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While at Ross Bay Cemetery recently, I checked out a subject long of interest to me: Billy Barker, the namesake for Cariboo’s Barkerville.
I had to smile—Billy’s an RBC ‘star,’ having an end-of-the-row marker denoting his final resting place. Better yet, he has a handsome and expensive retro bronze marker giving a brief biography. What a far cry from the time of his death in Victoria’s Old Men’s Home for indigents.
Read MoreLast Sunday, for the second time in 30-odd years, I wandered about the base of the Bay Street bridge.
It will always be the Point Ellice bridge to me, the site of the worst streetcar disaster in Canadian, even North American history.
Read MoreLast Sunday marked the 128th anniversary of the worst streetcar accident in North American history—the collapse of Victoria’s Point Ellice bridge from the weight of a trolley carrying more than twice its legal limit of holidayers. Within minutes, 55 people were dead, 27 injured.
Read MoreThere were 12—12—pages in this week’s Times Colonist weekend magazine about a new film telling the story of the famous Cowichan sweater.
I have no problem with that—it’s a wonderful story of an Indigenous craft whose uniqueness has made it legendary.
Read MoreShe made naval history—only to die on a Vancouver Island beach.
But she hasn’t been forgotten.
Read MoreThere’s so much happening historically in the news lately that I can hardly keep up...
Shannon Panko’s petition (to be presented to the Legislature) to keep the No. 1077 in operation at Fort Steele Heritage Town continues. Originally a logging train on Vancouver Island, it has been lovingly restored and cared for since it was donated to the province.
Read MoreDuring a recent tour of Victoria’s beautiful Ross Bay Cemetery, Old Cemeteries Society guide John Adams pointed out the headstone for onetime U.S. Consul Allen Francis.
Coincidentally, in his latest bestselling book, Untold Stories of Old British Columbia, friend and fellow historian Dan Marshall pays tribute to a mutual hero of ours, David Williams Higgins, whom I’ve introduced to Chronicles readers on several occasions.
There’s a strong and fascinating connection between Francis and Higgins.
Read MoreI’m sorry to say that I let last week’s Chronicle go to press without acknowledging this year’s Battle of the Atlantic Day...
On the first Sunday each May, “the Royal [Canadian] Navy family gathers to commemorate the Battle of the Atlantic – to honour the struggle, sacrifice, and loss, but also to celebrate the heroism and courage in the face of daunting obstacles: horrible weather and high seas, rough little ships and cramped quarters, and the ever-present threat of attack by submarines lurking below”.
Read MoreOvernight, progress and prosperity came to Steamboat Mountain and environs, with not one but three township springing up where, but weeks before had been virgin wilderness...
Few British Columbia will have heard of Steamboat Mountain. Yet, a century and a-quarter ago, it was the site of the richest gold strike in provincial history.
Read MoreInstead of my usual catch-all of contemporary news with historical roots, a sidebar, so to speak, to this week’s post on once-infamous Ripple Rock.
Seymour Narrows and ‘Old Rip,’ as will be seen, were the most feared navigational hazards in British Columbia waters—indeed, on the entire Pacific Coast. For more than three-quarters of a century they posed a double threat, one visible, one unseen, to life and limb.
Read MoreProbably few of the 1000s of commercial and pleasure craft annually plying British Columbia waters have much fear of navigating Seymour Narrows.
True, this 2500-foot-channel between Vancouver, Maud and Quadra islands is still hazardous.
But, within living memory, this was the dreaded lair of the worst marine hazard of the entire West Coast—Ripple Rock.
Read MoreThis week, the Chronicles begins a series of colourized postcards by the talented Nigel Robertson who performed his magic in converting our black and white masthead to vibrant full-colour.
Black and white, or sepia, postcards/photos are great—but seeing them in ‘Technicolor,’ so to speak, is better. It brings them to life. And Nigel does it well!
Read MoreVancouver Island was in a state of emergency, 156 years ago.
While members of the Volunteer Rifle Corps and special constables patrolled Victoria streets, British men-of-war stood at the alert in Esquimalt Harbour and cruised Juan de Fuca Strait.
This is the little-known chapter of Vancouver Island's exciting history when it was feared to be the intended invasion target of the outlawed Irish nationalist society, the Fenian Brotherhood.
Read MoreWe made the cover!
The cover of the new Times Colonist vacation and visitor guide, GO, that is.
Read MoreIn last week’s Chronicle, based upon my first interview as an aspiring young journalist, the late Charles Taylor recounted some of the Alberni Valley’s colourful, often tragic history.
This week, we cut out the middleman and go straight to the horse’s mouth, so to speak...
Read MoreThe recent three-part series on Klondike killer Joseph C. Claus drew some fascinating new information from subscriber Louise C. who has a family connection to the three Vipond brothers.
As readers will remember, they left Nanaimo in the spring of 1898 with Claus, Charles Hendrickson and James Burns, all out to make their fortunes in the Klondike gold rush. But, once on the trail, there was a falling-out, the Viponds going their own way.
Read MoreTragedy was an inevitable part of pioneer life and the Alberni Valley had its share.
The late Charles Taylor, introduced in last week’s Chronicles, was the first person I ever interviewed—initially at the urging of my employer, the Victoria Colonist, then, when he and I became unlikely friends, by choice.
Read MoreYes! It’s official!
The last airworthy Martin Mars water bomber is going to make one last flight, this one to the BC Aviation Museum in Sidney.
Read MoreEveryone has to start somewhere, to state the obvious.
In my case it was in the lowly capacity of copyboy with The Daily Colonist before its merger with the Victoria Daily Times—two years of my doing everything and anything but writing, at least on company time.
Any writing I did was on my own dime.
Read MoreThis photo of Duncan’s historic Keating Farm house, my neighbour to the west, is several years old now but the farm continues to be alive and well in the loving care of George and Rebecca Papadopoulos. The couple, who purchased this magnificent 27-acre property from The Land Conservancy and have restored the manor-like farmhouse and barn, celebrated their 10th anniversary there this past weekend with an Open House.
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