James Bay Is It!

By Jack Krayenhoff

My wife and I decided, having lived for more than fifty years in various places in Victoria, that it was time for one more move - to James Bay. And an excellent move it was! Here's why:

We are ardent walkers, but we lived on a hill, and climbing down and back up hills was becoming wearisome. But here everything is wonderfully flat (well...almost flat. People with aging hearts and lungs can tell the slight differences in elevation that do exist).

Another treat: sidewalks everywhere - no dodging of passing cars or being splattered by them on a rainy day. That is a luxury most Victorians have to do without. And then: very few busy crossings interrupt the rhythm of a vigorous stride, something that ruins your 'constitutional'.

And not only is walking in James Bay easy, there is so much to see!

Except where those ugly, four-storey apartment buildings have wiped them out, the streets are lined by century-old houses, all distinctive and finished with loving attention for fretwork detail, maintained with care and brightly painted in attractive colours. Those early Victorians, they took pride in what they built, and what a heritage they left for us to enjoy.

Look at their gardens, too: too little space for much lawn; instead, every square foot crammed with a profusion of summer flowers, producing whiffs of fragrant phlox, mock orange roses.

Some places you walk by are truly 'funky'. Here's the James Bay Inn, a dignified old lady. You know the restaurant and the pub of course, but look at the hotel part now. Two symmetrical flights of stairs converge upward to the impressive lobby, and from there another flight invites you further upward with a gleaming, handsome balustrade. Unlike in modern hotels, the rooms are all different. So you can choose exactly what you want. The only thing is - there is no elevator. But that makes the rooms so reasonably priced! We are going to send all our out-of-town guests there, since we have no room for them in our condo.

A second-hand bookstore on Menzies. I love second-hand bookstores - I discovered many unexpected treasures in them. I tried to get into this one, but did not see an entrance. "Entrance through the coffee shop," said a sign. I stepped into the next-door coffee shop, and sure enough, it communicated sideways with the bookstore. Inside there was a man sitting in a chair, deeply buried in a book. Not a salesman, obviously. In fact, nobody tried to sell me anything: I too could have taken a book off the shelves and spent the morning there, with or without coffee - that was entirely optional. It was a safe bet the owner was not making big money. A few days later I met her, with coloured chalk she was marking the sidewalk with an invitation to passers-by to come in. Her name was Kim. "What was your idea in setting up this business, Kim?" "Oh, I thought it would be fun," she replied. Could you think of a better reason to start a business? That's James Bay for you, I thought.

And that brings me to the best part, and that is the people. On our second day here, Joan and I were walking arm in arm along Niagara. A lady who came walking toward us stopped for a moment, looked us over, and said, "You look like a nice couple." I ask you: where else in Victoria could that happen? Victoria is a city, but in James Bay greet each other on the street, as if it were a village.

And come to think about it, James Bay is a village. In a village people depend on each other, so they are friendly. What's more, everything you need - groceries, hairdresser, church, bank - is within walking distance. You can get rid of your car, and you would hardly miss it. (Think of the money you would save that way, and how healthy we would be, too). One of these days they might take my driver's licence away, as I get into a fender bender or the doctor says my vision isn't good enough anymore. Well, let them. James Bay was built in the days before cars, and you could get by on foot, or perhaps the streetcar. James Bay has not changed much, and we still don't need cars today. For the longer distances horse-drawn streetcars would be best, of course, but hey! Those buses will do.

No doubt about it, this is the place for us, we feel we belong here already. Our next car will be an ambulance, as they say. See you around!