A pair of walks augment the First Nation exhibit at Oak Bay municipal hall this month.
Mike Stacey, who hosted a Jane’s Walk earlier this year, leads a pair of informational walks showcasing First Nations monuments in Oak Bay.
Organized by the Community Association of Oak Bay, Stacey leads guests to visit two of eight monuments in the Oak Bay region.
“The walk is a mixture of talking and walking and trying to get a little discussion going,” Stacey said. “People generally have input and questions.”
The walks start at municipal hall, where they get safety sorted and see the panel of eight carved images there, the same images that mark the monuments around the community.
“That’s a good jumping off point. This one we’ll link to the Resilience of the People exhibit at the hall,” Stacey said. “Then we take a brisk walk at the pace of the slowest person.”
The group visits historic settler sites along the way to the Turkey Head monument and then the Tilikum plaque.
“We have this wonderful heritage which is being shared with us – us being the settler community – to a certain degree and this is an attempt to educate people,” Stacey said. “To me where you live, you should know about it and you should know who you share it with.”
They talk about coastline features, and the Islands visible from Turkey Head, which feature prominently in the Resilience of the People exhibit at municipal hall for the month of August.
The walkers then wind their way to Willows where walkers learn more about the significant history of that site and can go off with the Oak Bay pamphlet featuring notes on each of the eight sites and where to find them.
The variety of people that have taken his walks previously range from those who know nothing of aboriginal culture on our coast, to those who have studied it extensively.
“You have the whole range of people and it’s great you just strike for some common interest,” he said. “It’s the wise thing to do to increase knowledge between the two major cultures, between the First Nations and the settler community.”
For Stacey, it’s a win-win, sharing history.
“I’m an amateur history buff I guess, vocationally I’m a mariner by trade, ex-coast guard and working in the field, so my coastal awareness is pretty high,” Stacey said. His motivation is simply to give a little back to the community. “Anybody volunteering that’s part of it, and part of it is you just meet really neat people. It’s the opportunity to give back and do a little community building.”
Those interested in taking the walk can meet at municipal hall, 2167 Oak Bay Ave., on Aug. 11 and 25 at 11 a.m.
The Resilience of the People exhibit opens at 10 a.m.
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