The Chronicles

I must shuffle my Current Affairs files more often. Too late for last week’s feature article on Second World War explosives that continue to threaten life and limb in our own backyard, I noticed two overlooked clippings.

The first, and more apropos to the Chronicles, was a small Canadian Press article in the Victoria Times Colonist, headlined, Surrey RCMP office evacuated after grenade turned in.

In this week’s Chronicle about unexploded ordnance, I focus on the lethal legacy of the Second World War. But the problem—the threat to life and limb—goes back long before WW2.

Officially, the Second World War ended with Japan’s surrender, 80 years ago. In at least one sense, however, the war goes on.

Although no hostile action was fought on Canadian, let alone British Columbia soil, we, too, have a history of live ordnance—so-called ‘friendly fire’—turning up, sometimes in the unlikeliest of places; several times, it has killed. 

This week’s story on Bill Barlee brings back so many memories for me...

How I envy his childhood!

Imagine being born in a community of abandoned gold mines with derelict buildings and equipment for a playground!

If there is a single name that is synonymous with lost treasure in British Columbia that would have to be Neville Langrell (Bill) Barlee, school teacher, politician, entrepreneur, environmentalist, historian, writer, publisher, prospector and treasure hunter extraordinaire.

By all appearances, he scored at almost everything he did or touched.

A recent Canadian Press news story prompted a visit to my archives and this week’s ramble...

‘Vancouver heritage building demolished, at risk of collapse’ headlined Ashley Joannou’s article on the demolition of downtown Vancouver’s Dunsmuir House, 500 Dunsmuir Street. Although formally registered as a heritage building, it was condemned as a threat to pubic safety because of terminal “structural deterioration” due to years of neglect by its owners 

It took several attempts because of engine trouble (she hadn’t flown in almost 20 years) but the Philippine Mars has reached her final home at the Pima Air and Space Museum, Arizona.

I’ve mentioned before my lifelong love affair with the Island’s railways. Living just one door away from the CNR shortline beside Saanich Lake as a kid, “the tracks” were our playground. 

When the train came along, it meant hitching a ride (hanging unseen by the crew from the end of the last boxcar) to the last stop, the Growers Winery, then filching grapes through the hatches of the refrigerator cars.

Guest column by Tom W. Parkin

Photos © TW Parkin

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.

Feuding Governors: The Grand Inquisitor versus the Monopolist.

Recent notice of this talk by acclaimed historian Barry Gough as one of the Marion Cumming Lecture Series hosted by the Oak Bay Heritage Foundation, reminded me yet another great story within a great story.

In this case, how the northern Deserter Islands near Port Hardy got their name.

Does 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.

Interest in the Bridge River Valley’s mineral potential dates all the way back to 1865 when a government-sponsored mining exploration party reported having found gold in “that part of the country lying between the Chilcoaten and Bridge Rivers,” specifically on Cadwallader Creek on the South Fork of the Bridge River.

Viewer 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.

Conclusion
While serving yet another sentence for bootlegging, John was stricken with paralysis from the waist down and taken to the hospital in a hand cart. There, he was again examined to ensure that he wasn't faking. Upon being satisfied that he was indeed paralyzed (a test involving needle pricks, no doubt), hospital staff gave him every attention.