Of the eight headlines on this front page is the most eye-catching—and the most anticlimactic. MESSAGE FROM MARS is such a letdown—it’s about a performance by the Victoria Dramatic and Operatic Society in the Agricultural Hall. Ho hum...
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Growing up in Saanich (okay, Victoria) as I did, the CPR’s fabled B.C. Steamships’ Princess ships are part of my DNA. From the beginning I was drawn to the Inner Harbour and the comings and goings of these beautiful black and white pocket liners with their buff funnels and checker board logos.
Read MoreThe big news stories of the day were the 20th annual provincial convention of the King’s Daughters of B.C. and a Press Convention in Vancouver.
Read MoreThere’s nothing like a challenge to get the blood flowing. It’s been 46 years since I wrote Ghost Town Trails of Vancouver Island which has been in continuous print all that time. One chapter deals with my “first” ghost town which qualified as such because I could drive to it. (Not many B.C. ‘ghost towns’ allow you this luxury, believe me.)
Read MoreWe like to think that history repeats itself. Maybe yes, maybe no. But there’s no doubting that history does an about-face from time to time. You couldn’t find a greater contrast between these two news stories, which occurred 143 years apart, if you tried.
Read MoreDuncan 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.
Read MoreTraditional First Nation names are cropping up everywhere these days. Latest is the rechristening of a campground beside the Pat Bay Highway between Sidney and the ferry terminal.
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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…
Read MoreLet’s begin with an update on the Oct. 17, 1951 Mount Benson plane crash that I told you about several months ago. At the time, with 23 dead, it was B.C.’s worst aviation disaster. The 70th anniversary of this tragedy is fast approaching…
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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.
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.
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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...
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.
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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 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.
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