I’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.
Well, the kids are back to school and the PNE is on again. I’m referring to the Pacific National Exhibition, of course, which everyone knows by its initials.
The PNE has a special place in my memory bank. Back in the dark ages when I was a kid, it was the harbinger of death for me.
Read MoreI’m absolutely amazed by the wonders of our technological age, particularly as it applies to my fields of researching, writing and publishing.
Read MoreA reluctant latecomer to social media, as I’ve admitted before, I’ve come to recognize its outstanding potential as a conduit for feedback from readers.
I can burn the midnight oil, researching, writing and polishing posts for the Chronicles, then my graphics guru Patricia hits the send button and—poof!—they’re in your morning mailbox.
Read MoreThe recent reopening of the Royal BC Museum’s controversial Old Town exhibit drew an interesting letter to the editor of the Victoria Times Colonist. Bob Miers welcomed the return of this popular attraction with its more “socially inclusive themes” but lamented that there’s no mention of Sir James Douglas, our first colonial governor and, without doubt, an unrecognized Father of Confederation.
Read MoreTowards the end of my accompanying post on cigarettes I note the multi-billion-dollar cash settlement between the tobacco companies and 46 American states, to be paid over 25 years.
In 2015 JTI Macdonald Corp., Imperial Tobacco and Rothmans-Benson and Hedges were ordered to pay $15 billion to Quebec smokers in the biggest class action suit in Canadian history.
Read MoreA mention in last week’s Chronicles of an email from friend and subscriber Stephanie Walter re: her having found a copy of my evergreen book, Ghost Town Trails of Vancouver Island (as it was originally titled in 1975) drew a quick response:
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