It has occurred to me (or was it rudely suggested to me) that my so-called weekly editorials are often anything but; more ramble and reminiscence than editorial.

Ideally, I intend them to be both. The BC Chronicles, as the very name implies, are supposed to be about factual BC history and I believe most readers will agree that that’s the case.

But I do tend to wander sometimes in the vain belief that a lifelong passion for, and study of, our provincial lore, plus experiences hard-gained in the field, add another dimension. After all, the Chronicles are meant to be anything but academic. I never learned anything about our fabulous, fascinating and colourful past in my school studies.

And, I’m betting, neither did any of you.

Since there’s nowhere else in the Chronicles, as they’re formatted, for me to interject with personal observations and asides, this is where it happens.

But enough. Perhaps it’s time to state the obvious with a change of name to, say, Musing Out Loud? (Luckily for me, neither blather nor BS rhyme with Tom or TW.) Or something a little more catchy and creative?

Something else to think about between issues of the BC Chronicles.

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Music runs in the Gogo family. Two of Sam Wardle’s great nephews have immortalized him, and his 18 comrades of the ill-fated PCCM morning shift of February 9, 1915, in song. David’s She’s Breakin’ Through earned him a Juno nomination.

Over the Victoria Day weekend we attended Nanaimo musician John Gogo’s retrospective tribute to logging and mining at the BC Forest Discovery Centre. —*Author’s Photo*

Cousin John Gogo is also a fine musician who has composed his own tributes to mining and logging history. With his permission, here are the lyrics to his ballad that commemorates one of Vancouver Island’s most tragic coal mine disasters. In remembering his great uncle, Sam Wardle, John immortalizes all those miners of old who perished underground.

John Gogo poses with some old guy after his performance of *Coal and Wood* at the BC Forest Discovery Centre last weekend. —*Belinda Wright*

Sam Wardle

Sam Wardle was a miner in South Wellington, BC
Just south of Nanaimo for Pacific Coast Collieries
He had left his home in England where he could have done the same
With a dream of something better to Canada he came

Sam Wardle and the crew had taken ill and they knew it wasn’t flu
It was the stench of stagnant water they had been nearing for a week or two
The claim was badly over mined, old workings all around
The earth so full of flooded holes they were under shaky ground

Sam Wardle was a family man, he had to take what he could earn
He knew that something wasn’t right but he couldn’t voice concern
Complainers will be discharged, the mine inspector laughed
And the bosses got the profits and the miners got the shaft

Sam Wardle was a victim, he perished underground
They tapped an abandoned flooded mine, nineteen men were drowned
A common man he had no choice in the days before the dole
Money mattered more than men and money meant coal

The “good old days,” it can be argued, were anything but good for many.

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How many of us can boast that we’re 150 years old? Well, Victoria High School has achieved that exalted status, making it the oldest high school west of Winnipeg!

Fortunately, it underwent a multi-million dollar seismic upgrade a few years ago and should be around for a while yet. This makes it an exception in BC where we have a long history of tearing down and redeveloping rather than saving our best heritage landmarks.

(Now, I’m editorializing.)

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Speaking of the BCFD Centre, I was surprised to notice what I believe is a major omission. So surprised, that I read their various signboards twice to be sure that it wasn’t there.

I’m referring to mention of the Mosquito fighter bomber, one of the most iconic and successful aircraft of the Second World War. For a time, it was the fastest thing in the air and German fighters couldn’t catch it.

It was so fast that it flew meteorological and reconnaissance missions armed only with scientific gear and cameras.

What has that to do with BC forestry, you ask?

Other than the Japanese Zero fighter, made mostly of balsam if memory serves, the Mosquito was built of BC spruce! Spruce logged on the west coast of Vancouver Island and in the Queen Charlottes (Haida Gwaii).

Now that’s logging history. And it surely deserves mention in the BCFD Centre which celebrates almost every other use of BC wood, some of which might surprise you.

And that’s enough editorializing for this week.

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Editorially speaking…