Editorially speaking...
Well, the kids are back to school and the PNE is on again. I’m referring to the Pacific National Exhibition, of course, which everyone knows by its initials.
The PNE has a special place in my memory bank. Back in the dark ages when I was a kid, it was the harbinger of death for me.
Not physical death, but the impending demise of summer vacation. When I’d hear news reports of the PNE on the radio it was the final nail in the coffin of another summer escape from school. From that moment on, as the final days of August slipped by, I was a dead man walking. Groan, the gallows—school—was just around the corner.
So, no fond memories of the PNE for me!
—Wikipedia By I, ThePointblank, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=2277680
That said, the PNE’s famous wooden roller coaster turned 65 this year and was appropriately celebrated with hot dogs instead of a birthday cake. The ‘58 Special’ (B.C.’s centennial year in which it was constructed) gets more than 500,000 riders annually and has churned 32 million stomachs to date!
The family of Carl Phare, the ride’s designer and engineer, recently found the original blueprints, dated Dec. 10, 1957, and donated them to the PNE’s archives. Highly skilled Norwegian boat builders were hired to assemble the specially selected high-altitude Douglas fir used in the roller coaster’s construction.
All said and done, a truly remarkable achievement.
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Quite simply, I think reading is not only one of the ultimate pleasures but the all time ever greatest invention. I’d be lost if I couldn’t read, not only for the enjoyment, relaxation, even escape, that it gives me, but the opportunities to learn.
But that, of course, isn’t the case for all. I’ve watched people in a lunchroom who consistently sit there, waiting, hoping for someone with whom they can strike up a casual conversation. No cell phone, no newspaper, magazine or book to occupy their break, just a blank expression.
But what do I know about them other than that? Everyone is different, how can I know what’s really going on in their minds. Still, I have to wonder...
By now, anyone who has followed the Chronicles in the Cowichan Valley Citizen and here online, must realize that, beneath the skin, I’m really a teacher and a preacher. It isn’t enough for me to just entertain you, I want to inform you.
I also want to keep Canadian history alive. It’s essential, I humbly believe, to being a good Canadian citizen to know of our collective past, even when it’s sometimes unpleasant. We enjoy one of the highest living standards in the world but very few of us can truthfully say that we’ve helped to build this great nation.
Those who came before us, Indigenous and newcomers, did all the heavy work. Which is why I do what I do, first in newspapers and magazines, sometimes on radio and television, then in books and, finally, online.
I’ll never know how many people I’ve reached with my writings but many a reader has been gracious enough to let me know, by one means or another, that they’ve enjoyed and learned something new about something old by reading something I’ve written.
Of all the feedback over the years, the following letter is a standout. Although the name Casey could be male or female I think it’s a he. Not that it matters, it’s the message that strikes home with me:
“Hello!
“I’ve never emailed a author before, and never was a reader or even ever finished a book till I was 35. But last year came across a small book of yours at a used book store: Murder—Brutal, Bizarre and Unsolved Mysteries of the Northwest.
“Since then I’ve fallen into the bc history hole! Always on the hunt for your work at book stores. Thanks for the great work!
“Just reading British Columbia Shipwrecks. Thanks again, Casey.”
My pleasure, Casey. May you continue to read and to learn about our province’s rich and colourful past. Ditto, all of you out there in Chronicles land!
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As Tom MacInnes tells us in this week’s post, Mike King was a legend in his own time.
I shall return to Mike King in a future biographical post; for now, this 1923 snapshot by the Western Canadian Lumberman—in other words, his peers—to establish his credibility. He was highly respected in the forestry industry as a pioneer woodsman and a man of unimpeachable veracity.
From the Western Canadian Lumberman (1923)
In the early days of the development of logging in British Columbia there was no more striking figure than Mike King. It will be interesting to the present generation to know that 21 years ago Mike cruised the limits around Powell River and gave a report of the timber existing above Powell Lake, on the Kingcome Inlet and elsewhere up the coast.
Mike's cruise was used by the Canadian Pulp and Paper Company in a prospectus which was widely circulated in England.
Certain interests were opposed to the launching of a pulp and paper plant at Powell River, and so was formed the B.C. Loggers Association, who sent a delegation to the Provincial Government to protest against the enterprise, which Mike and his friends were supporting...
Mike had represented that there was an ideal site for a pulp mill at Powell River, and that there was ample power there for such an industry. It is interesting note that one of the persons opposing the granting of timber to the pulp mill at that time stated to the government during the interviews: “Any mill which could be built at Powell River would be washed away by the sea." That was only 21 years ago.
Most of the gentleman engaged in the controversy have passed on, including Mr. King. Canadian Pulp and Paper Company was the starting point and the establishing of the great pulp industry in this province. Time has proven that the cruise made by Mike King was reliable; the establishment of a [$15 million] plant at Powell River eloquently testifies to the vision of [this] pioneer.
No one has to believe the bear story [but] the old timers all claim that Mike King was a truthful man, and truth is sometimes stranger than fiction.