I had to work Christmas Eve Day but got home just in time to listen to CBC Radio’s annual Frederick Forsyth Christmas saga, The Shepherd as I’ve done now for more years than I can remember—and as I shall continue to do so as long as I am able.
Read MoreHeads up! those of you who aren’t CBC Radio listeners: What must be one of the finest 20-minute Christmas radio documentaries ever, is again upon us.
Read MoreI told you so! In last week’s post I itemized numerous chance finds of lost treasure—no need to hike Death Valley with your burro, no diving deep to a sunken shipwreck, no having to risk life and limb looking for Slumach’s accursed mine.
Read MoreA very nice lady on the phone tapped me on my Achilles heel the other day...She was calling on behalf of the Cowichan Intercultural Society which is working on a history project.
Read MoreFor years, Mike Bieling, the man behind the White Cross program in the Cowichan Valley, has been trying to learn more about a man who's buried in All Saints' Cemetery, Westholme; he's a possible candidate for a White Cross.
Read MoreSo much mail over the past two weeks I hardly know where to begin. But the big event of those two weeks, of course, was Remembrance Day, so I'll start with a really positive email from Daryl Ohs of the Nanaimo Historical Society.
Read MoreWhat a wondrous technological age we live in! Hardly had last Thursday's Remembrance Day edition of the Cowichan Valley Citizen hit the streets than I had a response to my lengthy history of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC)--all the way from Portsmouth, Virginia, U.S.A.
Read MoreThis being Remembrance Day I've no wish to get into anything contentious so I'll content myself with a few notes on this, what I consider to be the most important day of the year...
Read MoreWhere did it go? 2021, I mean—it’s November!
Read MoreThere are so many news stories these days that have historical roots that I can’t keep up with them unless I want to condense them to the point of near pointlessness. Too, hardly a week goes by but that someone researching their family tree asks me about an ancestor I’ve written about over the years.
Read MoreHere’s a recent news item near and dear to my heart. The former Times Colonist building at Hillside and Douglas streets, Victoria, has been renovated, reinvented and reopened as a combined commercial and residential building.
Read MoreFirstly, this tip for what looks like a great presentation by the Nanaimo Historical Society, for those of you who’ve purchased a membership as I’ve encouraged you to do in previous editorials.
Read MoreCan you believe it, already the middle of October? What happened to the sun and heat? Most of us, no doubt, would welcome the return of sunshine but not the melting pot of June-July...
Read MoreReconciliation Day, the first of which coincides with today’s Chronicles.
Read MoreI see ‘history’ is in the news again. Close to home, Duncan has ditched its town crier and North Cowichan its coat of arms, both symbols of our European roots the casualties of “inclusion” in our new age of colonial atonement, racial awareness and reconciliation.
Read MoreIt’s that time of year again when Elder College, subject to COVID restrictions, resumes at the Cowichan Community Centre and, in some cases, on-site.
Read MoreThere is hope for the future. In response to my recent two-part series on the 1900 Ladysmith train wreck, a new subscriber kindly wrote to tell of taking his 11-year-old son metal detecting.
Read MoreA problem with telling a story in a neat and structured form is that some good ‘nuggets’ just don’t fit, not even as sidebars. There are three that didn’t make the cut for this week’s bio of Gerry Wellburn.
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Being an armchair adventurer has never been my thing. I’ve always wanted to see it for myself, to touch, to take photos—to feel—then write about it. And you can ‘t get much more hands-on than by using a metal detector.
Read MoreLet’s begin with this quote from Capt. George Vancouver as a follow-up to August 5th’s post on Military Mapmakers.
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