Editorially speaking...
How is that a provincial government which, just months ago, eagerly committed to at least a billion dollars for a new museum that would have created a bomb crater in the heart of downtown Victoria for seven years, can’t adequately fund a humble historic site such as Point Ellice House?
—https://pointellicehouse.com/the-house/
But such is the case—and has been for several years, according to news reports. The latest account in the Times Colonist flat out says the landmark, which is almost hidden in an industrial zone, isn’t just struggling but “running out of money”.
According to Kelly Black, the executive director of the Vancouver Island Local History Society which has managed the site by contract since 2019, the financial situation is “dire.” (They receive $80,000 per year for all operating and maintenance costs.)
And Point Ellice House isn’t alone in having to beg the province for more funding; Victoria’s Emily Carr House and the restored ghost town of Barkerville are in the same boat. (Isn’t Barkerville a National Historic Site?)
The abrupt turn-about on the proposed Royal BC Museum re-make was purely political as was the tearing down and closing of the Old Town exhibit on the third floor. In short: nothing short of a debacle. But that’s already, ahem, history. Point Ellice House, Emily Carr House and Barkerville are here and now. If they’re going to be there tomorrow for the benefit of future generations, they need adequate funding.
The joke is, their combined costs are small potatoes compared to the envisioned RBC Museum remake.
So, Mr. Horgan and Company, please accept your responsibilities and get on with the job of protecting our heritage.
Speaking of which, this is another opportunity to again urge the province to get the ball rolling on a rejuvenated Maritime Museum of B.C. in the old CPR Marine Building.
* * * * *
There’s a more positive outcome in the same neighbourhood. The Songhees and Esquimalt First Nations have officially acquired the old B.C. Hydro site on Rock Bay.
This, after how many millions of dollars to repatriate the contaminated soil, much of which, I bet, is now in the Shawnigan foothills.
But that aside, the 4.5 acres in question are once again in the possession of the descendants of their original inhabitants. The economic potential for this historic property in Victoria’s industrial heartland is phenomenal and it remains to be seen how the new/old owners develop it...
* * * * *
Things aren’t as harmonious in Powell River, however. There, the sale of a shuttered, century-old pulp mill, once the site of a village, has been challenged by the local Tla’amin First Nation who are claiming the property and an adjacent hydro dam on Powell River.
* * * * *
Nationally, Canadian doctors have urged vaccinations after a reported outbreak of polio in the U.S. Polio is one of the few diseases, like smallpox, that have been all but eradicated by vaccines and the thought of a resurgence is scary.
I went to school with several victims of this evil disease which strikes without warning and usually leaves its victims with lifelong consequences. Worse, some years ago, it became apparent that many of those who’d suffered polio in childhood were subject to a debilitating recurrence in their middle years.
* * * * *
Back to the Royal BC Museum/Archives:
I and fellow historians have been chafing at the cost of acquiring archival photos for use online, in books, etc. Most museums range from free to $25, but the RBCA charges an exorbitant $75 and a handling fee (and GST, no doubt) for single-usage.
Friend Blake argues that, if the RBCA really wants to save history by encouraging general knowledge of same, they should provide the photos at a reasonable fee. Most if not all photos in its possession have been digitized so there’s extremely little or no cost to providing them.
We who publish historical articles, posts, books, etc., etc., usually do so at our own expense rather than for serious profit and $75 is a substantial—and discouraging—price to pay to use a photo just once.
(Which explains, dear readers, why I “shop around” online for photos to illustrate the Chronicles. I, for one, am indebted to Wikipedia.
* * * * *
More pearls of wisdom from the frontier journalist and satirist, Bob Edwards, these, somewhat cynical and contradictory, on Friendship:
Better a fool friend than a wise enemy.
Set ‘em up and the crowd is with you. Go broke and you go it alone.
He is truly a great man who can lose his money and still retain his friends.
The average man has more friends and fewer enemies than he thinks he has.
* * * * *