October 2026
And some clever quip...
North Shore Art Crawl
My first North Shore Art Crawl was back in
October 2023 when I
made a day of it going all over the North Shore. This year I
had a few hours free on a beautiful Saturday so I wanted to visit
a few favorite venues again and maybe try and find some new
favorite artists.
Thanksgiving in Victoria
We enjoy Thanksgiving in Victoria because my parents are great
hosts and fall on Vancouver Island is a great time of the
year. We almost never book activities on Friday night when
we come over, but I was able to get 4 tickets to see the bird
banding station at Rocky Point so we got an early ferry (which was
late) and drove straight to Metchosin to Pedder Bay to see the
banding. We previously saw the
owls in 2024 (Claira and
my Dad) but when we tried in 2025 none came by. This
year has been a bumper year which implies the food and rearing
conditions in other parts of BC has been really good.
The lead bander does a great job explaining what they are
measuring and why. The birds seem very patient (they don't
fight and only rarely click). When they are done banding
they are put in a "waiting room" where they can leave on their own
accord when they want to. The birds we saw waited only a few
minutes before flying off.
We stayed for about an hour until the next group of people came to
see the banding. We walked back to the car (it was a clear
night and you could see the stars) and then drove to Grandma's
house.
Gabriola Island Art Crawl
My parents live very close to the Gulf
Islands but there are still many easy ones they have never
visited. The Gulf Islands are generally like small towns and
each has their own highlights, stores and parks. My parents
have been to Gabriola before (they had a friend on the island) but
not in a long time. My kids have never been. Helen and
I last
visited Gabriola in
2007. The Art Crawl was between 10am and 5pm on all
three days of the thanksgiving weekend. We left Victoria
around 7:15 and caught a 9am ferry to the Island.
The ferries were nearly full which made me think the 10am ferries
would be even worse. There are two ferries that run
staggered schedule so they are forever passing each other in the
ocean. The ferry itself (xwsaĺux̌ul) is a battery diesel
hybrid that was delivered only a few weeks earlier. It can't
charge yet because there isn't sufficient shore power at either
end to charge it, but apparently it's coming.
The ferry trip was flat - this is all interior water so there was
almost no waves. Nara showed off her newest art work - an
embroidery project on her hoodie.
We arrived on Gabriola about 20 minutes before the market opened
so we picked the Malaspina Galleries. Parking was fine and
we went out for a walk.
Our next destination was the AGI Co-op Farmers Market. This is
a classic Gulf Island Farmers market - a bunch of tents on the edge
of the forest. The vendors are from the Island and include multiple
produce stands, local baking and a bakery. People were well
behaved waiting for the opening bell but the crowd was all going to
bakery stall. Claira had other ideas - she wanted a morning
cookie.
The produce stands were of course beautiful. Gabriola has
large Nesters for a regular shopping experience so you buy groceries
at the market because you want to, not because you have to.
Claira found an ice cream vendor and was happy to exchange my money
for her ice cream. The cookie was saved for later.
We wanted to get in as much of the art crawl as we could so we
started. There are 64 listed venues and several of the venue
have more than one artist. Our plan was to hit clusters of
artists as we went clockwise around the island. Our first
neighborhood was the Whalebone area on the North side of the
Island. Our first artist was Pam Tempelmayr who mostly does
paintings with west coast themes. I was impressed with her
collection of brushes, but her studio/gallery with a wood burning
stove in the center was super comfy.
I have some rules when it comes to art crawls. I don't like to
take photos of just peoples art - I very rarely add anything and my
photo is basically just a poor copy of their work. Tools,
location, process, decoration - that is all fair game. Here is
Dave Aris's small studio where he showed his paintings.
We stopped at Dirk Huysman's glass studio. He was just getting
going, but he has a great setup for glass work. His gallery is
at the top of the stairs and is tiny compared to his working space.
Our next visit was Paige Coull - a
ceramic artist. Paige's studio was super clean, but showed the
scale that Paige works. She had racks on wheels so she could
move hundreds of pieces from stage to stage. She isn't
normally open - she said she only cleans up enough to entertain
visitors for a few days a year.
At this point we drove back to town and grabbed lunch at Ground Up
Cafe. They had a great variety of sandwiches, salads and a
burger for my dad. We picked up some supplies (I got a pack of
bottled water, my wife went shopping) and returned to the crawl.
Our next destination was Wild Cherry Terrace area. Nara really
liked the pottery from Rick Corless and we visited the home of Mindy
Joseph. I have further rules - I generally don't take photos
in peoples homes (privacy) and I try quite hard to not include other
people on the crawl in the photos.
At this point we have moved to the eastern end of the Island.
The properties here are more like farms and the studios were quite a
bit larger. We stopped in at Yvonne Noyon and Chelsea
Noyon's studio (amazing paintings that look like photos and very
nice jewelry) and then Susan Isaac and Marn Williams's glass
studio.
The glass studio had a few small bins of glass
working pieces and an invitation to the kids to assemble their own
little abstract mosaics. These are far to delicate to fire but
the kids quite enjoyed making these abstract pieces.
As we started returning back west, Dar Mace's
Studio Collective. There were several artists showing work
including really nice woodworking. The woodworker had a
sculpture of nicely rounded blocks with magnets embedded that the
kids really liked.
We
wanted to end our tour on the west end of the Island close to the
ferry terminal. The homes up here are often really nice being
close to the ocean. We stopped in at Debbie Hollett to see her
amazing textiles work. We stopped by Orlebar Point Water
Access for a view of the Lighthouse and then visited Ezra Miller
(private home) and to see her paintings and ocean view.
Our last visit was Mary Mitchell. Mary uses glowing paints to
augment her work which looks amazing under UV light. She gave
us tea and cookies. That was our day! Even if you went
10am to 5pm on all three days, it would be hard to visit every
studio. We were back on the ferry and most of my family had a
nap in the car.
Horticulture Centre of the Pacific
Mark is in town visiting his family as we were so we decided to meet
up for a meal and a bit of a walk around. We went to Boom +
Batten Restaurant for lunch and then went to the Horticulture Centre
of the Pacific for a walk. This was Mark and Takako's first
time in the garden but I've been a few times. I took the
kids to the HCP back in
2022 and before that
I
visited in 2003. We started with a walk through the
Japanese Garden:
They have a large collection Bonsai trees that stay outside all year
round. There were lots of fall flowering flowers to enjoy.
Outerbridge Park
My parents live close to Outerbridge park so if we have an hour and
need a place to fill in, Outerbridge is a great place to go for a
walk. The fall colours were spectacular so we went for a brief
walk.
Dinner with Friends
Mark and Takako were in town as they came
through Vancouver on their way home to Japan. It's the first
time in a long time we had everyone at a meal so we decided to go
to Kirin in Richmond which was close to Mark's hotel and the
skytrain.
It was great to see everyone!
Walking to Work - Fall Colours
I normally walk to work if it isn't
raining. I've brought my camera a few times and I noticed
the fall colors getting nice and my normal time to work is closer
and closer to sunrise. I brought my camera for one morning.
Happy Halloween
Claira put a lot of work into her costume
this year - she added the blood paint, she made the hair clip
sculptures and she did the makeup! Her costume is "Bloody
Mary" - both the drink and the person. She dressed up for
school (did her own makeup) and apparently scared a few people.
Crowd Out For DinnerPerson:
Claira,
David,
Eric,
Helen,
John,
Loren,
Mark,
Nara,
Takako,
Jeremy,
Jesse,
Jin,
Michael
Tags: gulf island(9), art crawl(6), market(5), fall colour(5), Horticulture Centre Of The Pacific(4), commute(4)
People: Claira(9), Nara(7), Takako(3), Helen(2), Mark(2), Lloyd(1)
Last Modified Thursday, November 5th, 2026 at 23:12:17 Edit
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