MEMORIES OF MT. TOLMIE [the mountain]

All of my young life, from an age when I could really enjoy it, [10 to 17], was spent on and around Mt. Tolmie. There was an old sandpit on the southwest side. Today this whole area is covered with houses and the Mt. Tolmie Ridge apartments. Looking at that suburban scene now, one could never conceive the pleasure and danger of the now hidden sandy slopes.

At the base of the sandy cliffs was located an old unused rock crusher as we used to call it.  We spent hours climbing through this old structure, pretending all sorts of weird and wonderful things.  It was a great hide-away, a wonderful "set" for our cowboys and Indians sagas.  It was also very dangerous.  It was old and not as sturdy as we unsuspecting youngsters might have thought.  It was high, and from it, brave, but careless "cowboys" could fall to serious injury.  When we weren't in and around the rock crusher we were usually looking for "precious minerals" in the sand banks, or better still, sliding down the steep sandy slope on a piece of corrugated metal roofing.  Occasionally large slices of sand bank would fall away at the cliff edge and rush down upon us burying our legs sometimes to our knees.  There was danger in our fun as I do believe at one time some kids from another district were actually buried by such an incident.

One of the things I remember quite vividly when growing up around Mt. Tolmie was the famous Easter Sunrise Service.    A large wooden cross was erected on a high point on the mountain.  I was too young to know at the time of course, but on April 1, 1923, the first Easter Sunrise Service on the mountain took place.  The Daily Times of April 2nd reported:  Initiation of open air religious gatherings.  Victoria's first Easter Service, proved successful beyond the sanguine hopes of its promoters.  Undeterred by cloudy weather and a mist, nearly 4,000 people, representing every walk of life in the community, journeyed by auto, streetcar, bicycle, or on foot to Mt. Tolmie in the early hours.  Services were conducted by a Dr. Clem Davies, then 32, who had come to Victoria from England via California.  His dramatic and powerful voice drew ever-increasing audiences to the Pantages Theatre on Government Street, until he became pastor of the Centennial Methodist Church, about 1922.

I will always remember the week- end of Good Friday to Easter Sunday, because of  the hot cross buns that mom used to heat up and serve, buttered. They tasted really good.   Then of course there was THE big day Easter Sunday.  If the weather was nice, we all got up very early and hiked up the mountain just before sunrise.

About 1928, a new illuminated cross appeared on the mountain.  It was six metres high with a four- metre crossbar, and outlined by single red neon tubing, built by Bill Bayliss of Bayliss Neon.  The modern age had come to the Easter Sunrise Service.  Bayliss built a home on the mountain  many years later.   

As kids we used to watch for the cross to go up.  Suddenly, one day it was there and someone would cry ‚ "The cross is up!‚"  It was an eye-catching and inspiring sight, as it glowed in the night, 125 metres above the city.  On Easter Sunday everyone dressed in his/her Sunday best, as the saying goes, and, some who could afford it actually bought, or made,  new outfits.  Young and old came to the mountain in droves from all areas of Greater Victoria.  Many of the youngsters climbed the mountain by a more precarious route, scrambling up the rugged side, enjoying the challenge of forging a new trail.  On exceptionally fine Easter Sundays, many carried blankets and picnic baskets intending to make an outing of it. It was somewhat like a pilgrimage, although many on the scene could well have been agnostic or even atheist. All were drawn by the magnetism of the day and the beauty of the mountain.

The B.C. Electric Company arranged for their streetcars to depart terminals at 6:15 a.m. running to Mt. Tolmie.  Because of this special [streetcar] service, a double Tickets were normally six for 25 cents.

When all were assembled, barely a square foot of mountain remained uncovered by human form, waiting quietly for Dr. Davies to speak from the highest point, where he stood facing the East.  Below the cross, on the lower ground, sitting or standing on the uneven terrain, people of all denominations would wait for his words.  The Easter Service touched all of us in one way or another. Even hard-nosed reporters, obviously moved by the occasion, revealed their feelings in their comments:

  "The distant sound of a church bell...echoing against the ridge of rocks....was an index of the call Easter was making to the worshippers‚  With Spring flowers in bloom and the buds of the broom turning to gold among the verdant foliage.  The waters of the straits and the gulf, shimmered in the early morning sunshine.  The Olympics were palest blue, capped with banks of snow."

In order to reach his audience spread out around the mountain top, Davies installed an electric amplifier.  Frank Hall was quoted in the Times in 1975, as saying, "We had a Magnavox unit with a vacuum battery set, and horns something like the horns on His Master Voice Victrola, for a loud-speaker system.  Jack MacKay set the unit up, with Leo Main giving advice.  

"Just as Dr. Davies was ready to start, someone tripped over the connecting wires and we had to work like blazes for a few minutes to get the thing going."

The Mt. Tolmie Sunrise Services continued for nearly 20 years.  The largest crowd gathered was estimated to have reached 8,000.    The smallest crowd was the result of torrential rain that didn't  let up all morning.  Only a few hardy souls stayed around to listen to the service that was shortened to 30 minutes.  In 1937, Dr. Davies spoke to the gathered mountain worshippers for the last time.  He died in 1951, at the age of 61, in Los Angeles, California. 

When World War Two was declared the services were stopped when the mountain was put off limits by the Dept. of National Defence.

Through the subsequent decades, time, tourists and residents have taken their toll on the mountain.  Progress has encroached where songs of manybirds filled the air, in those halcyon days, when one could barely step without crushing peacock, Easter lily or chocolate lily.