Editorially speaking…
This week’s story on Bill Barlee brings back so many memories for me...
How I envy his childhood!
Imagine being born in a community of abandoned gold mines with derelict buildings and equipment for a playground!
I and my friends played in the bushy fringes of Swan Lake and the ‘overflow’ in winter, in the fields and haylofts of neighbouring dairy farms, and on the CNR tracks (even the trains themselves when we could get away with it). Lots of fun, yes, but hardly to be compared with what Rossland must have been like after the gold rush.
All my treasure hunting was done in books then, later, on television. I read and watched everything I could on the subject. But—everything I read about, the lost mines, the sunken galleons, were far, far away, in Arizona, Louisiana and Florida, it seemed.
Bill Barlee, his brothers and chums had “lost” gold mines for a backyard!
Granby miners pose with the ‘jitney, 191-,’ by which they commuted to and from Nanaimo. Work conditions were good at Granby—if you could stand the underground gases that made a man sick.—BC Archives
Last week, while up-Island on other business, Blake and I stopped in at Granby, Cassidy. It was just a drive-by in the rain, but this pocket community is special to me as it was my first ‘ghost town’. My first, because of its accessibility—we could drive right to it from Victoria. There was still something of its coal mining days (besides the huge slack piles between the road and the river) to be seen in those days.
But I’d had to wait until my early 20s to do it, thanks then to having a vehicle and mobility.
My point being, that Granby was 60 miles from my home stomping grounds. Historic Leechtown was closer, in the Sooke hills and watershed, but required a gate pass. No big deal, just a long drive.
But no long drives or off-roading for Bill Barlee. No wonder he was bitten by the history and treasure bug.
In his case, he struck real gold as a treasure hunter. Even with a metal detector, my treasures have been more of, shall we say, historical value than monetary. Which, of course, has always worked for me. As I’ve noted before, finding a miner’s tag is like finding a 20-dollar gold piece.
Miners’ tags or tallies or checks, these from Extension. —Author’s photo and collection
Although only worth its weight in brass, if you want to be brutal about it, a tag is worth its weight in gold to me because that loonie-sized round of brass with its number represented a man, a coal miner whom we’ll never know by name. But what stories these tags can tell...
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Speaking of treasure hunting, a recent article in the Sooke News Mirror also evoked memories, these of bottle digging. Sooke’s Bryan Turnbull is shown holding a Morley ginger beer, complete with wooden stopper. A nice find!
Originally from Ontario, he now haunts local beaches—something not available to him back then: “In Ontario, we don’t have beaches like we have here [and] I learned that there [is] all sorts of treasure to be found.” By treasure, he means bottles, pottery, marbles and the like.
Like me, he’s probably never going to get rich, treasure hunting. But that really isn’t the point, is it? He’s looking for bottles and curios, I’m looking for artifacts, mementos of the past that speak of Vancouver Island’s fabulous history. That’s where the value lies!
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I missed mention of it at the time but Nanaimo celebrated the 150th anniversary of its first Council meeting in December. By B.C. standards, that’s a long time, and Nanaimo certainly has come a long way in a century and a-half. Now with a population of 100,000 souls and, it seems, spread all over the mid-Island map, there’s not much readily visible that recalls the past other than the Bastion.
And, thankfully, the great, great stories that have been saved for posterity in old records, reminiscences, photos and books in the City Archives.
Coal mine manager Mark Bate was the first mayor, by the way, and a highly popular one who won several elections.
Nanaimo Mayor Mark Bate. —BC Archives
Ah, the gold old days. What a shame they’re not making them any more.
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