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MOUNT SKOKOMISH WILDERNESS, Olympic National Forest — Once common here, martens — sleek, bright-eyed mammals less than half the weight of a small house cat — appear to have virtually disappeared from their mountain redoubts.

The District of Saanich has pledged up to $534,000 in funding to help pay for the replacement of a floating boardwalk at the Swan Lake Christmas Hill Nature Sanctuary.

Kenneth W. Mariash Sr., developer of the Bayview and Roundhouse projects in Vic West, can be sentimental about his small-town Saskatchewan roots.

There’s no way a developer can come in with grand plans and a long-term vision for a neighbourhood and make it a success without buying into the community.

Focus Equities provides development, investment and project finance in real estate, infrastructure and mining.

Development at Bayview Place on Songhees is about to start inching closer to the water, as the man behind the 20-acre site hopes to break ground on the next condominium tower early in 2018.

View Royal voters head to the polls Nov. 18 in a byelection to replace Heidi Rast as councillor. Rast, who topped the polls in 2011 and 2014, moved to Prince Edward Island to take a job with a biopharmaceutical company.

A Victoria storyteller’s enthusiasm over the prospect of spinning yarns for local seniors was living proof that Volunteer Victoria and Camosun College were on the right track last Wednesday.

Karen McLaughlin’s pencil drawings are complex and detailed, inspired by nature, but apparently abstract in their patterning. The obsessive nature of her activity drew me in and I wanted to know more.

This column first appeared in the Victoria Daily Times on Dec. 6, 1941. Now that the first week of December is all but gone and the British parcels are on their way, it is time to think about Christmas here at home.