The Chronicles Blog

As I admitted last week, too late did I realize I had the perfect play on the popular Spaghetti western movie title, The Good, The Bad and The Ugly.

But with a difference—women. 

By too late, I meant the correct sequence: I’d already led with Belle Castle, The Bad (in the sense she was a ‘fallen’ woman who redeemed herself too late for love). making Nellie Cashman, The Good, the second instalment by default. 

But now we’re back on track now with The Ugly. 

Chronicles readers familiar with this iconic movie will remember that Clint Eastwood was The Good (in name if not in fact), Eli Wallach (who stole the show in my opinion) was The Bad, and Lee Van Cleef (“the man with no eyes”) was The Ugly.

But back to the Chronicles: If Nell was The Good and Belle The Bad, that leaves Agnes as The Ugly. I’m withholding her full name so readers can’t Google her and steal my thunder. 

You can read all about her in next week’s Chronicles.

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This week is the sad story of Belle Castle, a fallen angel of the Cariboo.

Only after I’d committed to this schedule did I realize I had the perfect makings for a “Good, Bad and Ugly” series with a difference—women!

All three ladies had a strong Cariboo connection, all three fit the Spaghetti western prototype that made the good, the bad and ugly a cliche—but now it’s too late for me to correct the sequence. What to do?

The solution: It is what it is. For this week, “The Bad.” Next week, “The Good.” Then, two weeks from now, “The Ugly.”

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PHOTO: There weren’t very many women in the Cariboo gold fields in the early days other than dance hall—hurdy gurdy—girls. Lonely miners such as these often spent small fortunes to whirl them around a saloon dance floor. —BC Archives

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Her real name and where she came from, no one knew. But that she’d been beautiful and a lady, all were agreed. Upon her death in a lonely B.C. mining camp, forsaken by all but the man who loved her—and the rose tree she’d nurtured and cherished with a mother’s devotion—her secret went with her to the little cemetery on the hillside.

Today, even her grave site is unknown and the mystery of Belle Castle, as she called herself, remains safe with the ages.

That’s next week in the Chronicles.

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PHOTO: From around the world, they came to Cariboo in search of gold. A lucky few struck it rich; most had to settle for workman’s wages or return home, broke and disappointed. Single women had few choices other than to serve as cooks or hurdy gurdy (dancehall) girls. But all of them had stories to tell... —BC Archives

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I really wanted to begin the new year with more of an upbeat story. But...

I also didn’t want to do another shipwreck so soon after the S.S. M.G. Zalinski, either. But...

I was reminded of the poor Cowan during a recent visit to Ross Bay Cemetery where I noticed Capt. Thompson’s headstone.

The story of the four-masted steel sailing ship Janet Cowan suits this time of year as she was wrecked with loss off life at about the 19 kilometre mark of the West Coast Trail on New Year’s Day, 1895.

So...the sad story of the ill-fated Janet Cowan in next week’s Chronicles.

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PHOTO: Ships of sail had little chance if they strayed off course along Vancouver Island’s western shore which was long known as the ‘Graveyard of the Pacific,’ and for “a wreck for every mile”. —Cowichan Valley Citizen

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It should come as no surprise that the yuletide spirit has influenced our mapmakers. In British Columbia it can be found, in variations, at least 18 times.

The Cassiar has its Christmas Creek, Lillooet region its Christmas Creek, Christmas and Tiny Tim lakes, and Revelstoke its Christmas Island. Up-coast, we have Yule Lake and Rock. Also scattered about the province are nine Noels, although few if any of these have any connection to the holiday as Noel is also a surname.

On Vancouver Island there’s Christmas Point on the west side of the Malahat’s Finlayson Arm, and Victoria’s Christmas Hill. And that’s pretty much it, B.C. mapmakers, alas, not having been moved by the festive season as have their counterparts in other provinces.
Mind you, we did come close at least once: St. Nicholas Peak. So-named by a surveyor around the turn of the last century because its profile reminded him of that jolly gentleman, it’s 25 miles north of Kicking Horse Pass—just over the B.C.-Alberta border. Our loss is the wild rose province’s gain.

A yuletide holiday look at our maps in next week’s Chronicles.

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PHOTO: —clipart-library.com

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More than three-quarters of a century after she sank in B.C.’s remote Grenville Channel, an American army transport is back in the news.

Oil is leaking from the wreck of the S.S. Brigadier General M.G. Zalinski, posing an immediate environmental threat that must be dealt with, according to the Canadian Coast Guard. This, despite the fact that 44,000 litres of heavy oil and 319,000 litres of oily water were successfully extracted from the wreck nine years ago.

An estimated 27,000 litres of oil remain within the hulk which sits on a rocky ledge about six and-half fathoms (40 metres) below the surface.

It should come as no surprise that the underwater wreckage continues to deteriorate as the Zalinski was built way back in 1919. She’s one of several B.C. shipwrecks that continue to haunt us from the grave.

The story of the ill-starred Brigadier Zalinski in next week’s Chronicles.

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PHOTO: The Zalinski, in the foreground, has been underwater since 1946 and has been leaking oil for decades with more feared to come. —www.navsource.org/archives

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From the man who brought us those memorable eccentrics, Messrs. David Copperfield, Oliver Twist, Barnaby Rudge, Mr. Pickwick and Company—there came to Victoria in 1868 the slight figure, in flesh and in fact, of one Acting Lieut. Sydney Smith Haldimand Dickens, RN.

For those unacquainted with the literary classics, this junior officer of Her Majesty’s Royal Navy was the fifth son of no less a personage than Charles Dickens, celebrated novelist. Or, as young Sydney became to Victorians, if ever so briefly, ‘Vindicator.’

As the son of the greatest novelist of the day, much was expected of young Sydney. Was he up to it?

You’ll find out in in next week’s Chronicle.

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PHOTO: —Wikipedia

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(Conclusion)
It’s one of the Cariboo’s greatest mysteries—whatever became of the Halden family, Arthur, Adah and Stanley?

According to hired hand David Arthur Clark, they’d left their Quesnel farm in October 1920 to attend Arthur’s brother’s funeral in Spokane. But there was no brother in Spokane.

As we’ve seen, B.C. Provincial Police Constable George Greenwood was convinced that Clark had murdered the family to take possession of their farm. All he had to do was prove it!

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

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PHOTO: You won’t find headstones or a plot for the Haldens in the Quesnel cemetery because their remains have never been found. —BCA

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Part 2

So far in their investigation of the missing Halden family, all the provincial police could do was charge farm hand David Clark with the theft and possession of his employer’s jewellery.

The officer in charge in Quesnel, Constable G.H. Greenwood, needed more, much more, to make a case of murder stick. He was determined to dig up every square inch of Grand View Farm and dismantle the house, board by board, if he had to.

That’s next week in the Chronicles.

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PHOTO: Because of their magnificent view of the confluence of the Fraser and Quesnel rivers, the Haldens had named their acreage two miles east of Quesnel township, Grand View Farm. —www.pinterest.com

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NOTICE!

TO ADAH HALDEN AND ARTHUR HALDEN: 

Take notice that you have been sued in the Country Court, holden at Quesnel, by David Arthur Clark, and that a copy of the summons has been filed for you in the Quesnel Registry of the said Court. You are required to dispute the said action by filing a dispute note in the said Registry within twenty days of the first appearance of this advertisement. 

EDGAR C. LUNN,

Registrar.

First appearance of advertisement is on the 8th day of January, 1921. 

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Such was the legal notice posted in the Quesnel Cariboo Observer on Jan. 8, 1921. There’s nothing really out of the ordinary about this legal advertisement of a century ago. 

But there is something very, very unique about this particular advertisement in the 1921 Quesnel newspaper. 

Although it wasn’t widely known, Adah and Arthur Halden, and their teenage son, had gone missing; had been missing, in fact, for almost six months. No wonder then that David Clark, their hired hand, who’d granted them a large loan, wanted to track them down or recover the money he claimed they owed him.

The police, it appeared, had come to suspect the Haldens of having absconded with Clark’s hard-earned money. Indeed, their suspicions had been aroused. But B.C. Provincial Police Officer Greenwood believed that there was more—much more—than met the eye in their disappearance. 

There was, indeed, as you’ll read in next week’s Chronicles.

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PHOTO: Downtown Quesnel in the 1920s. The missing Halden family lived on the outskirts. —www.pinterest.com 

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Tuesday’s issue of the Cowichan Valley Citizen marked the 25th year that I’ve written the RemembranceDay edition for this Duncan newspaper—a quarter-century-long labour of love.

For next week’s Chronicles, it’s a visit to the CFB Esquimalt Naval and Military Museum, in photos. This amazing place, even though situated within Esquimalt naval base, is open to the public, seven days a week, 10:00 to 3: 30 except on statutory holidays, at the cost of a donation.

Canada’s naval contribution in World War Two, for anyone who has to be reminded, is that we went from a handful of secondhand destroyers to having the world’s third largest navy in just six years! Very few of those who served were career naval officers and ratings; rather, they were office workers, field hands, college students—former civilians who volunteered to serve King and Country at a time of national crisis, despite having little or no previous seagoing experience.

Think of it: from office, factory floor or wheat field to the deck or the engine room of a heaving corvette or destroyer in the middle of the stormy North Atlantic in a matter of a few months! And they served well, as the records show, although at great cost to ships and seamen.

The Esquimalt Museum also honours the Canadian Merchant Marine, those civilian heroes who sailed unarmed ships to deliver vital arms, food and fuel to a beleaguered Great Britain.

Make no mistake: remembering the 10s of 1000s of men and women who served during the World Wars, Korea and with United Nations peacekeeping missions doesn’t glorify war, it’s expressing a debt of gratitude.

That’s next week in the Chronicles. Lest we forget.

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PHOTO: One of the life-like displays that capture what it was really like on, in tise case, a small naval ship during the Second World War.

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