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Here you will find issues of the Moss Rock Review, both current and archived. Just click on the appropriate button and you're there! The Moss Rock Review is a magazine dedicated to the Fairfield community, as is this website. Feel free to visit anytime and let us know if you have comments. If you are interested in advertising in the Moss Rock Review let us know that too! For advertising inquiries contact Susan Woods, editor at editor@mossrockreview.com

Editorial: Susan Woods

A film called Sliding Doors has always served to remind me about how a simple decision can affect one's destiny. It was one of those "do I take a right turn - or a left turn" choices that led me to Fairfield twenty years ago. Like many others who've come here for a vacation, a temporary work contract, or, as in my case, to raise children away from the urban sprawl of post Expo 86 Vancouver, many of us find that we have no desire to leave - even though we'd never intended to stay forever.

It's true that Fairfield marks the furthermost destination on a restless Canadian's gradual progression west - but it's more than geography and the fortunate weather that keeps me here. In other places I've lived, from Toronto to Denver to Vancouver, I've never had the pleasure of watching an adult Buck stroll down the sidewalk in front of my house, and then been told by local authorities that, if left in peace, "Mr. Big" would find his own way back home to Beacon Hill Park by dinnertime. Nowhere before have I watched a family of ducks stop rush hour traffic on a dime, been able to identify loud barking within city limits as the mating sound of sea lions, grown giant tomatoes with no clue about gardening, or shared memorable conversations in the vegetable section of a local grocery store. Before Victoria I had no idea that lilacs come in three colours, or that beachcombing in a modern cosmopolitan community is as easy as walking down to the shore.  

Part of my appreciation for this place is founded on the contrast between my life in Victoria and my early years on a military base on the south shore of Nova Scotia. The houses were identical, there were no trees or street signs, and the main social event was watching ships arrive and leave with half the population on-board. It seemed that no one stationed at HMCS Cornwallis wrote books, painted landscapes or gardened. On car trips away from the base I always kept watch for church steeples; a signal that we were nearing a civilian community with brightly painted houses, real sidewalks, lunch counters, and movie theatres. Places like Gilberts Landing and Lunenburg became warm, permanent symbols of the outside world for me.

How could I have known that one day I would raise my own children in a quaint place called Fairfield, and have found the perfect equation lifestyle for a writer; publishing a community magazine on a tree lined street while seagulls remind me that the ocean is always just a few blocks away.

Susan Woods, Editor & Publisher

Moss Rock Review

The Community of Fairfield: Situated in beautiful Victoria, BC the perimiter of this locale is bounded by Blanshard Street to the West, Fort Street to the North, Foul Bay Road to the East and oceanside Dallas Road to the south. Special places and features include: the Dallas Road walkway, Beacon Hill Park, The Art Gallery of Greater Victoria, Government House - residence and gardens of the Lietenant Governor of British Columbia, Craigdarroch Castle, and the Cook Street Village.

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