Yesterday Aine and I took a drive up to Hood Point, which is the northernmost extremity of the island. We went to visit musical friends from Vancouver who were staying at a relative's place there.



Hood Point is a quiet little enclave that seems in many ways to be set apart from the rest of the island. To get there, you have to travel over the very windy Eagle Cliff Road which twists and turns its way along the cliffs north of our place. Eventually, the land levels out a little as Mount Collins drops away to the north, and a little hook shaped piece of land, with an island at the end, comes into view.



A lot of the houses along here were old cottages, although turning west, one comes to the newer, and larger, homes of Hood Point West. The old cottages crowd along a hook of land that sweeps out to Finisterre Island, which is odd for the fact that it is connected to Bowen at low tide, and has a tunnel drilled into it through which the little island’s sole resident enters his abode.



The point gets blasted by Squamish winds, which is its major drawback, and probably one of the prime reasons why it was mostly a summer residence area for so long. Someone had to invent special windows to install in houses that swallow the brunt of a Squamish wind. Judging by the age of the permanent places, that didn’t seem to happen until the mid 1970s…



We visited a cottage that seemed like it was built in the 1940s, before eagle Cliff Road extended to the point, and in the days when the area was serviced by its own ferry from Horseshoe Bay. It was a cosy place to enjoy company, play some tunes and stay out to allow Caitlin and Finn to recover from a bout of the flu.