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Fame can be a fleeting thing—today’s “celebrity,” tomorrow’s nonentity. It can get worse than that—yesterday’s hero, today’s heel!
Even though he has a British Columbia mountain named for him, if you google Andrew Onderdonk, he gets little mention beyond the first two listings of several pages of other Onderdonks which include members of his own family, and doctors and lawyers, etc.
Read MoreAs told in this week’s Chronicle, Stuart Henderson’s courtroom record was perhaps without equal: he lost just five cases of 50 over a half-century of defending clients accused of serious crimes, usually murder.
Read MoreIn 50 years before the bench, from prime minister's drawing room to frontier jail cell, he never turned down a case. He was a legend in his own lifetime, celebrated from the Maritimes to the Klondike as the greatest criminal lawyer of his age: Stewart William Henderson.
His death, aged 81, made the front page of the New York Times.
Read MoreLast week, I wrote that I’m not the only one who collects old photos. Al Maas had sent along a copy of a somewhat battered photo he’d bought at Whippletree Auction, years ago. “...It’s a local picture of rail workers? Bridge builders?”
Read More“A man out west is a man, and let him be the poorest cowboy he will assert his right of perfect equality with the best...”
Author, sportsman, dreamer. Such was William Adolph Baillie-Grohman.
Read MoreI’m not the only one who collects old photos. From Al Maas, this query:
Hey, Tom
Thanks for getting back to me, I'm hoping someone will be able to identify some of these people. I got the picture at the Whippletree Auction years ago, so am hoping it's a local picture of rail workers? bridge builders? Beams are quite long and may have been used for trestles etc? Hope you see something here that you might recognize.
Thanks, Al
Read MoreWhile 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 More
