Editorially speaking...
I’d written it off as another victim of time and ‘progress’ but, no, the old Thorne cabin, for a century and more a landmark at the southern entrance to Duncan, is alive and well.
Sort of, anyway, having been, to quote the present owner, “carefully disassembled”. He’d approached me, via the Cowichan Valley Citizen, to ask if I had any historical information about the cabin and/or photos.
He does know, as I did, that it served for a time in the 1960s as an antique store. I can remember driving my mother up from Victoria to make the rounds of Valley antique shops before we moved to Cherry Point in 1974. Back then the Hills, who later operated Wagonwheel Antiques in Whippletree Junction had the Thorne cabin.
But that’s as much as I know although I had coffee two years ago with the present property owner who was hoping that some publicity would attract a white knight willing to move the cabin because of its antiquity. I know of at least one party who looked at it but thought it too far gone for his purposes so when, months later, I saw an excavator parked in front, I quickly snapped some photos for posterity.
As it turns out, and much to my surprise, the old cabin has been rescued. I wish the same could be said of some other threatened heritage structures.
Another local landmark of a different kind, Queen Margaret’s School, recently celebrated its 100th anniversary. Founded in 1921 by Miss Norah Denny and Miss Rachel Geoghegan, the school has become an international success. That’s a long way from its original enrolment of 14 boys and girls although the school property hasn’t moved far from its original site of Holmesdale House. There aren’t many institutions in the Cowichan Valley that can boast of such lengthy provenance...
The contentious removal of Sir John A. Macdonald’s statue from Victoria City Hall three years ago continues to draw letters to the editor of the Times Colonist. City Council, in doing the deed on the quiet then placing our first prime minister in storage, likely had no idea of the extent of public indignation they were igniting or how badly it has made them appear.
No, people aren’t rioting in the streets, but the whole affair, so shabbily handled, continues to rankle many. Until Council comes up with a suitable relocation and new signage for Macdonald, disgraced in recent years for his instrumental role in founding residential schools, this issue will continue to fester and to make Council look, deservedly, foolish.
Speaking of looks, there’s a new one in Duncan and along the Sea to Sky Highway. Several downtown Duncan streets now bear double signage as a tribute to our Hul’q’umi’num heritage (e.g. Station Street – Liloot Shelh (Train)). Other First Nations are following this dual-signage program, the latest being Squamish Nation’s 27 place names along the S-to-S Highway.
According to the North Shore News, Squamish Nation member Aaron Williams, a language project specialist at Squamish Nation Language and Culture Affairs, hopes that through sharing and teaching the Squamish language, more and more people will begin to understand “who the Squamish people are”.
On the national scene, the federal government is about to issue a formal apology to Italian-Canadians who were interned as “enemy aliens” during the Second World War.
My father knew firsthand about this sad chapter in our national past; he was a young seaman in the North Atlantic when his destroyer, HMCS St. Laurent, was called to rescue survivors of the sinking S.S. Arandora Star. The former passenger liner and refrigerated cargo ship had been struck by a single torpedo and more than 800 lives were lost. Many of those on board were German and Italian civilian internees as well as prisoners of war.
My father vividly remembered two of the rescued in particular. The first was a captured U-boat commander who was the stereotypical image of a Nazi—arrogant and abusive—and my father was assigned to guard him with a revolver. The second man was an elderly Italian who’d spent most of his life in England and whose son was serving in the British Army.
But he was of Italian origin and Britain was at war with Italy so he was an “enemy alien.” Placed on board the ill-fated S.S. Arandora Star, he was bound for internment in Canada for the duration.
As a former provincial highways minister was so fond of saying, “Sorry for the inconvenience!”.
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