The Chronicles Blog

Tragedy was an inevitable aspect of pioneer life and the Alberni Valley had its share.

The late Charles Taylor, introduced in last week’s BCChronicles, was the first person I ever interviewed—initially at the urging of my employer, the Victoria Colonist, then, when he and I became unlikely friends, by choice.

I say unlikely because he was 85, I a very green 19.

But we clicked and the result was a brief series of historical articles on little-known people and events of Alberni Valley history. More of Charles Taylor’s enjoyable reminiscences in next week’s Chronicles.

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PHOTO: Life was hard on the frontier in the ‘good old days,’ as these loggers could surely have attested. But who was there to take down their stories? Fortunately for posterity, Charles Taylor began to record Alberni history during the final years of his retirement in Victoria in the early 1960s. —BC Archives

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Everyone has to start somewhere, to state the obvious.

In my case it was in the lowly capacity of copyboy with The Daily Colonist long before its merger with the Victoria Daily Times—two years of my doing everything and anything but writing, at least on company time.

Any writing I did was on my own dime.

But knowing and getting along well with editor John Shaw no doubt helped me make my first freelance sale to the paper’s Sunday edition, The Islander. This led to assignments—interviewing people suggested to Shaw and to the city desk but who weren’t considered newsworthy enough to justify a reporter’s time.

Victoria was a retirement Mecca in those days and many seniors could tell of incredible experiences and adventures, including service in both world wars—if only they had a way to share their stories. Some actually tried writing their memoirs.

But they’d spent their working lives as loggers, sea captains, army officers...they weren’t professional writers.

Neither was I but, yet, but I was better at it than they were. So came the day that I girded my young loins and made my first contact with an elderly gentleman.

Next week in the Chronicles, some of Charles Taylor’s great stories about his childhood and the colourful pioneers of the Albernis of a century and more ago.

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PHOTO: Many 1960s Victorians were retired and a treasure trove of great stories for those willing to seek them out and to listen. —www.flickr.com

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(Conclusion)

As we’ve seen, to Joseph Camille Claus goes the dubious honour of committing “the first cold-blooded premeditated murder...in the frozen north,” in this case the Stikine River country.

According to the Victoria Colonist, anyway. Claus, it should be noted, had yet to face trial let alone be convicted by a jury of his peers.

But the circumstantial evidence, so far as was known in Victoria in the spring of 1898, was pretty damning. The bodies of Claus’s prospecting partners, Charles Hendrickson and James Burns had been found axed and shot to death, and a man matching Claus’s description had been seen fleeing the scene.

Just a month before, the partners had left Nanaimo to seek their fortunes in the Klondike gold rush. Soon Claus would be back in Nanaimo to stand trial and, if found guilty, face a hangman’s noose.

Next week in the British Columbia Chronicles, the conclusion to this fascinating mystery of a century and a-quarter ago.

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PHOTO: The mighty Stikine River where gold seekers risked life and limb in 1898 has become a tourist Mecca. —peakadvisor.com

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Whatever possessed Joseph Claus to think he’d get away with murdering and robbing his prospecting partners in the frozen Stikine River country in 1898?

Sure, they were out of sight of prying eyes. But, whichever direction he chose to flee, he had miles to go through winter snows. And it wasn’t as if he had the wilderness to himself, there were others on the trail—including officers of the B.C. Provincial Police.

We can only conclude that he weighed his options and acted accordingly. Too bad for partners Hendrickson and Burns whose brutal demise earned them the dubious distinction of being victims of “the first cold-blooded premeditated murder...in the frozen north”.

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PHOTO: Accused murderer Joseph Claus went from Nanaimo to the Stikine River then back to Nanaimo and a jail cell. —BC Archives

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‘I am camped on the scene of a double murder committed this week.’

If it seems to be a long way from the frozen reaches of northwestern British Columbia’s Stikine River to Nanaimo, Vancouver Island, it is. But no greater than the fabled long arm of the law, as was amply shown in June 1898 when 12 good citizens took their places in the jury box in a Nanaimo courtroom.

They were there to try Joseph Camille Claus for murder. As it happened, the trial’s taking place in Nanaimo brought the case full circle–Claus was from Nanoose and that’s where his story begins.

It’s one of B.C.’s lesser-known (by which I mean, least written about) homicides of old. Which is strange, given its Klondike gold rush backdrop and remarkable police work.

I’m sure you’ll agree after you read next week’s Chronicle.

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PHOTO: How many who visit Nanaimo City Hall today realize that they’re walking over where once stood a gallows that saw considerable use over the decades? —Courtesy of Belinda Wright

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Last year, when telling the saga of the Leech River gold rush of 1864, I referred to it as Vancouver Island’s only real gold rush.

By that I meant gold rush in the generally accepted sense of a wild stampede of fortune seekers converging from all directions in a frenzy upon some designated location.

Like the Fraser River and Cariboo gold rushes, for example.

Certainly, the Island’s west coast Zeballos excitement of the 1930s had most of the ingredients of a rush, a stampede. The biggest difference was that, unlike the Leech and Fraser rivers and the Cariboo, which were placer mining (panning, sluicing, dredging gold from rivers and alluvial gravels), Zeballos required hard rock mining—drilling, blasting and tunnelling into solid mountainsides.

This, of course, cost money. It required manpower and expensive materials that exceeded the skills and pocketbooks of the classic lone prospector with his gold pan and burro.

But it was exciting, all the same, as you’ll see in next week’s Chronicles.

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PHOTO: ‘Downtown’ Zeballos with its plank main street in the 1930s. —BC Archives

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Communities—villages, towns, sometimes even cities—can come and go. Then we call them ghost towns.

British Columbia has had its share—100s of them, in fact. That said, hands up Chronicles readers who can name, say, six of them. Two? One?

Of the province’s many lost communities, two have achieved legendary even mythic status: Phoenix, which, unlike its namesake, never did rise from the ashes, and Wahlachin.

Phoenix, because, unlike most of the province’s here today, gone tomorrow communities, it was in every sense of the word—size, population and infrastructure—a city.

Wahlachin, because it was built upon, of all things, a dream. It literally defied commonsense and paid dearly when changing circumstances and harsh reality finally kicked in.

The story of ill-fated Wahlachin in next week’s Chronicles.

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PHOTO: Digging an irrigation ditch at Wahlachin. —Wikipedia

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Over the years I’ve collected, among other things, trade cards (see below) and bottles.

Trade cards drew my interest as examples of the printing and advertising arts, and bottles, well, bottles were fun—digging up history—and they complemented trade cards because they’d contained patent medicines and liquor.

Bottles, trade cards, labels and liquor all went together in the heyday of patent medicines which—so their makers claimed—could cure all that ailed you. This was mostly blarney at best, and an outright lie that could have lethal results at worst,

Mrs. Winslow’s soothing syrup, for example, contained so much morphine that it killed an unknown number babies whose mothers had trustingly dosed them.

It’s a fascinating subject as we’ll see in next week’s Chronicles.

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PHOTO: This “medicine” has gone down in medical history as “the baby killer”. —artefact.museumofhealthcare.ca

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As a lifelong practitioner of the written word, it galls me to have to admit the truth of that old expression, “A picture is worth a thousand words.”

But, as that more modern and wretched saying goes, “It is what it is.”

I’ve been thinking about what photography has meant to recording history and how it has ultimately changed our lives. After primitive beginnings such as the daguerreotype came the cumbersome large-format camera that required a tripod to hold it still for its slow exposures, followed by messy wet processing in a darkroom.

All of this required a strong work ethic not to mention artistry.

Today, it’s a cultural phenomenon: mini-cameras, smart phones and computers with their instantaneous, effortless imagery—just point and click. Absolutely anyone can take a decent photo today and capture not just scenes and portraits but events as they’re occurring.

But, of course, it has been a long road and many of the greatest photographs of the past century and a-half were taken with difficulty, sometimes at great personal risk, and involved not only talent and skill but intensive thought and effort. Thus it’s only right that some pioneer photographers have achieved near-legendary status.

One of them is British Columbia’s own Hannah Maynard, a true photographic innovator who broke new ground with her artistic experimentation. Also a truly remarkable lady, as we’ll see in next week’s British Columbia Chronicles.

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PHOTO: The amazing Hannah Maynard on two wheels. She probably was more comfortable in her studio and darkroom. —BC Archives

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This French-American character was right out of a dime novel.

In his less than 60 years he was everything from dishwasher, pimp and Foreign Legionnaire to the friend of British royalty and the fifth richest man in the U.S.

Yet, for all these achievements, he died, supposedly by his own hand, in a prison cell while awaiting trial for treason.

Something that neither he nor anyone else could have foreseen in 1934, when he came to British Columbia in charge of his grandly named Bedaux Canadian Sub-Arctic Expedition. It was really a promotional tour for Citroen half-track cars, but an incredible tour through virgin wilderness of northern B.C. all the same.

The saga of the Bedaux overland expedition in next week’s Chronicles.

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PHOTO: Rich adventurer Charles Bedaux, left, watches as a film crew documents his overland expedition in northern B.C. —Frank Swannell photo, BC Archives

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Pioneer British Columbians could be a weird and wonderful lot, as the Chronicles have often illustrated in the past.

Perhaps it isn’t surprising, then, that some of the earlier chroniclers who recorded for posterity the exploits of our more colourful pioneers were every bit as intriguing—sometimes even more so—than many of their subjects.

Certainly the good Rev. Matthew MacFie, FRGS, qualifies in this category.

He was smart, learned and travelled. He wrote a massive book on Vancouver Island and British Columbia and captured the tempo of gold rush Victoria.

With eagle eye MacFie observed, analyzed and criticized all those with whom he came in contact during his five-year-long residency, from the highest office in the land to the lowest of 1860s frontier society.

What a shame that this man of the cloth with so much to work from chose to look at the world through a very small glass...

That’s next week in the Cowichan Chronicles.

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PHOTO: Rev. Matthew MacFie even looked the part of a grumpy old man.— www.pinterest.com

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The box car rolled with the increasing motion of the barge, each gust of wind rocking it more violently in its bed of rails. Then it began to roll—through the guard rails and into the dark depths of the lake...

That was in the winter of 1904.

But the boxcar, long gone and deep in the depths of Slocan Lake, has never been forgotten because of its reputed cargo—a fortune in silver bullion.

Several attempts at salvage have been made over the years, some partially successful. But the legend lives on, inspiring film makers in recent years to explore the eerie dark of Slocan Lake, not just for silver bars but for a ‘ghost’ locomotive.

It all adds up to B.C. history in technicolor, and it’s next week in the Chronicles.

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PHOTO: The CPR tug Rosebery and barge breaking the ice on Slocan Lake. —BC Archives photo courtesy of Lost Kootenays

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Men wept unashamedly, women swooned and young gentlemen about town threw kisses and flowers when Madame Anna Bishop, the toast of three continents and perhaps the most widely travelled opera singer of the 19th century, sang.

With her wistful Home Sweet Home, her heartrending My Bud in Heaven, and the carefree Dashing White Sergeant, she captivated legions from London to Melbourne to San Francisco for half a century.

When, finally, this famous lady of song visited Victoria in 1873, the old Theatre Royal was packed for 10 glittering nights. No one in the audiences had an inkling as to what she was really thinking—that outpost Victoria meant the sorrow of a lifetime

That’s next week in the Chronicles.

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PHOTO: Mme. Ana Bishop, the toast of three continents. —Wikipedia

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Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines Utopia as “a place of ideal perfection especially in laws, government and social conditions; an impractical scheme for social improvement; an imaginary and indefinitely remote place.”

The Cambridge Dictionary is much more informal: “Try and imagine a perfect society, a utopia, in which the government really got everything right...”

Alas, Merriam-Webster is closer to the mark with “an impractical scheme for social improvement; an imaginary....place.” So it proved, time and again, to the bitter disappointment of all parties concerned, the records show.

There have been innumerable attempts at founding the perfect society in provincial history, probably the best known being Sointula, the ill-fated Finnish colony on Malcolm Island. Northwest coast Vancouver Island’s Cape Scott colony was a more pragmatic approach to achieving social and economic independence but it, too, failed, albeit for reasons other than internal discord.

There were others. One of them, a century-plus ago, attracted young William Kipling of Victoria who passionately believed “in all schemes having for their object the betterment of the condition of the workingman”.

Noble sentiments, indeed. What a shame that they cost him his life. That’s next week in the British Columbia Chronicles.

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PHOTO: Malcolm Island’s controversial commune founder Matti Kurrika. As did so many other ‘Utopias,’ his Sointula failed. —https://sointulamuseum.ca/sointula-history

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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

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How better to close out the year than with a positive story—one that leaves readers with a bit of a warm glow, a sense of appreciation for what has been but is no more. A story without tragedy or violence, just about good human interest.

The hero of this Chronicle is of the seagoing variety.

It shouldn’t come as a real surprise that ships are feminine; even if not truly animate, they have personalities, as any real mariner will tell you. Here, on the Pacific Coast, we long had the Canadian Pacific’s Princess fleet which ranged from humble working class to true royalty.

Many were admired for their graceful lines, their comfortable passenger accommodation with white linens and polished silverware, and for their dependability in waters that can be lethal when aroused.

There were 17 coastal Princesses over the decades and many are still remembered with fondness.

Of them all, the Princess Maquinna truly captured the affections of crew and passengers. So much so that Ian Kennedy has just written a book about her. Its very title spells it out: The Best Loved Boat.

So, to close out 2023, a tribute to the long gone but not forgotten Princess Maquinna.

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PHOTO: She certainly wasn’t the most attractive of the CPR’s coastal steamships but she’s fondly remembered, most recently in a book, The Best Loved Boat. —Vancouver City Archives

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Is it really that time of year again? Where does time go...?

So, next week, the Chronicles will observe the coming Yuletide with a look back at Christmas as it was celebrated a century ago in the Cowichan Valley, and as recounted by Margaret Williams in 1971.

It was a different world back then. Life, or so it seems to us now, was slower and simpler, oriented more to family and friends and traditions than to the comparative frenzy and commercial glitz of today.

So be it; it is what it is, as that tiresome expression goes.

Next week, a look back at Christmas before the world went to war for the first time, back to when country life, not just in Cowichan but throughout B.C., seems almost idyllic by today’s standards.

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PHOTO: I found this great photo, unframed, at a local flea market, years ago. Alas, there’s nothing on the back to give it provenance. The little girl’s outfit could be, what, 1940s or ‘50s? The expression on her face, the look in her eyes, was nothing like I experienced as a toddler when my mother took me to see Santa in the front window of the Hudson’s Bay Co. in Victoria. He seemed a giant to me, and frightening, rather than friendly. What did I want for Christmas? I just wanted to go home! —Author’s Collection

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When we glance at history, be it that of British Columbia or anywhere else, it’s easy to think that it involved mostly men. And you’d be right.

Going simply by numbers, B.C. was indeed a man’s world well into the 19th century. Perhaps this was never more so than during the fabled Cariboo gold rush of the 1860s.

But there were exceptions, outstanding exceptions, and I’m not talking about hurdy-gurdy girls.

Take Madame Fanny Bendixen, for example, who fled from being a kept woman in San Francisco to owning three successful saloons in the Cariboo.

This was no easy feat in a gold rush composed of men of all types and backgrounds. That she succeeded as a business woman in the sometimes ruthless saloon business affirms her strength of character and has marked her down in provincial history as being one-of-a-kind.

Fanny Bendixen has been written about by numerous historical writers over the years but never in any real depth. You’ll come to know the real Madame B. in next week’s Chronicles.

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PHOTO: From the Barbary Coast of San Francisco to Victoria to Barkerville, Fanny Bendixen showed that no man was going to push her around. —By Charles Gentile / Library and Archives Canada / C-088919 - http://www.collectionscanada.ca/index-e.html, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=3442202

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(Part 2)
As we’ve seen, the old steamer Clara Nevada appeared to be doomed from the moment she cleared her Seattle dock in February 1898. Bound for the Klondike gold rush with passengers and freight, she somehow made it to Skagway.

It was on her return trip, this time with a full load of 100 passengers, that she struck uncharted Eldred Rock in Alaska’s infamous Lynn Canal and was lost with all aboard.

Or, so it seemed at the time!

Almost all of those who were aboard, passengers and crew, died in the wreck, that much appears to be certain. But perhaps not everyone, according to tantalizing evidence that has come to light over the past 125 years.

Her captain, to name one, appears not to have gone down with his ship but to have died years later in his hometown of old age!

How could that possibly be?

And what of the Clara Nevada’s reputedly rich cargo of gold, worth millions of dollars today?

It’s one of those stories that, as Alice of Wonderland fame said, gets curiouser and curiouser....

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

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PHOTO: The S.S. Clara Nevada was unfit to sail, but sail she did—into disaster—because of the frantic need for shipping during the Klondike gold rush. This hectic Seattle dock scene gives an idea of the excitement that prevailed at the time. —Seattle Public Library

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Honestly, folks, I don’t make this stuff up. I don’t have the imagination.

Take this story, for example:

“The Clara Nevada is probably America’s coldest cold case file. It is also the largest robbery in American history, twice the size of the Brink’s Job, and was the largest mass murder in American history until the bombing of the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City in 1995...”

We’re talking about a shipwreck!

I first wrote about the last voyage of the ill-fated Clara Nevada in the early 1970’s, for one of my first books. Shipwrecks have fascinated me since childhood but, back then, I had no idea that I’d barely scratched the surface.

It’s one of those rare stories that, rather than fade away, grow with the passage of time...

That’s next week in the Chronicles.

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PHOTO: The former U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey ship Hassler achieved infamy as one of a ragtag fleet of ships, sound and otherwise, that were pressed into service as passenger vessels during the hectic Klondike gold rush. —Wikipedia

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