(Part 1)
Anybody who’s ever read anything about the Cariboo gold rush has heard of John Angus Cameron.
Not by his formal name, maybe, but by the moniker by which he’s still remembered, ‘Cariboo’ Cameron.
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It happened in an instant, with a single flash of flame like that of a lightning bolt.
* * * * *
We know that more than 600 miners were killed on the job in Nanaimo area coal mines over that industry's 80-year history. If we take into account those who died later, sometimes much later, from their injuries or from work-related illnesses, the death toll must be much greater.
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In 55 years she steamed 2.5 million miles and won the affection of all, seaman and passenger, who boarded her. When she died, 1000s, from coast to coast, mourned.
In 1896, the Canadian Pacific Railway had assumed control of the defunct Columbia and Kootenay Railway’s steamboat service, comprising seven steamers, 10 barges, various other assets, and contracts to construct three more vessels for use on the Arrow and Spokane lakes. The Kootenay, Rossland and Nakusp entered service on schedule, the Nakusp being lost to fire at Arrowhead, Dec. 23, 1897.
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Iconic explorers and the builders of the Canadian Pacific Railway aside, not many Canadian land surveyors have achieved national stature.
In his day, Victoria-based Frank Swannell (1880-1969) was the exception, nationally recognized for his incredible feats with both a transit level and a camera. Over 40 years, on foot, on horseback and by canoe, he probably covered more British Columbia terrain than any other man before or since.
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Although totally unlike the characters in the 1970s TV sitcom, William and Amelia Copperman must be regarded as Victoria’s very own Odd Couple. Their strange and stormy marital partnership amused, amazed and outraged fellow citizens for 15 incredible years.
They’re yet another reminder that they just don’t make real characters like they used to!
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Conclusion
As we have seen, this was no Wild West town of false-front buildings lining a single street with a scattering of shacks. The Boundary Country’s Phoenix was nothing less than a city in every sense of the word: modern, substantial buildings, services, fine homes, a hospital, brewery, skating rink, and rail connection to the outside world—all the latest amenities of the first two decades of the 20th century.
Then—it was gone, just a man-made lake on top of a mountain in the wilderness.
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Part 1
This was no Wild West town of false-front buildings lining a single street and a scattering of shacks. The Boundary Country’s Phoenix was nothing less than a city in every sense of the word: modern substantial buildings and services, fine homes, a hospital, even a skating rink, and not one but two rail connections to the outside world—all the latest amenities of the first two decades of the 20th century.
Then—“the highest incorporated city in Canada” was gone, just a man-made lake on top of a mountain in the wilderness.
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“Been out of food for two months. For God's sake pick us up."
Whenever tragedy struck the west coast of Vancouver Island during the years immediately preceding the Second World War, it usually was a Ginger Coote Airways plane to the rescue. Sometimes, however, even its dauntless pilots couldn't help.
So it was for Vancouver trappers James H. Ryckman, 56, and Lloyd Coombs.
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Times had indeed changed for John King Barker, back in 1906.
Gone was the fortune he’d spent a lifetime wresting from the soil; gone were his youth and his health. Old, bent and feeble, the miner hoped to visit an old friend one last time before joining those of his comrades who’d passed on before him.
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(Conclusion)
Garish headlines greeted morning readers of the Victoria Daily Colonist on Nov. 1928. Unlike Duncan’s twice-weekly Cowichan Leader which also published that day but had been caught on the cusp of going to press, the Victoria daily’s initial report was able to give far more detail.
Part 1
It’s funny how some things turn out. Funny, that is, if such a term can be applied to human tragedy—particularly to that of a sensitive young woman who was driven to taking her own life by a confined, uncaring, even malevolent community.
Such, however, is the story of Mable Estelle Jones. Almost a century after her death, her story serves as the subject of a teacher’s course in ‘historical studies’ and as a lesson in human behaviour.
Too bad that we never seem to learn from history…
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For 60 years, most provincial ferry service was provided by the Canadian Pacific Princess ships which operated on the legendary Triangle service between Victoria, Vancouver and Seattle, and between Nanaimo and Vancouver.
Among the most popular of these vessels was the Clyde-built, 6,000-ton flagship Princess Kathleen which began her coastal career on May 12, 1925.
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Victoria entered the air age with a crash, 111 years ago.
During Carnival Week, August 1913, performing American aviator Johnny Milton Bryant plummeted to his death in downtown Victoria.
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We’ve just passed the 66th anniversary of that tragic day in June 1958 when two spans of Vancouver’s new Second Narrows Bridge, then under construction, collapsed.
Two weeks ago, the Langley Advance marked that momentous event with an interview with Lou Lessard. Now 91, the former ironworker is the last survivor of that horrendous event of June 7, 1958.
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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.
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In 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.
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“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.
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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.
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Last 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.
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She made naval history—only to die on a Vancouver Island beach.
But she hasn’t been forgotten.
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