Not so much an editorial as an introduction to this week’s Chronicle:
A century has passed since the ‘Silver Slocan’ of southwestern British Columbia yielded millions of dollars in silver—billions by today’s measure. The fabulous Enterprise, Standard, Slocan Star, Rambler-Cariboo, Last Chance, Whitewater, Mountain Chief—and so many more productive mines—all have been relegated to the province’s colourful history.
Read MoreToday, for a change of pace, a guest columnist. Retired Vancouver newspaper reporter and environmentalist Larry Pym publishes an excellent newsletter at www.sixmountains.ca.
What makes his article on Norm Tandberg so resonate with me is that Norm and I are following the same historical trails in the Cowichan Valley— without, so far as I know, ever having crossed paths. In fact, I’d never heard of him until Larry graciously passed along this piece he just wrote for Six Mountains.
Read MoreA century and a-half later, the 1875 sinking of the paddlewheel steamship Pacific by collision off Cape Flattery remains one of the greatest marine tragedies in B.C. and Washington state history. There were only two survivors of almost 300 on board.
The Pacific is remembered for another reason: the likelihood that she was carrying a fortune in Omineca gold in her safe and in the personal luggage of some of its San Francisco-bound passengers.
Read MoreThere’s been another change to Vancouver Island maps, this one at Tofino. Mackenzie Beach, named for a previous owner, is now Tinwis, meaning “calm waters” in the language of the local Tla-o-qui-aht Nation, although it’s a combination of the words “tin,” meaning calm, and “wis,” meaning beach.
An online campaign for the name change garnered 2000 signatures.
Read MoreWell, here we are, at the end of another year in a world of strife and environmental crises. Sometimes, I must admit, I do begin to doubt my lifelong obsession with the past when our global present almost seems to preclude a long-term future. It feels sort of like rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic...
Sorry! A note of doom and gloom is a heckuva way to begin a new year. So let’s get down to the work at hand, history…
Read MoreYes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus. Or was.
I still remember that day at school. I was in the library when a classmate cynically informed me there is no Santa Claus. No Santa Claus? I was way too young to surrender my ideals!
Read MoreI’m pleased to be able to report that local history is alive and well, as I observed firsthand at the annual craft shows, Christmas Chaos, Providence Farm and at the Shawnigan Recreation Centre.
These shows are an opportunity for me to meet some of my readers; some of longstanding, some new. I usually gain as much from our conversations as I hope they do in return.
Read MoreCoincidental to my reading a great book, Last Man Out, the story of the Springhill Mine disaster of 1958, there was a news story in the Times Colonist about Indian construction workers trapped in a collapsed tunnel.
Their rescue with modern mining equipment took two weeks but all were saved and, it appears, were in good health and spirits.
Read MoreOne of the challenges of researching and writing B.C. history on a regular basis isn’t—usually—finding quality content, but finding quality photos to support that content. 100’s of 1000’s of wonderful photos exist in various vaults (archives, libraries, historical societies, private collections, etc.) but tracking them down is quite time-consuming.
Fun for the most part, but time-consuming.
Read MoreWell, another year and another Christmas Chaos, the annual mid-November mega craft sale in the Cowichan Community Centre.
It must be almost 30 years that I’ve had a table with my books at Chaos. It’s a chance to show the corporate flag, so to speak, and to meet new and old readers.
Some of us have grown grey together!
Read MoreWriting is, as I’m sure most people will accept, a solitary craft. I once used a lighthouse for a company logo and named my first publishing/printing firm, Solitaire Press.
The name said it all!
But, being solitary by nature, doesn’t necessarily mean one is non-, let alone, anti-social. Not a party animal, but hardly a hermit, either.
Read MoreI can still recall the shock, followed by rage, all these years later.
The shock that a former soldier had died in a veteran’s hospital where he’d been laid up since the First World War. And the rage at the thought that he’d spent two-thirds of his lifetime, disabled and suffering in a hospital bed—far, far from the trenches, and long, long after Armistice.
It wasn’t right! It was so unfair!
Read MoreAnother Remembrance Day is upon us. It’s a day of great importance to me; more important, in fact, than any other day of the year.
Both my grandfathers came home disabled from the First World War; Great Uncle Jim didn’t come home at all.
Read MoreBritish Columbia has long had statutes legislating the disturbance of Indigenous anthropological sites. On paper, anyway. I still remember when they realigned the Island Highway in the Fanny Bay area and contractors cut right through middens that were 30 and 40 feet deep.
The mix of artifacts, clam shells and gravel made good ballast for road construction.
Read MoreHave you ever studied faces in old photos and wonder whatever became of them?
I sure have, this photo in particular. These young boys were coal miners, doomed to work underground for the whole of their lives. Pulled from school to help put bread on the table for their families, they had no hope whatever of improving their lot. They were trapped, just as their fathers and grandfathers had been before them.
Read MoreI frequently receive queries which I try to answer reasonably promptly.
But it isn’t always easy. If I have to dig into my files it can be a while as my days are programmed—and long.
Read MoreI’ve been researching, off and on, the lost airmen of Pat Bay for 20 years, a motivation for my third visit to the B.C. Aviation Museum, Sidney, last week. Then on to, for the first time, the new memorial on Mills Road, on the opposite side of Victoria Airport.
Read MoreTwo weeks ago, I wrote about some of the interesting old photographs I’ve found over the years (Some Old Photos are Real Heart Breakers, September 14,2023, and how some of them have “gone home” again.
But I keep turning them up, such as these two.
Read MoreAfter going missing for 50 years, this striking chandelier from the ca 1927 Nelson’s Capital Theatre has been returned. (Photo by MyNelsonNow)
Read MoreWelcome to the ‘new’ Chronicles!
British Columbia Chronicles.ca, that is, rather than CowichanChronicles.com.
