Since the mid 1990s, a local directory has been published on our little island containing local phone numbers and featuring articles and information about island life. It became known as the Gold Pages and at first contained just phone numbers, and often just the last four digits, as everyone shared the 604 area code and the 947 exchange. The directory is mailed to every islander in May each year, and becomes a treasured companion for the year ahead.
The latest custodian of the Bowen Book is my friend Claudia Schaefer, a local artist who works in a variety of media including epoxy, paint, and photography. That’s one of her pieces above called “Ocean Waves” made from mica pigments and epoxy.
In 2021, Claudia took over the Gold Pages from Barb Wiltshire who took it over from the Chamber of Commerce, and she has faithfully produced an annual collection of phone numbers, email addresses, business pages and informative articles. The book is a local resource, deliberately not targeted at tourists. It has its own web site which is quite substantial. You can find a bunch of articles there focused on stuff that us islanders find interesting, on subjects like the best sea kayaking routes, great hikes, 99 things to do as a local, and an extensive gallery of New Yorker quality cartoons on local issues, and loving portraits of islanders and island life past and present, from our resident editorialist, Ron Woodall.
You can learn about gardening with native plants and what kind of birds frequent our forests and shorelines.
Until I stumbled across Claudia’s site today I really had no idea it was out there and how extensive it is.
