The Chronicles Blog

Victoria entered the air age with a crash, 111 years ago.

During Carnival Week, August 1913, performing American aviator Milton Bryant plummeted to his death in downtown Victoria.

The Panama Canal had just opened, signalling increased maritime commerce for the length of the Pacific Coast, and the city was experiencing a real estate boom. B.C.’s capital was, in the words of one newspaper, “bursting at the seams”.

Hence Carnival Week, with activities ranging from a parade and a concert, numerous sporting events, to the stars of the show, a bi-plane and gas-filled balloon.

The resulting tragedy would make Canadian aviation history.

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PHOTO: Stunt flying over private residences doesn’t always work out well. —BC Archives

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In mid-June, 91-year-old Lou Lessard of Langley attended the 66th annual memorial for the 19 steelworkers and a rescuer who died in the horrendous collapse, June 17, 1958, of Vancouver’s Second Narrows Bridge.

The Burrard Inlet bridge is now known as the Ironworkers Memorial Second Narrows Crossing.

Mr. Lessard, a 25-year-old steelworker that day, was one of those who narrowly escaped with his life.

The dramatic story of that tragic June day in next week’s Chronicles.

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PHOTO: It’s hard to believe that anyone survived in this tangle of collapsed steel. —Vancouver Sun photo

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Fame can be a fleeting thing—today’s “celebrity,” tomorrow’s nonentity. It can get worse than that—yesterday’s hero, today’s heel!

Even though he has a British Columbia mountain named for him, if you google Andrew Onderdonk, he gets little mention beyond the first two listings of several pages of other Onderdonks which include members of his own family, and doctors and lawyers, etc.

There’s no denying that time not only passes—but times change. Once celebrated for his building of much of the Canadian Pacific Railway through the Fraser Canyon, there’s no denying Onderdonk’s engineering abilities or his strength of character even a full century and a-half later.

What has come under the glass in latter years is his treatment of the army of Chinese labourers he imported to blast his way through the mountains.

A look at Andrew Onderdonk, engineer extraordinaire and—in the eyes of some—villain, in next week’s Chronicles.

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PHOTO: Andrew Onderdonk. —Vancouver City Archives

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Losing his temper, he seized the prisoner by the throat and began shaking him violently...

During his amazing career which spanned over half a century and ranged from prime minister’s drawing room to frontier jail cell, Stuart Alexander Henderson was celebrated as the greatest Canadian criminal lawyer of his age.

His death, aged 81, made the front page of the New York Times.

His is a heckuva story and it’s next week’s BC Chronicle.

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PHOTO: Stuart Henderson, the man known as Canada’s Clarence Darrow. —BC Archives 

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Author, sportsman, dreamer. Such seems to have been William Adolph Baillie-Grohman.

He was rich, too, and it was while hunting mountain goats in the West Kootenays in 1882 that he had his inspiration.

Too bad for him.

The fascinating story of Baillie-Grohan’s ill-fated grasp for greatness in next week’s Chronicles.

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PHOTO: Big game hunter and visionary W.A. Baillie-Grohman. —W.A. Baillie-Grohman

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While at Ross Bay Cemetery last week it occurred to me to check out a subject long of interest to me: Billy Barker, the namesake for Cariboo’s Barkerville.

I had to smile—Billy’s an RBC ‘star,’ having an end-of-the-row marker denoting his final resting place. Better yet, he has a handsome and expensive bronze marker giving a brief biography. What a far cry from the time of his death in Victoria’s Old Men’s Home for indigents. Billy’s grave is in the Potter’s Field section of the cemetery which he shares with other penniless wards of the state.

Mind you, it’s prime waterfront with a sweeping view of Juan de Fuca Strait and the Olympic Mountains.

The man who made a king’s fortune, married unwisely and blew it all, left us, besides a great story and his Mainland namesake, this line from the song he liked to sing: “Go away girls or I’ll tousle your curls...”

It sums up Billy to a T.

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PHOTO: Barkerville, B.C., named for the inimitable Billy Barker who made and spent a fortune. At least he had a good time while it lasted. His later years weren’t as happy. —BC Archives

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Last Sunday marked the 128th anniversary of the worst streetcar accident in North American history—the collapse of Victoria’s Point Ellice bridge from the weight of a trolley carrying more than twice its legal limit of holidayers. Within minutes, 55 people were dead.

Sadly, like so many disasters of history, it was the result of human error—not just too many people in the car, but a bridge that was well-known to be structurally challenged. The resulting court cases went on for years.

Today, this busy crossing is known as the Bay Street bridge. By either name, it’s a heck of a story and it’s in next week’s Chronicles.

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PHOTO: Pulled from its watery grave, the doomed streetcar. —BC Archives

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She made naval history—only to die on a Vancouver Island beach.

But she hasn’t been forgotten.

The incredible story of HMCS Matane in next week’s Chronicle.

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PHOTO: HMCS Matane - Wikipedia

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During a recent tour of Victoria’s beautiful Ross Bay Cemetery, Old Cemeteries Society guide John Adams pointed out the headstone for onetime U.S. Consul Allen Francis.

Coincidentally, in his latest bestselling history book, Untold Stories of Old British Columbia, friend and fellow historian Dan Marshall pays tribute to a mutual hero of ours, David Williams Higgins, whom I’ve introduced to Chronicles readers on several occasions.

There’s a strong and fascinating connection between Francis and Higgins.

During the 1860s, the time of the American Civil War, Francis served as Consul in Victoria where and when Higgins worked as a journalist. In these professional capacities, their paths often crossed.

Perhaps surprisingly to us today, their connection was that dreadful conflict then raging below the border. Supposedly neutral Victoria was a hotbed of Northern and Southern sympathizers. Besides open rivalry and occasional acts of violence, there was a conspiracy by the pro-Confederates to outfit a privateer with which to hijack a Federal payroll ship.

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PHOTO: One of the worst civil wars in history began with the firing by Confederates on Fort Sumter, in South Carolina's Charleston Harbour, on April 12, 1861. Hostilities soon spilled over the U.S.-Canadian border, particularly in western outpost Victoria. —Currier & Ives print, Wikipedia

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Probably few British Columbians have ever heard of Steamboat Mountain. How can that be? After all, it once was the site of the richest gold strike in provincial history!

At least, that was the claim of its promoters.

Alas, it was all a pipe dream, a bubble—a fraud.

When it all came crashing down, 1000s—shades of Bre-X!—were heartbroken to learn the sad truth: that it had never existed except in the minds of two American confidence men.

What a story! That’s next week in the Chronicles.

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PHOTO: Of the 1000s of placer and hardrock mines that have been staked, worked and developed throughout British Columbia over the years, that of Steamboat Mountain was unique. —Author’s Collection

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Probably few of the 1000s of commercial and pleasure craft annually plying British Columbia waters have much fear of navigating Seymour Narrows.

True, this 2500-foot-channel between Vancouver, Maud and Quadra islands is still hazardous.

But, within living memory, this was the dreaded lair of the worst marine hazard of the entire West Coast—Ripple Rock.

100s—that’s 100s—of vessels, large and small, came to grief here. Removal of the threat of Ripple Rock, one of the great engineering feats in Canadian history, involved many years, millions of dollars and several lives.

The story of Ripple Rock and its de-fanging, next week in the Chronicles.

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PHOTO: The hydrographic survey ship William J. Stewart was one of the many of Ripple Rock’s victims. —BC Archives

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Victoria and lower Vancouver Island were in a state of emergency, 156 years ago.

Members of the Volunteer Rifle Corps and special constables patrolled city streets as British men-of-war stood at the alert in Esquimalt Harbour and cruised Juan de Fuca Strait.

All were on guard against a threatened invasion by the outlawed Irish nationalist Fenian Brotherhood.

If it all seems rather hysterical, a century and a-half later, there was no dismissing the Fenians as an empty threat at the time.

That’s next week in the Chronicles.

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PHOTO: The Fenians had already spilled blood in eastern Canada at the Battle of Ridgeway. —Wikipedia

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Last week, when Charles Taylor reminisced about some of the colourful characters of Alberni Valley history, he mentioned the tragic shooting death of a man stealing potatoes from the Anderson sawmill’s vegetable garden.

It was an accident, swore Henry, the farm overseer. He’d loaded his musket with peas not shot. He’d just meant to scare the man and his companions.

Accident or no, mill manager Gilbert Malcolm Sproat, who doubled as justice of the peace, had no choice but to hold an inquest. The problem was, the only men who qualified to serve as jurors were Henry’s workmates and friends.

The result, as could almost be expected, was anything but justice!

That’s next week in the Chronicles.

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PHOTO: Pioneer lumberman and author Gilbert Malcolm Sproat for whom Vancouver Island’s Sproat Lake is named. —Wikipedia

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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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