Tag Archives: Vancouver Island

86: Purgatory Found.

This sign is on a small unassuming stone church building that faces a pub, a lingerie store called "Agent Provocateur" and a chocolate shop. The place ripples with temptation for a wide range of weakness (mine being the chocolate shop).

We found purgatory. It’s in Geneva and wouldn’t you know it, it has a chocolate shop, a bar and a lingerie store.

Switzerland is the first place I’ve walked down Purgatory, but the place-name occurs in the U.S. as well. According to Google Maps there is a Purgatory Falls (New Hampshire), Purgatory Chasm (Rhode Island) and at least five Purgatory Roads, none of which are near the West Coast, which is as expected because everyone  knows that is Paradise.

Canada appears to have only one Purgatory Road on the Bruce Peninsula in southern Ontario, but there is a Purgatory Trail on British Columbia’s Hornby Island and another in Vancouver Island’s Strathcona Park.  Both are in the middle of cougar-and-wolf-infested forests, and therefore not likely to ever be visited by me as I am worried that some of my friends may be right to believe I am a wildlife attractant. One observed that she has canoed in the North West Territories, strung herself across canyons in the wilds of the U.S. Southwest and hiked coast-to-coast without glimpsing a bear, but when she is anywhere near me, the things just pop out of the forest. We had a bear hang around my car at the cottage to the point where we thought we should just name the thing, strap on a leash and take it in to the vet for shots.

In this case, however, familiarity breeds caution: Bears are omnivores and therefore only 50% likely to view me as lunch, whereas cougars and wolves lean toward a steady meat diet, which means I am a walking prime rib roast. No sense taking chances. I had two cougar sightings on my roster within five years of moving to Vancouver Island and a third in our 12th year, whereas acquaintances who had lived there for 30+ years had never come close – that tells me all I need to know.

But to get back to Purgatory: There is no purgatory in England, which is as expected what with their bitter Anglican/Catholic history where both sides appeared to tell the other to go to Hell. “Go to Purgatory,” just doesn’t carry the same oomph.

As far as my Google Maps search is concerned, Geneva’s rue de Purgatoire may be the only one in Europe. Belgium has a “purgatory” at 4860 Pepinster, but it appears to be an unassuming two-story brown-brick building. We don’t know what to make of that.

Caveat: I don’t know why Google turns up so few Purgatory place names – it may be part of their algorithm – so there could be more of them.

The view down rue de Purgatoire includes a lingerie shop. Hmm, that seems out-of-place.

Reporter’s Secret About Christmas Markets: Get Out of Town

We trolled through Zürich’s Christmas Market last weekend, taking in the heady aromas of gluhwein (mulled wine) and rotting cheese.

The Swiss don’t consider it rotting cheese, but whatever they call this bacterial mould thing, it reeks so badly that I have not been able to get near enough to learn its name.

Despite my aversion for puke-stinking cheese, this concoction must have something going for it, because people line up in large numbers wherever it is served. Dave has tried to convince me to take a bite, but the tidal gag reflex kicks in and I can not.

Christmas decorations at the Zürich market.

In my former life as a staff reporter, I was called upon to cover festivals, community art shows, markets and the like. This does not make me an expert on their qualities, but it does put me into “observer” status, and so here’s the scoop on street markets. You don’t have to go to the big city to get the best stuff.

It is true.

On British Columbia’s Vancouver Island, Victoria has a grand Christmas market, that I will not name here, that is posh, well-promoted and high-profile. On the other hand, the country-cousin markets in Metchosin, Sooke and Sydney are cobbled together in an earthy fashion with goods laid plainly out on tables, their actual makers (or a stand-in relative) posted behind the wares. The decor amps up a little sometimes, but mostly that is what it is.

They may not have as elaborate a set-up, but the goods have a genuine homegrown quality.

Life-size Christmas models top a children's carousel at Zürich's Christmas Market.

Take for example Sooke’s leading jam and preserve artist, Mary Holland*. Her goods are made from her own garden produce, and she comes up with flavor combinations that are so delicious, even I, the fussiest eater in the world, cannot resist them, slathering them not only on fresh bread, but on hamburgers, chicken, hotdogs, everything. Yum.

Nothing at the glorious urban market comes even close to Mary’s preserves. Just so everyone knows, I don’t use the term “jam and preserve” with the word “artist” all that often. My vernacular is not constructed to adopt passing fancies of language. A jam-maker is a jam-maker in my dialect, however, Mary has elevated the practice into artistry. There, I said it.

What does this have to do with the Zürich Christmas Market? Maybe nothing, but at this moment our town’s downtown streets are crammed with little sheds being decorated for its market. It will not have a glamorous Swarovski-crystal bejewelled Christmas tree towering over it, as does Zürich’s market, but maybe it will have homegrown goods that match the scale of Sooke’s, and possibly exceed that of Zürich’s market.

I don’t know yet whether it will, but I know from experience that it is possible.

And there’s nothing wrong with Zürich’s market. Just saying.

*She and her husband Steve run Little Farm – Mary’s Medleys in Sooke.