A Surveyor's View...

Ross Glover was a surveyor working with McElhanney Engineering of Vancouver when the physical village was first laid out 27 years ago. “We did a lot of work for forestry companies all up and down Vancouver Island, along the E&N Land Grant boundaries. This was more of the same, except it involved creating a new ski resort.”

The late John Mathews spearheaded the work; he was a friend of Henry Norie, who along with Alex Linton, developed Mount Washington.

“Establishing the mountain was a tough situation because it wasn’t titled property at the time,” Glover explained. “The E&N Land Grant gave it to the forestry companies, but the titles hadn’t been raised. The land designated for what would become Mount Washington Alpine Resort was accessed by easement at first, because it wasn’t possible to put road access in.

“It wasn’t much of a road, at first. It took two years to survey the ski resort lands. They carved out the big block first, Block 1450,” Glover said. The next phase was to lay out Strata 799. “It was kind of unique because it was bare land strata and any bare land strata was not done in the province, yet.”

The original lots were unique sizes and shapes - some were circles, with common property all around them.

“Alex Linton was concerned that we didn’t cut down any more trees than we had to. We had to hide branches underneath trees so it didn’t look like anything but a pristine alpine village,” Glover said. That uniqueness has stayed with the Alpine Village through the last 26 years.

“It’s got a real special winter feeling to it. There’s no winter road access even now.’ Glover has had occasion to stay in the Village over the years with friends who own chalets.

“To me, it’s a real luxury to have a place on the mountain if you live in Courtenay or Comox because it’s so close.” Glover, a season’s pass holder since day one, recently surveyed the profile for the Outback.