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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.
Read MoreFor me, a sad beginning to an otherwise pleasant Spring day. An email from Eric Ricker, a fellow veteran of the years-long campaign to save the century-old tipple/headframe at Morden Colliery Provincial Heritage Park, informed me that another oldtime Friend of the Morden Mine has passed away.
Read MoreYou 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.
Read MoreI’d written it off as another victim of time and ‘progress’ but, no, the old Thorne cabin, for a century and more a landmark at the southern entrance to Duncan, is alive and well. Sort of, anyway, having been, to quote the present owner, “carefully disassembled”. He’d approached me, via the Cowichan Valley Citizen, to ask if I had any historical information about the cabin and/or photos.
Read MoreWe must go way back to Sept. 23, 1916. On that Saturday, Cowichan Lake’s Doreen Ashburnham and Anthony Farrer were walking along a forest trail on the South Shore, bridles in hand, to their pastured ponies. They almost ran into the cougar, “lying quite still in the pathway”.
Read MoreThe clock is again ticking for Hope’s ca 1916 Canadian National Railway station. Council’s decision to demolish the heritage-designated landmark, said to be structurally sound, was put on hold last month when the B.C. Ombudsman’s office intervened because the current Council is, in effect, going against both the municipal Heritage Designation Act.
Read MoreOne of my favourite pioneer storytellers, D.W. Higgins, whom we’ve met before in the Chronicles, wrote two books during his retirement. Both were based upon a series of articles he’d written for the Daily Colonist about his 40-year career as a journalist and newspaper editor during the province’s eventful founding. In the latter book, published in1905, he tells a fascinating tale of a brutal robbery and murder in B.C.’s Cariboo gold fields.
Read MoreCan’t remember if I already told you about this one but...there are some great new B.C. historical websites out there; in fact, they seem to springing up like mushrooms. The latest, on my radar at least, is Daryl Ashby’s Vancouver Island – Early History Group on Facebook. In the past week he has touched on two subjects of particular interest to me, Nanaimo’s Pioneer Cemetery and the No. 1 Mine disaster, Canada’s second worst colliery catastrophe. I’ve been researching the latter for 20 years
Read MoreAs I explained last week, every blue moon the Mountain comes to Mohammed. By which I mean that a story, fully researched, comes to me. Such is this week’s tale by Robin Garratt of England. In 2010, by which time he and his wife were in their 70s, they visited the Cowichan Valley for two weeks. Robin wanted to learn more about his maternal grandparents’ brief employment at Hill Farm in Cobble Hill just prior to the First World War.
Read MoreTwo heritage-related stories in the news this week—one with a happy future, the other on life support...
I’ve been telling you of the ongoing campaign to save the historic 1916 CNR station house in Hope which, despite having heritage designation and despite the protests of many Hope and B.C. residents, has been consigned to demolition by the District of Hope.
There's some confusion as to whether J.H.S. 'Sam' Matson actually built this large Cobble Hill farm house in 1908 or whether a French Canadian named Gravelle already had a house on the site. It's more credible that Matson, a wealthy Victoria newspaper publisher and businessman, engaged a Chinese crew to build a residence here in 1914. Did he have it designed by the renowned Victoria architect Sam Maclure? That's another mystery for heritage buffs.
Read MoreJust finished Maria Tippett’s excellent biography of Emily Carr. I still have a problem with Emily’s later, more impressionistic work but I certainly have come to know her a little better as a gifted artist and as a woman.
Read MoreBefore getting down to things that go bump in the night I must introduce you to Hudson’s Bay. Co. fur trader John Tod. Not only was he one of a kind but so is this unique description of him by the gilt-penned historian Hubert Bancroft.
Read MoreI had begun to despair that Ladysmith would ever get off the pot but, at last, I’m happy to see that restoration of the old Crown Zellerbach No.11 locomotive is well in hand, perhaps even finished. All done by volunteers, I gather. When will governments of all levels ever learn that our history is a public trust, and accept that they have the responsibility of caring for it? Instead, they’re forever crying poverty and foisting the work and most of the expense off on taxpaying volunteers who, fortunately for future generations, do value their heritage enough to want to do something to save it. That’s my gripe for today.
Read MoreAs I admitted in last week’s promo, I ‘borrowed’ this great title from authors and historians Ian Baird and Peter Smith. Several years ago they coined it for their ‘hiking and biking’ guide book to abandoned railways on southern Vancouver Island. These included the two major former railway grades in the Cowichan Valley which are now the Cowichan Valley and the Trans Canada Trails, formerly the E&N Railway extension from Duncan to Lake Cowichan, and the Canadian National Railways mainline from Sooke to Lake Cowichan.
Read MoreLots happening, some of it good, some of it not so good, on the museum front these days. COVID has obviously put a damper on public attendance at most museums. To cite but one, the B.C. Forest Discovery Centre has had to cancel its popular Easter Hunt and train rides, both of which drew mass attendance and income from admission fees.
Read MoreIn my promo for this week’s post on what is today’s Pioneer Square in Victoria, I lamented that cemeteries are supposed to be hallowed ground and treated with due respect—meaning that the graves and headstones are kept up, in effect, for all time. But, as I sorrowfully pointed out, such isn’t always the case and what originally was the Quadra Street burying ground, or cemetery, home to some of Victoria’s earliest and most historically significant pioneers, is now treated and used as a park.
Read MoreLast week I told you that Hope Council has decided to have that Fraser River community’s second oldest building, the ca 1916 Canadian National Railways station house, demolished. Even though it’s said to be structurally sound and was given heritage designation 40 years ago.
Read MoreI’m taking this long to tell the story of George Cruickshank being charged with stealing $5000 in American gold pieces from the safe of the bank where he was employed as accountant because of the story’s curious twists.
Read MoreIt has become obvious to me that I ain’t never going to keep up with, let alone get ahead of incoming subject ideas. They’re relentless—they’re in my emails, they’re in the news—there’s something popping up almost every day.
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