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January 12, 1929 A Bit of Malahat Ridge on a Frosty Morning; Across the Drift; Cliff-dwelling Plants; the Mossy North By Robert Connell – noted Island Naturalist A silver morning again!  Roofs white with frost, dead leaves edged and patterned with ice-crystals, blades of ice running out into wayside pools.  Already the sun is at work, but there are soft clouds, warm-tinted, purple shadowed, coming up over the blue of the sky to intercept the rays.   As the train pulls into Cl

by Brownie Gibson from Green Branches & Fallen Leaves In 1900, the Strathcona Hotel was built at what was then known as Gilesville (after an early settler). For the following enlightening information concerning the hotel, we are greatly indebted to the Provincial Archivist, Mr. Willard Ireland, who did a painstaking job of research. Contrary to popular belief, the hotel did not start as a C.P.R. Hotel. In 1900 the Shawnigan Lake Hotel Company Limited was incorporated with hea

LIFESTYLES – The Cowichan Leader It’s a long journey from an Alberta homestead to one’s own art gallery at Shawnigan Lake. c late 1980s By KEITH NORBURY John Rusnak has come a long way since he was born in a log cabin on his parent’s homestead 75 miles north of Edmonton.That was 53 years ago. Since then, he has completed a 33-year career with Woodward’s department stores, the last 10 as a buyer; taken up painting, first as a hobby and now as his profession; and built a spacio

Entrance to Howe Sound was painted in 1949 and sold for $4.8 million. Author of the article: By John Mackie   Published Nov 22, 2025    E.J. Hughes paints in his Duncan studio in 2004. Photo by Darren Stone /Times Colonist Article content   The E.J. Hughes painting Entrance to Howe Sound sold for $4,801,250 at a Heffel auction in Toronto on Nov. 19, the highest price ever paid for an artwork by a B.C. artist. It was painted in 1949, based on a graphite sketch Hughes had done