When Dennis Minaker was growing up in Coquitlam, he never envisioned he would one day become a writer. In fact, he pursued a profession in nursing. Drawn by the flexibility of the job and the opportunity to relocate anywhere, a nursing career had lots of potential. But as serendipity would have it, nursing would introduce him to his writing career. Although, even after publishing his book, The Gorge of Summers Gone, A History of Victoria’s Inland Waterway, Dennis insists he is not a professional writer.
After graduating from the British Columbia Institute of Technology in 1973, Dennis moved to Victoria in 1978 with his wife and fellow nursing graduate, Val.
“I chose the Gorge-Tillicum neighbourhood purely because it was half-way between the old Victoria General and the new Victoria General,” says Dennis. The couple had no prior knowledge of the historical significance of the Gorge neighbourhood, at the time.
Dennis spent the next 30 years working in the orthopedics ward of Victoria General Hospital. It was here that many Victorians in their twilight years would come for procedures such as hip replacements; and it was here that Dennis encountered people who were only too happy to share stories that would later become the inspiration for Dennis’s book.
“I encountered some residents with memories that dated back to 1906,” he says. “They still had photo albums from their parents and souvenirs that were collected from the amusement park and swimming competitions that were once at the Gorge.”
Dennis became fascinated by the stories of the Gorge that were shared directly by locals that grew up in the area.
“As I walked or paddled in my neighbourhood, the stories began to come to life,” he adds. “I used to canoe in the Gorge with a homemade sail from a bed sheet I received as a wedding gift, envisioning the mansions that once lined the shores. I used to go underneath the Gorge-Tillicum bridge to compare versions of the structure with old photographs I had.”
Unknown to most current residents of Victoria, the Gorge Waterway was once the social hub of the city between 1890 and 1930. “The Gorge became Victoria’s backyard,” says Dennis. Young couples would rent a canoe to float up Portage Inlet for a romantic moonlit paddle. The BC Electric Railway Company built an amusement park in Gorge Park in 1905. The Gorge was a playground for all, where residents could enjoy fishing, swimming, sailing, dancing, and watch vaudeville shows or regattas. Even the father of surfing, Hawaiian Duke Kahanamoku, a world champion swimmer once competed in the Gorge. There was also a Japanese teahouse founded by the Takata Family that some locals are now trying to resurrect.
After hearing many irresistible stories about the Gorge Waterway, Dennis could not believe nobody had previously documented the history and anecdotes. It was at that moment, in 1992, that he began a six-year journey to becoming an author.
“Somebody had to do something,” says Dennis. “I never envisioned being a writer. I simply enjoyed the encounters with the old folks. But I felt compelled to do it and, if I had waited another five years, the stories would have been lost. It would be next to impossible to write this book today because back then the network of people was so accessible.”
Indeed, nobody knows the stories like Dennis Minaker. He spent at least three of the six years conducting research, which included interviewing more than 200 individuals ranging in age from 80 to 105, while collecting photographs from their personal family collections.
“It was all serendipity. The stars must have been aligned,” he says. “Everyone seemed to come to me, and one interview would lead to another interview.”
“Victoria was once home to a 100-foot diving tower at Curtis Point. A couple of 19-year-old daredevil boys began twilight diving in 1920, plunging to the dark water below while flames from a burning cape trailed behind – purely a spectacle to entertain the swimming gala crowds,” says Dennis. “Unfortunately, one of them broke his back diving off the tower around two years later. But it was Audrey who rescued him, and she recalled the story as clear as day 75 years later.”
Audrey was a regular in the three-mile swims from the Empress Hotel to the Tillicum Bridge. It was a central area for the six swim clubs in Victoria, which lined the shores of the Gorge.
“It was all the stories of swimmers that inspired me to start swimming in the Gorge,” he adds, noting that it likely also inspired what has now become the annual Gorge Swim Fest.
The Gorge was also home to large mansions that lined the waterway starting in the 1890s.
“Most of them were built within a short period of around 10 years and this is when recreation started along the Gorge. Anybody who was anybody was living on the Gorge, from lawyers to politicians and even the Dunsmuirs themselves,” says Dennis. “But much of that changed as Gorge Road became the Island Highway and the Upper Harbour became very industrial.”
When Dennis was putting his book together, he became aware of a competitor. However, the competing book was primarily focused on archival history, rather than the anecdotes Dennis was gathering directly through his extensive personal network, along with photos from family collections.
“All my interviews were various anecdotes I was able to stitch together within a historical context,” he says.
In the end, the competing book never got published, and publishing Dennis’s book would also prove to be a challenge.
“After six years, nobody wanted to publish my book. So, I took out a bank loan and used it to publish two editions, which later sold more than 4,000 copies,” he adds. “There are few places in Victoria with history as colourful as the Gorge.”
After living on the Gorge for 34 years, the legacy Dennis leaves transformed not only his own life, but many others as well.
“Although I continued nursing while writing this book, I became the ‘Author-in-Residence’ of sorts in the hospital ward. The publishing of the book led to many public speaking engagements, walking tours, the odd column in the Times Colonist, and various contributions to local history of the neighbourhood,” he says. “Previous to that, I had merely written brief family histories.”
On one of his Gorge walking tours, Dennis recalled that he was unexpectedly reunited with one of the ladies he interviewed 12 years earlier, a local singer that had performed a song in Gorge Park in 1923, when she was only three years old. During the tour, the 85-year old surprised everyone by singing the same song on the very spot she had originally sang it. “Without the tour, there is no chance that serendipitous moment could have happened,” says Dennis.
Turning 71 this month, Dennis’s legacy survives well beyond the recognition he received in the community as a local author and historian.
“I’d like to think I gave a gift back to the many old folks I interviewed, who felt important, listened to, and that their stories really matter,” he says. “I feel as though I acquired something special and unique that is not ordinarily produced. It was a gift given to me and it has become my legacy and accomplishment in life – something that remains special about me.”
Now retired from nursing, Dennis enjoys a colourful retirement as an avid volunteer and is currently working on a book of photographs in between his random engagements about the Gorge.
The Gorge of Summers Gone is available at Bolen Books and Munro’s Books.
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