Does anyone know why the McKenzie orchard is called the McKenzie orchard? Elda Mason doesn't mention anyone named McKenzie in her Lasqueti Island History and Memory book, and her daughter Stephanie doesn't remember anyone with that name.

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For those who are not familiar with it, it's an old, large commercial orchard partly overgrown by forest across the road from where Grant Road joins Main Road. We learned it was a commercial orchard not only by the number of trees, but because a few years ago a couple of visiting fruit enthusiasts identified at least three surviving Gravenstein trees there. They are large, productive trees with great-tasting fairly early apples that don't store, and they explained that no family would want or could use more than about half the apples that one tree produces each year.

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Lasqueti, and other Gulf Islands, used to be fruit producing areas before irrigation technology enabled orcharding to move to the interior of the province.

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Thanks for any information that you or Lasqueti-connected people you know can share about this name and orchard.

 

Peter Johnston