Editorially speaking…
I wonder how many people ever pause to think that they’re literally walking on air as they go about their business in downtown Nanaimo.
The ‘air’ beneath their feet being that formed by abandoned coal mines—miles of them—now mostly flooded, but, in many cases, otherwise intact. This false floor is something that City building inspectors and contractors must take into account when they plan new works.
Watch your step in downtown Nanaimo—you could be swallowed up by an old coal mine. —BC Archives
Hikers in South Wellington are advised by warning signs of the potential dangers of a collapsing coal mine. —Author’s collection
The latest instance of having to bow to this ghost from the city’s black past is prep work for a downtown renewal project that involves trenching to replace old water mains on Commercial Street. Work has been halted for fears that trenching poses for the safety of workers.
This, despite the fact that the subterranean workings were confirmed by geotechnical drilling in 2023. “The original mine would have been deep enough to not create too much concern, but in many cases of coal mines, the roof starts to erode and fall into the mine,” said the City’s general manager of engineering and public works.
(Not to mention anything that should happen to be above it.)
Some of the old workings have been charted but others are only discovered when the ground sinks or contractors and road crews break into them.
Should Chronicles readers ever visit the Pacific Coast Coal Mines site in South Wellington, they can see a small maze of what appear to be giant gopher burrows. They’re collapsing tunnels from the long abandoned mine. At least twice in recent years, they collapsed beneath the adjacent E&N Railway mainline and required extensive back-filling.
Lucky for me, I beat the repair crew and added an unearthed carbide light to my collection.
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Saanich Municipality has approved the subdivision of 7.3 acres from the Lansdowne Middle School grounds for a French language school.
That, in itself, may be history of sorts, but that’s not why the news article caught my attention. This level plain and the adjoining 17.7 acres that will remain as part of LMS, are what remain of Victoria’s first airport. More than once, aviation history was made here. No one looking at these grassy acres would think that, a century ago, they were alive with flimsy aircraft, coming and going.
A Ford Tri-Motor touches down at Lansdowne airfield in 1928. —Hallmark Society
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Another recent news story inspired a detour during a visit to Victoria. A large field at the corner of Blanshard Street and Hillside Avenue has somehow survived development for more than a century.
It dates back to when what became S.J. Willis School was originally the Hillside Provincial Jail, forerunner to today’s Wilkinson Road Jail. A head guard at the latter institution, who dabbled in history, told me that this field was originally the Hillside Jail’s market garden. (It was the “lower” playing field, used primarily for girls’ grass hockey, when I attended S.J. in my middle school days.)
I went back to take photos before anybody began tearing it up. Because it’s there, according to my informant, that the four men who were hanged at Hillside Jail are buried.
I knew something of the site’s history even back when I was going to S.J., and I spent many a lunch hour scouring the property, looking for remains of the jail or, even better, its cemetery. I didn’t know then that executed prisoners were buried in unmarked graves after being liberally sprinkled with quick lime to make complete decomposition go quicker...
But I know that now and, armed with this knowledge, I think I narrowed down the most likely area for their graves. But that will be a story for another day...
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Here’s one of the many reasons I still subscribe to some newspapers, both hard copy and online:
Emily Carr was almost as well known for her pets as for her paintings. —Wikiart
Earlier this month, it was reported that a 1912 Emily Carr painting Masset, Q.C.I., of a grizzly bear totem pole, turned up at a barn sale on Long Island, NY. It was expected to go to auction yesterday. Apparently, it needed a good cleaning, but New York art dealer Allen Trelbitz knew it was something special the moment he saw it.
He paid $50 for the “Cinderella” discovery.
It’s believed that Carr gave the painting as a gift in the 1930s to her friend Nell Cozier and her husband who moved to New York.
Trelbitz hopes the painting will be acquired by a serious Carr collector or a museum.
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