In a world of constant change it’s heartening to know that the Fall Fair aka Cowichan Exhibition, is still with us (even if, in pandemic times, in a virtual state).
Read More
Situated on Vancouver Island’s west coast, between Long Beach and Ucluelet, Florencia Bay (until 1930 known as Wreck Bay) marks the final resting place of the Peruvian brigantine of this name.
Read More
One of the downfalls of having to work most of the time is the number of lost opportunities. Over the years there have been many. One I truly regret is not having known Gerry Wellburn, father of the B.C. Forest Museum, today’s B.C. Forest Discovery Centre…
Read MoreFor the second week in a row the big news in the Leader was agricultural, this time headlined, GROWING SEED INDUSTRY - Cowichan’s Sweet Pea Far Superior to that of California -Harvesting Now.
Read MoreAgriculture, particularly dairy farming, is still a major player in the Valley economy, but nothing like it was a century ago. Back then, most residents operated their own small farms…
Read More
You won’t find this in Bob Dougan’s book, A Story To Be Told. It’s something he told me personally; of growing up on the family farm on Telegraph Road, Cobble Hill, and of knowing ever so vaguely, even as a child, that there was a skeleton in the family closet.
Read More
“I’ve written a book.” This statement, from almost anyone else, would have been no outrageous thing in itself. I heard if often when wearing my publisher-printer hat.
Read MoreIt’s by no means the biggest news story on this front page of the Leader but it’s the most eye-catching. Harry Blake, 74, had died in Chemainus hospital 16 days after falling onto a jagged rock from a haystack. He suffered fractured ribs and a dislocated spine.
Read More
One of my true regrets of having earned my journalistic spurs back in the ‘60s is that newspapers and magazines at the time were mostly black and white. Meaning no, or rarely, colour photos because they were too expensive to process and to print. Meaning that I took 1000s of photos in black and white—and we now live in an age of full colour reproduction!
Read MoreThe big story of the day is another Maple Bay Regatta with 100s of Valley residents enjoying “pleasures of shore and sea and excellent racing” with the bonus of the events being promptly conducted.
Read More
Up until recent years, Penelakut Island, east of Chemainus and midway between Saltair and Ladysmith, was known as Kuper Island. It was originally named, as were 100s of other B.C. geographical place names, after a British naval officer.
Read MoreThe most dramatic story on this day’s front page is also the saddest…
Read More
In my promo for this week’s Chronicle I noted that, as recently as the 1960s, Victoria was so quiet, t’was said they rolled up the sidewalks at night. It was even called a cemetery with a business section. Times have certainly changed, if not for the better, crime-wise.
Read MoreSome things never change. As sure as summer you have heat, swimming...and tragedy. In July 1921 it was that of 12-year-old Donald Smith Hawkins, a student of Duncan Public School and the adopted son of James Hawkins, foreman of the James Logging Co., Cottonwood Creek.
Read More
Dramatic headlines for Jan. 15, 1903 proving that it was a great news story is the fact that these headlines are from the Winnipeg Free Press which had picked up the story by wire.
Read MoreThere was a solemn ceremony at the Canadian Bank of Commerce on Station Street to unveil a bronze memorial honouring local staff who’d served in the recent Great War. Attending were…
Read MoreCoincidental to the B.C. government having declared a state of emergency because of raging wildfires on the Mainland (July 21, 2021) fire was the subject of the leading news story for the day in 1921, too.
Read MoreThe most gripping story on this front page, SOUTH SEA TRAGEDY, is a real heartbreaker. Poor Maj. J.D.H. Roe, formerly a stalwart of the Duncan Board of Trade. Talk about jinxed!
Read More
A stroll along Ladysmith’s Sixth Avenue is a stroll into the past—Boer War era.
Read More
Performed at Chemainus Theatre amid rave reviews, the Other Guys Theatre Company’s Good Timber was “a terrific local history lesson” built around (to quote the Cowichan NewsLeader Pictorial) “the logging camp poems of former Chemainus sawmill worker Robert E. Swanson [featuring] many historic clips of Cowichan’s logging days.” Bob who?
Read More