Duncan ratepayers voted down a bylaw that would have extended electricity to outlying areas at a cost of $7500. Of 320 potential voters 90 made it to the polls and voted 68-21 against. Apparently Council had been sure of approval but “a vigorous campaign was waged against the measure immediately preceding the voting,” reported The Leader.
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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.
I’ve commiserated, in recent weeks, with readers who find the news of 100 years ago to be, shall we say less than exciting when compared with today’s sensational and depressing headlines. Well, cheer up, there was real exciting news…
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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 MoreAnother week without drama—no major or gory crimes to report, no automobile fatalities, just plain everyday news about people going peacefully about their business. (Sigh.) There were three cases in county court. The first involved F.G. Elliot of Victoria who’d refused to pay E.W. Paitson all he owed him for a load of cedar shakes, claiming he’d been put to the extra expense of having to resize them to meet his needs as they didn’t conform to their agreed upon dimension. Judge Barker found for Paitson: as there was only $50 remaining to be paid of the contracted $550, he thought it too late to renegotiate and dismissed Elliot’s counter claim.
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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.
Read MoreI really do apologize to any Chronicles readers who may find news of the Cowichan Valley of a century ago to be, well, boring. I mean what a dull world it was in 1921—no ‘murdered and missing women’ to report, no pandemic, no illicit drug problem, no homelessness. Just, yawn, news about local people going about their lives and doing their best to make a living, to make a home for their families, to build a nation...
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We 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 Morehere’s no mistaking the lead story of this issue of the Leader; it’s smack in the middle of the front page: NORTH COWICHAN COUNCIL – Plans For Permanent Road Work – No More litigation – No Daylight Savings
Read MoreA full century later and Chronicles readers will relate to the lead story in The Leader of this date: CONDEMN “SALARY GRAB:” Big Meeting Carries Pledge Not To Vote For Member Unless Measure Repealed
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One 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.
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As 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 MoreYou know it was a different world a century ago when the big news story of the day is the King’s Daughters’ 15th Annual Flower Show. I’m sure you’ll forgive me if I skip over this one other than to report that entries were down because of a poor spring growing season. Despite that, exhibitors were able to fill seven tables in competition for the Cowichan Leader Challenge Cup.
Read MoreBusiness for North Cowichan Council was described as “light” in this week’s Leader. Road superintendent H.R. Punnett reported that the Municipality’s two new trucks were working out well, hauling 1 1/2 tons per load at a cost of 25-38 cents per yard of gravel. They were making nine miles to the gallon on each roundtrip.
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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.
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Before 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 MoreJournalism has certainly changed in a century. Today this story would top the front page with a full-width, blaring headline; in 1921 it’s one of the smallest items (just five paragraphs) on the page and almost buried in the middle of columns of type.
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As 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 MoreAlmost the entire front page of the April, 1921 edition of The Leader is dedicated to WAR MEMORIAL GIFT WEEK, the fundraising drive to erect a Cenotaph in Duncan and a memorial on Mount Prevost. Two and a-half years after Armistice, the Cowichan Electoral District War Memorial Committee was determined to honour the Valley’s war dead.
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In 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.
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