Playing against ethnic stereotype, in 1958 Scottish-born newspaper executive William Turner Robertson was unthriftily relieved of an outrageous $600 for 100 feet of indifferent waterfront on Saturna Island – awkward of access from Vancouver, the population mostly deer, sheep and trees, a communal well, privies, one general store.
Tipped by Saturnian Jean Howarth, who went on to write a Globe and Mail column disguising Saturna as Madronna Island, other Province and Sun newspaper types were persuaded to buy adjoining lots: finance columnist and later cabinet minister and senator Pat Carney, film critic Les Wedman, reporter Aileen Campbell, future W.A.C. Bennett executive assistant Dan Ekman, chuckles master Eric Nicol and patented inventor of controversy Doug Collins. Carney, Nicol and Collins later relocated but remained loyal Saturna property owners.
Twenty-two years later, William and Isabel Robertson’s wee Scottish-Canadian daughter Elizabeth bought the adjoining lot for almost 50 times the hard-won $600 her father paid for his. Thirty years on, the two properties’ assessed value, a modest cottage added, crested above $300,000.
But that was then. Dreamily desirable as they are, with prices to match, Gulf Island properties weren’t insulated from the 2008-10 recession and the 9.8% cooling of Vancouver’s year-over-year prices this April. As of May 15, there were 43 Saturna properties listed by Dockside Realtyand Gulfport Realty, a high proportion for a tight little community of 250. Some had been on the market for at least 18 months, and prices reduced on five.
Off-season, now begrudgingly ending, economic activity is visible seven days a week only around the Saturna General Store, cafe and liquor agency, owned by popular community leader Jon Guy. The dockside Saturna Point Store and adjoining pub and bookstore, Saturna Lodge, and Saturna Island Family Estate Wineryhave been operating on reduced hours and days. The big tourist draw is the annual July 1 Lamb Barbecue.
But the economy is structurally twisted. Basically, if not brutally, island fortunes are largely in the palm of two bureaucracies: the Gulf Islands Trust, whose guardianship of these fragile gems is a two-edged sword, and BC Ferries, which, like all public transportation entities but even more so, will never satisfy the customers. Some Saturna businesses are hostages to the Mainland’s Friday afternoon sailing schedule.
Surprise: red tape strangles markets. An example of almost North Korean surrealism: John Robertson (no kin of William) recounted in the Saturna Scribbler that last year a couple and their two children were booked at a B&B, unaware that the ferry offers no food, even less that all restaurants on their arrival would be closed. (Hello, Tourism BC!) The B&B sensibly provided meals – thus transgressing Trust Bylaw No. 79, Section 2.16.6(4), which commands: “Meals other than breakfast served to paying guests or breakfast served to non-paying guests: Fine of $250.”
Such restaurant protectionism may make sense on dominant Saltspring Island, population roughly 400 times Saturna’s. Robertson considers the lack of bylaws tailored for individual islands “inexplicable, except that this is more convenient for the Trust officials involved.”
Next irritant: proposed Trust Bylaw 105 empowers bylaw enforcement officers to issue tickets in the manner of parking tickets. Fines increase after 14 days. Islanders can appeal to an adjudicator – a process the present writer has criticisms about – in, ridiculously, North Vancouver. Advisable to set aside two days for travel.
The Saturna trustees, Beverley Neffand Dian Johnstone, will decide June 15 if Bylaw 105 applies to the politically vigorous island – part of the most eco-left constituency in the nation, Saanich-Gulf Islands, which last year elected the first Green Party MP, Elizabeth May. Expect waves. •
