Editorially speaking...
A very nice lady on the phone tapped me on my Achilles heel the other day...
She was calling on behalf of the Cowichan Intercultural Society which is working on a history project. To wit: “We hope to get some historical good stories onto our website” that tell of positive personal connections with local First Nations people.
She gave as an example an anecdote concerning a Chinese restaurant (that would have been in the days of downtown Duncan’s Chinatown) “welcoming First Nations people when White-run restaurants did not”.
That also would be of the period when Indigenous movie-goers had to sit, segregated, in the balcony of Duncan’s Capitol Theatre, when they couldn’t vote, and Chinese-Canadian citizens fared no better.
The reason I admit to having a sore point in this area is the fact that, in all my years of recording Cowichan Valley (and B.C.) history, I’ve focused on what we now have come to term, colonial history. In other words, the trials and tribulations—the good, the bad and the ugly—of European pioneers.
Have I snubbed our Cowichan friends and neighbours by choice?
Not at all. I have, in fact, laboured in want of positive stories from history. You can bet that the records contain a wealth of data on white-Indigenous relationships since the arrival of the first wave of colonists in the Cowichan Valley in 1859. But so many of these records, firsthand and otherwise—they were recorded by whites, after all—are, if not derogatory, sometimes patronizing sometimes just less than complimentary and rarely positive.
If you’ve been reading 100 Years Ago, my weekly recap of century-old issues of the Cowichan Leader, you’ll know that the news of that day was the news of the white residents of the Valley.
I consider myself to be a social historian but I also have a fondness for what’s called industrial heritage—stories about human enterprise and achievement. So I’ve taken the easy route; I’ve mostly written over the years—I’m talking millions of words in print—about our non-Indigenous pioneers and the events and adventures in which they played a role.
I was able to give the lady from the CIS a few leads which, hopefully, will help them to achieve their goal and I promised to consider the matter further, to dig from my files what I can.
But she has left me feeling, well, uncomfortably aware that my approach to local, regional and provincial history all these years has been, perhaps, myopic and definitely Euro-centric. I’m going to have to up my game...
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I said I have a fondness for industrial history. This great news story about the homecoming of two historic locomotives to Nelson, is actually several years old but was just sent to me and it certainly warms my cockles:
Antique train cars all aboard Nelson’s Railtown plan
Railway heritage is enriched by return of old Fairbanks Morse locomotives that will be on display when Railtown transformation is complete.
—www.Flickr.com
The Queen City’s newly dubbed Railtown is taking their nostalgic theme to new heights with the return of two antique Fairbanks Morse locomotives — CP 4104 and CP 7009.
Executive Director of Nelson and District Chamber of Commerce Tom Thompson says this is a boon for an area that enjoys a longstanding railway heritage.
In 1953, Canadian Pacific built a new diesel shop in Nelson. Fairbanks Morse (FM) locomotives were used on Canadian Pacific’s Southern Mainline and by 1957, all FM diesel electric locomotives were sent to the Nelson shop for maintenance.
Despite a demanding mountainous environment, the talented Nelson Diesel Shop staff and train crews kept the FM locomotives running longer than most other Class I North American railroads, “a testimonial to the high levels of dedication and expertise they were accorded at Nelson,” Thompson says.
It has been 37 years since locomotives of this design have worked the Kootenays.
“All of these locomotives certainly had a connection to our area because of the fact they were serviced in the diesel shop,” he says. “Now they’re back and they’re the last of a couple of remaining models of Fairbanks Morse in North America. There is some great heritage and history to these units.”
The locomotives are privately owned by John Burbridge of Ottawa, and were being stored in a Calgary rail yard that was being cleared out. The Chamber had approached Burbridge last year but CP housecleaning motivated Burbridge to move the machines he otherwise would have let lie.
“John didn’t have a place to store them anymore,” says Thompson.
The trains left Calgary Nov. 16 and travelled to Golden and then to Cranbrook attached to trains that were moving west. Through a Memorandum of Understanding they will be on permanent loan to the Chamber of Commerce.
Following the completion of their restoration in 2014, the Nelson and District Chamber of Commerce will have the units on display as part of the regional visitor gateway – business opportunity centre initiative. Their eventual display will serve to complement, from a railway heritage and technology viewpoint, the current and extensive redevelopment of the Nelson Station.
“We’ve worked really hard to acquire the CP station, to develop the regional visitor gateway opportunity centre and this is all part of a vision we see,” says Thompson. “These units that have a connection to Nelson will be on display in Nelson for years to come. I think it’s really fun.”
Local octogenarian Gus Balahura is one of a very few engineers still in town that used to run the newly arrived train. Retired 24 years from CP, at 82, he remembers the FM years at Nelson.
“I used to run that engine over to Trail, up to Grand Forks, Midway,” he says.
During his career, he covered the Region: Slocan, Midway, Penticton, Castlegar, Trail, Warfield, Rossland etc. He remembers the eight to ten hours it could take a heavy train to climb the 20-mile grade up Farron Hill, all while in #8 notch.
The engines are just the same as he remembers them when they served the busy Nelson terminal.
“It’s nice to see these engines down there. It will be quite a tourist attraction,” says Balahura.
Since we no longer have an operating Vancouver Island railway, how about a locomotive to go with the caboose beside the Duncan train station/museum? Just asking. --TW
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