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- 210 REMINISCENCES OF OLD VICTORIA
"VIEW OR BASTION OR BOTH?
"To the Editor:?In case the project for extending View Street through the burnt block is carried out, what name would be given the street when it connects with Bastion at the corner of Government? Although View Street as originally planned commenced at the waterfront where the Hudson's Bay Company's store stands, I think ` Bastion' a better name for the street, as it was the northern boundary for the fort, and, as is well known, Richardson's cigar store stands on ground formerly occupied by the N. E. bastion, and is there-fore a historic spot or landmark.
"Since the correspondence with respect to View Street and where it commenced and ended, I have met two gentlemen who were residents in 1855 and who both state positively that View Street was always open for traffic from Wharf Street eastward until 1858, when the land now proposed to be expropriated was fenced in on Government and Broadway, as Broad Street was then known, by Captain Stamp, with the consent of Governor Douglas, on behalf of the Hudson's Bay Company."
"THE BRIDGE TO THE RESERVE.
"Sir :?There cannot be two opinions as to the utility of a bridge over the harbor from the bottom of Johnson Street. The first bridge crossing to the Songhees reserve at this point was built by Governor Douglas prior to 1860, it being an ordinary pile bridge such as graced, or disgraced, James Bay until the Causeway was built. The first bridge over to the reserve was part of the high-way to Esquimalt, Craigflower, Metchosin and Sooke, and was very much in use in the olden days.
THE CLOSING OF VIEW STREET 211
"A continuous stream of people, many Indians amongst them, passed to and fro, and in times of potlatches, when there were hundreds of Indians living there, and as many visitors from other reservations on the island, and even mainland, it was a busy place. The ceremony of making a medicine man I have seen on two occasions, when a candidate was locked up for days, being kept without food, and then at the appointed time let loose, when he ran about like a madman and was supposed to catch a dog, of which there were scores on the reserve, and in his hunger bite pieces out of the dog. It was very unsafe at times for persons to go over to the reserve at night, on account of the drunken Indians.
"But this is beside the question I started to write about, which was the bridge and its approach on Johnson Street end. I repeat what I said in reviewing four old pictures of 1866 which appeared in the Colonist of a few weeks ago. In speaking of the old buildings to be seen on the water-front next to the sand and gravel concern, ` there are two which, I remarked, should not have been allowed to remain so long.' One was known in the earliest times as the ` salmon house,' where the Hudson's Bay Company salted, packed and stored their salmon. It may have been considered an ornament in those days, but in these days of progress it is an eyesore and very much in the way. Opposite this building, and across the street, was manufactured most of the ` tangle leg' whiskey sold to the Indians in those days, and which drove them crazy, rather than made them drunk.
" EDGAR FAWCETT."
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