From the Pen of ‘J.N.T.’

I’ve always been drawn to autobiographies—life stories spoken from the horse’s mouth, so to speak.

One can argue that a potential flaw is their self-serving lack of objectivity, even to the point of being completely dishonest. (As long practised by retired politicians and generals, if I may allow my cynicism to intrude.)

But how many people keep diaries or journals with anything but a factual record of their experiences and observations in mind?

This is when their reminiscences become invaluable: historic events witnessed or experienced firsthand. No one—I say this as one who’s written 1000s of third hand biographical texts—can tell us what it really was like better than someone who was there, someone who didn’t just observe from the side but who actively participated.

Someone who walked the talk.

Someone like pioneer mariner and businessman James Nealon Thain, the subject of our first Chronicle for 2024.

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PHOTO: Even today, surveying can be gruelling work. But never more so than it was back in James Thain’s day during the laying out of the Canadian Pacific Railway across Canada to its westernmost province, British Columbia. —www.pinterest.com