*British Columbia Chronicles special bonus section for Members Only.*
Part 1
During the Second World War, Patricia Bay (today’s Victoria International) Airport was part of the Commonwealth Air Training Plan in which 1000’s of Canadian, British, Australian and New Zealand airmen were trained.
179 of those young airmen never made it overseas.
Read MoreThe old store at the corner of Quadra and North Park Streets, for 80 years a Victoria landmark, is long gone, another victim of progress. But it wasn’t forgotten by its former owners who cherished memories of barley sugar sticks, hooped skirts, hand-blended teas–and of locked doors that slammed in the night when no mortal walked its darkened hallways.
Read MoreThe study, revival and use of British Columbia’s various First Nations languages is steadily gaining ground today, along with the inevitable challenges posed by spelling and pronunciation.
So it was for the explorers, fur traders and Native tribes of old: how to converse effectively in a multitude of European and Indigenous languages.
Read MoreThree-quarters of a century later, she’s still there—a rusted, broken hulk on the exposed, rockbound shore of Hippa Island, Haida Gwaii.
Read More“The strangest funeral procession that ever passed on earth.”
So said Father Henry ‘Pat’ Irwin, Kootenay’s unofficial saint, of the 1885 avalanche that buried a 16-man train crew. Ten were rescued but six were buried alive and Irwin was referring to the super-human efforts he and nine others made to return one of the bodies for proper burial.
Read More(Conclusion)
For more than 30 years, respected civil engineer Robert Homfray kept his promise not to publish his account of a dangerous surveying expedition in search of a shortcut to the Cariboo in 1861.
Finally, in 1894, at the insistence of friends, he agreed to tell of his epic ‘winter journey of 1861’. That was when he and six others had suffered innumerable hardships and near-death during an attempt to survey a new, shorter route to the gold fields of the B.C Interior by way of Bute Inlet.
Read More(Part 1)
For more than 30 years, respected civil engineer Robert Homfray kept his promise not to publish his account of a dangerous surveying expedition to the Cariboo in 1861.
Finally, in 1894, at the insistence of friends, he agreed to tell of his epic ‘winter journey of 1861’. That was when he and six others had suffered innumerable hardships during an attempt to survey a new, shorter route to the gold fields of the B.C Interior by way of Bute Inlet.
Read MoreA few weeks ago, I wrote about how some Facebook posts can generate an emotional response from readers. One that I wrote recently appears to have struck a chord.
It's a subject I've written about numerous times over the years, inspired by some of the fascinating, sometimes saddening, finds I've made in my travels. Let me explain...
Read MoreIt's not a very big book: half an inch thick, yes, but only 4 1/2 inches wide by less than six inches deep, and the type covers only 3 1/2 x 4 3/4 inches. It really is a pocket book.
But, proving that good things can sometimes come in small packages, there's a lot of great content in Chinook Days' 200 pages, 1000 copies of which were published in 1926 by the Vancouver Sun as a souvenir for the opening of the Grouse Mountain Highway.
Read More(Conclusion)
Last week’s Part 1 of A Tale of Two Soldiers was to be a doubleheader, the stories of both Gunner Ratcliffe, the villain, and Private Michael James O’Rourke, VC, MM—war hero, labour activist and, by all measures, an outstanding man.
(Part 1)
They couldn’t have been more unalike.
About the only thing they had in common was that they both served in uniform.
One was a hero, winner of the Empire’s highest medal for gallantry, the Victoria Cross, and the Military Medal.
Read MoreBuild it and they will come.
It may have worked in a novel and in a movie but, sad to say, it seldom works in real life. If ever you wanted proof, take the sad story of George Turner and his church.
He poured heart and soul, every penny he had and years of his life into building the Church of Jesus Christ of Christian Brotherhood that, today, minus its tower and bell, is a sales and service shop.
Read MoreHow times have changed. It wasn’t all that long ago that almost everybody smoked cigarettes, cigars and/or pipes.
But the latest statistics for Canada (2020) show that just one Canadian in 10 smokes cigarettes, down from 12% the previous year. More men (12%) smoke than women (9%). These statistics include those who smoke only occasionally.
Read MoreThe demolition, several years ago, of the 1890 Officers’ Mess and Quarters at Work Point, Victoria, inspired a letter to the editor of the Times Colonist warning against disturbing its two resident ghosts.
Read MoreReaders are forgiven if they’ve come to think of me as an unabashed union supporter based upon Chronicles that have been sympathetic to the struggles of the labourers of old. Such as the Vancouver Island coal miners and the unemployed (many of them veterans) who staged the occupation of the Vancouver post office then the great Trek to Ottawa in the depth of the 1930’s Great Depression.
Read MoreAs His Majesty’s Ship Nabob this small aircraft carrier—Canada’s ‘first’ flattop—has gone down in naval history for surviving a torpedo in August 1944 during an attack on the German battleship Tirpitz.
To the amazement of many, and thanks to the heroism of her crew, she made it safely back to port.
Read More(Conclusion)
It’s hard to believe now, so many years and worldly experiences later, that I once was young and innocent.
I actually believed those photos I saw in the travel magazines, National Geographic, books and on TV: photos of abandoned buildings standing tall, proud and intact.
Read More(Part 4)
It’s ironic, really. Today, 159 years after the discovery of gold in the Sooke and Leech rivers, almost every foot of the Leech and its tributaries continue to be staked and worked.
Read More(Part 3)
As we’ve seen, there were 1000’s of would-be miners in British Columbia in mid-1864; men and women who’d arrived too late to stake rich claims on the Fraser River or in the creeks of Cariboo.
Read More(Part 2)
Last week I set the stage for the Leech River gold rush which, ever so briefly, beginning in July 1864, kindled hopes of a new El Dorado right here on Vancouver Island.
Alas, a new Cariboo bonanza it wasn’t but, while it lasted, it certainly was exciting!
Read More
