Esquimalt

I see the tenders come before council in terms of the project from time to time in their minutes.

But unlike other municipalities that have these huge, well-developed discourses around, like the Staff Operations Center in Saanich, or the public safety building here in Esquimalt that's right beside us that is opening up a little later than expected, or the planned fire hall in Michozen, the discourse around one of the most expensive public infrastructure projects in the West Shore, has been virtually non-existent, despite thousands of people driving past Centre Mountain every day on the four lanes as they head out to Souk, noticing that more and more of the mountain seems to be removed or have been removed over the past couple of years.

And yet the council gets no credit or critique for it.

It's like it doesn't even exist.

Oak Bay, that sort of thing.

So I definitely would say Esquimalt is kind of, they're open for business and they're doing things.

So, and proximity to town, it makes sense.

Vic West is another one.

Saanich will have two.

Esquimalt will have one.

There will be a seat that is shared between View Royal and part of Highlands.

Meanwhile, the Esquimalt-Cossapsum First Nation will have one seat and the Songhees Nation.

will have one seat rounding out to nine seats.

And there's only one incumbent who's running again.

I'm under no illusions about how difficult the next month is.

is going to be as everybody does their best like for example do you know what ward you are in for district 61 the greater victoria school district do you know what specific candidates are running in your specific ward for the greater victoria school district i bet you if i took a thousand bucks out to the street right now i'm not going to do this one i don't have the money to do it and two i don't know there's probably some sort of rule against it but i'm speaking hypothetically I bet you if I took a thousand bucks out to a street corner right now and said, tell me everybody that like in, let's say, Victoria or Saanich or wherever and said, who are name all the school board trustee candidates correctly for where I am right now.

We did not all come back.

Fifteen months after the Karluk, flagship of Vilhjalmur Stefansson's Canadian Arctic Expedition, steamed out of the navy yard at Esquimalt, British Columbia, the United States Revenue Cutter Bear, that perennial Good Samaritan of the Arctic, which thirty years before had been one of the ships to rescue the survivors of the Greely Expedition from Cape Sabine, brought nine of us back again to Esquimalt, nine white men out of the twenty, who, with two Eskimo men, an Eskimo woman and her two little girls, and a black cat, comprised the ship's company when she began her westward drift along the northern coast of Alaska on the twenty-third of September, 1913.

Years of sealing in the waters about Newfoundland and of Arctic voyaging and ice travel with Peary had given me a variety of experience to fall back upon by way of comparison.

The events of those fifteen months, I must say, justified the prophecy that I made in a letter to a Boston friend just before we left Esquimalt.

"This will have the North Pole trip beaten to a frazzle." It did, and there were two main reasons why.

One was that the Karluk, though an old-time whaler, was not built, as the Roosevelt was, especially for withstanding ice pressure.

Six of these men, good men and true, were starting on their last voyage.

One other member of the crew was added in Alaska, John Hadley, who signed on as carpenter.

This is a podcast, and it's also a place that, like the rest of BC, is getting ready for the municipal elections next month.

We just heard from outgoing Esquimalt mayor, Barb Desjardin.

She was talking about why she supports and called for the ward system for school trustees in the Greater Victoria district.

SD61 includes schools in Esquimalt, Victoria, Oak Bay, View Royal, and part of Saanich.

The type of ward system that Barb Desjardin is talking about is something that's been in place for many other districts that cover multiple municipalities or large regions.

Michael McEvoy is well-schooled in the systems and roles around school district governance.

They both use, uh, ward systems or electoral district systems.

And my experience was, uh, both in the province of British Columbia, I think a majority of, uh, school boards use this kind of system, and, and as well it's used throughout the rest of the country.