Driving west along West Coast Road, just before you get to John Muir School, you see a beautiful farm site, with a big red-roofed barn. One hundred and sixty years ago, the scene would have included the view shown here, a water-powered mill, enabling the mill to process wheat, oats and more. Water was carried to the site by the flume pictured, diverting the precious flow from Knott Creek, which runs from the northeast.
Home of the John and Ann Muir family who emigrated from Ayrshire Scotland in 1849, establishing a home here in 1851, this is the oldest continuously operating farm west of the Great Lakes. It was home to three generations of Muirs for almost seven decades before its sale to immigrants from Switzerland, the Arnold and Rosa Glinz family.
In addition to that historic distinction, our famous Woodside Farm was honoured in July 2021 when Premier John Horgan and Agriculture Minister Lana Popham presented the farm with a Century Farm Award. This award is given by the province in the rare instances when one family has operated a successful farm for an entire century.
It was the Glinz/Wilford family that owned and operated the farm from 1920 to 2021, before the sale to the current owners, who continue to maintain the farming tradition today. It was a sunny afternoon at the farm when dozens of guests gathered, families who had been connected to the farm’s history, in a once-in-a-lifetime ceremony.
The earlier Muir history had focused on the lumbering industry in addition to the farm which provided their keep, and when the Glinz tenure began in 1920, it was farming, and in particular dairying, which became the mainstay. In the 1930s, a new feature began, tour buses began arriving at the farm on summer Sundays, inviting Victoria guests to enjoy chicken dinners and strawberry shortcake.
When Phil Wilford arrived from Guelph Agricultural College in 1947 and brought the Wilford name into union with the Glinz name, the farm continued its rural and hospitable way of life, with beef cattle eventually taking over from dairying. While several Wilford descendants continue to make their homes in Sooke, their elder brother, Charlie Glinz, lives in Australia, coming home regularly to renew his family roots in Sooke.
Elida Peers is the historian with Sooke Region Museum.
