SOOKE
SEASON BEGINS The Sooke Folk Music Society is beginning its new season.
Editorial
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Entertainment
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Sports/stats
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NEWS MIRROR Classifieds P20 • 75¢
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Wednesday, September 18, 2013
Agreement #40110541
Black Press C O M M U N I T Y
N E W S
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NEW LOCATION!
M E D I A
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Historical bake oven discovered at Potholes Bake oven speaks of the flow line and the men who toiled on it Pirjo Raits
Sooke News Mirror
One hundred years ago life was a lot different for the men and women who built this country. Sooke was a place where a lot of things happened, much of it as a support system of sorts for the larger community of Victoria. Hundreds of men were employed in the building of a concrete flow line for water coming from Sooke Lake and ending up 27 miles away in Victoria. Four foot diameter sections of four foot long sections of concrete pipe were fabricated at Cooper Cove. It took 35,000 sections to bring water to the Goldstream Reservoir. That meant hundreds of hours of often backbreaking labour to get the flow line laid. It was considered one of the most challenging feats of engineering seen in the province at the time. Twenty-seven miles, 400 men, a railway and numerous field camps along the stretch from the lake to the reservoir was necessary. Recently one of the bake ovens used by the field camps was discovered in an area around the Sooke Potholes. The Sooke Region Museum acted on a tip from outdoorsman Ed Earl and found the
Suicidal woman saved Pirjo Raits
Sooke News Mirror
Pirjo Raits photos
A celebration of the discovery of an old bake oven was held on Sept. 12 with (l to r) Sooke Mayor Wendal Milne, Ted Daly from CRD Parks, JdFEA Director MIke Hicks, T’Sou-ke member Larry Underwood and MLA John Horgan attending. Top right, the bake oven. moss-covered bake oven. The oven itself is made of rock leftover from blasting for the flow line. On Thursday, September 12, a group of 68 invited guests made the trek to the top of a hill on a plateau where the back oven was discovered. The bake oven was built using no mortar, igloo-style with a smoke hole at top and covered with earth. Sooke historian Elida Peers, in speaking about the find, said the
men who worked along the flow line would be greeted with the smell of fresh baked brown bread when they returned to camp at the end of the day. Oldtimer Wilf Carter had first contacted the museum historian (Elida Peers) in 1976 to make her aware of a “sister” oven in the woods at the Sooke/ Metchosin border. This oven was relocated to the museum and is used at the annual open house to bake biscuits.
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On hand for the ‘unveiling’ and ribbon cutting were a number of dignitaries and locals including Juan de Fuca Electoral Area Director Mike Hicks, North Saanich mayor Ted Daly representing CRD Parks, Acting mayor for Langford Lanny Seaton, MLA John Horgan, Sooke Mayor Wendal Milne, and T’Souke representatives Frank Planes, Shirley Alphonse and Larry Underwood. Mike Hicks congratulated everyone on a “good find,” and Jack Planes stated that they were there to “witness what’s going on.” The most words came from Ted Daly, who spoke at the site of the bake oven and said,
“We have it so easy today, we just turn on a tap… at times I think we’re luck we didn’t live in that era and at other times I feel we missed something.” Historian Elida Peers spoke of how the oven operated 100 years ago. She attained much of her information from Wilf Carter who lived through that era in Sooke. The ceremony ended with a lunch which would have been typical for the era, baked beans, brown bread, cheese and water… a fitting repast for those gathered at the historic site.
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2-4PM
Sooke RCMP are credited with helping save the life of a distraught 42-year-old woman who was attempting to commit suicide on Monday night (September 16). “She was intent on ending her life,” said Staff Sgt. Steve Wright. At 9:25 p.m. four police officers responded to the call at Billings Spit by the woman’s partner. Two RCMP members went into the water with personal floatation devices in an attempt to keep up with woman and talk with her. The officers were in the water for 35 minutes with another on shore. They did manage to borrow a boat while they waited for the Royal Canadian Marine Search and Rescue to arrive. The woman continued to refuse help and swam further from shore. The woman, said Wright, did not want to be rescued and one officer went back into the water and held on to her until she could be pulled from the water and onto a RCMSR boat. “The water temperature was 11 degrees and the tide was flooding,” said Wright. The woman was 200 to 300 feet from shore and was becoming hypothermic. “She didn’t have much more time left, and good on the members who stayed with her. This is good news.” The unnamed woman was taken out of the water by RCMSR and was transported to hospital under the Mental Health Act, where she remains. The officers were unharmed.
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