Editorially speaking...
If you care to make the trip to Nanaimo this evening, guests are welcome at the Nanaimo Historical Society’s April 13 general meeting. Tonight’s entertainment is of interest to Cowichan residents, a video by NHS directors of the old Hillcrest Chinese cemetery at Sahtlam.
This historic cemetery, to quote the NHS, is “one of Cowichan’s unsung ‘ landmarks’...tucked away in rural Sahtlam (outside of Duncan B.C.) on what was the historic Hillcrest Lumber Co. mill property.
“Situated immediately beside the Cowichan Valley Trail, the former E&N Lake Cowichan Subdivision, it consists of just over nine acres (3.8 hectares) of open, sloping ground. The 74-year-old cemetery is a Provincial Historic Site and serves as a resting place for 127 Chinese Canadians.
“It remains a preserved relic of the ongoing influence Chinese Canadians have in the Cowichan area.”
The meeting begins at 7:00 pm at Bowen Park Activity Room #1, 500 Bowen Road. Guests are welcome.”
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This great photo recently posted by Patrick Selby is one of the reasons I finally came to embrace Facebook. You might think, at first glance, that the derelict is the carcass of a bus but, no, it’s one of Victoria’s fabled streetcars that was later converted to a roadside cafe in Langford then gutted.
I have a distinct childhood memory of seeing an old streetcar in the trees just off Goldstream Road, near the Colwood Junction. It wasn’t painted like this one was, it looked more like it was being used as a chicken house.
Ditto one that was situated on a property at the southern entrance to the Blenkinsop Valley, Victoria. It, too, appeared to be used as a chicken house or garden shed.
A third one I can recall was the Carliner Diner, just over the Englishman River bridge, Parksville, on the Island Highway, until it was destroyed in a fire.
They were among a handful of survivors as most of the streetcars were burned for their metal parts.
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British Columbia lost its legendary rock and roll DJ, Comox-born ‘Red’ (Robert Gordon) Robinson, last week at the age of 86.
Anyone who grew up in this province since Red’s first rock ‘n’ roll radio show in 1954 should have fond memories of his exuberant on-air presence. Over the decades he MC’d some of the greatest R&R stars, including a young Elvis Presley, Bill Haley, Buddy Holly and my favourite, Roy Orbison.
Red also wrote several books about his experiences on and offstage. He deservedly is in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and the B.C. Entertainment Hall of Fame and was a member of the Order of British Columbia.
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