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Now the company that wants to salvage whatever valuable minerals are left in the ore dumps of the Tyee and Lenora mines on the Cowichan Valley’s Mount Sicker is looking to process the tailings piles of the Blue Grouse Mine.
Jennifer and I made several visits to the adjoining Blue Grouse and Sunnyside claims on the west shore of Cowichan Lake years ago, I’m happy to say, so it isn’t on my bucket list, or I’d be champing at the bit to check it out before they can go to work.
Read MoreMore than one seagoing lady of the night has called Victoria, B.C., home port over the years. Ladies of ill repute who’d ghost into harbour unannounced, rest and restore then, as the city slept, quietly weigh anchor for destinations unknown.
To the curious, their masters and crew had little to say beyond a terse, “Bering Sea,” or equally vague “North Pacific.” Asked as to cargo, they’d grunt a muffled reference to “ballast,” and push on by.
Read MoreLong gone are my feckless days of youth when I wrote with all the confidence of a new-born, all of it based upon my mimicking newspaper reports and the works of others, and none of it from the well of my own experiences.
But time has marched on, times have changed—and, thankfully, so have I.
Read More‘He lay like a warrior taking his rest,
With his martial cloak around him.’
We haven’t heard from our old friend D.W. Higgins for a while. Not for want of material, I assure you, as my file for this pioneer journalist and one of B.C.’s all time great storytellers continues to grow.
Read MoreThere’s an interesting item in this week’s Terrace Standard about Japanese triplexes at “the last intact cannery on B.C.’s north coast” having been restored as a vital piece of the region’s multicultural fishing heritage.
The North Pacific Cannery in Port Edward, virtually unaltered to this day, goes all the way back to 1889 when salmon canneries were a major contributor to the provincial economy. Now it’s a national historic site and museum that offers visitors “an immersive glimpse” into the lives of cannery workers.
Read More“May Day, May Day, May Day—!”
The distress call pierced the grey stillness of Feb. 18, 1965. Then the voice was cut off, and static reigned the airwaves.
Read MoreOne of the joys of researching in old newspapers is discovering smaller news items, nuggets I call them, that just don’t make it to the big time. By which I mean, they’re what some would cruelly call trivia, so get passed by.
But this one recently caught my eye and, if only momentarily, sucked me down the rabbit hole. I share it with you today. It’s from the Victoria Daily Times of Jan. 25, 1929.
Read More“Mr. President: It is with much diffidence that after repeated urging on your part I undertook to contribute a paper to this society...”
So began, modestly, George Hope Johnston’s address to the Calgary Historical Society in February 1920.
Read MoreThere’s an interesting footnote to today’s Chronicle about Louisa Townsend who came to B.C. on the bride ship Tynemouth and married Edward Mallandaine.
Their son, Edward Jr., born propitiously on July 1st, 1867, the same day as the Confederation of the Dominion of Canada, became an itinerant carpenter for several years after leaving school at the age of 14. He found himself (again propitiously) in the CPR construction town of Donald, B.C., in time to witness the driving of the Last Spike.
Read MoreLong before the famous war brides of the Second World War there were the brides of colonial days; young British women, aged 14-20, who sailed halfway round the world to “the colonies” in hopes of finding husbands.
Read More“On this bright sunny day, May 13, 2025, the work commenced on our special project for 2025...”
So begins the latest issue of the Old Cemeteries Society of Victoria’s newsletter. The special project referred to is the restoration of the grave of Edna Farnsworth, the subject of this week’s Chronicles.
Read MoreA century and a quarter has passed since 19-year-old Edna Farnsworth died. Her suicide made headlines from Victoria to San Francisco. She had no money but was given an expensive, fancy plot in Ross Bay Cemetery.
Read MoreMemory is a funny thing. It can be vivid, branded into the brain; it can be ephemeral, just a wisp-like fog that swirls about you from time to time but is always there, slumbering in the subconscious while it awaits a word, a sight, a smell or a sound—something, anything—to bring it if only momentarily to the fore.
One that has always stuck in my mind from childhood concerns money. A stack of bills pulled from the wall of an old house, once a store my mother told me, as it was being torn down.
Read MoreEric Duncan is remembered for having written what has been described as “the most important document for the history of the Comox Valley,” From Shetland to Vancouver Island: Recollections of Seventy-Five Years.
Published in Edinburgh in 1937, it’s a fine read but long out of print. Happily, I’ve had a copy—a first edition, to boot—for years and have read it twice. It was, in fact, one of my earliest antiquarian book finds.
Recently, I scanned it again and found a chapter which I’m sure will please Chronicles readers.
Read MoreIt occurs to me that Chronicles readers who don’t follow me on Facebook (T.W. Paterson History Author) might enjoy these recent posts of a visit to the Nanaimo Cemetery. I didn’t find the headstone I was looking for, but was intrigued by these three…
Read MoreApril 1925 marked the highlight of a lifetime for 86-year-old prospector Bill Brown of Barkerville.
For those who don’t recognize his name, B.A. McKelvie was a leading provincial journalist and the foremost historian and writer of ‘popular’ B.C. history in the 1920s-’50s. He was gone when I, a kid, history buff and aspiring author/historian, discovered him during my first visit to the BC Archives while looking for such serious topics as lost treasures, shipwrecks, stagecoach robberies...
Read MoreIt occurs to me that Chronicles readers who don’t follow me on Facebook (T.W. Paterson History Author) might enjoy these recent posts of a visit to the Nanaimo Cemetery. I didn’t find the headstone I was looking for, but was intrigued by these three…
Read MoreApril 1925 marked the highlight of a lifetime for 86-year-old prospector Bill Brown of Barkerville.
Read MoreFurther to today’s post on the famous—and valuable—New Westminster Mint’s 10- and 20-dollar gold coins, the crown colonies of Vancouver Island and British Columbia also, ever so briefly, printed their own postage stamps.
As an example, this photo is of the British Columbia & Vancouver Island Stamp #2 - Queen Victoria (1860) 2½d, Unwatermarked.
Read MoreBack 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.
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