The Chronicles

Further to today’s story on the collapse of the Second Narrows Bridge in June 1958....

History almost repeated itself in May 2006 when it took the combined efforts of seven tugboats to keep a freighter from crashing into the Ironworkers Memorial Second Narrows Crossing.

Further to today’s feature article on engineer extraordinaire Andrew Onderdonk, an attempt to answer: Hero or Heel?

As 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.

Last 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?”

I’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

Last 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.

There 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.

There’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.

I’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”.

Instead 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.