One e-mail I could ignore. Two e-mails were food for thought, but three e-mails peaked my curiosity. I had no idea what I would fi nd but I had to go. Fiſt een minutes later, having driven
the tree-lined curvy road in record time, I was standing in front of the mural in Waterwheel Park, located in the heart of downtown Chemainus featuring a working waterwheel as well as carvings hidden in the trees. I stood transfi xed, trying to fi gure out where the “paint and carvings” ended and the “real” started and knew that if I didn’t stop gawking sometime soon I would be turned into a local-artist’s next project. From Waterwheel Park, and for the next
few hours, I was in picture-taking heaven. On numerous buildings downtown
there are 41 murals depicting the history of what is called “T e Little Town T at Did.” It wasn’t always so. In 1983 the town was fl oundering aſt er the mill shut down. Karl
RVT 140 • MARCH/APRIL 2011 15 Waterwheel Park
Schutz, founder of the Festival of Murals, inspired by what he had seen in Europe, worked with the Municipality of North Cowichan and used art and culture to breathe new life into a dying town. It started with fi ve murals and grew into a vibrant community. It was in the late 80’s that 20 buses pulled into a parking lot in Chemainus and now
hosts between 350,000 and 450,000 people per year. Aſt er 26 years of traditional historic murals, Chemainus is heading in a new direction
– one that involves Canadian artist and author Emily Carr. T e newest mural, painted on the Chemainus T eatre Festival building, features fi ve of Carr’s paintings, was completed in the spring of 2009. T e future is bright for “T e Little Town that Did.” For information about getting there, check out the following websites: www.
nanaimoairport.com,
www.bcferries.com,
www.harbour-air.com or for general maps of Vancouver Island,
www.britishcolumbia.com. Information about the murals can be found at
www.muraltown.com or
www.chemainus.bc.ca.
Joei Carlton Hossack is the author of seven adventure travel books and two mini reads.
She teaches memoir and travel writing and has developed workbooks and organizers to go along with her classes. She is an entertaining and inspirational speaker specializing in world travel and writing/promotion. Joei is an amateur photographer. Her website is
www.joeicarlton.com
and she can be reached by e-mail at
JoeiCarlton@Hotmail.com6
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