This is of necessity short notice but, assuming that we haven’t had any more snow since I wrote this on Sunday, there’s a good talk to be had tonight at the monthly meeting of the Nanaimo Historical Society.
It’s entitled Fundraisers, Axe-wielders and Star Witnesses: Women on Both Sides of the Vancouver Coal Miners’ Strike by Aimee Greenaway, curator at the Nanaimo Museum.
Read MoreDoes it never end? Every time I turn around, there’s more, more: new leads, followups to old stories, emails, letters from readers, unfinished business, research, deadlines. More to do, more to do.
Oh, the hardships of an author/historian/publisher...
Seriously, I’m always mildly surprised by the number of current news stories that have historical roots and thus provide more fodder for the Chronicles’ editorial page. So let’s begin to catch up, and my apology for its being even more of a grab-bag than usual.
Read MoreViewer Discretion Advised.
*In his 1905 reminiscence, The Passing of a Race, then-retired Colonist publisher D.W. Higgins credited Butts with having been instrumental in swaying public sentiment against Vancouver Island’s being annexed by the United States in 1866. “Butts suddenly became intensely loyal, and erected a miniature gallows on Wharf Street, from which he used to turn off the annexationists, naming each ‘traitor’ as the drop fell.
Read MoreOyez! Oyez! Oyez! (Hear ye! Hear ye! Hear ye!)
Town criers, or just criers, go back a long—all the way back to the Roman Empire. In the centuries before newspapers, when few people were literate, they were an established social institution throughout Europe
Often uniformed in a red and gold coat, white breeches, black boots and a tricorne hat (think pirate), they’d stroll village and city streets, crying Oyez!
Read MoreNEWS ITEM: 15 acres added to John Dean Park
“Some of the last old-growth stands of Douglas fir and Garry oak on the [Saanich] Peninsula are now part of 15-acre parcel of land added to the border of John Dean Provincial Park...after being acquired by the B.C. Parks Foundation from a private landowner for $1.63 million...”
So reported the Times Colonist in November.
Read MoreMost Chronicles readers, I’m sure, have seen the news about the loss to fire of the well-known and highly-regarded Whale Interpretation Centre at Telegraph Cove. The 20-year-old natural museum housed a wonderful collection of marine mammal specimens including the skeleton of a 20-metre fin whale.
The cove’s buildings and docks were much older, with a rich history of their own.
Read MoreCan you believe it? 2025! A quarter of a century into the ‘new’ millennium!
Where did it go? More importantly, where is it going?
Well, here at the Chronicles, some things never change—just more stories to come about British Columbia’s rich and colourful history, of which there’s simply no end. As I’ve noted before, history is like digging a hole—it just gets bigger and bigger.
Read MoreWell, another year is about to bite the dust.
For most of us blessed to live in Canada, it likely has been another year of getting by in comparative comfort while complaining bitterly about inflation every time we go to a checkout. A minor plaint when you look around this embattled world of ours...
Read MoreIt should come as no surprise to Chronicles readers that I spend a lot of time delving into old newspapers. They’re a ‘popular’ historian’s lifeblood.
Read MoreHere’s irony for you...
In researching today’s feature story on the sinking of the U.S. Army transport S.S. Brig.-Gen. M.G. Zalinsky, and the subsequent—and expensive—efforts to stem the bunker oil leaking from her hull, I found an article bearing this headline,
Oil Spills Are Bad For Shipwrecks
I mean, it’s ironic that sunken ships that leak oil and pollute the environment are subject to accelerated corrosion from their own oil! Sort of like being hoist with (her) own petard, as Shakespeare would say.
Read MoreThere will be no great fanfare this week for the departing Phillipine Mars water bomber, as was the case for her sister Hawaii Mars back in August. Her final flight to a military museum in Arizona, after decades in the Alberni Valley, will be determined by weather conditions.
Read MoreAs I write this, the 1000-foot-long S.S. United States, the “longest and largest ocean liner ever built in America,” and the record holder for the fastest crossing of the Atlantic Ocean by a passenger liner, is about to sail one last time.
Not under her own power but with the aid of five tugs.
Read MoreI don’t think I’ll ever become comfortable with Facebook.
Sure, I post something historical every two days and have built up a small following. It’s a modest way of self-promotion which, after all, is part of the publishing game. What’s the point of writing about our pioneers and historical events if there’s no one there to read them?
For the most part, it can be fun, requiring as it does little of the discipline necessary to researching and writing serious texts, and some of the comments are illuminating.
Read MoreIn place of an Editorial, and in keeping with Remembrance, this week’s Chronicles theme, this tribute to Americans who volunteered to serve King and Country. Our King and Country.
Their sacrifice has been all but overlooked by most historians and is worthy of being recognized and remembered.
Read MoreSurely, you don’t expect the Chronicles to be about anything but Halloween on this propitious date, do you?
And why not? Old newspapers, the fodder for historians and writers, are filled with stories about encounters with the supernatural. After all, everyone loves a ghost story, right?
Read MoreOne of the joys of historical research is that it's like a treasure hunt. You never know what the next document or deed, the turn of a page of an old newspaper, or a tip from a reader might lead to.
This nugget from the Nanaimo Free Press was sent along by a friend who’d been researching coal mine history at Vancouver Island University. It concerns lost treasure—the real thing.
Read MoreI wonder how many people ever pause to think that they’re literally walking on air as they go about their business in downtown Nanaimo.
The ‘air’ beneath their feet being that formed by abandoned coal mines—miles of them—now mostly flooded, but, in many cases, otherwise intact. This false floor is something that City building inspectors and contractors must take into account when they plan new works.
Read MoreI’ve mentioned before that history is ever with us, even in the breaking news which media prides itself on. It isn’t always apparent, as in a flashback or an overt reference to an historical event or personage, but often hidden between the lines.
In other words, you have to know something about history to recognize it when you see it.
Read MoreAn unsung jewel is the Esquimalt Naval & Military Museum at Naden, Canadian Forces Base Esquimalt. It’s open seven days a week (10-3:30), including statutory holidays. Admission is by donation.
As the son of a career Royal Canadian Navy man, I feel almost at home during my too infrequent visits. Almost every which way I turn, there’s an artifact on display—a bell, a crest, a model, a photo—of one of my father’s ships. About the only one that I didn’t notice this past Sunday was his last ship, the light cruiser HMCS Ontario.
Read MoreTalk about a labour of love. Fourteen years and 100 interviews later, Duncan author Lynn Starter’s opus, a coffee table took of 1200 pages of photos and facts is off the press and available.
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