There’s nothing like a challenge to get the blood flowing. It’s been 46 years since I wrote Ghost Town Trails of Vancouver Island which has been in continuous print all that time. One chapter deals with my “first” ghost town which qualified as such because I could drive to it. (Not many B.C. ‘ghost towns’ allow you this luxury, believe me.)
Read MoreTraditional First Nation names are cropping up everywhere these days. Latest is the rechristening of a campground beside the Pat Bay Highway between Sidney and the ferry terminal.
Read MoreLet’s begin with an update on the Oct. 17, 1951 Mount Benson plane crash that I told you about several months ago. At the time, with 23 dead, it was B.C.’s worst aviation disaster. The 70th anniversary of this tragedy is fast approaching…
Read MoreFor me, a sad beginning to an otherwise pleasant Spring day. An email from Eric Ricker, a fellow veteran of the years-long campaign to save the century-old tipple/headframe at Morden Colliery Provincial Heritage Park, informed me that another oldtime Friend of the Morden Mine has passed away.
Read MoreI’d written it off as another victim of time and ‘progress’ but, no, the old Thorne cabin, for a century and more a landmark at the southern entrance to Duncan, is alive and well. Sort of, anyway, having been, to quote the present owner, “carefully disassembled”. He’d approached me, via the Cowichan Valley Citizen, to ask if I had any historical information about the cabin and/or photos.
Read MoreThe clock is again ticking for Hope’s ca 1916 Canadian National Railway station. Council’s decision to demolish the heritage-designated landmark, said to be structurally sound, was put on hold last month when the B.C. Ombudsman’s office intervened because the current Council is, in effect, going against both the municipal Heritage Designation Act.
Read MoreCan’t remember if I already told you about this one but...there are some great new B.C. historical websites out there; in fact, they seem to springing up like mushrooms. The latest, on my radar at least, is Daryl Ashby’s Vancouver Island – Early History Group on Facebook. In the past week he has touched on two subjects of particular interest to me, Nanaimo’s Pioneer Cemetery and the No. 1 Mine disaster, Canada’s second worst colliery catastrophe. I’ve been researching the latter for 20 years
Read MoreTwo heritage-related stories in the news this week—one with a happy future, the other on life support...
I’ve been telling you of the ongoing campaign to save the historic 1916 CNR station house in Hope which, despite having heritage designation and despite the protests of many Hope and B.C. residents, has been consigned to demolition by the District of Hope.
Just finished Maria Tippett’s excellent biography of Emily Carr. I still have a problem with Emily’s later, more impressionistic work but I certainly have come to know her a little better as a gifted artist and as a woman.
Read MoreI had begun to despair that Ladysmith would ever get off the pot but, at last, I’m happy to see that restoration of the old Crown Zellerbach No.11 locomotive is well in hand, perhaps even finished. All done by volunteers, I gather. When will governments of all levels ever learn that our history is a public trust, and accept that they have the responsibility of caring for it? Instead, they’re forever crying poverty and foisting the work and most of the expense off on taxpaying volunteers who, fortunately for future generations, do value their heritage enough to want to do something to save it. That’s my gripe for today.
Read MoreLots happening, some of it good, some of it not so good, on the museum front these days. COVID has obviously put a damper on public attendance at most museums. To cite but one, the B.C. Forest Discovery Centre has had to cancel its popular Easter Hunt and train rides, both of which drew mass attendance and income from admission fees.
Read MoreLast week I told you that Hope Council has decided to have that Fraser River community’s second oldest building, the ca 1916 Canadian National Railways station house, demolished. Even though it’s said to be structurally sound and was given heritage designation 40 years ago.
Read MoreIt has become obvious to me that I ain’t never going to keep up with, let alone get ahead of incoming subject ideas. They’re relentless—they’re in my emails, they’re in the news—there’s something popping up almost every day.
Read MoreI always acknowledge, if not immediately answer in full, requests for information from readers and others who track me down. But there are far more of you than there are of me and I’m finding it increasingly difficult to keep up, so please bear with me. But make no mistake: I’m not complaining. I’m simply pointing out that while my archives doesn’t always contain the specific answers I’m looking for, it usually points me in the right direction. It’s the ferreting out that takes time...
Read MoreAnother challenge to answering the numerous requests for information made of me is that my filing system over the years has occasionally proved to be something less than perfect. I never subscribed to the Dewey Decimal System and, overall, my ad hoc approach to filing has worked. There have been exceptions, of course, and they can be maddening.
Read MoreIt wasn’t a Nanaimo building but it certainly was a landmark beside the Trans Canada Highway just south of the Silver Bridge. I can remember, when still living in Saanich in the 1960s, driving my mother who was an avid collector of carnival glass and women’s things, to the cabin which was operated as a silversmith and antique store.
Read MoreI probably shouldn’t admit to this but I’m not the only British Columbia historical website available to you online. In fact, they’re growing in number all the time, to the point that I begin my work day by opening my email and checking, on average, 20-30 emails (plus more throughout the day). Some of them I subscribe to, some are of little interest to me, but rarely are they spam.
Read MoreIt’s no coincidence that for two weeks in a row the latest Chronicles have had their roots in the present. One of the first and most valuable things I learned as an historical storyteller was to forge, when possible, a vicarious link between then and now.
Read MoreYears ago, when I was invited to launch a weekly historical column in the Nanaimo newspaper (I think it was the Daily News which became the Harbour City Star then something else, I've lost track) a friend predicted that I'd be starved for research material "in four months". Not a chance, I said; in four months I'll have more to work with than I do now.
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