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Swimmers dive into renewed Gorge swim fest Tough task to convince public the Gorge Waterway is clean and safe Edward Hill News staff
Salty but without the biting chill of the open ocean, murky but deceptively clean, the Gorge Waterway is unlike any other swimming spot in Greater Victoria. A watery playground of the city a century ago, ushering the inlet back to its glory days has been easier said than done. Community groups and municipalities lining the waterway are helping launch the second Gorge Swim Fest in August, a revival of a revival from a decade ago, itself a revival from the early 1900s. “There was a Gorge swim fest 100 years ago. There were no pools, people didn’t have cars to get to lakes,” said Jack Meredith, one of the swim fest organizers. “The first time I went in it was a shock. I knew it was salty but I was surprised how salty it was. I was also surprised how warm it was. And I asked the question everyone asks – how safe is it to swim? I talked to (the health authority) and found out it was the cleanest water around. For me it was a wake-up call. I had lived here for 15 years and hadn’t taken advantage of this. “ Meredith, with the Vic West Community Association, and area resident John Sanderson launched the latest incarnation
of the swim festival last year, to great success – thousands came out and more than 600 hit the water in Banfield Park in Vic West, Gorge Park (Curtis Point) in Saanich and Esquimalt Gorge Park in Esquimalt. “It’s cleaned up now. When I was growing up, you came down here to get polio,” Sanderson said joking. “It was polluted. It was the back end of the world.” Environmental advocate John Roe helped prompt the cleanup of the toilet bowl of a waterway in the 1990s and organized swim fests in the opening years of the new millennium, including a 10-kilometre open water swim into the Inner Harbour. “John Roe was a carpenter from Ontario who came out here and canoed to his job at Capital Iron. He got mad and said ‘God damn it I’m going to clean this up by 2000.’ That was 1996,” Sanderson recalled. People still occasionally abandon junk in the Gorge, but long gone are the days of leaky septic systems, floating trash and stormwater flushing metals and oil into the water. As the swim fest organizers are quick to point out, the waterway tends to be cleaner than any popular swimming hole in the city, including Thetis and Elk lakes. Remove most of the urban run-
Edward Hill/News staff
Jack Meredith, front, floats in the Gorge Waterway with a group of fellow swimmers. Meredith is helping organize this year’s Gorge Swimfest, which aims to encourage people to use the Gorge Waterway as a swimming recreation area, as it was a century ago. off and the flushing action of the tides keeps pollution levels low. “When you talk to people about swimming in the Gorge, usually the response at first is ‘yuck.’ And then it’s ‘can you?’” Meredith said. Unfortunately, the Gorge’s enduring reputation for pollution, and the assumption the water is a hypothermia risk drives swim fest. The event is also about connecting with the city’s past, the early 1900s when recreational swimming and races were commonplace in the Gorge. “The more people swimming in here the more will be concerned about taking care of the Gorge. It’s about taking care of our backyard,” Meredith said. “If people aren’t concerned it will go downhill again. If they are concerned, they’ll take care of it.”
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As Sanderson describes it, the area around Banfield Park at the turn of the 20th century was the “Uplands of Victoria,” but became
Clean water n Fecal coliform readings from VIHA, early July (coliform colonies per 100 ml of water): Willows Beach: 1 Gorge - Craigflower Kosapson Park: 2 Gorge - Curtis Point: 5 Sooke Pot Holes: 9 Gorge - Banfield Park: 10 Esquimalt-Gorge Park: 11 Island View Beach: 19 Elk Lake - Hamsterly east: 97 Thetis Lake: 110 Beaver Lake: 120 Durrance Lake: 140
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run down after the 1940s. “I think its neat this was the resort spot of Victoria. I’d love to see it brought back as a resort again,” Meredith remarked. Despite the men insisting it’s the “warmest water in Victoria,” when this reporter jumped in on a sunny afternoon, the Gorge carried an invigorating salty chill. For someone accustomed to the cool fresh water of Thetis or Langford lakes, swimming in the same water as passing harbour ferries is a novelty, as is feeling the pull of the tide. “When I get in, I forget it’s salty,” remarked Lori Garcia-Meredith, wife of Jack Meredith. “It looks like a river, but its easier to swim and float.” PlEASE SEE: Island Swimming, Page A8