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Back to The Marrow Walk

Route update · September 27

The walk now goes through Tsawwassen, and is back on schedule in Victoria

See the route, stop by stop

Saanich to Victoria

Day 27 · Scheduled earlier

Royal Oak, Saanich

British Columbia

Royal Oak’s old hall and the peninsula trail

This day on the route

Planned date
The day
Walking
Planned walking
8 miles

Day 27: 8 planned walking miles south from Saanichton to Royal Oak, Saanich. The regional trail description does not guarantee an uninterrupted off-road passage. Jeana walked into downtown Victoria on October 3, a day earlier than first planned.

Route overview, not turn-by-turn directions.

Gouache illustration of a tree-framed path crossing a small road beside fields, hedges and a bus shelter, with distant homes, water and a tiny walker.
Illustration inspired by Royal Oak, Saanich, British Columbia.

The planned 8-mile leg heads south from Saanichton to Royal Oak, Saanich. A former municipal center and a railway trail give this suburban area a layered history.

Royal Oak includes the Falaise, Viewmont and Broadmead neighborhoods. Saanich’s heritage register describes it as a former administrative center: the original municipal hall on West Saanich Road remained in use until the present hall opened in 1965. The register also follows the area’s farming history and surviving heritage buildings.

The broader peninsula has a second historical connection in the Lochside Regional Trail. The Capital Regional District records a 29-kilometre route established in 2001, linking North Saanich, Sidney, Central Saanich and Saanich with Victoria. It follows a former railway corridor and includes stretches where trail users share public roads with other traffic.

As first planned, the itinerary assigns 8 walking miles from Saanichton to Royal Oak, and Victoria follows to the south on Sunday, October 4. The planned route continues down the peninsula toward the Inner Harbour and the later ferry to Port Angeles.

From the road

A very serious construction worker moved to action, and a welcome in Victoria

It was a beautiful day for walking, especially on the Lochside Trail. On a Saturday filled with sunshine, there were lots of folks out walking, running and biking.

She met a young man whose father was in remission from blood cancer. He was moved by her efforts to save the lives of patients with blood cancer and blood disorders.

With blood cancers, as she explains, doctors rarely say that a patient is cured. Instead they say that the patient is in remission, or that there is no evidence of disease (NED). That’s why, she says, folks in remission need long-term follow-up blood counts, to catch any relapse early.

Somehow the beauty of the forest and the warmth of the sunshine made her backpack lighter with each step. Along the way she met a very serious construction worker, who took a picture of the QR code on the sign hanging from her pack. He said he would post it on Facebook, to spread the word about how to join the Canadian Blood Services Stem Cell Registry.

Before she knew it, she was in downtown Victoria, a day earlier than planned. Kath, her host in Sidney, had sent out messages to see whether anyone could put her up in Victoria, and Jeana was blessed when Linda and Paul reached out to say she would be welcome in their home.

Linda asked whether Jeana would like to walk to their home. Not knowing how close to them she actually was, she declined, and Paul kindly came and picked her up. She realised later that she would need to connect their home to her route, so that she could walk to the Coho ferry from there. She planned to cover that short stretch the next day.

They live in an amazing location for walking. Linda recalled walking along the ocean that morning, when a whale breached right alongside her.

Linda and Paul were taking good care of her. That night she was fed, showered and ready for bed.

I love that when he heard what I was doing he was moved to action immediately.

Jeana Moore
A weathered wooden house-number sign, its numbers blurred, hangs on chains from a wooden crossbeam above a garden bed of blue-gray ornamental grass, fallen leaves and small green plants.A green street sign reading Cordova Bay Rd, its block number blurred, tops a metal post that also holds the back of a stop sign, at a quiet corner with a curving road, lawns, purple-leaved trees and a green house.Sun glints through autumn leaves over a road lined with red and orange trees, an SUV at its far end and lawn signs at right reading 'Matt McGeachie for Councillor & CRD', 'Colette Baty for Saanich Council' and 'Elect a common sense team.'A wide trail running straight ahead beneath tall, slender evergreens, sunlight slanting through the trunks and brown fallen leaves scattered across the path.A wide trail scattered with fallen leaves runs between tall evergreen trunks, one leaning steeply on the right, toward a tunnel of yellow autumn foliage where a few small figures walk far ahead.A farm field laid with long rows of white plastic sheeting, low farm buildings at its edge and a wooded hill with a rocky top and two communications towers beyond, under a blue sky with a few white clouds and autumn shrubs and tall grass in the foreground.A closer view of the farm: a long, low barn with a row of small windows, a metal silo and a blue barn on a grassy slope behind a wire fence, the white-covered rows in front and a rocky hilltop with two communications towers rising above the trees.An interpretive sign titled Blenkinsop Lake Bridge & Lochside Regional Trail, with a map tracing the trail’s route and photographs of the bridge and its construction, a black pack with tan straps and the toe of a shoe at the bottom of the frame.A path running into a long tunnel of trees with leaves turning yellow, a thick, moss-covered trunk on the right and figures small in the distance down the trail.A lake under a bright blue sky, lily pads and floating debris along the near edge, a grassy bank on the left and a wooded point reflected in the water on the right, a weathered wooden post at the edge of the frame.Dark, gently rippling water reflecting a wall of trees and reeds, lily pads turning yellow in the foreground, with white clouds, a contrail and a power-line tower against the blue sky.A close view of lily pads, some curling and spotted with brown, floating among green flecks on dark water, long grass blades leaning in from the top.
Show all 26 photos from this dayShow fewer photos
A long wooden bridge with timber railings stretching ahead, the railings’ shadows striped across its weathered deck and trees at the far end under a clear blue sky.A weathered bronze statue of an older man in an open-collared shirt and jacket, one arm resting along a wooden railing, beside a plaque from Mayor Frank Leonard and Council honouring the early settlers of the Blenkinsop Valley, reeds and water below.A moss-covered boulder on a bed of fallen leaves beside a mossy tree trunk, sunlit green leaves hanging over shadowy undergrowth.Slender grey-barked trees with sparse orange leaves against a blue sky, more yellow and orange foliage glowing behind them above green undergrowth.A weathered, sun-faded map panel of the Swan Lake Watershed, showing Swan Lake, Christmas Hill and the Lochside Regional Trail.An interpretive sign titled The Canadian Northern Pacific Railway, with old photographs of a railcar, a locomotive and trestle bridges and a map of historical railways through Saanich, weeds growing up through the concrete beneath it.A close view of bright red flowers with ruffled petals glowing in the sun above soft, scalloped green leaves.An orange road sign reading Goose Detour beneath an orange diamond sign with an upward arrow, on a metal post in grass dotted with small yellow flowers beside a sidewalk.A red-brick building with castle-like crenellated towers and pale turrets, the Canadian flag flying above it against a clear blue sky.The same castle-like brick building seen across an intersection, with red traffic lights, a Douglas St street sign, a no-left-turn sign and a line of cars waiting at the light.A fountain with tall, narrow columns, one ribbed and one decorated with figures and symbols, spraying water into a blue basin ringed with white, wave-like concrete forms, a red-brick building to the right.The words City Hall in dark raised letters on a speckled concrete wall above glass doors, beneath a painted coat of arms with two winged figures, a crown on a red and blue shield and the motto Semper Liber.A rainbow-striped crosswalk at a downtown intersection, brick sidewalks on either side, with people walking past a cream-coloured corner building, a pickup and cars on the street and red-brick buildings beyond under a blue sky.A red dragon sculpture coiled around a dark post, its jaws open and one claw raised to grasp a pale ball, under a canopy of green and purple leaves.
Distance walked
6.1 miles
Find your official registryDonate to JBFSee every stop

Choose where you live

Continue to the official registry that serves you. It decides eligibility, handles registration and contacts you if you may match a patient.

Where in Canada?

Canada outside Québec — Canadian Blood Services

The Canadian Blood Services Stem Cell Registry asks for people aged 17 to 35 in good general health. You answer eligibility questions online, complete a profile and sign a consent form; a cheek-swab kit arrives in the mail within one to three weeks for you to swab and return. If you live in Québec, you register with Héma-Québec instead. Canadian Blood Services makes the final eligibility decision.

Check the listed age range

Visit Canadian Blood Services

Canadian Blood Services — Stem cell eligibility and registration · checked Sep 1, 2026

Browse all official registry options

Eligibility rules can change. Confirm the current requirements with the official registry before joining.

Give to the Jada Bascom Foundation

Choose a symbolic amount or enter your own in Givebutter. Your donation supports JBF’s work wherever it is needed most.

Sponsoring a mile, a day or a stop is a way of describing a gift to the Jada Bascom Foundation. It does not purchase anything on the route.

$100.00 is a suggested amount. Confirm or change it in Givebutter.

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Sources

Local history and background reading for this stop.

  1. Saanich heritage register: Royal Oak — checked Sep 5, 2026
  2. Lochside Regional Trail — checked Sep 5, 2026
The flyer: STOP BLOOD CANCER set in tall letters over a dark plum page, a quote, and a QR code beside a text-to-join line for the U.S.One standing face of the table tent: the same headline and quote on the left, a large QR code on the right.

Take it off the screen

Print it. Put it where people already stand.

A coffee counter, a church foyer, a break room, a race table. Every sheet carries the code that opens Jeana’s walk, and a number to text for anyone who would rather not scan — no app, no wifi, nothing to hand back.Every sheet carries the code that opens Jeana’s walk — nothing to install, nothing to hand back. The number to text printed beside it is for joining NMDP, which registers people who live in the U.S., its territories and the freely associated states. If you live anywhere else, find your country’s registry.

Everything else for running a drive

Rather be the one at the table?

Host a registration drive at your school, work or place of worship, raise funds, or lend a skill. Tell us what you have in mind and we will help you plan it.

Ways to volunteerHost a registration drive