Tuesday, June 30, 2009

Willy's Home on Vancouver Island

As I mentioned in the last post, (which as you can see was over a month ago) Brent was transferred at the end of May to the city of Duncan, British Columbia, located on the southeast corner of Vancouver Island. Duncan is a recreation community in the Cowichan Valley, rich in First Nation history, situated next to Cowichan and Kokisilah Rivers, close to the ocean and surrounded by the Coastal BC Mountain Range. Although the City of Duncan has a population of less than 5,000 it serves the Cowichan Valley, which has a population of approximately 78,000.

Duncan's tourism slogan is "The City of Totems". The city has many totem poles around the downtown area, which were erected in the late 1980s, including the world's largest totem pole (in diameter), carved by First Nations artisan Simon Charlie. There are nearly eighty totem poles in Duncan, both downtown and along a half-kilometre section of the Trans-Canada Highway.
Duncan is also home to the world's largest hockey stick and puck, which is on display at the Cowichan Community Centre in Duncan. Built from wooden beams reinforced with steel, the stick measures 205 feet and weighs a considerable 61,000 pounds (28,118 kgs).