C.H. Dickie: Out of the Past

You’re not likely to find Charles Herbert Dickie’s memoir, Out of the Past, “by an M.P.,” in a used book store—or even online.

Dedicated to the memory of carefree friends, it measures 3.5 inches by five, and 128 pages, it’s just 20,000 words in length, more comparable to an e-book than to a pocket book, and it’s stapled rather than bound. All in all, it’s pretty small and likely was printed on the cheap.

But make no mistake: It’s a great read and of particular interest to students of Cowichan Valley and British Columbia mining history.

A member of the B.C. Provincial Legislature for a single term, then a Member of Parliament for Nanaimo for 14 years, his background as a sheriff in Michigan, as a fireman with the Esquimalt & Nanaimo Railway, as a saloonkeeper in Duncan, as the principal owner of the Richard III copper mine on Mount Sicker, and as a fortune hunter in the Stewart River wilds of northern B.C., his is a fascinating story.

Best of all, he tells it well. Dickie was smart, shrewd, enterprising and never seems to have lost his sense of humour, not even when he all but lost most of the small fortune he’d, ever so briefly, acquired during Cowichan’s copper boom.

Towards the end of his full life, he joked that every mine he’d ever invested in had proved to be a bottomless pit, money-wise.

What follows is the first instalment of Dickie’s rare memoir. I’ve left editing to a minimum so as to let him tell you his story in his own words. I’ve added footnotes where I felt it necessary, either to make more understandable to the modern reader, or to fill in what I considered to be blanks in certain chapters.

In one chapter only, I’ve deleted references to people of other races which, today, would be considered racist. Dickie wasn’t perfect. He was a man of his times, when the British Empire was largely built at the expense of its coloured dominions and the attitudes of white supremacy prevailed.

That said, I really like C.H. Dickie. And I think you will, too, when you read his look back at an amazing and adventurous career. He wasn’t perfect—who is? But, overall, he’s one of our pioneers who’s worthy of remembrance and respect.

* * * * *