They’re Not Making the ‘Good Old Days’ Any More

Please bear with me. It's that time of year again. You know, when one day it's searing hot (just over a week ago, remember?) the next, someone turns a switch and—wham—it's fall... Autumn. Too early for frost or heavy dew on your windshield, and the sun still shines, but the furnace starts to come on and you know it’s over.

The time of year that, besides putting me to work cleaning my roof and gutters, raking leaves, and all those good things associated with preparing for winter, I become reflective.

Is it just me, or is this a natural, yearly twinning of season and mood change prompted by the first falling of leaves and the withering away of summer and all its happy associations of the beach, barbecues on the sundeck, etc.?

Featured MembersPatricia MacGregor Graphic DesignerSeptember 24, 2026Lost Treasure

BC’s First License Plate Holders

For this week’s historical ramble we’re going back to 1968 and an article written by Ainslie J. Helmcken, 1900-1987. The grandson of legendary Hudson’s Bay Co. surgeon John Sebastian Helmcken, he served as the first curator of the Victoria City Archives, 1967-1983. Here’s what he wrote, almost 60 years ago. He begins with a lengthy preamble so I’ll cut to the quick.

Featured MembersPatricia MacGregor Graphic DesignerMarch 26, 2026Lost Treasure

When British Columbia Had Its Own Mint

Back in 1861, the Crown Colony of British Columbia was hindered by a shortage of money of all types.

At that time, the future Pacific province was supposed to be on the pound sterling of the Old Country. In reality, there was a shortage of coins and almost any coin of almost any realm was accepted if of gold or silver.

Featured MembersPatricia MacGregor Graphic DesignerApril 24, 2025Mining, Lost Treasure

Lost Silver of Slocan Lake

The box car rolled with each motion of the barge, every gust of wind rocking it more violently on its bed of rails. Then it began to roll—through the guard rails and into the dark depths of the lake, and carrying with it, 24-year-old brakeman, Edward Connolly...

Featured MembersPatricia MacGregor Graphic DesignerJanuary 25, 2024Lost Treasure

The Mystery Tunnel of Leech River

Does a mystery tunnel, complete with steps carved into a solid rock cliff—with a cache of gold bars—exist in a Vancouver Island rain forest?

The answer to this question would solve what must be one of the most intriguing tales of lost treasure in British Columbia history—and the key, like that to 'Rattlesnake' Dick Barter’s alleged hoard (another story for another time)—lies within 25 miles of Victoria!

Featured MembersPatricia MacGregor Graphic DesignerMay 11, 2023Lost Treasure

Civil War Guerrilla Leader Escape to Vancouver Island? (Part 3)

It’s generally accepted that the infamous Confederate guerrilla leader William Quantrill died a week after being shot and paralyzed from the shoulders down in a skirmish with Union irregulars in the weeks following the official end of the American Civil War. But—did he?

The Legend of the Lost Golden Bullets Mine

All these years later, I can see and hear him now. The late Jack Fleetwood, the man with the photographic memory, the man fellow local historians regarded as the Oracle of the Cowichan Valley, was addressing a small gathering of the Shawnigan Lake Historical Society.

British Columbia Treasure Chest

Lost treasure is where you find it—quite possibly under your very nose! I offer this as encouragement to armchair enthusiasts who confine their treasure hunting to television, movies and daydreams. Ironically, few realize that, while there definitely is gold in some of 'them thar hills,' it can also exist, in various forms, much closer to home.

Featured MembersPatricia MacGregor Graphic DesignerDecember 9, 2021Lost Treasure

Did a Sea Monster Guard the S.S. Islander's Gold? (Conclusion)

It wasn't long after I began researching B.C. and west coast shipwrecks that I first read of the sinking of the S.S. Islander. The Victoria-based coastal passenger liner had struck an iceberg in Alaska's Lynn Canal during the Klondike gold rush.

Featured MembersPatricia MacGregor Graphic DesignerNovember 25, 2021Shipwrecks/Marine, Lost Treasure

Did a Sea Monster Guard the S.S. Islander's Gold?

As a kid I thrived on shipwrecks--in magazines and books, anyway. Photos in National Geographic and travel magazines of rusted hulks on semi-tropical beaches, underwater scenes of Spanish treasure galleons, and of Second World War naval ships on the sea bottom in the southern Pacific really turned me on.

Featured MembersPatricia MacGregor Graphic DesignerNovember 18, 2021Shipwrecks/Marine, Lost Treasure

R.A. ‘Volcanic’ Brown Was an Unlikely Hero and Legend

Of all the stories of lost treasure in British Columbia the legendary Lost Creek Mine has the most personal meaning for me. It helped to set me on the path to becoming a lifelong writer/historian. All thanks to my growing up in Victoria in the 1950s on a diet of, first, American comic books, then American magazines, movies and TV.

Did Brother XII Leave Mason Jars Filled With Gold?

Even though he’s been dead for almost a century, one of British Columbia’s most infamous con men is back in the news. dward Arthur Wilson, aka Brother XII, may be long gone but the legends of the religious cult he founded at Cedar-by-the-Sea (Cedar) and on DeCourcy and Cortez Islands in the 1920s live on.

Beachcombing: Mysteries Cast Up By the Sea

I’m becoming a believer in coincidence. I’d no sooner decided to write about beachcombing and secrets that have been given up—or withheld—by the sea than an article in the Times Colonist caught my eye. Researchers from Universite du Quebec a Rimouski are trying to determine if a letter that washed up in a bottle onto a New Brunswick beach in 2017 is genuine.

‘Lost Mine’ is Like a Moment Frozen in Time

You could say that today’s story began at the foot of my driveway. That’s where, upon returning from my daily walk along the old CNR Tidewater Line by my house, I saw a man standing by my mailbox. As I approached it became apparent that he was waiting for me.

Welcome Members!

The Chronicles