In this brave new world of AI, the world needs more copper.
More copper, in fact, than is known to remain in the ground, untapped, after centuries of wholesale extraction!
What to do?
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oday, it’s William Head Institution, a minimum-security prison, located at the outermost reach of the District of Metchosin. It’s prime waterfront real estate.
Originally, these acres served as western Canada’s quarantine station. Every ship headed for Victoria, Vancouver or other BC ports, had to stop here so that passengers and crews could be examined for infectious diseases.
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Had Friends In High Places
(Conclusion)
Alleged murderer Mr. Kelly, it seems, wasn't just an ordinary desperado; he had friends. Important friends. And when they were through pulling strings, creating smokescreens and calling names, B.C. authorities were sorry they'd ever heard of the leering Irishman.
This evil letter appears on the maritime casualty lists with unnerving frequency.
Andalusia, Coolcha, Hera, Rosalia, Walla Walla, Princess Sophia: fishpacker, tugboat and ocean-going liner—from the humble to the mighty—each had at least two things in common: their names ended in the letter ‘a’ and each encountered disaster on the high seas.
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(Part 1)
Had Friends In High Places
It would take little less than a full-fledged miracle to uncover a murderer's loot cached near the town of Golden, British Columbia, but if a treasure hunter could match painstaking research with phenomenal luck, he might find himself $4,500 (actually much more at today's values) richer.
They’re among those indelible imprints of childhood, now just fleeting wisps of memory, ghosts even, from what is rapidly becoming the oh, so distant past. The strongest goes back to my family’s brief tenure in Parksville.
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How many British Columbia communities commemorate a murderer?
Here is irony at its best. Legions of men and women who spent their lives working and contributing to the building of this province have faded into history and are forgotten. But at Gray Creek, on the north shore of Kootenay Lake, a fancy signboard marks the site of Henry Rose’s cabin. Only the chimney remains and it has become a popular geocache site.
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(Conclusion)
Last week, I introduced you to the George Medal, one step short of the George Cross which is the non-combat equivalent of the Victoria Cross, the highest award for gallantry in the British Commonwealth.
To date, 77 Canadians, military and civilian, have earned this distinguished recognition of valour. I’ve been trying to nail down one in particular that was awarded for heroism in the deadly crash of an RCAF bomber at Comox airbase in the early 1950s.
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"The KING has been graciously pleased to approve the award of the George Medal in recognition of conspicuous gallantry in carrying out hazardous work in a very brave manner."
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Okay, hands up, those of you who think that history is dull.
If you raised your hand—why are you reading this?
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Last week marked another workers’ memorial day when we honoured the 1000s of men and women who have been killed or injured on the job. During the past year, in BC alone, there were 138 workplace deaths.
In Nanaimo, the National Day of Mourning also commemorates the May 3, 1887 No. 1 Esplanade Mine disaster that killed 150 men in a single disaster.
News reports of both events coincided with my writing my newest book about the coal mines of the South Wellington area. In the course of research, I’d found myself checking the Department of Mines’ Annual Reports for 1959 and 1960.
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(Conclusion)
In last week’s BC Chronicles, banker David Doig and his Mountie escort successfully arrived in boomtown Dawson City with $1 million in cash. The young Scottish banker had been entrusted with opening Canada’s most northerly branch of the Bank of British North America.
This was at the height of the fabled Klondike gold rush.
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(Part 2)
Last week, banker David Doig and his Mountie escort evaded the notorious Soapy Smith’s gang in Skagway and made it over the dreaded Chilkoot Pass to Lake Lindemann, BC.
They were delivering more than $1 million in cash to open the most northerly branch of the Bank of British North America in Dawson City during the Klondike gold rush.
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(Part 1)
It’s hard to think of bankers as being colourful; I’ve never met one who was.
But, fortunately for storytellers such as I, there’s always that exception to the rule.
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Emilio Picariello could have served as a role model for fellow immigrants. He came to Canada with few worldly goods and the added handicap of speaking English as a second language at a time when visible minorities were treated as second class citizens.
Many of them, sad to say, were tragic, sometimes the authors of their own misfortune, others the victims of circumstance. Some of them simply marched to different drummers.
All of them had stories to tell and some, if only briefly, caught the attention of newspaper reporters who were ever on the alert for the out-of-the-ordinary.
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Emilio Picariello could have served as a role model for fellow immigrants. He came to Canada with few worldly goods and the added handicap of speaking English as a second language at a time when visible minorities were treated as second class citizens.
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For this week’s historical ramble we’re going back to 1968 and an article written by Ainslie J. Helmcken, 1900-1987. The grandson of legendary Hudson’s Bay Co. surgeon John Sebastian Helmcken, he served as the first curator of the Victoria City Archives, 1967-1983. Here’s what he wrote, almost 60 years ago. He begins with a lengthy preamble so I’ll cut to the quick.
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For most of a lifetime, pioneer of pioneers ‘Blackjack’ Ranold J McDonnell moved with the BC frontier, always with a keen eye for opportunity.
He’s one of a legion of remarkable frontiersmen who are virtually unknown to us today. Fifty years ago, the late O.J. Hutchings decided to correct this oversight by setting down ‘Blackjack’ Ranold McDonnell’s story for posterity.
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As you read this, there’s renewed interest in the three times abandoned ore dumps on Mount Sicker. The first time was a century ago when the three producing copper mines shut down; in the 1940s when they were worked for base metals; then again in the 1960s when an attempt was made to recover discarded ore values by a chemical leaching process.
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Violent death—accidental or otherwise—has always played a grim role in our past. Time and again, newspaper headlines have heralded tragedy.
Certainly one of the saddest cases on record is that of the ‘Westminster Horror.’
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