Editorially speaking…
Author/historian Lynn Starter. —maplebayhistory.ca
Talk about a labour of love. Fourteen years and 100 interviews later, Duncan author Lynn Starter’s opus, a coffee table took of 1200 pages of photos and facts is off the press and available.
According to the website maplebayhistory.ca, Follow the Road to Maple Bay “is not just a history book; it's a heartfelt journey through time that warmly embraces the rich tapestry of Maple Bay's past. As you turn the pages, you'll find yourself transported to a bygone era, where the village's roots run deep and its stories are woven with the threads of community, resilience, and enduring spirit...”
I haven’t weighed my copy but it takes both hands to lift it to and from the table! In fact, I have to figure out where I’m going to keep it as, obviously, it doesn’t fit any of my many bookshelves, and a coffee table isn’t my idea of a repository for a history book.
At $110 it’s expensive, no doubt, but one look at it and you’ll understand why. For a signed copy Lynn can be reached at lstarter@shaw.ca.
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Speaking of author/historians, the Cowichan Historical Society is hosting a 90-minute presentation by Tom W. Parkin, Rocks by Rail, this evening at Duncan United Church, 7:00 p.m. The “rocks” referred to are copper ore from Mount Sicker and coal from South Wellington, and the short lines that carried both to tidewater. You can read some of Tom’s historical writings at https://tomwparkin.com.
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And, speaking of coal, the City of Ladysmith is about to destroy another historical icon in the name of salmon-spawning concerns.
The 3.8-metre-high, 12-metre-wide Mackie Road Dam, a timber-crib structure spanning Holland Creek, is thought to have been built 70 years ago by the Wellington Collieries Co., for water supply control. I thought it was built by the Granby Co., but don’t have time to look it up.
The late Ladysmith historian Ray Knight would have been able to give it proper provenance off the top of his head—I rarely stumped him with my questions over the years I knew him.
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A recent letter to the Cowichan Valley Citizen serves as a reminder that the desecration of cemeteries is always with us.
It’s beyond comprehension how anyone could defile a grave by damaging a headstone or, in this case, removing a precious family memento, a lantern. The sad fact is that, in almost all the many cemeteries I’ve visited throughout southern and central B.C., vandalism is apparent. How utterly senseless and cruel.
An unusual view of headstones being displaced, not by vandals, but by nature, in Mount View Cemetery, Duncan. —Author’s Collection
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The so-called Hanging Judge, Matthew Begbie has been vilified in recent years. —BC Archives
“How well do you know B.C.?” asked British Columbia magazine in a sale promotion some years ago. Eight questions were posed, including this one that I’ll throw at Chronicles readers:
How many mountains in British Columbia were named after Sir Matthew Baillie Begbie, the famed “Hanging Judge”?
None
three
five
seven
Answer: “Not one but three mountains in the province are named for Begbie. In addition, Begbie Summit, just south of 100 Mile House, is the highest point on the Cariboo Trail.
The three Mount Begbies are located between 70 Mile House and 100 Mile House, on Graham Island in Haida Gwaii, and south of Revelstoke. There are also two Begbie lakes and one Begbie Creek in B.C.”
Lucky for Begbie, the B.C. Law Society doesn’t have a say in provincial geographical place names or they’d have removed him from the map as they did his statue in Vancouver, in the name of misguided and ill-informed political correctness.
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