Editorially speaking…
There’s an interesting footnote to today’s Chronicle about Louisa Townsend who came to B.C. on the bride ship Tynemouth and married Edward Mallandaine.
Their son, Edward Jr., born propitiously on July 1st, 1867, the same day as the Confederation of the Dominion of Canada, became an itinerant carpenter for several years after leaving school at the age of 14. He found himself (again propitiously) in the CPR construction town of Donald, B.C., in time to witness the driving of the Last Spike.
Looking like a boy, Edward Mallandaine Jr. was 22 when he wormed himself through the crowd to share in one of the most momentous events in Canadian history when Lord Strathcona drove the Last Spike. —BC Archives
Not only witness the historic occasion that was captured on film and which has been adjudged among the 10 most historic Canadian photographs ever taken, but to be a central figure in the camera’s lens. Looking much younger than his 22 years, he’s recorded for all time, standing, hands at his side, or in his pockets, immediately behind the top-hatted CPR director Donald Smith.
Likely, it was his diminutive size and apparent youth that had enabled him to squeeze his way through the crowd of brawny workmen and railway dignitaries for a front-row vantage point.
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It’s in the news that Ladysmith has received $1 million to restore its ca 1944 E&N Railway station which has been vacant and locked for years.
What stories it could tell, I’m sure. The one that springs to my mind is the distant day when a young Viola Cull was playing in her yard, only to be unnerved by an ominous rumbling like thunder from the harbour area.
About to have a new life as a visitor centre and community hub, the old E&N Railway station. —Ladysmith Historical Society
Panicking, she ran into the house and told her father. Stepping outside to investigate, he, too, heard the distant rumble and told her to wait for him while he checked it out.
Years later, when writing her book, Ladysmith’s Colourful History, she recalled that day that was made all the more vivid in her memory when her father returned to explain that the rumbling noise had been made by an enraged mob waiting for the southbound train.
They knew it was carrying Robert Featherstone, on his way from Nanaimo to Victoria to stand trial for the murder of young Mary Dalton of South Wellington. But this is Canada, eh, so Featherstone’s guards and prisoner were able to continue on to Victoria unmolested. Tried and convicted, he was duly hanged.
As I say, what stories the old train station could tell!
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For the first time ever, Victoria’s oldest newspaper was recently published off-Island. The Times Colonist (before their merger, the Victoria Daily Times and The Daily Colonist) had to be printed in Vancouver because of problems at the Ladysmith plant.
Publisher David Obee assured readers that this was an unexpected and unavoidable temporary change, so I’ve no doubt that Amor de Cosmos, the Colonist’s founding father, known for his feisty temperament, isn’t spinning in his grave.
Legendary newspaper publisher and politician Amor de Cosmos. —Wikipedia
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And Billy Proctor, the “Heart of the Raincoast,” has died at the age of 90. The former fisherman-cum-environmentalist and author of several history books, “spent his life in the remote island community of Echo Bay on Gilford Island, off the coast of northern Vancouver island”.
I have his books and can tell you he’s worth checking out at your local library. Ask for Heart of the Rain Coast, Full Moon Flood Tide and Tide Rips and Back Eddies.
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