Editorially speaking…
Whenever we see or hear anything in the news about whales these days, it’s about their being threatened (in the case of the Orcas) with eventual extinction, or of a whale being run down by a ship, or becoming entangled in discarded fishing gear...
Our concern for their general welfare is a dramatic turnaround from that of our pioneers, Indigenous and White, who harvested them for their meat and blubber, then for their oil and ambergris which were valued for industrial purposes.
Few people likely realize that commercial whaling in British Columbia began in the 1860s in Mill Bay, between Victoria and Cowichan Bay, on the southeast coast of Vancouver Island. Great great granddaughter Elaine V. Clay has published a fascinating history of Alexander Dawson Donaldson who, with his nephew, James Dawson, started commercial whaling in this province.
Available at Victoria bookstores and online. —Courtesy Elaine Clay
Aptly titled, Seeking A Fortune, it’s available at Victoria bookstores and online. I recommend it for anyone who’d like to know more about this all but forgotten chapter of our marine history. Elaine Clay invested years intp researching not just her family members, but the lives and careers of peripheral characters.
Seeking A Fortune is a true labour of love and a bargain at $20 for the real book, $3.95 for the digital edition. Commercial whaling in B.C. is just one more piece of our history students will never read about in school.
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A tribute to Victoria Daily Times photographer Irving Strickland in last Sunday’s Times Colonist brought back memories of my first job as a copyboy for what was then The Daily Colonist. In those days, both papers were owned by the same company and shared a building on Douglas Street, just south of the Roundabout.
Each paper had its own darkrooms, side by side, and I remember the Colonist’s well. That’s where some reporters kept their bottles and sipped a bracer or two or three, and where I ducked into to be out of mind and out of sight of the odd editor who chose to make my life, well, difficult...
And that’s where I got even with the worst of them all.
He couldn’t send me out to fetch him his dinner but, hearing that I was going to buy chicken take-out from just down the street, he could hitch a ride, so to speak, by asking me to bring him dinner, too. I didn’t see that I had any choice so I complied. But, before taking him his chicken and chips, still hot in their insulated tinfoil, I took a detour through the darkroom.
There, I ran his dinner under the tap until it was nice and cold.
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I’m sorry to report that the No. 1077 locomotive hasn’t returned to service at Fort Steele Historic Park and summer is all but over. Shannon Panko and others who’ve lobbied for months, even petitioning the premier, haven’t prevailed, alas, and the locomotive that has starred in several movies remains sidelined. As do the handful of experienced railroaders capable of operating her.
—Wikipedia
As I caustically commented to a friend recently, none of our levels of government seem to want to walk the talk when it comes to coughing up the necessary funds to save and maintain our heritage.
It almost always comes down to volunteer citizens, historical societies and regional museums, to do what can be done with their limited finances. A perfect example is the B.C. Aviation Museum in Sidney, which has been in the news because of the arrival of what will be its crown jewel, the last Martin Martins water bomber in B.C.
Yes, the province made a sizable contribution to the moving expenses, but this is a one-off. This fabulous museum is otherwise totally unfunded by governments.
I bless Shannon Panko and all who worked with her to keep No. 1077 in operation.
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As I’ve said before, I don’t know how he does it, but Nigel Robertson can take an old photo or postcard, black and white and with the printers’ dot pattern, and transform it into beautiful full-colour. He even enhances the resolution.
Look at the detail of the stone work of this shot of Cowichan’s famous Old Stone, or Butter Church. What an absolute shame that this historic structure is derelict and the victim of ongoing vandalism. But that’s a story for another day....
