Editorially speaking...
Let’s begin with this quote from Capt. George Vancouver as a follow-up to August 5th’s post on Military Mapmakers.
In writing about just four of the Royal Navy officers whose names grace our charts and maps, I mentioned Capt. George Richards whose many contributions to British Columbia charts are still in use even in this age of satellite navigation.
I also merely hinted at the personal hardships they endured and the personal sacrifices they made. Imagine being away from home for up to three years at a time in tiny, cramped, spartan and storm-tossed ships that offered little in the way of comfort.
Which is why I concluded that, in this day of belated and overdue acknowledgement of the province’s Indigenous peoples who were here 1000s of years before the first Europeans, these officers earned the right to have their names grace our maps and charts.
Capt. George Vancouver, RN, whose name honours our Island home. —Wikipedia
Particularly so Capt. George Vancouver who, although he didn’t know it, was terminally ill and who suffered recurring bouts of illness all the while he was at sea. He only managed to complete his journals for publication with the help of his brother before dying, aged 41. The telling passage is at the very end of the book:
“The object of our voyage being also of a public nature, as there is little doubt of the Court of Great Britain publishing all our various discoveries, etc., for the general use and benefit of mankind, I consider myself more as acting in the capacity of a servant of the world, than that of any particular sovereign...” (My italics, TW)
He, Richards and other RN cartographers gave their all to explore and to chart the Pacific Coast from California to Alaska, even venturing into western Arctic waters. Charts that are still used today!
Ergo: it strikes me that Vancouver Island is a justified tribute even though it’s at the expense of another great naval officer, Capt. Juan Francisco de la Bodega y Quadra—another noble man who died young, by the way.
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The Chronicles had no sooner gone to press last week with my declaration that the Island had escaped serious wildfires so far than the Copper Canyon blaze flared up. So let’s be careful out there, folks!
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I also wrote about the cost of lumber in the 19-teens: just under $900 for all the timber and lumber materials for a new house, FOB Neudorf, Sask. In reading a history of the Rogers Sugar Refinery I see that a skilled workman earned 32 1/2 cents per hour in 1917. Now get out your calculator to see how many hours he had to work (at least income tax wasn’t a major bite) to make $890 then decide if in fact it was such a great deal in 1917.
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It’s great news that the legendary coastal vessel Lady Rose’s successor MV. Frances Barkley will not be going out of service after all. More about that next week.
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