Easter on the Mountain

I 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 Mt. Tolmie just before sunrise.

About 1928, a new illuminated cross had 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 many birds filled the air, in those halcyon days, when one could barely step without crushing a beautiful peacock flower, Easter lily or chocolate lily.  Nearly everyone who went up the mountain came down again, boarding the streetcar bearing a bouquet of these freshly picked wildflowers.