To escape the foul eastern April weather, we visited Victoria, British Columbia's gem of a capital, the "City of Gardens." Blessed with Canada's mildest climate, the lush gardens remarkably bloom there year-round and, to rub it in, the city boasts 1,000 signature flower baskets gracing downtown lampposts. The fragrance is omnipresent. They certainly know how to push the envelope with those of us who foolishly
choose to live elsewhere. Every February, while most Canadians merrily shovel snow, Victorians count their flowers! The Annual Flower Count encourages green-thumbed citizens to report the number of blossoms in their flowerbeds or upon their fruit trees. The grand total is celebrated as a farewell to winter and welcome to early spring. Enthusiasm for this promotion is evident by the number of flowers counted - over 3.4-billion blossoms last year! That's a lot of blossoms! Where I reside, a similar joyful activity, after sending in a municipal tax installment, allows our citizens to count potholes, seemingly an empty task in comparison to Victoria.
Just outside Victoria, I visited Butchart Gardens, fifty aromatic acres of flowers, fountains and footpaths. Their Sunken Gardens are most impressive, but I admired the Japanese Garden best. It slopes gently towards the sea, offering serenity and effortless beauty. The Rose Garden is spectaculaly dotted with 2,500 rose plants of mixed varieties, and the Italian Garden is magisterially presided over by a Florentine bronze sculpture of Mercury. Water lilies float lazilly in the ornate pool. One expects a camera crew to arrive with famed director, Bernardo Bertolucci.
Next, I visited Victoria's Abkhazi Garden, a unique setting that appropriately symbolizes the enduring love of two people separated during WWII. Prince Nicolas
Abkhazi was imprisoned in Germany and Peggy Pemberton-Carter in Shanghai, but like protagonists in a novel, they eventually reunited in Victoria to create "a garden that love built."
The one-acre garden features native Garry oaks, ornamental evergreens, rhododendrons, rock and alpine plants, naturalized bulbs and Japanese maples and weeping conifers. The neat aspect of this operation, as with many Victoria gardens, is that a team of volunteers (working, one assumes, through love) maintain and keep the gardens up to snuff.
The last gardens viewed were the Government House
Gardens at the official residence of the Lieutenant Governor of British Columbia. Located in the historic Rockland district, the grounds are public, consisting of 35.6 acres of which 14 acres are ornamental gardens. The remainder is Garry Oak woodland. The grounds enjoy specatacular ocean and mountain views and 20 gardens
occupy the site, ranging from an English country garden and a winter garden to a British Columbia native plant garden. Apparently, the L-G is known to tend the gardens.
Besides gardens, the other highlight (literally) was the flight to Victoria from Vancouver in a Harbour Air DeHavilland DHC-Turbine Single Otter seaplane. Edging away from the dock in Vancouver, the engines rev, and in less than 30 seconds, water cascading off the floats, we bank sharply to view the Vancouver skyline, pass Stanley Park, the inner city emerald, the outskirts of Richmond and soon skim across a blanket of white puffy
clouds obliterating everything below except the huge U.S. Olympic Mountains to the south while on my right, the Canadian mountain ranges loom, where in 2010, Olympic athletes will scurry down their slopes.
Our pilot, Stephen Lane, merrily cruises above the Gulf islands spotting houses perched in idyllic settings upon rocky outcrops or carved into the woods, our speed, 140 knots, height, 4500 ft. Stephen confides that he has the best job in Canada, and I believe him, but upon reflection, the volunteer Victoria gardeners, many retired, are not faring too badly either.
Mike Keenan writes a weekly newspaper column for the St. Catharines Standard and has been published in the Globe and
Mail, Buffalo Spree, Stitches, West of the City and Pulse Magazine. He is editor of the zine, Synapse Magazine:
www.synapsemagazine.ca.
Mike is an award-winning poet and former President of the Canadian Authors Association, Niagara and Vice-President of
the national body. He belongs to the North American Travel Journalist Association and the Travel Media Association of
Canada. In his "spare" time, he is Executive Officer and founder of The Council on World Affairs of Canada:
www.cowac.org.
It was only a matter of time. Since 1908, esteemed guests such as Queen Elizabeth II, Rudyard Kipling, Shirley Temple, Spencer Tracy, Rita Hayworth, the King of Siam, Bob Hope, John Travolta, Barbra Streisand, Mel Gibson, Goldie Hawn and Kurt Russell among other notables, enjoyed Afternoon Tea at The Fairmont Empress. Granted, Victoria, BC is a long way to travel to sip tea, but it might have been farther because the ritual
originated in China, where making tea is a revered art form.
For Westerners, the story goes that in the 19th century, the poor, exhausted Duchess of Bedford experienced a terrible 'sinking feeling' around five in the afternoon one day, so she asked her friends to join her for tea, some buttered bread and little cakes. Afternoon tea was thus serendipitously born in the same fashion that afternoon beer and potato chips were invented by me during college days.
Our family actually drank copious amounts of tea, a habit my dad picked up in England during WWII. He and I preferred mugs to suit our large fingers. Mother more elegantly employed china and an extended pinkie.
Afternoon tea at The Empress begins with a serving of fresh seasonal fruit, topped with
Chantilly cream. Then, as we sip a cup of signature Empress Blend from exclusive Royal Doulton china, three tiers of goodies are presented. On the bottom tray is a display of sandwiches filled with cucumber, smoked BC salmon & cream cheese, carrot & ginger with cream cheese, open-faced shrimp mousse with fresh papaya garnish and curry mango chicken salad, leading upwards to the middle tray festooned with freshly baked scones with strawberry preserves and thick clotted cream. Emerging at the top tray, a selection of light pastries, including French Valrhona
Manjari chocolate truffles, fresh fruit and lemon curd tarts, miniature chocolate eclairs filled with milk chocolate mousse and Cardamom shortbread cookies, prepared by award-winning pastry
chef, D'oyen Christie beckons one to gamely finish the lot, the gourmet equivalent to baseball's triple tray. Okay, a triple play or tray is a bit hokey, I suppose but I ike the gastronomic/athletic symbolism.
Undaunted by the array, I view the imposing tiers of carbohydrates with the same zest as Hiliary first gazing upon Mount Everest, determined to graze my way from base camp completely to the top. Unlike Sir Edmund's craggy scenario, live piano music plays softly in the background and well-dressed porters are at our beck and call.
Choosing tea from the selections offered is not an easy decision. Besides the Empress Blend,
there was Earl Grey, Willow Stream Spa Blend, Berry Berry, Borengajuli Assam, Jasmine Butterfly and Margaret's Hope, but our server, Yosef, with a mere twenty-six years experience on the job, recommended the Empress. Marlene, a co-worker with only thirty-one year's experience, advised that they often serve 600-800 tea services per day. Apparently, the cruise ship in Victoria Harbour is to the Empress Hotel what a busload of hungry teenagers is to a McDonald's franchise.
In eighteenth century England, tea mania just like Beatle mania swept through the country. A pattern gradually emerged, the first pot made in the kitchen and carried to the lady of the house who waited with invited guests who were provided with fine porcelain from China. The first pot was warmed by the hostess from a second pot, (usually silver) heated over a small flame. Food, tea and conversation were then distributed presumably in even portions amongst the assembled guests.
The Empress china was originally presented to King George V in 1914 upon the opening of the Booth factory in Stoke, England. The china was first used by The Empress in
1939 to celebrate the Royal visit of King George VI and Queen Elizabeth. The pattern is produced by
Royal Doulton exclusively for The Empress and available in the store adjacent to the Tea Lobby - cup and saucer retailing for $75 plus taxes.
Rationalizing that my hands remained too large for such delicacy, I opted for more tea to transport home in lieu of china. The top secret Empress Blend is produced by the Metropolitan Tea Company, a Canadian manufacturer, importer and dealer of specialty and customized teas with over 23 years of industry experience. With my historic familiarity in sipping tea, I judged this brand as excellent. Yosef was right. Afternoon Tea costs $55 during the peak summer season.
Oops, I hear our kettle whistling impatiently from the kichen so I bid you "cheerio."
Mike Keenan writes a weekly newspaper column for the St. Catharines Standard and has been published in the Globe & Mail,
Buffalo Spree, Stitches, West of the City and Pulse
Magazine. Mike is an award-winning poet and former President of the Canadian Authors Association, Niagara and
Vice-President of the national body. He belongs to the North American Travel Journalist Association and the Travel Media
Association of Canada. He is editor of the zines, What Travel Writers Say:
www.whattravelwriterssay.com and Synapse Magazine: www.synapsemagazine.ca.
