In Search of a Spirit

I have a new writing project, and it is an exciting one. It came out of nowhere.

I had just published my historical novel ‘BUBNA A Remarkable Woman’ and was ensuring that it gained whatever visibility I could give it, with media interviews and postings to social media. After two years writing the novel about this extraordinary woman who had emigrated to Canada in 1914, it was rewarding to see the response. She built and opened the Eldorado Arms Inn in Kelowna, BC in 1926.

And then a giant surprise arrived. A text message.

“Could you give me a call. I have something I would like to talk to you about.”

The natural wariness of the world in which we live kicked in as I silently reminded myself not to respond. But there was something about the uncluttered, simplicity of the inquiry that intrigued me. I answered.

It was a representative of one of Canada’s finest luxury hotels, the Oak Bay Beach Hotel near Victoria, British Columbia.

“I saw that you had just published a book about the Countess Bubna-Litic and the opening of the original Eldorado Arms Inn, a hundred years ago.”

“Yes” I said, “I wanted to publish on the 100th anniversary of that opening.”

‘Well, our hotel is going to celebrate 100 years as well, and I was wanting to speak with you about writing a centennial book commemorating the story of the Oak Bay Beach Hotel?”

In the space it took me to stop smiling at the inquiry and draw a breath for my next sentence, I answered.

“Yes. Absolutely. I would love to!” – in one quick reply forfeiting any leverage I might have had about compensation for what would no doubt be another very challenging writing project.

The Oak Bay Beach Hotel opened March 30, 1928. It burned to the ground shortly thereafter and was then rebuilt and reopened in 1930, smack dab in the middle of a world wide depression brought on by the infamous stock market crash of 1929. To say the Oak Bay Beach Hotel had a rough couple of years, is to craft an epic understatement. But survive it did, and flourish in the decades to follow, a testament to the uncompromising conviction of the original owners. It is where my story telling will begin.

To say I am thrilled is to craft my own understatement. I will spend several months researching before I write my first word. There will be no end in my search for archival nuggets, story telling pearls I will discover in the bowels of the BC Museum and Oak Bay Museum and elsewhere. The challenge for me though will not to be recount the known historical facts about the hotel and the decades passed. My challenge will be to discover something buried much deeper, it is to discover the Spirit of the Oak Bay Beach Hotel.

I had the same challenge with BUBNA. The Countess’s hotel was after all, just a building. The same can be said of the current Oak Bay Beach Hotel, torn down in 2006 and rebuilt for a 2012 grand opening. So the story telling must be something much more profound, more hidden.

After the grand opening of the original Eldorado Arms Inn in 1926, after the great celebration was over, Countess Bubna and her companion Hamish Macdonell, sat on the veranda, overlooking Lake Okanagan.

“Do you ever think of your legacy, Countess? What you will leave behind when we finally leave this mortal earth.”

The Countess sipped some wine.

“First of all, these lovely Japanese peonies that Mr. and Mrs. Kobayashi gave me today. I want to plant them right away in my garden. I’m told they will flourish here. Besides Hamish, it’s too early to talk about legacy. I have much to see and much to do yet.”

Hamish looked up. The Countess never spoke idly.

“Can you not be content Countess? This fine hotel is a remarkable achievement, one that would not have happened without you.”

“Yes, Hamish. And now with Olga’s news we will have a grandchild to think about.”

Hamish smiled broadly.

“A wee bairn, Countess. You are blessed. So will you stay?”

The Countess looked off, as though trying to see her future.

“I do love it here Hamish, and I am so pleased with the hotel, but I do still have appetite for adventure and travel. I’m thinking of travelling to Egypt, to visit Tutenkamen’s tomb near Luxor. I may just travel there, or perhaps live in Luxor, on the banks of the Nile.”

Her eyes sparkled as she allowed herself to imagine her future. She reached for his hand.

“And I happen to know a very handsome, brawny Scot who would always be welcome by my side.”

Hamish smiled. He knew the Countess was trying to deflect his question. He prodded.

“Countess, you know what I’m asking. What do you think of all this?”

“It’s not this beautiful hotel, Hamish, or my ranches; it’s nothing that we have built, you and I. This will all come and go. Even my magnificent hotel will fall prey to the sands of time. Everything you see will be gone, but the spirit of this place will live on forever. Whoever comes after us will inherit the legacy we have left behind. Not the buildings, Hamish, the spirit. That is what I want my legacy to be. Whoever comes after us, whoever carries the name forward, they are the ones who will inherit the spirit of the Eldorado. It will be upon them to keep it safe. That will be long after we are gone, my wonderful Scottish companion.”

And there you have it. That is my challenge. Any AI platform can create a chronological report to support a commemorative centennial book for the Oak Bay Beach Hotel. I don’t presume to say I can do better. But what I can do is tell stories, and I can braid them into this book in a way that no AI platform can. It is easy to report that the stock market crashed in 1929. It is not easy to report on the human impact of that crash, it is not easy to describe the incredible resilience of human beings who struggled to find their way through it all. That is what a story teller does.

When I was a student at the University of Victoria in the early 70’s the Snug at the Oak Bay Beach Hotel was very popular, at one and the same time a welcoming pub and a notorious meeting place for all manner of scandalous, clandestine goings on. There is a painting in the modern Snug. It was painted in 1955 by a woman who lived in Seattle, Washington. It’s a pretty painting but it is what she wrote beneath it which is so compelling.

“The Snug was where we all began to think of life without war again.”

And there it was, in one simple sentence expressing the gripping stress of an entire generation that had survived the war and there it is today reflecting the spirit of the Snug, and the Oak Bay Beach Hotel. Not the bricks and mortars of a pub, not a cold beer or a Pimm’s and Ginger; a declaration of a person who knew what her generation had gone through. That is what I am in search of.

In 1976 a young Orca whale was injured in the waters off Oak Bay. Conservationists searched desperately for a safe salt water pool to help the whale recover. None was available; none but one, the owners of the Oak Bay Beach Hotel offered up the hotel salt water pool and that became the ‘safe haven’ for the young whale for the next six months. ‘Miracle’ as the animal was named, recovered and was released back into the ocean. It is a glorious story, little known to my great surprise, but a good example of what I am in search of – the Spirit of the Oak Bay Beach Hotel.

Where this one story like that, there are dozens more. Let the search begin.

The book commemorating the Oak Bay Beach Hotel will be published in late spring of 2027, well in time for the 100th anniversary of this glorious hotel.