Conclusion
As we’ve seen, to Joseph Camille Claus of Nanoose Bay goes the dubious honour of committing “the first cold-blooded premeditated murder...in the frozen north,” in this case the Stikine River country.
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Well, it’s officially Spring. The birds are swarming my feeders, the snowdrops have all but come and gone, it’s the turn of crocuses and daffodils, Japanese cherry trees, choke cherry, Indian Plum...
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Part 2
As we’ve seen, to Joseph Camille Claus goes the dubious honour of committing “the first cold-blooded premeditated murder...in the frozen north”.
According to the Victoria Colonist, anyway. Claus, it should be noted, had yet to face trial let alone be convicted by a jury of his peers.
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If I and Chronicles readers had nothing better to do than my writing, and they reading, my mutterings on a daily basis, I still couldn’t keep up with yesterday’s news.
By which I mean current events that have their roots deep in our historical past. Sort of deja vu, if you will. Even when history doesn’t quite repeat itself, it certainly plays out, in sometimes eerily similar ways, over and over again.
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Part 1
If it seems to be a long way from remote northwestern British Columbia’s Stikine River and the Yukon-Alaska border to Nanaimo, mid-Vancouver Island, it is.
But no greater than the fabled long arm of the law, as was amply shown in June 1898 when 12 good citizens took their places in the jury box in a Nanaimo courtroom.
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There’s no room in this week’s post, ‘Zeballos Streets Really Were Paved With Gold,’ to introduce its best known resident of the late 1930s gold rush era, Maj. George Nicholson.
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Last year, when telling the saga of the Leech River gold rush of 1864, I referred to it as Vancouver Island’s only real gold rush.
By that I meant gold rush in the generally accepted sense of a wild stampede of fortune seekers converging in a frenzy and from all directions upon some promised El Dorado.
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Last week’s post on patent medicines drew several responses.
Two readers pointed out, too late, as I’d realized upon reading it myself in the cold light of day, did I remember that I meant to bring the story up to date with a reference to over-the-counter cold medications, specifically, decongestants.
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Communities—villages, towns, sometimes even cities—can come and go. Then we call them ghost towns.
British Columbia has had its share—100s of them, in fact. That said, hands up Chronicles readers who can name, say, six of them. Two? One?
Of the province’s many lost communities, two have achieved legendary even mythic status: Phoenix, which, unlike its namesake, never did rise from the ashes, and Wahlachin.
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Ayer’s Sarsaparilla—the best of its kind
To strengthen the body and brighten the mind!
Then what is more worthy of pencil or song
Than Ayer’s Sarsaparilla? IT MAKES THE WEAK STRONG.
Where are they now, those wonderful patent medicines that promised to relieve every ailment, human and otherwise, from “female complaints” to fallen arches and falling hair?
Alas, they’ve gone, gone the way of the old-fashioned drugstore and the dinosaur. Victims, for the most part, of advances in medicine and tightened drug laws, they’re now part of our vanished heritage.
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Last week, I wrote that “one of the occupational hazards of being a writer of history is that some people come to believe that I actually know what I’m writing/talking about and they seek me out for answers to questions or for more information...
Most recently, Duncan librarian Marina emailed to ask about one Oliver Pike at the behest of a VIPL user.
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As a lifelong practitioner of the written word, it galls me to have to admit the truth of that old expression, “A picture is worth a thousand words.”
But, as that more modern saying goes, “It is what it is.”
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One of the occupational hazards of being a writer of history is that some people come to believe that I actually know what I’m writing/talking about and they seek me out for answers to questions or for more information.
Sometimes, I do have an answer for them, from off the top of my head or from my files. But sometimes, too, I’m stumped. Most recently, Duncan librarian Marina emailed to ask about one Oliver Pike at the behest of a VIPL user.
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This French-American character was right out of a dime novel—or a 1930s movie script.
In his less than 60 years he was everything from dishwasher, pimp and Foreign Legionnaire to the friend of British royalty and the fifth richest man in the United States.
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A little known Youbou geographical feature is in the news these days, most recently because CVRD directors have voted to support changing the name of Coonskin Creek.
This, because of its, in the words of the BC Geographical Names Office, “potential harms from derogatory language in geographical names”.
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Pioneer British Columbians could be a weird and wonderful lot, as the Chronicles have often illustrated in the past.
Perhaps it isn’t surprising then that some of the earlier chroniclers who recorded for posterity the exploits of our more colourful pioneers were every bit as intriguing—sometimes even more so—than many of their subjects.
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Not so much an editorial as an introduction to this week’s Chronicle:
A century has passed since the ‘Silver Slocan’ of southwestern British Columbia yielded millions of dollars in silver—billions by today’s measure. The fabulous Enterprise, Standard, Slocan Star, Rambler-Cariboo, Last Chance, Whitewater, Mountain Chief—and so many more productive mines—all have been relegated to the province’s colourful history.
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The box car rolled with each motion of the barge, every gust of wind rocking it more violently on its bed of rails. Then it began to roll—through the guard rails and into the dark depths of the lake, and carrying with it, 24-year-old brakeman, Edward Connolly...
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Today, for a change of pace, a guest columnist. Retired Vancouver newspaper reporter and environmentalist Larry Pym publishes an excellent newsletter at www.sixmountains.ca.
What makes his article on Norm Tandberg so resonate with me is that Norm and I are following the same historical trails in the Cowichan Valley— without, so far as I know, ever having crossed paths. In fact, I’d never heard of him until Larry graciously passed along this piece he just wrote for Six Mountains.
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