People of Harbourside Cohousing
Every person brings a unique set of experiences and skills to contribute to our cohousing community.
Meet Some Harboursiders…
Makers – who are experts at building & repairs, create with wood, craft with fibre, and also make music.
Sea Folk – who snorkel, swim, paddle, sail, surf, or just hang out in our wharf gazebo.
Animal Lovers – who share their lives with furry friends.
Game Buffs – who are masters of word games, play cards, and love puzzles.
Harbourside Teams
Participation in Harbourside’s Teams is essential for keeping our community running. Some kinds of work are more obvious than others, and all Harboursiders (whether they own or rent) are expected to contribute as best they can. There is something for everyone.
Teams have some decision-making power for the community within their individual mandates. Group decisions require strong communication and group process skills, while also offering a collaborative, innovative, and nurturing environment
Social Life
Hands-on
Behind the Scenes
Learn more about some of Harbourside’s members
Adrienne & Frank
A retired nurse, Adrienne enjoys gardening and playing ping pong. Frank is a retired broadcast technician, who volunteers at Sooke’s community radio station, Sooke.live. He’s a member of Harbourside’s maintenance team.
Alice
Born in the United States in the early 1950’s, Alice immigrated to Canada in the early 70’s. She worked her way across the continent in a variety of jobs, drawn west to the Gulf Islands. In 1974, she met her partner Steve and they made a life together, fishing in the islands, moving onto the Lightstations as Lightkeepers in the early 80’s. They raised three sons on the coast, on Galiano, Ruxton and Vancouver Islands, working and living at Chatham Point Light Station for 21 years.
Steve died suddenly in 2010 and Alice decided to take their recently obtained sailboat, a sturdy 38 ft. vessel True Blue, on a journey. She took a leave of absence from her Lightkeeper position and her other occupation as fisherman, leaving their salmon troller in the good hands of the next generation, young friends on the coast. In 2013, she sailed back to Oahu after a westabout circumnavigation — “a pilgrimage with women comrades ’round the belly of this beautiful planet” — returning to BC in 2014.
I consider joining Harbourside Cohousing an investment in community and appreciate the goodwill and intelligence that is going into the community.
Andrew
Andrew is an architect and planner specializing in community development. He has lived in, worked with, and established new co-ops, and assisted in writing Co-operative Acts for governments in the UK, South Africa, and Canada.
In the UK, Andrew was a founding member of a large Architects’ Co-operative specializing in tenant run and co-operative managed affordable housing projects. Here he met his wife Gail when working with her housing co-operative near Notting Hill. With their son Alex, Andrew and Gail moved to BC in 1994.
Andrew was employed by T’Sou-ke Nation for fifteen years and continues to work with many First Nations around BC. He is a musician, having played with and producing bands in UK, Africa and Canada. He is a member of Harbourside’s Fun Team and Meetings Team.
I love Cohousing, Community Development and Co-ops.
Ann
There once was a co-houser, Ann
Who, when asked if she could, says, “I can!”
She runs to her flat
Which has this and that *
And returns with a grin and a plan!(*) Including many baskets of wool and six knitting projects in progress; a full drawer of pliers and scissor-type implements; 31 other drawers of miscellaneous, yet highly useful or decorative objets; several books on governance structures and decision-making models; a diagram outlining Harbourside teams and how they are inter-connected; a sufficiency of partly read books and an insufficiency of time; a storage cupboard with rolls of wire and stacks of decorative papers, but no towels; freshly made soup in a pot on the stove (Yum! Would you like a bowl? It’s ginger carrot); an exquisitely intricate, bleached cat skull; a flock of completed papier-mâché creatures; a patio bursting with plants; and a sweet little dog named Juno.
Donja & Doug
Having moved to Victoria from the backcountry of San Diego County to find a good education for their daughters, they fell in love with Vancouver Island and Canadians and decided to become “North Americans” by having dual citizenship in both the US and Canada.
Doug has climbed on several major expeditions including the 1983 Men and Women’s expedition to Everest, Doug’s 1990 expedition to K2 and many climbs on Denali. He worked for the National Outdoor Leadership School since 1968 and sat on its board for 6 years. He has been “Mr. Compost” at Abkhazi Gardens as well as at the SunRiver allotment garden in Sooke. He is now experiencing how long he can remain useful as he continues his 28 year experience with Parkinson’s.
Donja has worn many hats but considers herself a serial volunteer, a semi-retired mother, and a jazz singer. She has been a director/governor on several non-profit organizations, has finished up her long stint as a governor for Glenlyon Norfolk School and has retired from Board of Camp Unalayee, a backpacking wilderness camp in Northern California. She is working with Doug to support his independence while learning the lessons of a care person.
We look forward to a long and fruitful life helping to build the community at Harbourside.
Kaye
Kaye immigrated from England in 1969 with her husband and golden lab. After two weeks of travelling across the Atlantic and then across Canada by train, they arrived in the very small community of Parson, located south of Golden, BC. They both had teaching jobs in the local four-room schoolhouse and lived in the small “teacherage” that provided. Eventually, the couple bought an acreage, built a house, and lived and taught in the Golden area for the next 34 years. In 2005, Kaye moved to Sooke and enjoys yoga, hiking, tennis and badminton, quilting and fabric art.
I had been feeling that I needed to change my living arrangements, and Harbourside Cohousing seemed to be the perfect answer. I am very glad to be a part of it. I love it in Sooke; the people, the incredible hiking, the forests, the ocean, and all the other activities that are available here.
Ken & Myrna
Ken and Myrna have been married 45 years and have three adult children, but no grandchildren (boo hoo). Both were therapists professionally, and Myrna is still doing a small amount of Zoom counselling. They lived in Nelson, BC, for decades, building a home and huge gardens from the forest, including starting a Retreat Centre. Myrna taught two year trainings in Pre and Perinatal Psychology around the world, and students came to Nelson from all over to study with her and Ken. They are avid gardeners, hikers, and bikers.
We are gradually transitioning from being mountain people to living by the ocean.
Kevin
An island local, Kevin was born in Victoria in 1956 and grew up in Oak Bay. Both parents were from commercial fishing families. He has lived and worked in Victoria, Pouce Coupe, the Yukon, Port Renfrew, Princeton, Fernie, and now Sooke. Over the course of his life, he has worked as a farmer, fisher, automotive/heavy duty mechanic, marine engineer, volunteer firefighter, and vocational mechanics instructor.
As a left-wing political/union activist all of his life, Kevin travelled to Cuba, the USSR, Guatemala, El Salvador, Colombia, Sweden, Sicily, Greece, and Palestine, plying his trade. He is also a Ministry of Environment volunteer warden for the San Juan River Estuary Ecological Reserve in Port Renfrew, and has volunteered to help protect Juan de Fuca’s old growth forests.
Since moving to Harbourside in 2026, Kevin has joined our Maintenance, Workshop, Wharf, and Legal/Finance Teams. He looks forward to borrowing neighbours’ rowboats, kayaks, and sailboats — and to relaxing out on the water.
I like how everyone helps on various Harbourside Teams, being useful doing what we can with the skills we have.
Margaret & John
Margaret and John met in a meditation group in Sooke in 2004 and spent the next 22 years together. Co-creating Harbourside was important to them both. They continue to own a beautiful unit in the apartment building at Harbourside where John lives, while Margaret moved to another cohousing home, Cranberry Commons, in Burnaby in 2026.
Born and raised in California, John is a lifetime social activist who came to Canada in 1968. He is a cycling and sailing enthusiast and you might find him in one of Sooke’s coffee shops.
Margaret was Professor of Social Anthropology at York University in Toronto for 25 years. Fieldwork took her to the South West Pacific islands of Vanuatu. There, she lived in a bamboo house with her family in a rural village and developed deep local friendships. She continues to work as a Community Building Facilitator supporting the creation of new cohousing communities.
We came to understand that “it takes a village” to be fully human — and cohousing is our new village.
Marisa
A retired family and public health physician, Marisa’s practice was focused in sexual & reproductive health and mental health. She also taught residents, worked in professional development and served in administrative leadership roles.
In 2017, after 21 years of small-scale farming in the Pemberton valley, Marisa & her husband Hank moved to Harbourside. We wanted be back on the ocean, explore new terrain, learn new things, take up new hobbies, have time for expanded conversations, and be a little closer to what a city has to offer.
Marisa retired sooner than planned in order to become Hank’s caregiver. He died at Harbourside in 2023.
We agreed that Harbourside would be a good place for Hank if something happened to me; and it would be a good place for me if something happened to Hank. We were right.
Mark
Born in England, Mark immigrated to Canada with his family in 1948 at the age of one. Growing up in Cordova Bay, he worked on local farms in summer. After graduating from the University of Victoria in 1969, he spent many years travelling. He lived in India for 12 years — in love with the Himalayas, yoga and meditation — where he began to study astrology. After returning to Victoria, he practiced astrology and gardening to make a living. In 2003, he moved to Sooke to be closer to nature, his source of healing and peace.
The preservation of wild places through organizations like the The Land Conservancy and Wild Pacific Salmon Society is important to me. Those times of my life when I lived in communities with some shared values and intention have been happy times, and is the reason I chose Harbourside.
Molly
Born in California, Molly spent a couple of years in San Paulo, Brazil, then was raised in Texas. She would probably say that the Vietnam War brought her to Canada. After having been caught up in the FLQ crisis in Quebec, she lived on both Canada’s East and West Coasts.
In the 1970s, Molly and her partner bought a quarter section of land in the Okanagan on a bench above Salmon Valley. There they raised three sons and a myriad of animals. They built (as in hand dug the foundation, mixed the cement, peeled the logs, and hand sawed the boards) their own house of about 3000 sq.ft., initially without electricity and water. They were academic city kids having an adventure, with no real idea of what they were getting themselves into. They learned to milk their goats and then Brown Swiss/Jersey cow; grow fruits and vegetables; and raise chickens, rabbits, and pigs. Later, needing a little more cerebral activity, they went back to city life, taking graduate courses and spending time with their aging parents.
Molly has been lucky to do a great deal of traveling in her life and the joy of her current life is her six grandkids, ages 5-14.
After my partner of 50 years was gone, Cohousing has met my need for community.
Priska
With a background in molecular biology, Priska studied and worked in Germany, Sweden and England before immigrating to Canada in 1999. She found her feet in the 5 Rhythms dance community in Victoria and developed pottery skills in a shared studio in the Highlands. After moving to Sooke, she found out that living close to nature, for all its rewards, can lead to feeling isolated. That’s when creating a cohousing community right here in Sooke promised to be a worthwhile adventure.
I’m so glad that I hung in there through the rough parts — my community has been there for me when I needed it.
Susan
Born and raised in New Zealand, Susan immigrated to Canada with two young children. Two more children were born here, and she is now a grandmother of four. She lived in Vancouver and the Gulf Islands before moving to Sooke in the 1980s. Now happily retired she enjoys being outdoors on her bike or in her garden.
Harbourside has proven itself to be a community that provides camaraderie and friendship, without compromising my privacy.