The Chronicles Blog

Sunday before last, Belinda and I spent half a warm afternoon poking about the coal mine sites of South Wellington; something I’ve done a hundred times but a first for her. 

It was a bus man’s holiday for me as I’m finally—finally—writing the book I’ve been researching, in archives and in the field, for 25 years. To do that, I need to know what changes if any have occurred since my last visits of a year ago. 

Because things do change, more and faster all the time, it seems.

We’d already visited Extension, a ‘ghost town’ just southwest of Nanaimo that I’ve been to more times than I recall. Which made my rifling through my B.A. McKelvie file (Chronicles readers have met him before) a happy coincidence: I’d forgotten that he wrote about Extension before I hit the editorial scene.

That was in 1957, in the magazine section of the Vancouver Province.

So, in next week’s BC Chronicles I’m going to let Mr. McKelvie, who was considered to be B.C.’s premier historical writer in his day, tell you the sad and dramatic tale of The Day the Mine Blew Up: Ladysmith’s Day of Horror, October 5, 1909, when 32 men perished.

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PHOTO: These Extension miners were photographed at work in 1908; a year later, a devastating explosion would kill 32 of them. —BC Archives 

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A month short of 20 years before Air India Flight 182 was blown out of the sky by British Columbia-based terrorists, B,C, had its own aerial mass murder.

Mid-afternoon, July 8, 1965, CPA Flight 21, bound from Vancouver for Whitehorse, YT, exploded in the sky near 100 Mile House, crashing and killing all 52 persons aboard.

It’s B.C.’s worst mass murder and—unlike Air India—has been all but forgotten.

The sad and unsolved story of CPA Flight 21 in next week’s BC Chronicles.

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PHOTO: An American Airlines Douglas DC-6B similar to CP Air’s ill-fated CF-CUQ. —Wikipedia

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More than one seagoing lady of the night has called Victoria, B.C., home port over the years. Ladies of ill repute who’d ghost into harbour unannounced, rest and restore then, as the city slept, quietly weigh anchor for destinations unknown. 

To the curious, their masters and crew had little to say beyond a terse, “Bering Sea,” or equally vague “North Pacific.” Asked as to cargo, they’d grunt a muffled reference to “ballast,” and push on by.

So it was with the men of the schooner Halcyon. Unlike her namesake of Greek mythology, the noble kingfisher which calmed winter seas, this beautiful two-master created a storm wherever she sailed.

Her exciting story in next week’s BC Chronicles.

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PHOTO: This seagoing lady was, well, no lady. —BC Archives  

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‘He lay like a warrior taking his rest,
With his martial cloak around him.’

We haven’t heard from our old friend D.W. Higgins for a while. Not for want of material, I assure you, as my file for this pioneer journalist and one of B.C.’s all time great storytellers continues to grow. 

While skimming my hit list for another Chronicle I keep passing one that has always intrigued me, sad tale that it is. So, cutting to the chase, for next week the story of a man whose dramatic fall from glory, but for Higgins, would be totally unknown to us today. 

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PHOTO: Pioneer journalist D.W. Higgins is back this week with another fascinating tale of pioneer days. —Author’s collection 

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“May Day, May Day, May Day—!”

The distress call pierced the grey stillness of Feb. 18, 1965. Then the voice was cut off, and static reigned the airwaves...

But the frantic plea had been heard and, as cold and weary miners, existing on chocolate bars, clawed at a mountain with shovels and bare hands in search of buried comrades, one of the largest rescue operations in B.C. history was begun.

The incredible story of the Granduc Mine disaster in next week’s BC Chronicles.

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PHOTO: The Granduc Mine, 1980. —BC Archives

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“Mr. President: It is with much diffidence that after repeated urging on your part I undertook to contribute a paper to this society...”

So began, modestly, George Hope Johnston’s address to the Calgary Historical Society in February 1920.

But he wasn’t there to reminisce about Prairie history. He was there to talk about, in the words of a Calgary Herald reporter, the “wild old days” of 1880s East Kootenay, B.C.

Johnston’s recollections, repeated verbatim in the newspaper, the reporter assured readers, would interest and amuse all who read them.

As I’m sure they will interest and amuse readers of next week’s BC Chronicles.

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PHOTO: George Hope Johnston’s headstone. —findagrave.com

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Long before the famous war brides of the post Second World War there were the brides of colonial days; young British women,14-20, who gambled their futures by sailing halfway round the world to “the colonies” in hopes of finding husbands.

Those who landed in Victoria’s Inner Harbour in 1862 were, in the words of one of their own, “an odd assortment of females”.

The story of some of the 60 ladies of the bride ship Tynemouth in next week’s Chronicles.

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PHOTO: The Tynemouth was the largest of the bride ships used to transport prospective brides to the British colonies. —www.pixabay.com

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A full century and a quarter has passed since 19-year-old Edna Farnsworth died. Her suicide made headlines from Victoria to San Francisco. She had no money but was given an expensive, fancy plot in Ross Bay Cemetery.

Why such a fuss for a sex trade worker, one might ask? Why, all these years later, a public appeal to restore her grave?

The answer to this fascinating mystery in next week’s Chronicles.

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PHOTO: Not everyone buried in Ross Bay Cemetery is remembered, so why Edna Farnsworth?

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Eric Duncan is remembered for having written what has been described as “the most important document for the history of the Comox Valley,” From Shetland to Vancouver Island: Recollections of Seventy-Five Years. 

Published in Edinburgh in 1937, it’s a fine read but long out of print. Happily, I’ve had a copy—a first edition, to boot—in my library for years and have read it twice. It was, in fact, one of my earliest antiquarian book finds.

Recently, I scanned it again and found a chapter which I’m sure will please Chronicles readers, “Sketches of Some Pioneers and Old-Timers.”

That’s next week in the BC Chronicles.

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PHOTO: Pioneer Comox Valley chronicler Eric Duncan. —Author’s Collection

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So the late great B.C. historian B.A. McKelvie titled this manuscript, decades ago.

I just found it in my archives; I really must shuffle my files more often.

For those who don’t recognize his name, ‘Pinkie’ McKelvie was a leading provincial journalist and the foremost historian and writer of ‘popular’ B.C. history in the 1920s-’50s. He was gone when I, a kid, history buff and aspiring author/historian, discovered him during my first visit to the BC Archives while looking for such serious topics as lost treasures, shipwrecks, stagecoach robberies...

McKelvie had been there, done that, decades before me. Not only did he leave a legacy of his historical research and writings, he inspired me. He’d made a career of writing about our colourful past; why couldn’t I?

Sure, he’d had a day job as a senior reporter and editor in Vancouver and Victoria, but that was a mere detail and, millions and millions of words later, here we are!

Among the treasures in a large box of McKelvie’s personal papers—letters, documents, manuscripts and some photos—that the late family member Phyllis Bomford kindly gave me 15-20 years ago, are several typescripts that, so far as I know, have never been published.

I correct that in next week’s Chronicles with ‘Six Weeks of Death,” a rousing tale of shipwreck.

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PHOTO: Bruce and Mrs. McKelvie. —Courtesy Phyllis Bomford  

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April 1925 marked the highlight of a lifetime for 86-year-old prospector Bill Brown of Barkerville.

On his first visit ‘outside’ in 53 years, he saw his first moving picture show in Quesnel. “The actors and actresses were there on the stage,” Bill marvelled, “just as if they were there in real life, only they were not there at all.”

The guest of longtime Cariboo resident and historian Louis Labourdais, Brown said that he hadn’t realized such a thing was possible.

For more than half a century he’d been all but out of touch with the world beyond Barkerville and vicinity. Ever since his arrival in the spring of 1872, the six-foot tall, white-haired miner had picked and panned his living from the Cariboo’s once-rich gold creeks.

There have been 10s of 1000s of men like him in B.C.’s history.

Pioneers who, unknown to us today, helped to lay the foundation for those who followed. We’ll never know their stories, or even their names. But, every so often, one of them—in this case prospector Bill Brown—escapes obscurity if only momentariy from old newspaper clippings. 

Bill Brown’s story in next week’s BC Chronicles. 

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PHOTO: A group of “oldtimers” pose for posterity in Barkerville in 1907. Was Bill Brown one of them? —BC Archives 

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Back in 1861, the Crown Colony of British Columbia was hindered by a shortage of money of all types. 

At that time, the future Pacific province was supposed to be on the pound sterling of the Old Country. In reality, there was a shortage of coins and almost any coin of almost any realm was accepted if of gold or silver. 

After the discovery of gold in the Fraser River and the Cariboo, most newcomers to the colony were Americans who brought with them their own currency and coins. As well, Spanish dollars and currency issued by the Province of Canada (Upper and Lower) were legal tender throughout the colony.

The solution, thought Gov. James Douglas, was to standardize the colony’s monetary system by issuing currency and coin, and he issued an order-in-council authorizing $75,000 worth of British Columbia bills, and to establish the B.C. Mint and Assay office in New Westminster.  

The story of B.C.’s “lost” currency and its gold coins, now among the rarest and richest of collectibles, in next week’s Chronicles.

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PHOTO: The only two coins, 10 dollar and 20 dollar gold pieces, produced by the New Westminster Mint. —bankofcanadamuseum.ca  

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City Constable Alex Smith was at death’s door. It was New Year’s Day, 1896. Shot in the chest, he’d been rushed to Royal Jubilee Hospital where doctors announced that they could do little for him.

The bullet was lodged in his lung, surgery would kill him, and it was but a matter of time before he succumbed to hemorrhaging, blood poisoning or pneumonia.

As he lay dying, fellow officers of the Victoria Police Department realized they had a mystery on their hands.

The intriguing story behind this unsolved crime in next week’s British Columbia Chronicles.

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PHOTO: If Constable Smith died, his would be the third death in the line of duty for the Victoria Police Dept. —BC Archives

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Such it was called in a full-page story in the Vancouver Province in 1933.

A slight exaggeration, but a great story, all the same!

In this week’s feature story, guest writer Tom W. Parkin’s passing mention of the ‘Stolen Church’ sent me into my archives and there it is, the full story of this famous church-jacking that made newspaper headlines in its day. 

In next week’s Chronicles I let Charles Hayden tell you the tale of how Rufe Kimpton and fellow conspirators absconded with St. Peter’s Church, lock, stock and lectern, from the failing railway community of Donald, B.C.

That’s next week in the Chronicles.

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PHOTO: Revelstoke’s loss was Invermere’s gain—even though it had to be done illegally. —ColumbiaValley.com

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In February, Chronicles readers met guest columnist Tom W. Parkin (TW2 here at BCCs.ca) who wrote about hiking a stretch of the beleaguered E&N Railway. 

I’m pleased to say that he’ll be back next week with a photo feature on the little-known B.C. ghost town of Donald, a construction camp during the building of the CPR.

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PHOTO: The neglected Donald cemetery; what stories these weathered headstones can tell! —©Tom W. Parkin

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In the year and a-half since his arrival in Victoria, George Tomline Gordon had been appointed treasurer for the Crown Colony of Vancouver Island, elected the member for Esquimalt in the Legislative Assembly, and elected commanding officer of the No. 1 Company, Vancouver Island  Volunteer Rifle Corps. He had a beautiful wife, a large, loving family and a fine farm. 

But the knock on the door of Twin Oaks, the night before Christmas 1861, was not that of friends or carollers. It was Police Supt. Horace Smith with a warrant for Gordon's arrest. When, minutes later, sleigh bells rang for George Gordon, they were on Smith's horse-drawn paddy wagon.

That's next week on the BC Chronicles.

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PHOTO: Journalist and political enemy Amor De Cosmos soon found a way to get even for Gordon's having beaten him at the polls.

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Officially, the Second World War ended with Japan’s surrender, 80 years ago. In at least one sense, however, the war goes on.

Although no hostile action was fought on Canadian, let alone British Columbia soil, we too have a history of live ordnance turning up in the unlikeliest of places; at least thrice, it has killed.
As surprising as it may seem, as recently as in 2012 the Victoria Times Colonist felt compelled to editorialize on the need to “recover leftover bombs”.

The story of B.C.’s deadly war against live armaments and munitions from past wars in next week’s Chronicles.

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PHOTO: Bomb disposal expert Sergeant Rupert Frere checks the fuse on an unexploded 1000-pound bomb at a building site. — https://okok1111111111.blogspot.com/2015/03/bomb-disposal-expert.html

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If there is a single name that is synonymous with lost treasure in British Columbia that would have to be Neville Langrell (Bill) Barlee, school teacher, politician, entrepreneur, environmentalist, historian, writer, publisher, prospector and treasure hunter extraordinaire.

By all appearances, he scored at almost everything he did or touched.

Bill Barlee died in 2012 in his 80th year after a lengthy illness. But his legacy, on television re-runs and in the printed word, lives on.

Meet the man who spent the best of his adult years chasing (and finding) pots of gold at the end of rainbows in next week’s Chronicles.

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PHOTO: Bill Barlee, second from right, brothers and friends play at an abandoned mine in Rossland. What a childhood! —BC Archives 

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As told in last week’s Chronicles, Morris Moss was as colourful an adventurer as they come. Fur trader, mining speculator and customs officer, he survived shipwreck, at least one murder attempt, chased bootleggers, became embroiled in the aftermath of the Chilcotin War, was caught up in the Pelagic Sealing controversy, married, had two children, then— disappeared.

In short, never a dull moment for Morris Moss whose name became a household word throughout the province and particularly in Victoria.

Which explains the widespread interest in the mystery that surrounded his quiet departure from B.C. and reports of his death by misadventure below the border. Taken straight from the pages of the Colonist, it reads almost as a who-dun-it. 

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PHOTO: London-born, handsome and rich, Moss landed in British Columbia when only 20, drawn halfway around the world by reports of the fabulous gold strikes at Barkerville. —BC Archives

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We don’t cherish our heroes in Canada.

Oh, briefly perhaps, at the moment of their celebrity, but as the years pass so do they—into the mists of time and forgetfulness.

I can’t offer a better example than Morris Moss who once was described as “one of the most colourful figures this coast has ever seen”.

Morris who?

Let me tell you about one of the most remarkable British Columbian pioneers of all, Morris Moss—adventurer, fur trader, law officer, sealer, miner and synagogue president—in next week’s—repeat, this time for 100 percent guaranteed sure, or your money back—Chronicles.

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PHOTO: In American folklore Morris Moss would be a Davy Crockett. —BC Archives

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