3426 replies to this topic

[Mike K.]

Didn’t the family sell some of the assets?

[Victoria Watcher]

Didn’t the family sell some of the assets?

 

yes they sold a few resorts.

 

but they are not yet down to their last resort.  

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 17 June 2021 - 07:24 AM.

[Matt R.]

Obmg at its peak was about 1000 employees from langara down the coast to Oregon and over to the Bahamas. They are long way from there now I would imagine.

Bobs son is still running Harbour Air I think. I wonder if the company went to his widow? It was being run by the BoD after he passed.

Matt.

[Victoria Watcher]

Bod?

[Nparker]

Board of Directors.

[Victoria Watcher]

than q.

[spanky123]

So Biden creates a national holiday with 1 day's notice! 

 

New US long weekend starting tomorrow, let the tourists flood north!

 

Oh wait.

[Rob Randall]

Loop North News, Chicago, Illinois:

 

The vibrant waterfront metropolis anchors Vancouver Island, the second-largest island in the country (the first is Montreal). With a temperate microclimate and enviable rainfall to foster verdant gardens and natural landscape, Victoria is widely known as the Garden City of Canada. The city boasted almost 565 million blooms in the 2020 Greater Victoria Flower Count, a light-hearted competition held each March. And that’s the off-season.

 

Other fascinating talking points are a seaside lifestyle with bountiful marine life and recreation, deep dives into indigenous and colonial history, and a fierce commitment to locally-sourced cuisine.

 

 

https://www.loopnort...ictoria0715.htm

[Greg]

Canadian islands are confusing.

[Rob Randall]

I visited Montreal Island once. Since it's larger than Baffin Island, crossing it took sixty days of arduous trekking sustained only by a sealskin flagon of tap water and half a pastrami sandwich from Bens De Luxe Delicatessen.

[m3m]

Largest by population I’m sure is what was meant

[Rob Randall]

The Times, London:

 

When Lisa Helps was elected mayor of “Canada’s most English city” in 2014 by 89 votes, her refusal to swear allegiance to the Queen was criticised nationally. Today, though, she embodies the transformation of Victoria, British Columbia, itself.

“We have a new story now,” Helps, 45, said in a slick café opposite city hall, adding that it included a booming technology sector and immigration from Asia and South America.

...
 

Aspects of Victoria still feel British. There are pubs such as The Churchill and Penny Farthing, but, says John Hughes, executive director of Craigdarroch Castle, which was built in 1890, the city has undergone a "natural evolution" over 20 years, rather than consciously leaving its "little slice of England behind".

Every year dozens wear tweed and ride vintage bikes before sitting down to tea. However, the Tweed Ride's organiser, Grant Turner, 61, does not lament the loss of Englishness. "It never meant a lot to me. Victoria is moving on."

 

 

[paywall] https://www.thetimes...-past-xb2w83h3m

Edited by Rob Randall, 24 July 2021 - 06:14 AM.

[Arnold]

It’s a good thing that reporter’s name is behind a paywall.

[A Girl is No one]

Immigration from Asia ans South America is touted like it’s an achievement similar to a thriving tech sector. I’m not sure I get that.

[Victoria Watcher]

Gudgel went from elated to deflated. Clipper, which dropped from 200 employees to eight due to the pandemic, inched back into service at the end of May with service to Washington’s San Juan Islands — but it can’t afford to really gear up again until it knows for sure when it may resume sailing to Victoria, he says. Were it to get the go-ahead Aug. 9, it would aim to be back in business by Labour Day. “We need a firm date and about three weeks.”

It’s the Canadian rules, not the U.S. ones, that really matter to Clipper, Gudgel says, as 85 per cent of its customers are Americans going north.

However, the question of when the U.S. begins admitting Canadian tourists by water (they can already go by air) definitely matters to the Black Ball Ferry Line, which owns the 115-vehicle, 1,000-passenger Coho. “That’s 30 per cent of our business,” says company president Ryan Burles of Victoria.


https://www.timescol...rity-1.24345586

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 24 July 2021 - 05:10 AM.

[Victoria Watcher]

Eighty-three tourism businesses, non-profit organizations and tour-bus operators on ­Vancouver Island and elsewhere in B.C. whose bottom lines plunged due to the pandemic are receiving a total of $36.3 million in grants.

Two tiers of funding allowed the largest businesses to apply for up to $1 million, while rural operators and tour-bus operations could apply for up to $500,000.

https://www.timescol...ding-1.24345588

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 24 July 2021 - 05:19 AM.

[spanky123]

Immigration from Asia ans South America is touted like it’s an achievement similar to a thriving tech sector. I’m not sure I get that.

 

There are a couple of local tech companies that have mastered the foreign worker immigration process from Brazil and India. Not sure how valuable that is to Victoria as most people move to a bigger market as soon as they get their PR, but when you have nothing to show for your term you grab at whatever straws you can.

[Rob Randall]

  TravelAwaits.com 8 Quaint Towns To Visit On Vancouver Island, British Columbia

 

Illustrated by a stock photo of Sydney, Australia, not Sidney, BC:

 

 

Boy, are people going to be disappointed.

[Victoria Watcher]

with “pro tips” like that I’d hate to see the amateur recommendations.

[A Girl is No one]

Rode my bike through downtown on saturday and wow! It’s like someone flipped a switch: so much activity, music, people, people checking in hotels. It was the first time I had seen it like that since summer 2019. Very nice to see. (Lots of car traffic too though.)