The story of Bradsdadsland, as told by owner and founder Issac Kramer
How we got named
It was the summer of 1980. I was young and troubled, and trying my best to walk away from myself into a new part of the world, a new way of life, even a new name. Week days I worked five 10 hour shifts with a carpentry crew expanding the long-gone Mac Blo pulp and paper mill in Campbell River (located 40 miles north of Hornby Island on Vancouver Island at Elk Falls). Weekends I was partying at the Pink House (no longer pink, it’s the place just west of the Isla De Larena), with Dudes, Erin, Blair and anybody else who dropped in, long into the early hours.
This one morning after one of these late into the night drunks, Blair Strachan and I went to the Thatch (Hornby Island Resort, down by the Hornby Island ferry landing) for breakfast. On the way back, I stopped at what is now the campsite, to show Blair the property my father had just bought. The place at that time was a narrow waterfront lover’s lane winding through a cathedral of kissing alder branches above, with sea glimpses in places, very thick bush covering pretty much everything else, wild and free.
When we got back to the Pink House (so named because someone back then had the bright idea of repainting the original old farm house day glo pink), the rest of the party contingent were just rousing themselves, and somebody asked us where we had been. Blair then proceeded to relate our morning, and when he got to explaining how we had stopped to look at my dad’s new property, out of his mouth spilled his best try at describing the who and the what of it, Brad’s dad’s land.
Everybody laughed, and I said out loud to no one in particular, if I ever need a name for the place, that’s what it’s going to be.
How we got started
I was always one who needed to keep pretty busy, and what better way to do that then to clear five acres of brush thicker than the hair on a dog’s back, all by hand. Well, I am exaggerating a bit, I had the help of a chainsaw and a 1949 Ford 9N farm tractor. As far as I was concerned, this was the glorious hands on life. This was also at a time when the idea of going back to the land was still pretty popular.
I thought I would try my hand at making the place pretty enough for people to want to stay. The first year, we had all of ten guests the whole summer long. The second year, a few more. It was maybe in the fifth year, I went down to the Comox airport to pick up my father for his annual visit from Montreal, and after our dinner meal in the trailer (which is still there underneath the prettier shiplap and shingles of the office building), we walked along the front driveway up to the play-ground, past about twelve parties of very contented campers finishing their August long weekend dinner meals around their campfires. At the playground, my father turned to me, and he said, “you know, this might work”. I don’t know that I’d ever heard more heartwarming words.
Who we are now
Well wouldn’t you know it, I met my wife Heather at the campsite, camping. Close to 30 years later, she still tolerates me, and there’s our children Zoe, Zephi, Alethea and Zack as well. In summer, we live in the little varnished house by the front gate. Martin and Erica Cree hold the fort in the office these days.
It’s hard to take in, that I’ve been loving Bradsdadsland for some 40 years now. Sure it’s different than it was, more mature, more an everyday part of our lives. But it still means as much as ever, still the highlight of the yearly rhythm of our family life.
Welcome to Bradsdadsland. I hope our campsite helps you round out your family life as much as it has helped us round out ours.