Editorially speaking…
This photo of Duncan’s historic Keating Farm house, my neighbour to the west, is several years old now but the farm continues to be alive and well in the loving care of George and Rebecca Papadopoulos. The couple, who purchased this magnificent 27-acre property from The Land Conservancy and have restored the manor-like farmhouse and barn, celebrated their 10th anniversary there this past weekend with an Open House.
“What a journey,” George told the Cowichan Valley Citizen, admitting to reporter Chadd Cawson that he his wife have always been “big dreamers and romantics”.
It shows in the extent and expense to which they’ve gone to restore this former dairy farm at the entrance to Glenora. Anyone who’s ever been inside the house with its cathedral-like Great Room can’t help but be impressed—probably mystified—by builder Andrew Keating.
He’d made his fortune in the Chilean nitrate trade, is said to have once owned much of what’s today downtown Los Angeles, and, upon arriving in the Cowichan Valley in 1888, began to buy up a total of 4000 acres. Using the Blyth cabin as his temporary home he commissioned construction of what became a mansion.
One of its most unique features is the fact that it encompassed the original small Blyth cabin—which is still there, entirely concealed within the present house! Years ago, I peeked through a hole in an upstairs wall and there it is, the shake roof clearly visible. You’d never know it today, of course, the larger house having been totally renovated and updated.
Keating Farm is available for staging events such as weddings, by the way. —rebecca@keatingfarm.ca
Sadly for Andrew Keating, he didn’t get to enjoy his Cowichan retirement long, he and his two sons going down with 40-odd others when the CPR coastal passenger liner Islander struck an iceberg in Alaska’s Lynn Canal in 1901.
The once larger property has been subdivided and has had several owners over the years. Its historical significance and architectural uniqueness prompted the TLC to acquire ownership but financial difficulties later forced them to place it once again on the market.
In a marriage made in heaven, the Papadopoulos’s saw the for sale advertisements and came to the farm’s rescue. Bless them for being dreamers and romantics, as George puts it!
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Come Remembrance Day many of us tend to think about Canada’s fallen in both world wars and the Korean conflict. It’s easy to overlook the many peacekeeping operations the Canadian military have participated in over the past 70 years, even though some of them, such as Afghanistan, are quite recent.
A new Memory Project, Peacekeepers in Cyprus, is set to change that, and today is the day that you can join in a Q & A with two veterans of that historic mission via Zoom. Unfortunately, it’s scheduled to occur early, at 11:00 this morning. I apologize for the short notice.
But you can watch the video, Patrolling the Green Line: Canadian Peacekeepers in Cyprus at your leisure at https://www.thememoryproject.com/ and learn about the background of this ongoing world hot point at The Canadian Encyclopedia.
A Canadian peacekeeper on patrol in Cyprus.—The Canadian Encyclopedia
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Whoever thought of it?
According to a recent news report, some doctors are sneaking education into online content “to drown out myths”.
This is in response to a disturbing growth in parents’ mistrust of vaccinations for their children. Vaccinations which have proven to be one of the greatest medical breakthroughs and health benefits of all time!
But that’s not where I’m going with this.
Deeper into the story. Dr. Siobhan Deshauer, who has nearly a million online subscribers, refers to it as “smuggling in education,” by which she means she craftily slips in topics—facts—that she thinks “are really important and that I’m passionate about”.
Well, it goes without saying that I’m an historian not a doctor, but I, too, deal in facts not misinformation. History, as has been said so many times, usually by kids in class, can be, dare I say it, dry if not outright boring. The secret to successfully sharing history and stoking other peoples’ passion is to present it in an entertaining manner.
In other words I, like Dr. Deshauer, am a smuggler. I present historic facts, dates, events and people, as entertainment. I’ve been doing it since I was a teenager and I hope to go on doing it indefinitely.
In short, it’s not necessarily what you say but how you say it., as the good doctor has recently discovered. I could have told her this 60 years ago. And I know it works. One of my favourite accolades came from a lady who spoke to me in the hallway after I’d given a talk at a banquet.
“My husband,” she said, “hates history—but he reads you every week.”
Yes!