Good morning from the island — we're still here, the orcas were spotted at Active Pass, and honestly, life is fine.
Have you ever considered what it truly means to… un-incorporate? To simply decide that being a village is a bit too much bother, and perhaps, one could just… not be? Well, here’s the thing. Up island, a place called Sayward, a village nestled on the Johnstone Strait, is making serious moves to dissolve itself. Not a merger, mind you, or a boundary adjustment with a larger municipality, but a full-stop, let’s-just-be-unorganized-territory kind of dissolution. They've apparently reached the necessary threshold of voter support to push this plan forward to the province.
It’s an intriguing thought, isn't it? In Victoria, we're constantly debating the intricacies of Oak Bay's particular brand of Britishness, or the delicate balance of development in James Bay, or even the deer population’s steadfast refusal to acknowledge human authority in Beacon Hill Park. We add, we expand, we plan. But to subtract? To consciously un-incorporate? It speaks to a certain island pragmatism, perhaps. A desire to simplify, to shed the layers of governance if they feel burdensome. It’s not quaint, this idea, but rather, I’d say, post-haste. It makes one wonder what other civic structures we could simply… decide to let go of, if we just asked enough people. Perhaps Fort Street could declare itself an independent antique republic, or the Galloping Goose Trail could become its own sovereign nation of cyclists. Food for thought, isn't it?