Editorially speaking...
From Our Mailbox:
Reader Ken S. writes, “Hi, Tom, very glad to join the Chronicles.
“As close as Victoria and Duncan are, there's quite a gap in their histories. Lots of overlap to be sure, but still a lot of stories that stay strictly north of the 'Hat.
“I'm a 4th-generation Victorian—one of my maternal great-grandfathers was Henry Saunders, successful Victoria grocer and dreadful speculator. The other was Albert Rumsby, lifelong musician and band leader.
“I love a good yarn and learning more about the history of this part of the world, pre- and post- [colonial] contact. Over the years, I've been involved with the Hallmark Society and the Victoria Heritage Foundation, compiling and editing (with others) various iterations of the VHF's ‘This Old House’ book series. I've also researched and conducted a number of walking tours for John Adams and the Old Cemeteries Society.
“But all that material is centred here in Victoria. Thanks for helping me learn so much more about ‘the warm land’!
My pleasure, Ken—TW.
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The 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.
Without Douglas at the helm there would be no British Columbia as we know it today. We’d be Americans, pure and simple.
Sir James Douglas should be recognized by the RBC as the Father of B.C. —Wikipedia
To be cynical, you’d think the fact that he was of mixed blood would make him all the more eligible for ‘inclusion’. My measure is that of merit, period. Whatever Douglas’s personal faults and shortcomings, he was our first truly great pioneer and he deserves full recognition for his invaluable contributions.
Statues appear to be an endangered species these days but there are many other ways to adequately honour Douglas and it’s the RBC’s job to do just that. They say they want to hear from the public. Consider this my humble contribution to the salvaging of the RBC’s tarnished public image and seeming loss of direction over the past two years.
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The Capital Region District is about to embark upon a $53.5 million “improvement” program for the phenomenally popular Galloping Goose and Lochsyde regional trails.
It’s their popularity and usage—usage that’s expected to keep increasing—that prompts the upgrades. I used quotation marks for “improvement” because that result is going to be what amounts to a paved, single lane road.
Other than three former CNR trestles these two former railway grades will lose almost all visible vestiges of their railway provenance.
Oh, sure, there are some signboards.
This shot from the Galloping Goose Regional Trail website shows it the way I want to walk it—an old railway grade, not a paved, four-lane highway as is now proposed. Okay, I’m exaggerating but its railway roots are going to all but disappear. —GallopingGooseTrail.com
Hardly the same thing. What they’re about to do amounts to what the Kinsol Trestle was once slated for—a Martha Stewart replacement that wouldn’t even have looked like the real thing.
I do understand that the traffic flow and the mixed use by pedestrians and cyclists has created increasing safety challenges. But it still amounts in my mind to paving paradise, and, to quote Joni Mitchell, putting up a parking lot.
I remember the Times Colonist accusing me of being an “historical purist” for my wanting to save the real Kinsol Trestle. Well, so be it.
At least I have something that very few users of the Galloping Goose or the Lochsyde regional trails have—wonderful childhood memories of what they were like when they were still working railway tracks. Of the smells and sights of steam and diesel locomotives, of hitching rides aboard box cars, of stealing grapes from refrigerated cars, of....
Enjoy what’s left of our summer. We’re already approaching Labour Day. Where did it go?