A month short of 20 years before Air India Flight 182 was blown out of the sky by British Columbia-based terrorists, B.C had its own aerial mass murder.

Late in the afternoon of July 8, 1965, CPA Flight 21, bound for Whitehorse, Y.T. via Prince George, Fort St. John, Fort Nelson and Watson Lake from Vancouver, exploded in the sky near 100 Mile House, 170 miles northeast of Vancouver, crashing and killing all 52 persons aboard.

It’s B.C.’s worst mass murder and—unlike Air India—has been all but forgotten.

Featured MembersPatricia MacGregor Graphic DesignerJuly 10, 2025Aviation, Disasters

The Day the Mine Blew Up

A wander through the Ladysmith Cemetery and you see it, not once, not twice but again and again: the date, October 5, 1909.

That was “Ladysmith’s Day of Horror” of 116 years ago when, as B.A. McKelvie wrote in the Vancouver Province in 1957, The Mine Blew Up.

Featured MembersPatricia MacGregor Graphic DesignerJune 27, 2025Mining

Halcyon: Lady of the Night

More 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.

Featured MembersPatricia MacGregor Graphic DesignerJune 26, 2025Marine

The Tragedy of Captain John

‘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.

Snow Slide

“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.

Featured MembersPatricia MacGregor Graphic DesignerJune 12, 2025Mining

‘A Great Yarn of Old East Kootenay’

“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.

Louisa Townsend of the Bride Ship Tynemouth

Long 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.

The Mystery of Edna Farnsworth

A 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.

From Shetland to Vancouver Island

Eric 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.

Six Weeks of Death

April 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...

Bill Brown of Barkerville

April 1925 marked the highlight of a lifetime for 86-year-old prospector Bill Brown of Barkerville.

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

Who Shot Victoria Police Constable Alex. Smith?

What a way to start the new year of 1896. City Constable Alex Smith was at death’s door. Shot in the chest, he’d been rushed to Royal Jubilee Hospital where doctors announced that they could do little for him.

Featured MembersPatricia MacGregor Graphic DesignerApril 17, 2025Mystery

‘Crime of the Century’ – The Case of the Stolen Church

Such it was called in a full-page story in the Vancouver Province in 1933.

A slight exaggeration to say the least, but a great story all the same!

Forgotten and Forlorn: the Ghost Town of Donald, B.C.

In February, Chronicles readers met guest columnist Tom W. Parkin (TW2 here at the BCCs.ca) who wrote about hiking a stretch of the beleaguered E&N Railway.

I’m pleased to say that he’s back this week with a photo feature on the little-known B.C. ghost town of Donald, a construction camp during the building of the CPR.

Cold Christmas for Errant Colonial Treasurer

In the year and a-half since his arrival in Victoria, George Tomline Gordon had been appointed treasurer for the Crown Colony of Vancouver Island, elected the member for Esquimalt in the Legislative Assembly, and elected commanding officer of the No. 1 Company, Vancouver Island Volunteer Rifle Corps. He had a beautiful wife, a large, loving family and a fine farm.

Featured MembersPatricia MacGregor Graphic DesignerMarch 27, 2025

The Second World War is Still With Us

Officially, the Second World War ended with Japan’s surrender, 80 years ago. In at least one sense, however, the war goes on.

Although no hostile action was fought on Canadian, let alone British Columbia soil, we, too, have a history of live ordnance—so-called ‘friendly fire’—turning up, sometimes in the unlikeliest of places; several times, it has killed.

Featured MembersPatricia MacGregor Graphic DesignerMarch 20, 2025Military

The Man With the Touch of Gold

If there is a single name that is synonymous with lost treasure in British Columbia that would have to be Neville Langrell (Bill) Barlee, school teacher, politician, entrepreneur, environmentalist, historian, writer, publisher, prospector and treasure hunter extraordinaire.

By all appearances, he scored at almost everything he did or touched.

Morris Moss, Man of Mystery

As told in last week’s Chronicles, Morris Moss was as colourful an adventurer as they come. Fur trader, mining speculator and customs officer, he survived shipwreck, at least one murder attempt, chased bootleggers, became embroiled in the aftermath of the Chilcotin War, was caught up in the Pelagic Sealing controversy, then— disappeared.

Featured MembersPatricia MacGregor Graphic DesignerMarch 6, 2025

Troubleshooter Morris Moss Fought Murderers, Bootleggers

We don’t cherish our heroes in Canada.

Oh, briefly perhaps, at the moment of their celebrity, but as the years pass so do they—into the mists of time and forgetfulness.

I can’t offer a better example than Morris Moss who once was described as “one of the most colourful figures this coast has ever seen”.

Morris who?

Featured MembersPatricia MacGregor Graphic DesignerFebruary 27, 2025

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