Although some pointy-headed people speculated that, perhaps, some of those nebulous formations may be “island universes of their own,” that talk was controversial. Even by 1917, the latest research suggested that the Milky Way — that is, the universe — was 300,000 light years across and 30,000 light years thick at its bulging centre. These dimensions exceeded any previous estimates by 10 times. That was just the start. Throughout the 1920s and ’30s, the universe underwent several major changes. A series of discoveries made on the biggest, most advanced telescopes of the time, including the one here on Little Saanich Mountain, revealed that our place in the universe is not just not central, it was downright peripheral and insignificant.