In a dusty, massive chest in the basement of a home in Tacoma, Wash., retired University of Victoria psychology professor Charles Tolman found a key.
Not a real, physical key, mind you. A metaphorical one. It was the key to completing the puzzle of the Sooke Flowline B次元官网网址� a massive engineering feat in the early 1900s that is the foundation of how the Capital Region gets its potable water, even to this day.
He didnB次元官网网址檛 know thatB次元官网网址檚 what heB次元官网网址檇 found, though.
B次元官网网址淭here were all these old photographs,B次元官网网址� says Eric Tolman, CharlesB次元官网网址� son, who teaches social studies at Belmont secondary and has made a film about his fatherB次元官网网址檚 book, Bringing Water to Victoria, recently published by the Sooke Region Museum.
Many of those photographs were of his great cousin, Harry Huston Crawford, an engineer from Missouri who worked on railroads in the early 1900s. Crawford, Eric says, needed a break from building railroads, so he took a job in a faraway town called Victoria to work on a pipeline project while he was on his way to Alaska, because he thought it sounded interesting.
It turns out Crawford was something of a documentarian. He took hundreds of photographs and made books of notes on the project. Charles took these documents, cross referenced them with source material from the time period B次元官网网址� such as archived newspaper articles and other documents B次元官网网址� and fleshed out the story of how the Sooke Flowline came to be.
Curators at the Sooke Region Museum were thrilled when they discovered these pieces of our regionB次元官网网址檚 history had been found, and were happy to help Charles turn his meticulous research into a book.
The decision to get VictoriaB次元官网网址檚 water from Sooke Lake was driven by the fact that the Goldstream lakes were, at the time, controlled by the Esquimalt Waterworks Company (EWC). Politicians of the day determined that water should be a publicly owned resource, rather than bought and sold.
The water in Beaver and Elk lakes, piped to homes and businesses at the time, was not of a high quality and people were calling for a solution, with the population growing.
B次元官网网址淥nce Victoria decided to go to Sooke Lake (for their water), they first had to find a way to get the water from there to Victoria, obviously,B次元官网网址� Eric says.
They had to build a concrete flowline B次元官网网址� essentially a series of short concrete sections of tube, four or five feet wide and four feet in diameter, grouted together one by one along the length of the route.
This route was far longer than would have been ideal, as they had to go around the property owned by EWC. The engineering feat of making it run on a more or less constant decline, to allow gravity to take effect, was extremely complicated considering the crude surveying equipment of the day.
The water ended up in a reservoir, Humpback Lake B次元官网网址� which did not exist before the project B次元官网网址� at which point it was pumped the rest of the way to Victoria.
B次元官网网址淚t was a huge, huge undertaking,B次元官网网址� Eric says. B次元官网网址淭he engineering feat of actually putting this thing together and turning the tap on for the first time is just an amazing story.B次元官网网址�
The film Eric made of his fatherB次元官网网址檚 book, he says, was a way for them to bond on another level, around their mutual appreciation for history.
CharlesB次元官网网址� wife passed away last summer, B次元官网网址渁nd so he put his heart and soul into this thing as a distraction,B次元官网网址� Eric says. B次元官网网址淭his film was a way for my dad and I to get together, pore over photos and explore our love of the past.B次元官网网址�
B次元官网网址淎s far as drinking water is concerned, Victoria, British Columbia, is one of the most fortunate cities in the world,B次元官网网址� begins CharlesB次元官网网址� preface to the book. B次元官网网址淕etting from the dubious sources of water available to the newly established HudsonB次元官网网址檚 Bay fort in 1843 to the secure supply that we now enjoy from Sooke Lake has taken a complex, at times tortuous and convoluted path. It is this path that is sketched in this book.B次元官网网址�
ItB次元官网网址檚 not an easy read, Eric admits. It explores not only the technical aspects of the project, but the political factors and personalities involved.
It is, however, an integral part of our regionB次元官网网址檚 history and heB次元官网网址檚 happy to see it come to fruition.
Bringing Water to Victoria is available at many local booksellers, as well as the Sooke Region Museum itself.
One hundred per cent of the profits from book sales go to the Sooke Region Museum.
B次元官网网址淗e did it strictly for benevolent reasons,B次元官网网址� says Eric. B次元官网网址淗e just loves history and wants to help share it.B次元官网网址�
The 100th anniversary of the taps coming on in Victoria happens May 28. Watch for event announcements soon.
