One of our oldest organizations, Sooke Community Association, was incorporated in 1935, following Sooke Athletic Association, which had begun in 1914. Victoria daily newspaper accounts from early 1934 tell us of the first celebration of “Sooke Day,” a gathering of folk at the flats by Sooke River, where they feasted on salmon barbecued over open alderwood fires, in the style of the T’Sou-ke Peoples at the time, celebrating 70 years since the Leech River Goldrush.
It turned out the picnic on the flats was so popular it became annual, and the organizing group formalized under the BC Societies Act, with Horace Goodrich of Sooke Harbour Fishing & Packing as its first president.
Men with leadership skills and generous hearts have continued in the role of president over the years since. I was elected to the board in 1972 when Eric Michelsen was president. Though he passed away in an accident the next year, Eric was well-known not only as a community leader but as the developer, along with his wife Jean, of what became the popular Broome Hill Golf Course.
The next president who followed Eric was Gerhart Hansen, in place when the organization donated the land on which the ice arena (now known as SEAPARC) was built in 1974. It may not be known to most folks today, but the Community Association donated the land for the arena and the Sooke Region Museum, which followed in 1977.
This land had become available because of a purchase made by the forward- thinking Community Association when they purchased a treed acreage lying at the corner of Sooke Road and Phillips Road, from its 1970 owner, BC Provincial Geographer Colonel Aitken, whose own house still stands on the harbour next to Coopers Cove Oyster Farm.
Chatting today with then-president Gerhart Hansen, he recalled that the revenue the association earned through convention entertainment logging sports shows held at the community hall during the '60s, '70s, and '80s provided the funds to make such land purchases possible. “We got some pretty good deals at the time, for that piece and also for the Fred Milne Field, which we bought later, and all from the work of volunteers," Gerhart said.
When the Sooke Community Association was formed, the group planned a community hall large enough for major events and basketball, as sports have always been a priority for our village. Our photo shows the hall under construction by volunteers in 1937, a hall which is in constant use today.
Elida Peers is a historian with Sooke Region Museum
