Tara Blokzyl remembers the exact moment when she fell in love with the idea of making things out of gold. She was in Grade 7.
"Our class went on a field trip to Seattle Arts Museum. They had a Tutankhamun exhibit there, of things from his tomb – the Egyptian king – and he had gold masks. There was jewelry and wooden chairs inlaid with gold and gems. And I just loved it. I was pretty much hooked from that."
She caught "gold fever", as her husband, Rob, said.
Tara and Rob, who have been together since '85, the same time when Tara Blokzyl started making her own jewelry and doing custom work, are owners of Kanaka Fine Jewellers, which made its Oak Bay debut this year after the store originally opened in Maple Ridge.
What makes their new location on Estevan Avenue extra special is it was previously occupied by De Goutiere Jewellers; Paul de Goutiere recently retired. Since opening April 1, Blokzyl has built her dream in a neighbourhood that has been their perfect fit.
"It was an absolute perfect scenario," said Blokzyl, who said it took a few years of looking to find the right spot. "We didn't want to be downtown. It just wasn't the right fit for me."
Blokzyl grew up in the rural neighbourhood of Maple Ridge, 40 minutes outside of Vancouver, on a farm that backed onto Kanaka Creek – which she ended up naming her store after.
"That was my playground. That was my treasure hunting."
After running her jewelry store in Maple Ridge for eight years, Blokzyl and Rob moved to Victoria to find that childhood feeling again.
"We wanted a lifestyle change because our little community had changed so much. And it kept getting bigger and bigger and bigger."
And here in Oak Bay, they found everything they searched for.
"This is the absolute dream spot for somebody like me. We get past customers from Paul, and we've had such welcoming from the community."
Blozkyl continues to make her jewelry and do custom work, reminded of when she first saw that ancient Egyptian exhibit decades ago.
"The one thing was, you looked at the chairs, and they're a few thousand years old. They're showing the wear just from drying out. And the alabaster's got the little cracks.
"And the gold was just like the day it was made. I thought, gold is timeless. And I just loved it from that point on."
