*British Columbia Chronicles special bonus section for Members Only.*
Throughout the Pacific Northwest at the turn of the last century there was no argument as to the Speed Queen of the Seas: the CPR flagship Princess Victoria. With three funnels belching black smoke, the sleek liner raced between Victoria, Vancouver and Puget Sound ports, showing her stern to all challengers.
Read MoreI’ve mentioned before that history is ever with us, even in the breaking news which media prides itself on. It isn’t always apparent, as in a flashback or an overt reference to an historical event or personage, but often hidden between the lines.
In other words, you have to know something about history to recognize it when you see it.
Read More(Conclusion)
As we saw in last week’s Chronicles, John A. ‘Cariboo’ Cameron pickled his dead wife then then set out to haul her body 400 miles over the snow and ice by sled to take her, first to Victoria, then back home to Upper Canada.
An unsung jewel is the Esquimalt Naval & Military Museum at Naden, Canadian Forces Base Esquimalt. It’s open seven days a week (10-3:30), including statutory holidays. Admission is by donation.
As the son of a career Royal Canadian Navy man, I feel almost at home during my too infrequent visits. Almost every which way I turn, there’s an artifact on display—a bell, a crest, a model, a photo—of one of my father’s ships. About the only one that I didn’t notice this past Sunday was his last ship, the light cruiser HMCS Ontario.
Read More(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.
Read MoreTalk about a labour of love. Fourteen years and 100 interviews later, Duncan author Lynn Starter’s opus, a coffee table took of 1200 pages of photos and facts is off the press and available.
Read MoreIt happened in an instant, with a single flash of flame like that of a lightning bolt.
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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.
Read MoreIn last week’s editorial I shrugged off the impending demolition of the historic Holt Creek trestle at Mile 59.7 on the Glenora stretch of the Trans Canada Trail as inevitable and, well, c’est la vie.
It’s to be replaced with a purely utilitarian span of steel and concrete with a wooden deck.
Read MoreIn 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.
Read MoreWhen I was a kid, way back in the Jurassic Age, all that I knew about the Doukhobor people of B.C. could be summed up in a cynical four-line ditty which we kids bandied about in school. I still remember it, but won’t repeat here.
As the years went by and there were glaring newspaper headlines about arson, and scenes of naked demonstrations by the Sons of Freedom sect filled evening TV screens, what little thought I gave to their protests and beliefs wasn’t charitable.
Read MoreIconic 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.
Read MoreThere just ain’t nothing sacred any more...
It’s looking more likely that a Vancouver mining company will get the go-ahead to “process the large quantities of waste rock on land owned by Mosaic on Mount Sicker...” reads the lead of a front-page story in this week’s Cowichan Valley Citizen.
The waste rock referred is that of the ore dumps and tailings piles of the historic Lenora and Tyee mines on Mount Sicker.
Read MoreAlthough 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!
Read MoreWhenever we see or hear anything in the news about whales these days, it’s about their being threatened (in the case of the Orcas) with eventual extinction, or of a whale being run down by a ship, or becoming entangled in discarded fishing gear...
Our concern for their general welfare is a dramatic turnaround from that of our pioneers, Indigenous and White, who harvested them for their meat and blubber, then for their oil and ambergris which were valued for industrial purposes.
Read MoreConclusion
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.
Read MoreHaving a Facebook page can be like stroking a cat; rub it the wrong way and you can get scratched.
So I've learned over the past months of hosting T.W. Paterson History Author, which was set up for me by and at the urging of friend Blake Mackenzie, creator of the phenomenally successful FB site, Gold Trails and Ghost Towns.
Read MorePart 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.
Read MoreIt was over almost as soon as it began but still worth the time and trouble to drive to Crofton.
I’m referring to Sunday evening’s flypast by the famous Martin Mars water bomber, Hawaii Mars, on her final flight to retirement at Sidney’s BC Aviation Museum. (Bonus: She was escorted by the Snowbirds in perfect formation.)
Read More“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.
Read MoreIt’s the dog days of summer so please forgive me if I begin this week with a ramble; specifically, a quote from immortal Canadian author Lucy Maud Montgomery who obviously was a lady after my own heart:
“I am simply a book drunkard. Books have the same irresistible temptation for me that liquor has for its devotees. I cannot withstand them.”
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