HISTORY
Journal of the British Columbia Historical Federation | Summer 2010 | Vol. 43 No. 2 | $7.00
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This Issue: BC's Flag | Lukin Johnston | Kitimat Project | and more
HISTORY
Journal of the British Columbia Historical
Federation Published four times a year.
ISSN: print 1710-7881 online 1710-792X
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Cover Image: For over forty years early in the
twentieth century, the Union
Flag was treated as if it were the
national flag of Canada although
it was not. This poster from 1915
was used the flag to promote the
war effort.
Image courtesy of Alistair Fraser.
This publication is indexed in the Canadian Magazine Index,
published by Micromedia.
ISSN: 1710-7881
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The British Columbia Historical
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«* HISTORY
Journal of the British Columbia Historical Federation | Summer 2010 | Vol. 43 No. 2
Editor's Note 2
Inbox 2
British Columbia's Provincial Flag
by Alistair Fraser 3
Lukin Johnston of The Province
by Frances Welwood 10
Transportation In
by Louise Avery 19
The Nyan Wheti-Duzcho Trail System
by Marie Elliott 25
The Quathiaski Cove Cannery and W.E. Anderson
by Ronald Greene 33
The Salvation Army's Mountaineers
by R.G. Moyles 36
From Mimeograph to Multiple Pathways
by Jacqueline Gresko 41
Introducing the Digitization Project 44
Archives & Archivists
Edited by Sylvia Stopforth 45
Book Reviews
Edited by Frances Gundry. 47
Miscellany 54
Letter to Geographical Names Office 55
"Any country worthy of a future should
be interested in its past"
W. Kaye Lamb, 1937
Coming in Spring 2011
An Education Themed Issue of British Columbia History
Penney Clark, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Dept. of Curriculum and Pedagogy
Director, The History Education Network/Histoire et Education en Reseau (THEN/
HiER) at the University of British Columbia.
Manuscripts and images on the history of education in British Columbia are invited
by December 1, 2010.
BRITISH COLUMBIA HISTORY | Summer 2010 | Vol. 43 No. 2 1
Editor's Note
Hug & Howdy
Inbox
Letters from Readers
I was recently at a performance of
Quartette, the last concert of the
Concert Series to ever be held in
the Chilliwack Arts Centre, the
end of a 25 year tradition, as the
series moves into a new facility. The
members of Quartette referred to
the autograph session as the Hug &
Howdy, so I thought I would borrow it
to introduce myself.
In 1990 I volunteered at the
Chilliwack Museum and then, after
UBC, I worked for UBC MOA. After a
long stint at a private company it is
a wonderful feeling to be returning to
the history world as editor of British
Columbia History. An editor cannot
do their job without a team and I am
fortunate to have editors; Frances
Guntry, K. Jane Watt, and Sylvia
Stopforth; proofers/copy editors,
Erica Williams, Cathy Magee, and
Ronald Greene; and the support of the
BCHF Publications Committee.
The provincial flag of BC
marks its 50th anniversary in 2010;
Alistair Fraser's article chronicles the
unusual path taken to create the flag.
Frances Welwood raises questions
about the death of newspaperman
Lukin Johnston. We enjoyed the
transportation theme in our last issue
so much that this issue includes Louise
Avery's account of the Kitimat Power
Project of the 1950s and Marie Elliott's
history of the Nyan Wheti-Duzcho
trail system. Read the story of the
Quathiaski Cove cannery by Ronald
Greene on page 29. R.G. Moyles
provides an interesting insight into the
Salvation Army's mountaineers. Finally,
a little of the BCHF's own history with
Jacqueline Gresko's summary of the
digitization project, From Mimeograph
to Multiple Pathways.
I look forward to getting to know
the readership of British Columbia
History and hope to see your feedback
and submissions; together we can
continue telling BC's story.
Andrea Lister, Editor
Food Production Theme
Have you thought of an issue
on food production in the thirties,
forties, and fifties? I am seventy four
so know the food was nutritious, clean,
pesticide and hormone free and there
were true heritage seeds to start the
gardens. But every time I read of the
hundred mile diet followers and others
of that ilk all I can think is they do not
know what is involved which is endless
back breaking work. But at that time
people had to grow and preserve their
own food as there was no alternative
for many, particularly farmers, and
in that era most Canadians lived in
the rural areas.Mass production came
in for a reason and now people are
looking for the cleanest purest foods
etc.but might get a surprise or jolt if
they truly pursued this idea.
The transportation issue was
quite fascinating. It would be great
if you sold your magazines at grocery
stores, senior's get together venues,
etc. I find it a bit annoying that
Canadian material is not on sale in
popular places such as super markets
and pharmacies but U.S. paperbacks
are.
Patricia Lewin
The Beaver
I read with interest The De
Havilland Beaver and the Birth of
the Bush Plane by Robin Rowland
in the Spring 2010 issue of British
Columbia History. The article brought
back memories of this plane and its
well warranted recognition as one
of the top ten Canadian engineering
achievements of the 20th century.
It may be of interest to your
readers that in the summer of 1973 I
was one of a group of eight canoeists
running the Churchill River in northern
Saskatchewan, ending the next
year at Cumberland House, the first
western inland post of the Hudson's
Bay Company. While waiting for the
wind to die down from our start at
lle-a-la-Crosse a Norcanair Beaver on
floats landed and tied up at the dock.
We talked to the pilot who casually
mentioned that his aircraft was Serial
No. 1. Moreover he took me into the
cockpit to verify the number.
The Beaver at lle-a-la-Crosse,
CF-FHB, was the same one noted in
Mr. Rowland's article and shown in the
photograph at Ootsa Lake in the winter
of 1951-52, as may be seen from the
attached photograph, in which the
FHB is clearly visible.
As mentioned the Beaver is the
classic Canadian bush plane, and the
two photographs show it in surroundings
in which it was completely familiar.
Peter Tassie, Vernon, BC
Correction for 43:1
Due to deadlines at the printer
we were unable to make the following
changes to issue 43:1. The title for
Ron Greene's article on page 7 of issue
43:1 should have been Two Railway
Related Tokens used at Field, BC and
the caption for the token image on
page 9 should be a bottle check and
not a meal token.
Brenda Smith, Project Manager for
43:1
BRITISH COLUMBIA HISTORY | Summer 2010 | Vol. 43 No. 2
British Columbia's Provincial Flag
50th Anniversary
by Alistair Fraser
The Genie-award-winning movie, My
American Cousin (1985) does a good job
of capturing the Okanagan in the late
1950s: dress, hairdos, technology, music,
and attitudes. What this careful reconstruction
of an era did not get right though, was the flag.
Set in the summer of 1959, the movie shows the
flag of British Columbia flying in Penticton. Not
only was this a year before it was approved, it
was well before anyone thought this might be
the form it would take. While no more than
a peccadillo, this cinematic error hints at the
extent to which the flag had become a part of
the provincial fabric only a quarter century after
its adoption—hairstyles change, but our flag
endures? Well no, BC had marked a centennial
before it was deemed important to give it a flag.
In its early years, British Columbia saw no
reason to raise its identity upon a mast. It was
not alone in this; no jurisdiction in the British
Empire did. The function of a flag is to proclaim
identity, and in the United Kingdom, this
function was primarily devoted to identifying
ships, an important person, or both. If you lived
in Sussex, you hardly needed a flag to say this
was England and not France. But at sea, there
was a need to identify nationality and function.
In an age before radio communication, flag
flying was driven by practicality, not patriotism.
A curious illustration of this practice is the role
played by the Union Jack—or more properly,
the Union Flag. Ask someone on the street and
you will be assured that it is the national flag
of the UK. Actually, the UK lacks an official
national flag.1
The Union Flag and Colonialism
The Union Flag is a royal flag used to
identify the sovereign, the services, and the
representatives of the sovereign. The public's
informal use of it as if it were the national flag
is a result of tolerance rather than law. Further,
this tolerance is only about a century old and it
extends only to the flag's use ashore.
As a side note to the story of the flag of
British Columbia, there is the strange story of
the Union Flag in Canada. In the nineteenth
century, the Canadian Red Ensign (also a flag
that at that time had no sanction for use on land)
flew over the Parliament Buildings in Ottawa.
In 1902, The Times (London) printed an editorial
noting that the UK lacked a national flag and,
after considering various candidates, suggested
the Union Flag was the best choice.2 Canadian
officials read the editorial and, demonstrating
more deference than insight, said that if it were
the national flag of the UK (it was not), then it
surely must also be the national flag of Canada
(it was not). But, the public was told that it was,
and in 1904 it replaced the Canadian Red Ensign
on the Parliament Buildings (and schools and
businesses) and there it flew until 1945. (see
cover image)
This odd chapter of our history illustrates
not only the colonial mentality in Canada at the
time, but also that the early twentieth century was
a transitional period in the country between the
official use of flags for utilitarian identification
and the public use to bespeak pride, or even
swagger (as seen during the recent Vancouver
Olympics). In many ways, this was also a
transition between the constrained British use of
flags by officials and the enthusiastic American
use of them by the pubic. The Canadian public
often adopted American flag practice, even in
the late nineteenth century, but the flags they
used, principally the Canadian Red Ensign, had
British parentage and so lacked approval for
public use on land.
Flags, Ensigns, Arms, and
Armourial Banners
As the roots of flag usage in British
Columbia are embedded in those of the country,
and indeed, those of Britain, the story starts
early and involves flags, ensigns, arms and
armorial banners.
An ensign is a flag with another flag
(usually the national flag) in the upper quarter of
the hoist (the rope end). The British used ensigns
with three different coloured fields to distinguish
ships that were naval, governmental, or private.
But, there developed more classifications than
this, so in the seventeenth century badges began
to be placed on the ensign's fly (the flapping
end) to distinguish various governmental
offices.3 Merchants mimicked this, apparently
without authorization. By 1818,4 the Hudson's
Bay Company was using its initials HBC, as a
unauthorized badge on a red ensign.5 This was
a familiar flag in Canada until it was retired in
1970.
Alistair lives
alongside Kootenay
Lake. He is much
more likely to
be found taking
pictures of local
wildlife for his
hobby website,
kootenay-lake.ca,
than to be writing
about BC history.
BRITISH COLUMBIA HISTORY | Summer 2010 | Vol. 43 No. 2 3
In 1870, Canada
gained its first
two official
and distinctive
flags: that of the
Governor General
(top), and the
Canadian Blue
Ensign (bottom).
Both of the flags
shown here were
used aboard the
Dominion Cruiser
Acadia (insert),
Canada's primary
governmental
vessel in the
nineteenth century.
The manufacturers
of these flags
were not overly
fastidious. Among
the flaws: the blue
ensign should not
have displayed a
crown; the wreath
on the Governor
General's flag
should have been
entirely of maple
leaves. The flag
of the Governor
General, pictured
here, is the only
known surviving
original.
With the Empire expanding rapidly,
there became a need to also identify a colony's
governmental ships. In 1868, the colonial
secretary announced that colonial government
ships "shall use the blue ensign with the seal or
badge of the Colony in the fly thereof."6 Then,
the following year, Queen Victoria authorized
the "Governors of all ranks and denominations
administering Governments of British Colonies
and Dependencies to fly the Union Jack with
the Arms or badge of the Colony emblazoned
on the centre thereof."7 This was actually a
device to prevent governors from using the
(plain) Union Flag at sea, but it created a new,
distinctive flag. The newly formed Canada
thus had the opportunity to create two flags,
but first it needed a badge to be placed on
them. Although Canada lacked arms, the four
founding provinces had them, so a composite
of them was turned into a badge that was
approved by the colonial secretary in 1870.
So, three years after Confederation,
Canada gained two official and distinctive
flags: that of the
Governor General,
and the Canadian
Blue Ensign. These
were not national flags
in the modern sense—
both were strictly
for governmental
use at sea. However,
while used there,
each flag soon came
ashore. Indeed, the
Canadian Blue
Ensign (with the
four-province
badge) was the first
Canadian flag to fly
in British Columbia.
Dr. Israel Wood
Powell, a personal
friend to Prime
Minister Macdonald,
brought one to Victoria
where it was paraded
through streets on July
1, 1871, just twenty
days before BC entered
Confederation. Dr.
Powell then presented
the new flag to the Victoria Fire
Department amid great ceremony.8
Almost immediately following the
approval of the Canadian Blue Ensign, Ottawa
began promoting the use of a Canadian Red
Ensign. Identical to the blue, but with a red
field, this flag was the one most strongly
identified with Canada for nearly a century—
even during the years the Union Flag flew over
the Parliament. Yet, authority for its use was
spotty and begrudging. Indeed, the informality
of it all meant that over the years its badges
took on six major and many minor forms.
Frequent posturing aside, it never did become
the national flag of Canada.
Prior to 1922, the badge used on the
Canadian Red Ensign was modified to include
new provinces as they came along. The clutter
became ungainly and the minute detail was
certainly indistinguishable as the flag flapped.
In 1922, the shield of the freshly granted arms
of Canada replaced earlier badges.
BRITISH COLUMBIA HISTORY | Summer 2010 | Vol. 43 No. 2
Representing BC Symbolically
How, at the end of a parade of badges,
arms, ensigns, and an armorial banner, did
the present provincial flag emerge? How does
one go about representing British Columbia
symbolically? The issue was forced by the
British Government when BC was still a
colony.
For many British possessions, the great
seal formed the basis for subsequent arms, flag
badges, or both. Indeed, the great seal was the
inspiration for some of the arms or flags of the
Canadian provinces of Newfoundland, Prince
Edward Island, New Brunswick, and Manitoba.
In British Columbia, it did not happen that
way, at least not at first. BC's first great seal
was unsuitable for this purpose as it bore the
image of Queen Victoria resplendent upon her
throne.9 So, in 1869, when the Queen instructed
governors to fly their colonial badge in the
centre of the Union Flag, Governor Musgrave
had to come up with something else.
Anthony Musgrave had arrived as the
newly appointed governor for BC only a few
weeks before the Queen's proclamation and
he made no effort to comply with this effort
to prevent governors from using a plain
Union Flag at sea. Finally in May 1870, under
pressure from the Royal Navy at Esquimalt,
Governor Musgrave submitted a design for a
flag badge after being assured that he could
still fly the undefaced Union Flag on land.
The design Musgrave submitted was more
than a little audacious, and it is surprising
that the Admiralty approved it,
as it did on July 9, 1870. For the
.colonial badge of British Columbia,
I Musgrave chose the crest from the
[Royal Arms, a crowned lion atop
la crown, with the minor addition
I of the flanking letters, B and C10
I However, approved it was, and
I on October 9, 1870, Governor
Musgrave inaugurated his flag,
the first distinctive and official flag
for British Columbia.
In Canada, the vice-regal
' flag badges were surrounded by
a wreath of maple leaves; in British
Columbia, still a colony, the flag badge was
surrounded, as was standard British practice,
by a wreath of laurel. In later years various
mixtures of laurel, oak and maple leaves were
to be seen. The wreath was soon treated as if
it were actually part of the provincial badge
rather than merely a frame around it when
displayed on a vice-regal flag.
On July 20, 1871, British Columbia
entered Confederation and the Governor's flag
became the Lieutenant-Governor's flag. Soon a
request arrived from the Secretary of State in
Ottawa asking for a design for a coat of arms
for the province so that it could be added to
the composite badge of the Dominion. British
Columbia responded that the framing of such
a design should be left to the proper heraldic
authorities, but they did insist that any design
chosen must include the crowned lion of the
To serve for
identification at
a distance, the
motifs of a flag
should be simple.
This nine-province
version of the
Canadian Red
Ensign, c. 1910
had gained such
clutter as to make
it almost useless
for anything but
a static display
indoors. Indeed, it
was often displayed
in shop windows on
patriotic holidays
such as Victoria
Day and Dominion
Day. In the centre
of the badge,
there appears the
recently granted
arms of BC.
The seven-province
version of the
Canadian Red
Ensign showed
the (audacious)
Musgrave design
for BC replete with
a wreath of both
maple and oak
leaves.
BRITISH COLUMBIA HISTORY | Summer 2010 | Vol. 43 No. 2 5
Right: This tiny
silver and enamel
pin shows the
Beanlands' arms of
1895 (albeit, with
a slightly mangled
motto). While the
basis for the arms
accepted in 1906,
the position of
the sun and flag
were reversed and
an antique crown
added to the flag.
former colony. The Dominion government
likewise took the road of least resistance by
merely using the colonial badge of BC complete
with wreath, so that is how it appears on the
seven-province ensigns.
It is not clear if the colonial badge
was ever used by itself to make a BC ensign.
Indirect evidence suggests that it might have
been.11 Then about 1885, in a reversal of the
usual route, the flag badge was used as the
basis for a new great seal, this time one which
acknowledged that BC was now a province
rather than a colony. Yet this device was not
particularly suitable for either a seal or flag
badge because it presented no special motif of
the province, but was simply an emblem of the
sovereign.
In 1895, the province's Executive Council
accepted a new design, proposed by Canon
Arthur Beanlands of Victoria. Beanlands'
design, which took the form of a full coat of
arms, formed the principal element of the new
great seal used from 1896 to 1911. The only
portion of the design of interest for flags was
the shield, and it bore the familiar elements of
the present shield, but in a different order. The
Union Flag appeared in the base, while, at the
top, the sun set over the ocean.
Homemade arms are not official arms,
so when BC sought to have them authorized,
the College of Arms insisted on two changes:
The order of the elements should be reversed
placing the Union Flag at the top; the flag
portion should be differenced with an antique
crown. This agreed to, the new shield became
the arms of British Columbia on March 31,1906.
The modification was quickly incorporated into
the composite shield seen on the nine-province
Canadian Red Ensigns, and in 1911 it was
incorporated into a new provincial great seal.
British Columbia was now properly
equipped with arms. Often arms are the
basis for creating a flag. If a portion of the
arms, usually the shield, forms only an
element within the flag, the result is called
an armigerous flag. Despite differences in the
way the shield is incorporated, the provincial
flags of Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, and
Ontario are armigerous. If the shield is spread
over the whole rectangle of the flag, it is called
an armorial banner. Purists prefer the armorial
banner, undoubtedly because it normally
produces the more striking and aesthetically
satisfying result. The provincial flags of Prince
Edward Island and New Brunswick are armorial
banners—as is that of British Columbia. But,
making a flag using either approach does not
make it the provincial flag. That step requires
government action.
That being said, each approach was
occasionally used by government officials to
informally represent the province prior to the
adoption of the flag in 1960. Interestingly, they
always seemed to be used afar rather than
within the province, and so would have been
unfamiliar to residents. Following the earlier
British practice, there seemed to be little reason
to identify oneself as being from BC if you
were already there.
The first known use of an armorial
banner to represent the Province was
in London. Not long after the arms were
granted, a number of small hand-waving
versions of the flag were made. These
flags are associated with Sir Richard
McBride.12 McBride was the BC Premier
from 1903 to 1915; subsequently he spent
the next two years as the provincial
Agent General in London. So, what
celebratory event between the
granting of arms in 1906 and the
end of McBride's tenure in London
in 1917 would have prompted the
province's London staff to want
BRITISH COLUMBIA HISTORY | Summer 2010 | Vol. 43 No. 2
to have small flags to wave? Only one event
stands out: the Coronation of George V in
1911. While it took place during the tenure of
Agent General John Turner, Premier McBride
was the province's official representative at
the Coronation.13 It seems almost certain that
this was the event which prompted the flags
to be ordered and the staff would have waved
them as the Coronation parade passed. While
a minor historical anecdote, the story gains
significance nearly a half-century later, when
one of these surviving banners served as the
prototype for the provincial flag. For lack of a
better designation, that flag will be referred to
as the 1911 armorial banner.
Occasionally, provincial authorities
used a BC Red Ensign—one where the shield
and motto formed the badge. While probably
used at various times, such ensigns are known
to have been displayed by a provincial trade
delegation to San Francisco in the 1920s.
With the exception of Nova Scotia and
Quebec, the widespread attitude was that
provincial flags were irrelevant. In 1946, Mr.
William MacAdam, then part way though his
career as BC's longest serving Agent General in
London, visited Premier John Hart in Victoria.
He brought with him a sketch of the armorial
banner and suggested that it would make a
good provincial flag. Mr. Hart is reported to
have turned it down with the remark, "Where
and how would we use it?" The province,
he felt, was adequately equipped with the
Canadian Red Ensign and the Union Flag.14
With the approach of the hundredth
anniversary of the 1858 creation of the Colony
of BC, Premier WAC Bennett inquired if the
province had ever had a flag. He wished
to find something a little more dignified
than what might be produced by the local
devisers of logotypes. When a search of
archives failed to reveal any special flag used
to identify the province, the 1958 centennial
committee adopted a pedestrian design that
placed a goulash of shields, dates, letters,
factories, trees, mountains, and ocean, upon
a blue field.
Although the archives proved barren,
subsequent inquiries at BC House in London
revealed the earlier use of the province's
armorial banner. In September 1958, William
MacAdam returned to Victoria in retirement
and, in response to the inquiries, brought
with him both a drawing and one of the 1911
armorial banners (apparently the last surviving
one). For the immediate occasion, however,
there was no need to act
for the centennial and
its unfortunate flag were
nearly done—or so one
might have thought.
On February 12, 1959,
a cabinet minister
suggested that the
centennial flag, with the
motto replacing the dates,
should be adopted as the
provincial flag.15 Then
the legislature approved
the idea in principle in
March.16
Top left: This small
hand-waver version
of the armorial
banner of BC was
undoubtedly used
by BC staff during
the Coronation of
George V in 1911.
In 1960 the flag
shown here served
as the prototype
for the flag of the
province.
A BC ensign uses
the shield and
motto of the
province as a badge
on the fly. This one
is in the American
proportions as it
was made in San
Francisco for the
use by a BC trade
delegation there in
the 1920s.
BRITISH COLUMBIA HISTORY | Summer 2010 | Vol. 43 No. 2
The flag used for
the BC centennial
in 1958. If it had
not been for
the bad press it
received, this flag
might have been
transformed into
the provincial flag.
■*«»
It was not until early 1960 that the
legislation to adopt the modified centennial
flag as the provincial flag was introduced.
There followed a shower of puns and derision
as the government was charged with having
been caught committing a flagrant artistic
crime, flagrante delicto. Premier WAC Bennett
extricated his government by writing off the
bill as a private member's motion. The deputy
speaker quashed all debate until the second
reading and then eliminated the second
reading.17
A good way out of this embarrassing
state of affairs would be to remove the element
of choice by discovering that the province
already had a flag. Although it did not, maybe
everyone could be convinced that it did. Less
than two years earlier, William MacAdam had
provided Premier Bennett with the small 1911
armorial banner and it was decided to use it
as the model for the flag. But a story had to be
created to give some historical verisimilitude to
its fabricated long official status. The arms and
flag granting body at that time was the College
of Arms in London, so provincial authorities
arranged for the College of Arms to produce
an official drawing of the flag,18 and then for
a large version of the flag to be manufactured
elsewhere in England.19
This accomplished, on June 17, 1960
Premier Bennett returned from a three-week
business trip to London holding this supposedly
long established flag that he claimed to have
just discovered during his visit to the College
of Arms.20 The success of this minor subterfuge
was followed swiftly by an order-in-council
that, on June 20,1960, converted the province's
armorial banner into its provincial flag.
That flag quickly became woven indelibly
into the fabric of the Province and this year,
2010, marks its fiftieth year. Further, 2011 marks
the centennial of the prototype.
Epilogue
This tale wouldn't be complete without
a final word about the story behind the
story of the prototype from 1911 and the
final subterfuge that lead to it becoming the
provincial flag. When Premier Bennett stepped
off the airplane from London, he waved a large
flag to which he gave credence by claiming he
had found it in the archives of the College of
Arms (despite the fact that the College, neither
makes nor stores flags, only information).
Indeed, some reporters remarked that the flag
looked suspiciously as if it had been freshly
made21—as, indeed, it had. It is not clear what
happened to the flag Bennett used for this ruse,
however, it is clear what happened to the 1911
armorial banner that served as the prototype.
As Ronald B. Worley, Premier Bennett's private
secretary explained to the author: this flag
was neither shown to, nor discussed with, the
public for to have done so would have undercut
the contrived story. So, what happened to the
BRITISH COLUMBIA HISTORY | Summer 2010 | Vol. 43 No. 2
prototype? Answering the question
over the phone, Worley responded: I
am looking at it right now; it is sticking
out of a drinking glass on the desk in
front of me. Worley had taken it with
him into retirement. A picture of that
flag accompanies this article.
Armorial banners usually
look best with a shape that is close
to square. The prototype has a very
effective ratio of 2:3. The official ratio
for the provincial flag is 3:5 —still
presenting a good-looking design.
However, as the national flag has a
ratio of 1:2 (it isn't an armorial banner)
the provincial one is often sold and
flown with that ratio. As one observer
noted, with such a greatly elongated
shape, the sun begins to look like a
banana with rays.*
End Notes
1. E.M.C. Barraclough, and W.G. Crampton,
Flags of the World (London: Frederick Warne,
1978), 22. Most authors are not as careful with
their language as these are. As a result, the
number of authors who categorically name
the Union Flag as the national flag of Britain
is legion. Such authors seem unprepared
to make a distinction between a flag being
regarded as, or being used as, a national flag,
and a flag actually being the national flag. Yet,
for Canada, this distinction is crucial, for in
its absence, the order-in-council of September
5,1945, which only authorized the "flying
of the Canadian Red Ensign wherever place
or occasion may make it desirable to fly a
distinctive Canadian flag," would have created
a national flag. However, in fact, it did not.
2. The Times (London: September 18,1902), 7.
3. W.G. Perrin, British Flags (Cambridge:
Cambridge, 1922), 115-17.
4. Hudson's Bay Company Archives A.24/31,
35.
5. Private communication in the late 1980s
from Shirlee Ann Smith, Keeper Hudson's Bay
Company Archives, Winnipeg. Although the
Hudson's Bay Ensign had been used since at
least 1818, this use went unauthorized until
1929 when the Lords Commissioners of the
Admiralty issued a warrant for the Company
to use the letters HB.C as a badge on the Red
Ensign.
6. John Skirving Ewart, "The Canadian
Flag," The Canadian Magazine (1907), 30:1,
332-35. Reprinted in The Kingdom of Canada,
(Toronto: Morang, 1908), 6571.
7. Joseph Pope, The Flag of Canada, (1907) &
2nd ed. (Ottawa: self, 1912), 16 p.
8. "Our Flag," Colonist (June 17,1871), and
Colonist (July 2,1871). It is interesting that
another BC community sometimes claims the
honour of having flown the first Canadian flag:
Barkerville. In 1869, William Hill made a flag
consisting of a beaver surrounded by a wreath
of maple leaves on a white ground in the
middle of the British ensign ("Dominion Flag",
Cariboo Sentinel, July 22,1871, 2). Certainly,
Hill's flag served as a nice device to promote
BC's entry into Confederation, but it is a bit of
a stretch to call personal construct a Canadian
flag prior to there actually being any Canadian
flag, merely because it employed a Canadian
symbol, and one that was never used that way
on a flag again). Clearly, the honour of flying
the first actual Canadian flag in BC belongs to
Victoria.
9. Conrad Swan, Canada: Symbols of
Sovereignty (Toronto: University of Toronto
Press, 1977), 181-82.
10. "Chief Commissioner of L & W reporting
respecting a design for a Coat of Arms for this
Province," Department of Lands and Works,
Victoria October 23,1872, No. 162, State Book,
122.
11. In 1891, an ensign on a pamphlet cover
issued by the publishers of the Daily Colonist
bore a rampant lion and a roundel with
the letters B.C., "Victoria: The Queen City,"
(Victoria: Ellis & Co., 1891). In 1903, the B.C.
Forestry Service used markers in the form
of small red ensigns with the letters B.C. on
the fly during their survey of the B.C.-Yukon
border. (Personal communications in
September, 1988, from Michael Halleran.)
12. Personal communication in July, 1988, from
Ronald B. Worley, former Executive Assistant
to Premier W.A.C Bennett from 1952 to 1959.
13. Dictionary of Canadian Biography Online,
"McBride, Sir Richard" http://www.biographi.
ca/009004-119.01-e.php?BioId=41697 (accessed
March 14, 2010).
14. Harry Young, "B.C.'s New Flag" Colonist,
(June 26,1960), 4.
15. "B.C.'s Flag Waved," Colonist (February
13,1959), 9.
16. "Legislators Approve B.C. Flag" Vancouver
Sun (March 21,1959), 6.
17. "British Columbia: Flagrante Delicto,"
Time, (March 7,1960).
18. The drawing the armorial banner was
made on May 13,1960 by J.D. Heaton-
Armstrong, Clarenceux King of Arms, College
of Arms in London.
19. The story of what actually happened
behind the scenes is based entirely on the
author's private communications in letters
and phone calls in July, 1988, with Ronald B.
Worley, Premier Bennett's former executive
assistant.
20. "Beaming With Pleasure," Vancouver Sun
Final Edition, (June 17,1960), 1.
21. Pete Loudon, "'Bennett' Flag Expected to
be Official B.C. Ensign," Vancouver Sun (June
21,1960), 9.
BRITISH COLUMBIA HISTORY | Summer 2010 | Vol. 43 No. 2 9
Lukin Johnston of The Province
Rural rambles and a conversation with Hitler
by Frances Welwood
Frances is an
honourary life
member of the
Nelson and District
Museum, Archives,
Art Gallery and
Historical Society
and a founding
member of
the Society's
Touchstones Gallery
Board of Directors.
She has written
for BC History
on the history of
Canford BC and the
Vancouver's first
commercial art
gallery.
Notes
1. Lukin Johnston, In
England To-day (London
and Toronto: J.M. Dent
1931), 123.
2. Lukin Johnston, Down
English Lanes (London:
Heath Cranton Ltd.
1933), 128.
3. ibid., 170.
In the very early hours of November
18, 1933 a distinguished middle-aged
gentleman mysteriously disappeared
from the deck of a Hook of Holland ferry
crossing en route to Harwich, England. The
subsequent and largely accepted supposition
was that the man had accidentally fallen from
the ship into the inky dark waters of the North
Sea. It was in the course of his profession as
journalist and newspaper correspondent that
Lukin Johnston was making the crossing on
that murky mid-November night in 1933. And
therein lies the astounding story of why Mr.
Lukin Johnston was aboard the ferryboat Prague.
Edwyn Harry Lukin Johnston, Canadian
citizen, second son of a Church of England
clergyman, was born in Surbiton, Surrey in
1887. Rector Reverend Robert E. Johnston's
family lived in the near-coastal communities
at the outlet of the Thames. Edwyn's mother,
Ellen Jane Lukin Johnston, was the daughter of
a London Inner Court barrister and the niece
of the adventure-seeking Major General Sir
Henry Timson Lukin. Uncle Sir Henry had
military aspirations from a very young age.
In 1879 at age 19, after greatly disappointing
his family by failing entrance examinations to
Sandhurst Military College, Henry set off alone
to join in the Anglo-Zulu conflict in South
Africa. A distinguished and colourful military
career in the South Africa Wars and WW1
followed his participation in this Colonial
war. The Major-General (KCB, CMG, DSO)
was of the stiff, polished, humourless order
so often characterized by the British Colonial
Army of the late Victorian period. Upon Major
General Lukin's death in 1925, his brother-in-
law, the Rector Reverend Johnston, authored a
biography Ulundi to Delville Wood recounting
Sir Henry's career from his adopted home in
South Africa to the horrors of the battlefields of
World War One.
The good Rector's son, Edwyn H. Lukin
Johnston, received a classical education as a
boarding student and chorister at the historic
and prestigious King's School, Canterbury.
With a heritage typified by his famous uncle
and a host of early Lukin naval and military
forebearers, along with the 'second son's'
penchant for leaving Britain in search of
adventure and opportunity and his mother's
death in 1903, it was not a surprise when
young Edwyn Lukin Johnston announced he
would seek his future in Canada. In November
1905, as his uncle Henry had done, Lukin (as
he came to be known) set off alone aboard the
CPR vessel Lake Manitoba from Liverpool bound
for Montreal. There were "ten sovereigns in
his belt". The money, he reflected in 1931, ". .
. was to be the basis of the fortune which has
not yet materialized."1 Lukin drifted about
the farming area near the village of Burford,
Ontario learning ". . .to handle a fork-load of
manure and to navigate a one horse plough."2
He then settled briefly (including the lengthy,
cruel winter of 1906) in the Qu'Appelle Valley
of Saskatchewan before it was 'disturbed' by
the railroad. Here he enjoyed the sole company
and "... the tutelage of [a] hard-hearted son
of the soil . . . who attempted to make me
into an efficient hired man."3 Lukin referred
to this experience as his time as a bohunk
or common tramp. The young Canterbury
chorister's Canadian resume also included a
stint 'singing illustrated songs' accompanying
movie pictures.
Wherever and whenever he roamed,
Lukin found work and became a keen observer
of the land and the people. Moving westward,
the friendly young Brit discovered the rugged
Kootenay area of British Columbia, but left few
marks or memories of his encounters there.
Martin Burrell of Grand Forks and Member of
Parliament for Yale-Cariboo (1908-1917) knew
Lukin as a companionable, alert lad, full of life
and intelligence. It is doubtful Lukin Johnston
fell into the privileged or posh Remittance Man
category of other Kootenay or Western Canada
newcomers - although it is tempting to picture a
well-spoken, good-looking newcomer walking
into dusty, rural newspaper or political officials'
quarters in search of news and conversation.
In March 1909, with no hitherto noted
experience, Lukin was hired as a reporter for
the Vancouver Province where he earned the
nickname Ginger. He staked his entire worldly
wealth of $20 on his first assignment. In order
to secure an interview with a North Vancouver
real estate developer Lukin put a $20 down-
payment on a speculative lot. He then filed his
first story on the bustling real estate market
across Burrard Inlet from the Vancouver
Province building. For the next several years
Lukin and future newspaper reporters Hugh
10
BRITISH COLUMBIA HISTORY | Summer 2010 | Vol. 43 No. 2
Savage and Kenneth Meyers shared digs in a
Barclay St. apartment. They were learning the
news trade, honing their writing and reporting
skills and establishing career-building contacts.
In August 1911, moving about as far west as
geographically possible, Lukin accepted a
promotion as managing editor of the weekly
Cowichan Leader at Duncan on Vancouver
Island. In less than three years under Johnston's
direction the Leader expanded from four to ten
pages. A professional and thoughtful editorial
page became a regular feature. Of interest to
local readers was an entry in the 'Local and
Personal' column of April 25, 1912 announcing
the wedding on August 18th, of their esteemed
young editor Lukin Johnston and Miss Bertha
Court recently of Canterbury, Kent. The young
couple was wed at St. Mary's Church, at
Somenos two miles north of Duncan, where they
made their first home. Lukin's elder brother Roy
served as best man. Son Derek Robert Lukin
Johnston was born in Duncan February 8,1913.
Hugh Savage, chum and fellow reporter
working at the Vancouver Province, received a
telegram from Lukin in January 1914 inviting
him to take over the helm of the Cowichan Leader.
Lukin would be moving onward and upward
to take on responsibilities as city editor of the
Victoria Colonist. At the Colonist Lukin polished
his political reporting technique and gained the
respect of politicians and journalists in an ever-
widening circle of national and international
events and personalities. However, as was the
way with many new and now-Canadian young
men of the time, a call to arms from the British
homeland was not to be ignored. From his home,
the "Aberdeen" on McLure St. in Victoria, Lukin
enlisted in the 88th Battalion (Victoria Fusiliers),
Canadian Expeditionary Force, in November
1915. He later acknowledged "... our goods
and chattels were sold up ... so I could join the
C.E.F."4
Lieutenant Johnston and the 88th Battalion
were shipped overseas May 1916, where the 1150
boys from Victoria were promptly absorbed
into the 30th Reserve Battalion. Johnston's War
record was exemplary. He fought at Vimy in
April 1917, Passchendaele in November 1917,
Amien in August 1918 and was mentioned
in dispatches January 1, 1919. The memories
of these horrific experiences were to remain
with him the rest of his days. They provided a
personal, wary backdrop to his journalistic and
international career. While on leave in England
Lukin enthusiastically re-connected with the
family, the homeland and the countryside
from which he had detached himself ten years
earlier. Lukin slowly recognized in himself a
deep affection and loyalty to both England and
Canada. He saw England with all its history,
foibles and self-assured manners through the
eyes and ears of an adventuresome, intelligent
young Canadian. There was much honour and
humour to celebrate in both dominions and he
was the privileged possessor of this dual good
fortune. It was also his good fortune to have
survived the European conflict physically intact
and to be honourably discharged with the
rank of Major. Major Johnston marked every
November 11th Remembrance Day (Armistice
Day or Veterans Day) thereafter with the deepest
regard for his comrades. Whether at Cenotaphs
on Whitehall, Vancouver's Victory Square,
Ottawa's Parliament Hill, Arlington Memorial
Washington DC, the Arc de Triomphe or on a
hiking trail deep in a forest of Vancouver Island,
Lukin paused to reflect on his fallen comrades
and the people of the war-ravaged countries of
Europe.
In 1919 his newspaper career took on new
meaning and a new location. Johnston settled
in at the 'telegraph' desk (news wire service)
at the Vancouver Province. With his wife Bertha
he enjoyed participating in amateur theatricals,
where his distinguished presence easily adapted
to the stage. In 1921 he became the first President
of the B.C. Institute of Journalists and later
President of the local St. George Society (which
represented 'all things British'.) Reporting
assignments that capitalized on Johnston's
European experience and knowledge as well as
his clear, accurate writing style came his way.
He covered the Washington Naval
Disarmament Conference of November 1921-
February 1922 and when in July 1923 American
President Warren Harding paid his first visit
to the northern American territory of Alaska,
Johnston knew he and the Province must
accompany the Presidential entourage on this
historic event. Johnston's fellow American news
correspondents 'smuggled' the extraneous
Canadian on board the Presidential vessel at
Portland Oregon. Although his application to
accompany the President had been denied,
4. Johnston. In England
Today, 134.
BRITISH COLUMBIA HISTORY | Summer 2010 | Vol. 43 No. 2 11
Rt. Rev. W.R.
Adams, Anglican
Bishop of the
Cariboo and Lukin
Johnston pause in
their dusty travels
c. 1927. Taken from
Johnston's Beyond
the Rockies:
Three thousand
miles by trail and
canoe through
little known
British Columbia,
published 1929.
once on board Harding himself genially agreed
Johnston should be made welcome. Lukin
Johnston had an easy charm and a way of
wrangling invitations and interviews. On the
return voyage from Alaska, Johnston jumped
ship at Campbell River, motored to Nanaimo
and ferried to Vancouver, allowing Province
readers to view reports and photos of Harding's
northern sojourn prior to the President's
triumphal arrival in Vancouver on July 26,
1923. Vancouverites were so overwhelmed
with Harding's visit that 50,000 came out to
hear his rather poor oratory at Stanley Park.
Within the week Harding died of (possibly or
possibly not) food poisoning in a San Francisco
Hotel.
During the post WW1 decade Lukin
Johnston matured as a journalist and
participant in the intrigues of global politics and
international affairs. He countered this worldly
sophistication with an increasing delight
in discovering the vast interior waterways,
mountain trails and rudimentary roads of his
adopted province. He was overwhelmingly
attracted by the call and the challenge of the
semi-wild and would set out whenever and
wherever his career permitted. Johnston did
not wander, musket over his shoulder into
the timbered mountains or tackle the jagged
waterways by solo canoe, but rather travelled
by foot, auto or whatever vehicle appeared en
route. Johnston's seemingly aimless rambles
took him, in the summers of the mid-1920s
into the Chilcotin, Cariboo, Omenica and the
Peace and Nechako Rivers areas, and to the
Gulf Islands and BC's coastal inlets. His largely
pleasant encounters with local citizens and his
vivid descriptions were made available to all in
Beyond the Rockies: 3000 Miles by trail and canoe
through little known British Columbia published
in 1929.
In February 1925, the management of The
Province gave Lukin a new challenge.
He was appointed the first editor of the
paper's new populist family-oriented weekly
Magazine Section. The position required an
editor with considerable editorial ability and
a wide knowledge of travel, local stories,
adventure, politics, fiction and even children's
and women's interests. The Magazine reflected
Johnston's belief that newspapers should not
only relay the news and editorialize, but should
also offer opportunities for Canadian writers
of fiction, local stories and entertainment for
a wide readership.
Each eye-catching
cover page of the
Section was boldly
illustrated with
photos or drawings
announcing
articles featured in
the issue.
The roster of
writers featured
in the Province
Magazine was a
preview as well
as a summary
of the most
accomplished and
up-and-coming
Canadian writers
and journalists of
the 1930s. Bruce
Hutchison, a
personal friend and
one of Canada's
most respected
12
BRITISH COLUMBIA HISTORY | Summer 2010 | Vol. 43 No. 2
and outspoken political commentators into
the 1980s, was a frequent contributor. Lukin
would have enjoyed immensely his friend's
classic non-fiction works The Fraser (1950) and
The Unknown Country (1943). Don Mundy,
explorer-mountaineer brought stories of
conquests of majestic Coast Range mountains
to Vancouver's arm-chair explorers. B.A.
McKelvie would enjoy a lengthy writing career
at the Province, while George Godwin, who
contributed articles on foreign affairs and
politics authored a remarkable array of books
well into the 1950s. Youthful Frederick Soward
of UBC's History Department, a Canadian
pioneer in International Studies wrote with
authority and style. Dorothy Livesay, namesake
of the BC Annual Book Prize for Poetry, saw
her first poem published in the Province over
70 years ago.
The Magazine quickly took on a familiar
format: Front-page feature article, followed
by "News Jottings from the BC Hinterland"
contributed by stringers from all points in BC,
short stories and tales of adventure, a biography
or two of historic British Columbians, book
reviews by UBC English Dept. head G.G.
Sedgewick, travel and cultural "Glimpses of Life
in Britain and Distant Parts", women's issues
and insights by Dorothy G. Bell and even works
by established international writers. Stories
by well-known mystery writer Mary Roberts
Rinehart; inventor of Oz, L.G. Baum; creator
of Jeeves, PG. Wodehouse; and novelist Arnold
Bennett made regular appearances. A retired
Robert Gosnell, BC's first Provincial Archivist
(1908-1910) contributed, while Vancouver's
legendary Archivist, Major Matthews could
always be counted on to contribute words and
wisdom about Vancouver's recent but historic
past.
Mrs. Ann Garland Foster, a Nelson and
Vancouver-based freelance writer of travel,
local history, native lore, biography and
unimaginative tales for children, credited
Lukin Johnston with her moderate measure
of success in the world of journalism. He
encouraged the widowed Mrs. Foster (the first
biographer of 'native poetess' Pauline Johnson)
The Province
Magazine Section
celebrates its first
year of publication
January 31, 1926.
BRITISH COLUMBIA HISTORY | Summer 2010 | Vol. 43 No. 2 13
5. Correspondence 2009
Derek Johnston to author
July-Sept. 2009.
6. Province Nov. 18,
1933,1.
in her modest literary endeavours and the
Magazine published over 30 of her offerings
during Johnston's years as editor. Mrs. Foster's
husband, William Garland Foster who died
in France in the final days of WW1, had been
editor of the Nelson Daily News (1909-1914)
and had served a stint at the Victoria Colonist
prior to moving to Nelson. Garland Foster
could well have been a personal newspapering
acquaintance of Johnston's. It would not be
uncommon for Johnston to lend a hand or a
gentle assignment to a widow of the Great
War.
Johnston's personal bias in favour of
England, English ways and the charms of the
English countryside was obvious in the content
of the Magazine, but it was also a direction very
popular with subscribers. The Province was on
the right track with the weekly Magazine.
Along with his many private and public
interests, Lukin Johnston enjoyed the limelight
of public speaking. In February 1928 he spoke
at a gathering of UBC students concerning
the development and power of the modern
newspaper. There is a 99% assurance that
in this audience of eager students of foreign
and international affairs sat 23 year old
Robert (Count) Wendel Keyserlingk. In 1928
Keyserlingk was a student of writing and
foreign affairs. He was a widely experienced,
multi-lingual, young European with an
incredibly varied background, education
and work slate - from an aristocratic family
in Lithuania, with schooling in Japan, to the
fishing and logging villages of northern British
Columbia. Keyserlingk and Lukin Johnston
became genuine and respected friends.
According to Lukin's son Derek,5 Keyserlingk
was quite likely responsible for enabling
Johnston to secure the most significant (and
unfortunately the last) interview and story of
his entire journalistic career. That interview
culminated in the tragic incident in the English
Channel in November 1933.
Lukin Johnston, with his broadening
journalist panache, was destined for a world
beyond the pleasant scope of the Province
Magazine. In May 1928 he was appointed
European representative of the Canadian
Southam News agency (the Province was one of
five associates) in London. As chief Canadian
correspondent he established a working
agreement with the Times and found himself
the recipient of invitations to many formal
social functions - a Times party at Hever Castle,
dinner at the Mayfair Hotel for Canadian
Prime Minister R.B. Bennett, the Lord Mayor
of London's banquet at the Guildhall and a
disappointing fete, if there ever was one, The
Derby. The Canadian journalist excelled at these
social functions but realized they were only a
backdrop to the darkening crises looming over
continental Europe. 1930 was a banner year
for meeting and mingling with the powers
and personalities of these heady but troubled
times. Johnston attended and dispatched
informed, colourful accounts from the London
Naval Conference, the Imperial Conference
(pre-cursor of the British Empire and
Commonwealth gatherings) and most notably
the Lausanne Disarmament Conference of
1932 at which WW1 treaty reparations against
Germany and its allies were suspended. In the
House of Commons Johnston revelled in the
oratorical skills of Lloyd George, Lord Simons
and a youthful Winston Churchill as they
debated Britain's Trades Dispute Act of 1931.
A contemporary Canadian journalist best
summarized Johnston's impact on Canadian
news services in the 1930s. "[H]e established
himself as a brilliant and reliable interpreter for
Canadian readers of British events and political
developments. His cables from London to the
Vancouver Province and Associated Southam
Newspapers throughout Canada were the
most eagerly read of any despatches from the
Old Country."6
Remembering the good times experienced
by his hardy travels through the interior of BC
in the mid-1920s, Lukin Johnston of Fleet Street
of the 1930s regularly loosened his collar,
took up his walking stick, cleared his mind of
worldly distresses and set out on rambles about
the English countryside. This England, 'this
green and pleasant land', was a source of great
enjoyment and relaxation. Delightful, readable
accounts of Johnston's wanderings were
initially published in the Province and other
Southam papers for the benefit of 'exiled' Brits.
His time in Canada and abroad had taught
Lukin that an Englishman's nostalgia for his
homeland is unwavering. Johnston collected
these essays into two charming, enjoyable and
often humorous books: In England Today (1931)
14
BRITISH COLUMBIA HISTORY | Summer 2010 | Vol. 43 No. 2
and Down English Lanes (1933). His intent was
simply stated. "Here then in these pages are
some random impressions of England as it has
appeared to a wanderer who left her shores
as a lad and returned again when the 40th
milestone [birthdate] was not long past."7
Although essentially a social person, with
a genial interest in local residents encountered
on the byways and in public inns, Lukin hiked
alone. His wife, Bertha remained at their home
in Epsom outside London, their son Derek had
finished school in Tonbridge, Kent and was
studying languages in Switzerland and the host
of worldly personalities and correspondents
with whom he worked remained behind
their desks on Fleet St. or Whitehall. Johnston
believed the lone traveller was more likely to
strike up conversations in pubs, fields and
country paths than was the companioned
traveller. Also he was free to deviate from any
route or schedule. Maybe he simply wanted
to be away from the heavy concerns of the
international workplace. No matter.. .wherever
he tramped Lukin Johnston introduced himself
as a Canadian. He likened the green hills of
Wales to those of Saskatchewan's Qu'Appelle
Valley and found similarities in the climates of
Cornwall and the Gulf Islands. At every turn of
the road he seemed to meet with a connection
to Canada or Canadians and although 'at home'
in the country of his birth Johnston admitted his
homesickness for Canada. He had exchanged
'one good country for another' and had become
an ambassador as well as a journalist. The
quaintness of the English village, countryside,
graveyard and copse would not survive for
many decades. Englishmen can thank Lukin
Johnston for capturing in prose the essence of
a country and a people soon to be overcome
by the catastrophic movements taking form in
continental Europe.
Cruel economic conditions and
suspicions of broken promises and treaties
emanating from Central Europe in the mid-
19308 prevented British diplomats and
observers from appreciating the true situation
in the Republic of Germany and its historical
neighbours.
To add to the difficulty in providing
accurate news coverage, Hermann Goering,
prior to his election as President of the German
Reichstag in 1932, had imposed a ban on all
foreign newspaper interviews with Fuehrer
Adolf Hitler. Nonetheless, in 1931 Johnston
had the good (?) fortune to meet Herr Putzi
Hanfstaegl, head of the Foreign Press section
of the Propaganda Ministry of the Weimar
Republic. Hanfstaegl later noted rather blandly
that he " . . . was struck by the fair and loyal
character of the Canadian journalist."8
Against all odds, also in July 1931,
Robert Keyserlingk, Johnston's friend and
ally at United Press European headquarters in
Zurich, had manipulated a personal interview
in Munich with Hitler. Keyserlingk had
presented himself as "Count" Keyserlingk, " .
.. speaking for some foreign financial interests
and that in view of the threatening [banking]
crisis ..., it was imperative that I [Keyserlingk]
speak with Hitler."9 Following the resulting
rather clandestine, late-night interview with
Hitler (which was of little consequence on the
international scene), Keyserlingk concluded,
"To me it was memorable merely as an
opportunity for some three quarters of an hour
to study the man who will go down in history
as its child, and as the sad expression of a
human error."10
No doubt Lukin Johnston was aware of
his friend's journalistic coup. Johnston now
felt he also would try his hand at directly
interviewing persons of influence. Hence, en
route to the Lausanne Disarmament Conference
of June-July 1932, Lukin consulted his friend,
Keyserlingk. Keyserlingk (acting as interpreter)
arranged a meeting in Berlin between the
inquisitive Canadian correspondent and His
Highness Victor Salvator Prince Isenburg,
special representative of the Czech Skoda
munition works. The resulting interview was
a shocking lesson in cynicism and duplicity.
Isenburg quite bluntly and haughtily advised
the naive Canadian to observe the high-level
talks of disarmament as a 'pantomine'. "We
[Skoda Munitions] are not interested today
in disarmament but in armament . . . "u He
referred to "the horrors of peace" and its
ensuing unemployment. The key to prosperity
was to re-arm Germany. "... We supply both
sides."12 Johnston's report was published in the
Province with little fanfare.
1933 was a desperately significant year
in European history. In October the Fuehrer
took Germany out of the Geneva Disarmament
7. Johnston. In England
Today., vii.
8. Province Nov. 20,
1933,1.
9. Robert Wendel
Keyserlingk, Unfinished
History. (London: Robert
Hale Ltd. 1948) 213.
10. ibid, 223.
11. ibid., 230.
12. ibid., 231.
BRITISH COLUMBIA HISTORY | Summer 2010 | Vol. 43 No. 2 15
13.Province Nov. 18,
1933,1.
14. ibid. Nov. 17,1933,1.
talks. November 12th, Hitler's infinite authority
was overwhelmingly confirmed by a national
election and a plebiscite that endorsed his
new 'peace policy'. Any meeting with foreign
diplomats or journalists was rare and strictly
stage-managed. Nonetheless journalists
were eager to be in Hitler's company and the
Canadian Lukin Johnston, now an experienced
European correspondent, was granted a formal
interview with the Chancellor. The nature of
any back-room negotiations that facilitated
this surprising and exclusive interview are
not generally known. However, it is logical to
conclude "Count" Keyserlingk, now living in
Berlin as manager of United Press in Northern
Europe, had a hand in the manoeuvre. Also
Herr Hanfstaegl, of the Propaganda Ministry
may have provided a good word on Johnston's
behalf.
On November 15, 1933 it was to Lukin
Johnston of Southam News Agency "... the
first Canadian newspaperman to whom he
[Hitler] had ever granted an interview, ... he
unequivocally declared that Germany is ready
to consider any invitation to recommence
negotiations for disarmament or the limitation
of armaments so long as she [Germany]
was invited on terms of absolute equality"13
Johnston asked Hitler if he considered that
Germany should make the next move toward
disarmament. Hitler responded with the
rationale that "...the initiative should come
from those states which have not disarmed.
Germany after all can not disarm because she
has disarmed already"14 Thus, in Hitler's mind,
Germany assumed the role of non-aggressor.
Johnston's article, filed by telephone
with Southam late on November 15th , also
described Hitler's classic Nazi attire: black
pants, light fawn military-style tunic, swastika
armband, iron cross on his chest. Hitler
displayed a friendly, jovial demeanour when
he discussed the Canadians he had met across
the battlefields of the Great War. All this was
precisely reported in Johnston's press release.
The Province banner headline of Friday Nov.
Johnston and Rev.
John Antle on
board M.V. John
Antle before the 84
foot BC Columbia
Coast Mission boat
embarked for the
West Coast from
its berth on the
Thames, England,
1933.
16
BRITISH COLUMBIA HISTORY | Summer 2010 | Vol. 43 No. 2
17th, 1933 was an eye-catcher: "Germany
Ready To Reduce Arms Claims Hitler. German
Chancellor Makes Unequivocal Declaration
to The Province Correspondent In Exclusive
Interview." Indeed, the interview was the
culmination of Lukin Johnston's outstanding
international journalistic career.
Upon filing his story and chatting with
his Southam joint London correspondent and
colleague Arthur C. Cummings, Johnston
boarded the train, then the ferry from the Hook
of Holland to Harwich on England's east coast.
He had now completed a three or four week
intensive tour of Europe, investigating and
reporting on the deepening complexities of
European diplomacy and he was rather weary
and eager to return to the seeming normalcy
of life in Epsom Surrey. His second book of
English countyside rambles Down English Lanes
,
had just come off the press and there would
be reviews and interviews of a more pleasant
nature.
Following dinner Lukin strolled the
Prague's promenade deck. He paused to take in
the cold damp air and relax in a deck chair. At
2:30 a.m. Saturday Nov. 18th , a seaman noted
the well-dressed gentleman asleep on deck.
When daylight came and the ferry docked at the
English quay, Mr. Johnston was not to be found.
Alarms were rung. Johnston's unused stateroom
was searched. Johnston's disappearance was as
first viewed as a 'mystery'. However within
hours of his disappearance an acceptable
scenario developed in which the seemingly-
healthy 45 year old Johnston suffered heart
failure or stroke. The gentleman had risen from
ermany
To Reduce Am
Claims Hitl<
German Chancellor Makes Uncqu
Declaration to The Province Corrcsp
erit In Exclusive Interview—Rcca
War Experiences With Canadians
(IUpr**>nUII«« _!»
■T LOtftM Jon»«XOK.
BKRUN, No*. 17.—C»nn*j»jr «Uadi r**4r U
Invitation from tS« oOmt rr»»t pumn*
tton* for (iu»rmtm«nt er limitation of I
Car* whathfr t>x rrr>tiatloiui Uk« placa witkte mt
w»tk o< th« L»»ruo of Sit»M. H»r eelx
«aUr only on ttrmi at abac:-:* m; -»:.,a. Sim »Ui ika «»3
or rlatwSara. S»i i«Urr*» Um Um kM «
i - '-• t* • rtnaral tflt*S tka» mmt m
raant ahemld ukt tfca plara of taa ¥ar**SI
SmIi w«r» Um wumqtirocni tttlmmmt
jtnr ccrraayoadant tj Otaaraliar H*iar
r!'4»'»« !nUrri»w kaf*. T>. # U tia Crtt
cf Carmaay'a tvisrt paiwy •*••
r»f«r«»^ara c?«*t«teta4 Hi*r
of G«n»»ay. iMUttstaQf. ft w*« taa fl
riaw h* Wu *t«t fT»s*ad ta » Ca—if
par-oraas.
Tiara iraa a. «M«rj>iata »*»*aca a*
»i»Bt a«r mactiMf. Ha raoifr*4 aia J» »
•file* fca Uta ^mamUmrr *» « rs*a* fl.
eii&xgkxj wfJumX pktsjra*. artiSacM •*»*>
A* I «*Ur*i !»• PM* ****»■*■•*•«* »**
.aiMHaw H4» WJ» tantaar a* t*a SjArsrfWKifsa »r*a
JOHNS! un IS
L«STJLSEA
Vanished From Steamer On
His Return From
Germany.
WAS LAST SEEN
ASLEEP ON DECK
Prorince Stall Writer Had
Just Had Interriew
With Hitler.
!
The Vancouver
Province and
Southam News
headline Johnston's
remarkable
historic interview
with Adolf Hitler,
November 16, 1933.
November 18,
1933 The Province
delivers the
shocking news
of Johnston's
mysterious
disappearance at
sea, hours after his
conversation with
Hitler.
BRITISH COLUMBIA HISTORY | Summer 2010 | Vol. 43 No. 2 17
15. ibid. Nov. 18,1933,1.
16. ibid. Nov. 20,1933.
Additional sources
Johnston, Lukin. Beyond
the Rockies. London and
Toronto: J.M. Dent and
Son, 1929
Johnston, Lukin.
"Modern Journalism
- Its Tendencies and
Aspirations." The British
Columbia Monthly: June
1920,1,11
Kershaw, Ian. Hitler
1889-1936: Hubris.
Penguin, 1998
Newspapers:
Cowichan Leader 1912-
13, Nov. 1933
Lethbridge Herald
Vancouver Province
1925,1926,1928,1933
Vancouver Sun
Victoria Colonist
his deck chair, gone to the ship's railing and
vanished from the deck into the black waters
of the North Sea.
In a terrible irony the headline in Southam
papers: "Major Lukin Johnston Lost At Sea"
replaced the previous day's headlines linking
Johnston with Chancellor Hitler. Reaction to
Johnston's death was immediate, sincere and
wide-spread. His close friends and fellow
journalists in Canada and London mourned
Johnston's demise with deep shock. All
agreed he had been a brilliant, conscientious
and honest reporter of world events. Charles
Swayne, friend and editor of the Victoria
Colonist affirmed, "... [Lukin's] devotion to his
task, natural ability in the segregation of news
values and keen study of all happenings both
local and telegraphic. . . . made him a valuable
asset."15
J. Butterworth a colleague and at times
rival from the Province reflected, "It is a glorious
thing to become a great journalist and it is a
glorious thing for the boys on the Province to
think that Lukin became a great world figure in
journalism after serving his first years on this
paper."16
Even Herr Hanfstaegl stated he was
authorized to report that Chancellor Hitler
was "deeply moved by the tragedy". Reviews
of Johnston's latest book took on the tone
of eulogy and tribute. A memorial service
held November 28th at St. Bride's Church
("the Journalists' Church") just off Fleet St. in
London was attended by a host of diplomatic,
news service and political worthies. Chief
amongst the mourners were: Johnston's wife
Bertha, son Derek Lukin, Lady Lukin (widow
of Sir Henry), step-aunt Mary Johnston and J.R.
Johnston - not a large family, but the deceased
was very widely respected by colleagues,
readers and diplomats.
November 20th newspapers reported
Derek Johnston had travelled to Harwich in
connection with his father's disappearance.
A.C. Cummings was conducting similar
enquiries in Berlin. Yet no theories of foul
play of a personal or diplomatic nature were
publicly expressed. Was there ever any element
of doubt that Johnston's disappearance was
other than an accident? What motive could be
conjured to explain the removal of a respected
journalist from the European diplomatic
scene? Only six months prior to Johnston's
disappearance a strikingly similar incident
had occurred. Captain Cecil Brooks, of the
P & O steamship line was returning from an
important company mission on the continent.
Brooks dined, strolled the deck and .. .vanished
before the ferry arrived at Harwich. An inquiry
uncovered no evidence of foul play
Was the similarity between the Johnston
case and the Brook case merely coincidental?
Had the Brooks case been thoroughly
investigated? Could deeper inquiry into the two
incidents have revealed unknown motives?
From a distance of 75 years one might
take a more skeptical point of view. Did
German authorities wish to draw attention
to (or away from?) Johnston's interview with
Hitler two days earlier? These ends could
possibly be achieved by the startling demise
of the journalist in question. Were Johnston's
credibility as a reporter, his somewhat 'neutral'
position as a Canadian correspondent and his
direct reporting on Hitler's pronouncement
on German disarmament advantageous to
Hitler's position? And ... do we know the full
story of Johnston's interview with Hitler? Was
Johnston's report of Nov. 17th simply the first
installment of a more in-depth release? Did
Johnston intend to reveal more or comment
further from the security of his Fleet St. office?
It is tempting to construe a 'conspiracy
theory', however these theories are easily
dismissed. There would barely have been time
for Hitler and company to review Johnston's
report of the interview in the press, and then to
formulate a plan to facilitate the disappearance
of the reporter.
Undeniably, Edwyn Harry Lukin
Johnston was one of the most respected but
now generally unknown journalists to have
called British Columbia home. Vancouver and
BC are still the home of his son's family. Derek
earnestly continued his father's tradition of
service to the community and one's profession
until he passed away December 2009 at the age
of 96. •
BRITISH COLUMBIA HISTORY | Summer 2010 | Vol. 43 No. 2
Transportation In
Moving Men, Machines, and Materials on the Kitimat Project
by Louise Avery
The Kitimat Power Project of the 1950s
in Northwest BC required, given
the remote and diverse construction
locations, a variety of transportation
methods. The Aluminum Company of Canada
(Alcan) Kitimat Project was an immense
revision of geography. All that earth moving
required transport of men, stores, and
equipment, and came with strict deadlines.
American International Harvester Company,
manufacturers of construction equipment
and the main supplier on the project reported:
... today, starting at the head of an ocean
inlet that pokes its deep waters a hundred
miles into the Coast Range mountains,
an army of skilled men with twenty
million dollars' worth of construction
equipment is working twenty hours a
day on six separate, but interdependent,
construction projects spread over 5,000
square miles.1
From the Kenney Dam to Kemano and
Kitimat with many miles of wilderness between,
movement of workers, machinery, and supplies
was done by aircraft, vehicle over rough terrain,
boat, train, and aerial tram, and all on a very
short four-year timeline. Transporting material
even included a four-mile conveyor belt to
move gravel fill from the sand hill to the smelter
site. The project consisted of five main parts
spanning a distance of 282 km (175 mi.) from
the centre of BC westward to the coast:
1. Dam - access from Vanderhoof
2. Tunnel - access from Burns Lake to
West Tahtsa Lake and Kemano via the
aerial tram
3. Transmission line - access from
Kemano and from the Kildala Arm to
Kildala Pass
4. Powerhouse inside Mount DuBose and
Kemano - access via Gardner Canal
5. Smelter and Kitimat - access via
Douglas Channel
In April 1951, the first construction crew
- four carpenters, a bulldozer operator, three
workmen, and a cook - landed at the beach
on Douglas Channel to construct the first
engineers' camp. By 1952, there was a bridge
over Anderson Creek and a ferry across the
Kitimat River to carry men and machinery to
the townsite camp. Creating the power on the
other end of the project had also begun. John
Kendrick, Alcan's Chief Resident Engineer
recalled:
...the first - what is now called "The
Critical Path"...was to get started on
the power works - the tunnel and the
powerhouse and the roads to get to it.
So we opened up the Kemano beachhead
first and established a camp in the valley
to start work on the tunnel, and then,
at about the same time, we had another
approach from Tahtsa Lake. We built
barges in sections which were powered
by huge outboard motors to get material
up to where the tunnel was to start. There
was no road in there. There was no road
there when the project was finished and
everything was built. The only...access
was by float plane or by these barges
which were built in sections, and then
by rail and truck to the lakes.. .we built
a rough road right into the foot of Tahtsa
Lake.2
Whereas a 60 mile road had to be
constructed into the dam site, a 100-mile road
had to be constructed into the Tahtsa camp
for the tunnel. Every item for camp living and
construction had to be transported in - by air,
barge, and overland.
Following World War II, the initial
engineering fieldwork to identify the site of
the power project and smelter was done by
Norseman aircraft by Queen Charlotte Airlines
in 1948 and by Central BC Airways in 1949
and 1950. Aircraft were indispensable for
the efficiency they provided Alcan engineers
and executives in choosing locations and in
construction. The project also launched the
fortune of British Columbia's Pacific Western
Airlines (PWA).3 The first Beaver was used over
the Nechako dam site and lakes area, piloted
by Richard (Dick) Laidman who later became
PWA's president. Because of the Beaver's
abilities, in 1951, CBCA signed the contract with
Morrison-Knudsen (MK), an American-based
company hired by Alcan to construct the tunnel
and powerhouse:
[The contract] called for CBCA to keep
designated airplanes on three-hour call
at Prince George, Burns Lake, Kemano
Curator Louise
Avery has managed
the Kitimat Museum
fr Archives since
1996. She has
her Bachelor of
Arts degree in
Anthropology
and Museum
Studies through
the University of
British Columbia
and a Professional
Specialization
Certificate in
Cultural Heritage
Sector Leadership
with the University
of Victoria.
Notes
1. "An Incredible
Bid for Aluminum in
Uninhabited Mountain
Waste", by Mike
Meyer in Harvester
World, October 1952,
International Harvester.
2. Interviewed in
Vancouver in 2006 by
the Kitimat Museum &
Archives for "Memories
of the Project", Living
Landscapes website,
Royal BC Museum
3. John Condit, Wings
over the West: Russ Baker
and the Rise of Pacific
Western Airlines, Harbour
Publishing Co. Ltd.,
Madeira Park, 1984, 75.
BRITISH COLUMBIA HISTORY | Summer 2010 | Vol. 43 No. 2 19
4. Ibid, 78.
5. Ibid, 75.
Bay and at the west end of Tahtsa Lake
for hire at $65 an hour... MK agreed to
buy a minimum of thirty-five hundred
hours flying time during each year of
the initial two-year contract.4
The great distance from any city or
railroad meant that a natural rock-filled dam
would be the most economical method of
construction. MK contracted Mannix Ltd. for
dam construction. One thousand construction
workers were employed and an estimated
three-quarter of a million miles of air flight
time transporting personnel and stores were
logged.5 The Nechako Camp beside the dam
housed the workers who also came overland,
driving south from Vanderhoof in a variety of
vehicles for the work. The rock was transported
by truck as the nearest quarry was several miles
away.
A variety of material transports were
used on the project including fleets of diesel
Euclid dump trucks, International Harvester
TD-24 crawler tractors (bulldozers), "rooters",
and motor scrapers on the Kenney Dam, and
52 TD-24s based at Kemano. A fleet of L-190
concrete trucks, outfitted with Jaeger ready-
mix concrete machines, carried concrete for
smelter and townsite construction.
The tunnel called for an even greater
amount of earth moving than at the Kenney
Dam. The deadline for completion was
October 1953 with aluminum production set
to begin in mid-1954. Over three thousand
construction workers called Kemano (Camp 5)
home, working round the clock on the tunnel
which had to be driven from four headings, in
the powerhouse, and on the transmission line.
Miners were in Kemano Camp 5, Horetzky
Creek, and West Tahtsa Camp 3, and two
smaller camps—"1,600" and "2,600"—so called
for their elevation in feet. A 9-ton (8.2 tonne)
tramway carried 60 men at a time and cargo
including TD-24 crawler tractors weighing 20
tons (18.1 tonne) from Kemano to the smaller
two camps. The hard rock mining crews would
then be transported by rail three miles (4.6
kilometres) into the coastal mountains to the
job site. Rocky roads accessed West Tahtsa and
Horetzky Creek camps, and the powerline.
Barge breaking
through the
channel from West
to East Tahtsa.
20
BRITISH COLUMBIA HISTORY | Summer 2010 | Vol. 43 No. 2
International Harvester reported that it took
four months through blizzards, high winds and
snowslides to cut four miles (6.4 kilometres) of
road up Glacier Creek Canyon for powerline
access to the 5,300-foot (1600 mi.) Kildala Pass.
Boat and airplane were the other
means to transport workers to various job
sites along the project. Junkers flew workers
and equipment into West Tahtsa Lake camp,
and Sikorsky and Bell helicopters were put
into constant service wherever needed,
especially for moving equipment, men, and
materials into the tunnel camps and along
the transmission line. Fourteen Sikorsky S-55
helicopters were used as workhorses and load
carriers during construction. Following the
historic load-carrying work on the Palisade
Lake Dam for Vancouver in 1949, Carl Agar
and his crew of the Penticton-based Okanagan
Helicopter Ltd. took men and materials to
otherwise inaccessible spots on the Kitimat
project. Without these helicopters project
engineers would never have maintained the
construction schedule. Canada's Aviation
Hall of Fame records on its website how Agar
"revolutionized helicopter flying maneuvers.
His techniques for high altitude landings and
takeoffs from inaccessible locations became the
accepted world-wide standard."6
The 82 km (51 mi.) transmission line
relaying electricity to the smelter at Kitimat
was constructed over rugged mountainous
terrain. When a tubular aluminum tower on
the transmission line failed, a Sikorsky was
there.
The helicopters played a very key role at
tower 123 when we had two can sections
fail, one up above and one at ground
Fleet of L-190
concrete trucks
were the first
installment for
town and smelter
construction.
6. www.cahf.ca, 2010
BRITISH COLUMBIA HISTORY | Summer 2010 | Vol. 43 No. 2 21
7. Adam Charneski,
Interviewed in Kitimat,
2006, by the Kitimat
Museum & Archives
for "Memories of
the Project", Living
Landscapes website,
Royal BC Museum
8. Albert W. Whitaker,
Aluminum Trail, Alcan
Museum and Archives,
Alcan Press, Montreal,
1974, 289-290.
level and it was winter time.... I went
up there and I saw this one-inch gap at
the bottom of the leg. .. So we changed
those two cans in the middle of the
winter - and I'll never forget...using
the S55 helicopter. It was a Sikorsky. It
has a lift of 1,000 pounds.... Soon this
123 job, we lifted these aluminum cans
up there, which weighed about 800 to
900 pounds, and flying underneath
the wire - the helicopter pilot at that
time was Don fakes, a very good pilot
- brought in all the material to us on
this little ledge .. .7
Early on in smelter planning, the
Aluminum Company of Canada knew it had
to have a rail link between Terrace and Kitimat
for the transport of raw materials and export of
aluminum. In 1951, Alcan began negotiations
with Canadian National to create a branch
line to Kitimat. After much discussion on the
industrial and regional needs, an agreement
was signed and ratified by Parliament and
between CN and Alcan. Alcan General
Manager A. W. Whitaker in his autobiography
recalled that the members of Parliament gave
the Alcan negotiators a hard time. He wrote,
"Finally I was called on to explain why we
needed the branch line, etc., and at the end of
my explanation a very prominent member said,
'Mr. Whitaker, are you satisfied with the deal
that you got from the CN?' to which I replied,
'Your Honour, I'm glad you asked that question.
The answer is we are not, for it seems to us that
Alcan, a privately-owned company that has
the courage to go into the wilderness of British
Columbia and commit itself to an undertaking
of the order of five hundred million dollars,
should not have to make a guarantee. Surely
the Government should take that much risk
on this new development considering what
we are taking."8 Whitaker received a round of
applause but no change in the contract.
The people at Kitimat applauded the
first scheduled train's arrival on January 17,
1955. There were over 100 people aboard and
it was rumoured that numerous cases of rum
accompanied them. The return trip left Kitimat
with 50 celebrants aboard and hauling five
carloads of ingots. An article in The Province
remarked that the train was actually "fifty
years behind schedule," recalling the dream
Valley residents had during the construction
of the Grand Trunk Pacific. Kitamaat had been
considered fifty years previous as the Pacific
Twin Peaks "landing
field," 1952-1953.
22
BRITISH COLUMBIA HISTORY | Summer 2010 | Vol. 43 No. 2
Kitimat's "airport"
under construction.
terminus for this Canadian transcontinental
railway; Kitamaat was considered but Prince
Rupert was chosen.
When the last spike was set in place
on July 8, 1955 and the train station officially
opened, the occasion was celebrated with
speeches, banners, and great splendour. The
CN Station in Service Centre, Kitimat opened
with the celebration. A commemorative
aluminum last spike, Terrace - Kitimat line, was
given to each of the attendees at that event and
the celebration was one of the events featured
in the National Geographies story on Kitimat
in 1956. Hundreds of people came out on that
day. The completion of this line meant that
Kitimat was, for the first time, connected by
efficient overland transportation to all of North
America.
In the two years that followed,
Kitimatians would utilize the CN service to
Terrace. It became a usual practice for shoppers
to take the train to Terrace for the day - service
running two days a week in 1955 - that is until
Highway 25 was completed in 1957.
Construction of Highway 25, linking
Kitimat to Terrace, began in 1955 and opened in
November 1957 - two years of fast-paced earth
moving and bridge building. Philip Arthur
(Flying Phil) Gaglardi, Minister of Highways,
cut the ribbon and commented, "I don't know
any people in B.C. who can give me orders in
such short time than the people of Kitimat and
Terrace."
I remember the day the road was
open, Mr. Gaglardi, who was the then
Minister of Highways and Mr. Bennett
came up. The road wasn't even open.
They had to drag the car the last 5 or
6 miles with a D-9 cat. But the road
was officially opened. You couldn't use
it for a while. But that was the other
excitement. The only way you get on
the road, the initial part, was with 4
by 4 vehicles. But they did say the road
was open.9
Prior to the highway and rail line
openings, and during the earliest construction
years, the coastal position of Kitimat was
9. Mike Kinnear,
Interviewed in Kitimat,
2006, by the Kitimat
Museum & Archives
for "Memories of
the Project", Living
Landscapes website,
Royal BC Museum.
BRITISH COLUMBIA HISTORY | Summer 2010 | Vol. 43 No. 2 23
10. Gerald A. Rushton,
Whistle Up the Inlet:
The Union Steamship
Story, J.J. Douglas Ltd.,
Vancouver, 1974,168,
Rushton.
11. Ibid, 168-169.
12. John Condit, Wings
over the West: Russ
Baker and the Rise of
Pacific Western Airlines,
Harbour Publishing
Co. Ltd., Madeira Park,
1984, 88-97,102-103.
13. Ibid, 86.
utilized for transport. The Union Steamship's
cargo carriers and passenger ships and those
of Canadian Pacific included Kitimat in their
regular runs up and down the BC coast. In fact
the Union Steamship's Waterhouse division
increased its service over time to match the
project's needs for cargo carriers such as
freighters and barges:
Ships were loaded to the gunwales at the
Union dock and other wharves, just as
they were, only on a smaller scale, in the
Alaska gold rush days, with bulldozers,
shovels, mixers, trucks - every type of
heavy machinery - as well as general
supplies. Supplementing the freighters,
a small fleet of tugs and scows was
pressed into service, carrying materials
to meet builder and production
deadlines as the first of two smelter pot-
line units neared completion.10
In efforts to get construction workers and
supplies into Kemano efficiently, special charter
trips by the Union Steamship Company's
Coquitlam and Chilcotin were made in 1951, but
passenger service was short lived once the air
traffic took over getting people onto the project
that much quicker.
Passengers, supplies, and mail came by
air. Queen Charlotte Airlines' fleet flagship,
the Stranraer flying boat, a twenty-passenger
twin-engined biplane, and later the Canso
were amphibians that could run right up onto
the beach at the "Kitimat Airport", Smeltersite,
Kitimat's first and main construction camp
on the shores of Douglas Channel. QCA ran
passenger service between Prince Rupert,
Kitimat, Kemano, Vancouver, and Kildala Arm
(location of the transmission line headquarters)
and established a base for QCA's aircraft
at Kitimat. Central BC Airways supplied
chartered flights for men and supplies between
Vancouver and Kemano and the Nechako dam
site, as well as Kitimat to Vancouver and Prince
Rupert, but not return. Author James Condit
points out the aggressiveness for project
business which existed with CBCA towards
QCA during the early construction years, and
the Alcan support which existed for CBCA.
First air mail service was introduced by
Queen Charlotte Airlines (QCA) in 1952, taking
over mail delivery from the CP steamship
Princess Norah as mail carrier. In the earliest
years of the Kitimat Project, QCA was BC's
coastal carrier. The air carrier's relationship
became strained with Alcan and Kitimat
Constructors after a terrible crash of a QCA
plane into Mount Benson outside of Nanaimo
October 17,1951 which killed 23, many of whom
had been Project employees. The strained
relationship gave CBCA more opportunities
to fly into Kitimat with passengers and
supplies. In 1953, CBCA changed its name to
Pacific Western Airlines, established a base at
Smeltersite and increased Canso and Mallard
traffic into Kitimat. In 1955, Queen Charlotte
Airlines was purchased by Pacific Western
Airlines.
Rounding out transportation on the
project, Kitimat Constructors purchased the MV
Nechako in 1952 for transporting construction
personnel and supplies between Butedale,
Prince Rupert, and Kitimat. In 1954 the motor
vessel, skippered by Captain Bill Cogswell,
began regular trips ferrying construction
personnel and freight between Kitimat,
Kemano, and Kildala. With Captain Cogswell,
she logged close to 1,200 round trips between
the two communities. The MV Nechako began
life in 1929 as the Cora Marie, luxury yacht of
W.C. Shelly, BC's Finance Minister. She was
built at Hoffars in Coal Harbour, Vancouver.
She was sold in California in the 1930s, used
for trips to the tropics, then later by the U.S.
Navy as a patrol boat during World War II
before coming back to Canada.
All told, an incredible array of
transportation "ways and means" was used
on the Kitimat project. The project can be
remembered not only as a very important event
in British Columbia's construction history but
also for its impact on transportation.*
24
BRITISH COLUMBIA HISTORY | Summer 2010 | Vol. 43 No. 2
The Nyan Wheti-Duzcho Trail System
An Ancient Transportation Route in Central British Columbia
by Marie Elliott
The first transportation routes in what is
now British Columbia were aboriginal
trade routes. Once the glaciers receded
ten million years ago and First Nations
peoples arrived, it was not long before bartered
goods such as dried salmon, eulachon oil,
strings of haiqua shells and obsidian were
moving by canoe and backpack along rivers
and over mountain passes. This intensive labour
system created a vast trail network throughout
the Northwest that connected with important
trade routes beyond the Rocky Mountains
and across North America. Thus when the
first European fur traders arrived from eastern
Canada in the latel8th century, they crossed
the mountains easily on well marked routes
that had been established centuries before.
One of the best examples of this
interdependency is the important system of
First Nations trails in central British Columbia
that facilitated the inland fur trade after Simon
Fraser's arrival in 1805. To breach the Rocky
Mountains Fraser employed the ancient ten mile
portage around the Peace River canyon. Then
after canoeing up the Parsnip and Pack Rivers,
he reached Trout Lake (McLeod Lake) where he
built the first North West Company outpost west
of the Rockies. Why did he choose McLeod Lake
over the many other lakes in the region? Fraser
must have learned from the Sekani First Nations
that it was the terminus of the Duzcho Trail
connecting it to Nak'azdli (Stuart) Lake 150 km
(100 mi.) to the southwest. From Nak'azdli Lake
the Nyan Wheti trail extended the First Nations
trade route 45 km (28 mi.) further southwest to
Nadleh village at Fraser Lake where it in turn
joined into the Tset'ladak t'seti or Cheslatta Trail
and a trail southeast to the Fraser River that
became known as the derouine (trading) trail.
At McLeod Lake the Duzcho Trail connected
with a Native trading route that continued
northeast through Pine Pass to the Peace River
region and to Rocky Mountain Portage House,
Fraser's 1804 base camp on the south bank of
the Peace River. Most importantly, the annual
fur packs, with a total weight of more than 1820
kg (4 tons), could be transported from the lake
3200 km (2000 mi.) east to Lake Superior (and
after 1821 to York Factory on Hudson's Bay) by
Northern freight canoes with few portages.1
When Fraser learned that there were high
quality beaver furs in the region and that the
Carrier and Sekani were friendly and willing to
barter, he established two more forts, at Nak'azdli
Lake (Stuart Lake Post or Fort St. James) and
Natleh Village (Fort Fraser). He now had a 200
km commercial fur trading corridor based on
the First Nations ancient land route, but food
supplies for his men were also a vital concern.
Initially, he did not understand that although
there were plenty of beaver, large game were
scarce and Pacific salmon were plentiful only
quadrennially. Moreover, McLeod Lake was
in the Arctic watershed where only white fish
were available. During his first difficult winter
in New Caledonia (which he named after his
family's native Scotland) Fraser soon came to
realize that McLeod Lake Outpost would be
dependent not only on the local Sekani hunters
and fishers but also on those at Nak'azdli and
Natleh which involved a six to ten day round
trip.2
Delivery of dried salmon by dog sled
(traineaux) commenced after freeze up in
November, and continued until all available
fish supplies were exhausted at Fort Fraser
and Fort St. James. A large quantity was also
traded at Babine Lake and delivered via Fort
St. James. Because McLeod Lake Post required
at least 4,000 salmon to tide personnel over the
winter months, the repeated deliveries of dried
fish by dogsled opened up winter trails for fur
gathering and transport that took place while
the ground remained frozen in February and
March.
During the first twenty years, while under
North West Company management, the furs
were collected at Fort Fraser and Fort St. James,
and by en derouine3 to Babine Lake and to the
Fraser River at the mouth of the Blackwater
River, then transported by dog sleds over the
Nyan Wheti and Duzcho trails to McLeod Lake.
Here they were cleaned and pressed into 41 kg
(90 lb.) packs for transport east as soon as the ice
melted on the rivers in late April. One hundred
packs was the number the traders aimed for
annually, making 4,100 kg (9,000 lb. or 4 Vi tons)
of furs.
Since McLeod Lake Post was also the
terminus for the incoming brigade, it held in
storage all the trading goods for Fort Fraser and
Fort St. James. Sufficient quantities for trading
and personal use were sent back on the dog
sleds that had delivered dried fish or furs.
Marie Elliott is the
author of the fur
trade history: Fort
St. James and New
Caledonia, Where
British Columbia
Began (Harbour,
2009), and of the
Cariboo gold rush:
Gold and Grand
Dreams, Cariboo
East in the Early
Years (Horsdal &
Schubart, 2000).
Notes
1. Stuart Lake Pre-
emptor Series Map,
Department of Lands
and Forests, 1949; Sketch
Map to accompany
Report of Provincial
Mineralogist on Ingenika
River & McConnell
Creek, B.C. Sessional
Papers.
2. W Kaye Lamb, ed.
The Letters and Journals of
Simon Fraser, 1806-1808
(Toronto: The Macmillan
Company of Canada
Limited, reprint 1966),
16, 82.
3. En derouine was the
French Canadian term
used to describe leaving
the protection of the fort
to trade furs from the
Native villages. W. Kaye
Lamb, ed. Sixteen Years
in the Indian Country: The
Journal of Daniel Williams
Harmon, 1800-1816
(Toronto: The Macmillan
Company of Canada
Limited 1957), 147.
BRITISH COLUMBIA HISTORY | Summer 2010 | Vol. 43 No. 2 25
-"»
■- :^mw'» i'M 'v:• i,^»Ti'*sw»w,a'
if
+w
McLeod Lake,
Pack River
upper right, and
Tse'kene village.
Departure site of
New Caledonia fur
brigade.
4. HBC Archives,
Archives of Manitoba,
B.119/a/l, f.53;B.119/a/3,
f.457.
Numerous entries in the McLeod Lake
Post journals note that the fort personnel
were starving when delivery of dried salmon
was late in arriving. For example, during a
period of cold weather in January, 1824, Chief
Trader John Stuart worried about Donald
Fleming being overdue with fish from Babine
Lake. Fleming eventually turned up in -37°
weather, suffering from frostbite because he
had made his way through deep snow on foot.
Since the forts operated with a minimum of
personnel, they could not afford to have sick
men laid up for any length of time. Stuart
chastised Chief Trader William Brown for
not providing his men with snowshoes. The
Fort Fraser and Fort St. James HBC Journals
record the corresponding worries of the post
clerks that the furs would not be collected in
time for the brigade, or that the fish were not
of sufficient quality and quantity to satisfy
McLeod Lake personnel. Stuart complained
to Governor George Simpson that few engages
remained more than one 3-year contract in
New Caledonia because of the terrible diet.4
Following amalgamation of the North
West Company with the Hudson's Bay
Company in 1821, Governor George Simpson
decided that the furs would no longer be sent
east across the Rockies but transported south
to Fort Vancouver on the Columbia River
where they could be loaded onto ships bound
for England. The length of the route was only
1,600 km (1,000 mi.), half of the McLeod Lake
to York Factory trek, and the incoming brigade
26
BRITISH COLUMBIA HISTORY | Summer 2010 | Vol. 43 No. 2
from the Columbia could bring the annual
supply of trading goods and provisions for
New Caledonia. And so commencing in 1827,
Fort St. James, not McLeod Lake, became
the collection centre for furs from the Babine
Lake and McLeod Lake regions. After spring
breakup, as the brigade headed down the
Stuart, Nechako and Fraser Rivers it acquired
additional packs from Fort Fraser, Fort George
and Fort Alexandria.
Governor Simpson paid his first and
only inspection visit to New Caledonia the
following year, in September 1828, arriving via
the Peace River Portage. His entourage took
three days to trek over the Duzcho Trail to Fort
St. James where he remained a week while the
engages returned to McLeod Lake to recover
the remainder of his luggage. During that time
a canoe was built at Fort St. James for the next
leg of Simpson's journey to the Columbia.5
In spite of the new brigade route to Fort
Vancouver redirecting traffic, the Duzcho
and Nyan Wheti trails received heavy use for
transporting dried salmon, provisions and
leather goods, and for First Nations and HBC
communications. The continuing shortage of
large game in the region meant that leather
supplies of skins and lacing had to be secured
from buffalo country east of the Rockies. The
trails also facilitated mining development
in the northern half of the province. When
the Cariboo gold rush in 1859-1865 attracted
thousands of miners annually to Quesnel
Lake and Barkerville they used the Columbia
brigade trail to access the region and when
their luck ran out they followed the derouine,
Nyan Wheti and Duzcho trails north from the
village of Quesnel to Fort Fraser, Fort St. James,
McLeod Lake and the Peace River, searching
for another major lode. In 1865 better access
was obtained as far as Fraser Lake when the
advance crew working for the Collins Overland
Telegraph Company widened the derouine trail
and bridged the many sloughs and creeks to
accommodate pack horses. Now, cattle could
be driven as far as McLeod Lake and dried
salmon slowly became less important to the
European traders.
During the next decades and into the 20th
century, the Nyan Wheti and Duzcho trails
were an important link to the Omineca and
Peace River regions not only for the HBC clerks
stationed at McLeod Lake and at Fort Grahame
on the Finlay River, but for gold seekers,
government officials, surveyors and curious
travelers. In 1901 former HBC clerk Gavin
Hamilton, now the 1901 census taker for the
region, and William Fox, clerk at Fort Grahame,
accompanied Omineca Gold Commissioner F.
W Valleau over the Duzcho trail while he was
on an inspection trip from Fort St. James to the
Peace River. Valleau noted in his report to the
Department of Mines that parts of the trail had
grown in with young pines and willows, but it
was still good for travelling. While camping at
Lac-a-Long Lake, he fished from his horse and
caught six trout. His companions urged him
to explore down river where he came across a
beautiful waterfall, 24 m (80 ft.) high and 18 m(
60 ft.) wide, one of the finest he had seen.6
Two hundred years after Simon Fraser's
arrival, the ancient trails are now being restored
as heritage routes. The Nyan Wheti has been
cleared out and opened to the public; the
Duzcho Trail will be cleared as far as Carp Lake
and marked by the Nak'azdli Band at Stuart
Lake, who received a work grant of $112,500
from the Ministry of Forests in 2008. From
Carp Lake, which is protected as a provincial
park, the ancient trail will be the responsibility
of the Tse'khene Nation at McLeod Lake.7*
5. Malcolm McLeod,
ed. Peace River, a Canoe
Voyage from Hudson's Bay
to Pacific by the Late Sir
George Simpson. (Ottawa:
J. Durie & Son, 1872), 17.
6. Annual Report,
Department of Mines, B.C.
Sessional Papers, 1901,
975-976.
7. B.C. Ministry of
Forests and Range News
Release: "Nak'azdli to
receive $112,500 for
historic restoration",
August 7, 2008; personal
communication with the
Nak'azdli band office,
Fort St. James, and with
the Tse'khene Nation
office at McLeod Lake.
Chief Trader's
House, Fort St.
James
BRITISH COLUMBIA HISTORY | Summer 2010 | Vol. 43 No. 2 27
Long Lake (Lac-a-Long Lake) Falls.
Omineca Gold Commissioner F. W. Valleau's companions urged him to explore down river where he came across a
beautiful waterfall, 24 m (80 ft.) high and 18 m( 60 ft.) wide, one of the finest he had seen, (page 27)
28
BRITISH COLUMBIA HISTORY | Summer 2010 | Vol. 43 No. 2
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32
BRITISH COLUMBIA HISTORY | Summer 2010 | Vol. 43 No. 2
The Quathiaski Cove Cannery and W.E. Anderson
by Ronald Greene
The Quathiaski Cove Cannery was
started by the Pidcock brothers in 1904.
Their father, Reginald Pidcock, had
settled in the Comox valley in 1862
after coming out from England on the Shannon.1
The family was among the first to settle at
Quathiaski Cove on Valdez Island (now Quadra
Island off Campbell River)2 in the early 1890's.
Reginald Pidcock had received an appointment
as the Indian Agent and started spending a
part of the year at the Cove which was in his
district. The sons operated the general store,
a saw mill and the cannery, known as the
Quathiaski Canning Co.3 The word Quathiaski
is a First Nations word which means "island
in the mouth." Grouse Island sits in the cove.4
The local First Nations people, the We
Wai Kai, provided most of the labour force for
the cannery. The people had been earning much
of their income from fishing and working at
canneries up the coast or on the Fraser River
so having a cannery close to their home was
a true bonus. The men and women fished by
hand and leanette Taylor in The Quadra Story,
A History of Quadra Island, recounts a story of
one of the Pidcocks catching over 700 fish in
an 18 hour day5 The oldest son, Willie, fell in
love with the first teacher at the Valdes Island
school.6 She boarded with the family and when
she returned to Victoria he moved to Victoria
as well. With one fewer working member of
the family at Quathiaski the family decided
to sell the cannery to Vancouver druggist TE.
Atkins. Atkins enlarged the cannery, adding
new equipment and a steam launch that was
to serve as a fish packer. Atkins ran the store
and on June 1, 1906 he also took over from
W.T. Pidcock as the postmaster; remaining in
the position until replaced by W.E. Anderson
May 1, 19097 In 1908, Atkins sold the cannery
to William Edward Anderson and Frederick
J. Comeau of Railton & Comeau, a Vancouver
firm of brokers.8
Ronald is currently
the president of
the BC Historical
Federation.
from left to right
(as identified by
Jeanette Taylor):
Mr. Harper (the
store manager),
Elva Anderson, Mrs.
Margaret Anderson,
W.E. Anderson, May
Anderson ca. 1913.
BRITISH COLUMBIA HISTORY | Summer 2010 | Vol. 43 No. 2 33
Anderson
introduced
tokens in the
denominations of
1, 2, 3, 5, 10, 20,
50 and 100 fish.
The 100 fish and 3
fish denominations
are the scarcest.
According to his obituary Anderson was
born in Huron County, Ontario July 1862.9 At
an early age he operated sawmills in Ontario
and engaged in general contracting in the Parry
Sound district. He became mayor of Sundridge,
Ontario at age 28. In 1898 he made his way to
the Klondike where he worked two of the most
famous placer claims that made him a wealthy
man. In the 1908 Henderson's directory for
Vancouver his occupation is listed as "miner."
10 He constructed a second salmon cannery at
Blind Channel where he also operated a shingle
mill. In Vancouver, Mr. Anderson established
that city's pioneer motor-truck and bus-
building industry, the Hayes-Anderson Motor
Co., and Vancouver Parts Ltd., both of which
were later purchased by Vancouver business
men. In addition to his business interests, Mr.
Anderson was also a staunch Conservative
and ran unsuccessfully in the Comox district
in 1920, placing second with 1233 votes, to
Thomas Menzies' winning 1354 votes.11 He was
survived by his wife, three daughters, three
grandchildren and several siblings.
The cannery building was destroyed
by fire at the end of August 1909. Only 500
cases were saved before the fire engulfed the
building. This was only a fraction of the normal
pack of 6,500 cases.12 The scene of the fire is
graphically related by Rev. John Antle, master
of the coast mission ship Columbia.13
Aug. 31st. We were tied up at
Quathiaski Cannery wharf. About two
o'clock in the morning the cannery was
discovered to be in a blaze and we woke
up to find the flames roaring over us
and the paint frying on our boats and
deck gasoline tank. Dr. Kemp and I cut
and shipped lines as soon as possible
but the vacuum under the cannery
created by the fire was so great that our
united efforts could not move the boat
from the wharf. But Engineer Evans
was busy with his engine and in the
nick of time the welcome puff puff, was
heard, and I was glad to escape to the
wheel house and give the bell that set
her forging ahead to safety. I do not
think that the boat could have remained
at the wharf another minute without
catching fire and in all probability
exploding the gasoline tank, but a
merciful Providence watched over us,
and we escaped, the boat with some
blistered paint and ourselves with a few
burns and bruises.
Thulin Brothers tug the City of Lund
was lying at the same wharf but farther
to windward. She was slower getting
out on account of low steam, but was
not injured beyond a little blistered
paint.
Following the fire Comeau left the
business. Anderson incorporated as Quathiaski
Canning Company Limited in April 1910 with
a new partner, wholesale grocer W.H. Malkin,
joining him by 1911. The new company rebuilt
the cannery on a much larger scale.14 Malkin
remained a partner until 1917, after which
Anderson kept all but four of the shares.15
Possibly in late 1909 or early 1910
Anderson issued aluminium tokens in the
denominations of 1, 2, 3, 5, 10, 20, 50 and 100
fish with which to pay for the fish.16 These
tokens were only good in his store. The use
of tokens saved the company working capital
since it did not need to have coin or banknotes
on hand while ensuring that the store would be
well patronized. The system
was open to serious
abuse and in many
places, especially
isolated locations,
a company would
maintain
high prices in
their store so
that the workers,
be they fishermen,
lumbermen or miners,
would end up further in debt to the company;
just think of the song, Sixteen Tons, made
famous by Tennessee Ernie Ford.
You load sixteen tons, what do you
get?
Another day older and deeper in debt.
34
BRITISH COLUMBIA HISTORY | Summer 2010 | Vol. 43 No. 2
Saint Peter, don't you call me, 'cause I
can't go;
I owe my soul to the company store...17
When the tokens were introduced there
were grumblings of protest and discontent
from the white fishermen, but it was Chief Billy
Assu and the We Wai Kai fishermen of Cape
Mudge who forced Anderson to drop the token
system.18 Of the tokens the 100 fish and 3 fish
denominations are the scarcest.
However, there is no evidence that
Anderson unfairly exploited his fishermen. In
fact, to the contrary, in 1937 Anderson's health
was deteriorating and he decided to sell the
cannery. He called in his four top fishermen, all
of them from the Cape Mudge village, Harry
Assu, Billy Assu, Johnny Dick and Jimmy
Hovell, and according to Harry he said 'Three
companies want to buy my cannery and we
would like you to choose which company you
want to fish for.' The men eventually decided
on B.C. Packers.19 B.C. Packers purchased
the company in 1937 together with its fleet
of boats.20 The resolution of October 26, 1937
stated "... that the Directors of the Company
be and they are hereby authorized to sell to
the Wallace Fisheries Limited the assets of the
company situate at Quathiaski Cove, B.C., land
and water rights, leaseholds of the Company,
8 boats, 2 scows, pile driver, cable lifter, boat
ways, machine shop and contents, one scow
with house, 5 purse seines, merchandise and
stock-in-trade in the store building ...." Shall
not include any of the assets (other than boats
and equipment) not situate at Quathiaski
Cove, and shall not include fish packs by the
Company at any time prior to the 1st day of
November, 1937 ... "21 The cannery, once again,
was completely destroyed by fire on August 27,
1941 but this time it was not rebuilt. •
End notes
1. Richard Somerset
Mackie, The Wilderness
Profound, Victorian Life
on the Gulf of Georgia,
Sono Nis Press, Victoria,
1995.
2. Valdez Island was
renamed Quadra Island
c. 1923. It was first
listed as Quadra Island
in the 1924 BC Directory.
3. R.G. Dun a Co.,
March 1906, listed
Pidcock Bros. £t Co.,
General Store £t Saw
Mill, Quathiaski Canning
Co.
4. Andrew Scott,
The Encyclopedia of
Raincoast Place Names,
A Complete Reference
to Coastal British
Columbia, Harbour
Publishing, Madeira
Park, B.C. 2009
5. Jeanette Taylor, The
Quadra Story, A History
of Quadra Island,
Harbour Publishing,
Madeira Park, B.C. 2009,
143.
6. The spelling for the
island usually seems
to be Valdez, but the
spelling Valdes was used
as well, such as Valdes
Island Social Club.
7. George H. Melvin,
The Post Offices of
British Columbia 1858-
1870, Wayside Press,
Vernon, 1972, 100.
8. The 1909 Vancouver
Island Directory, gives
the name as Frank J.
Comeau, but the only
Frank Comeau in the
1908 Vancouver City
Directory (Van CD) was
a saw filer. Frederick J.
Comeau was listed as a
fish canneryman in the
1912 Van CD, with the
Hidden Inlet Canning
Co., in 1913, and had
left Vancouver by the
1915 Van CD.
9. Vancouver Daily
Province, March 15,
1941, 19.
10. Henderson's
Vancouver City
Directory, 1908,
11. Elections British
Columbia, Electoral
History of British
Columbia, 1871-
1986, Victoria 1988.
Interestingly enough
Anderson's obituary
said that he ran
unsuccessfully three
times, but I found
only one entry for him
between 1900 and 1937,
that being 1920.
12. Cicely Lyons,
Salmon: Our Heritage,
BC Packers, 1969, 274,
also Taylor, 146.
13. Rev. John Antle,
The Log of the
Columbia, Vol. IV, No.
5, p. 7 (October 1909),
Columbia Coast Mission
14. Registrar of
Companies, Quathiaski
Canning Company,
Limited, QE2945 (1897)
was incorporated
April 8, 1910. By 1911
Anderson had 178 of
the 240 shares, Malkin
had 58 and 4 others had
one share each, Mrs.
Anderson, Robert Milne,
and two barristers Frank
L. Gwillim and Fred. G.
Crisp.
15. The 1916 Annual
Report showed an
increase in the number
of shares issued.
Anderson and Malkin
holding 748, and 249
respectively, of the
1,000 shares issued.
16. This is a best guess.
The tokens use the name
W.E. Anderson which
might indicate they were
ordered after Comeau
left the firm, i.e. after
August 31st, 1909, and
before the company was
incorporated, April 8,
1910.
17. Wikipedia,
Tennessee Ernie Ford,
words by Merle Travis,
1955.
18. E.F. Meade, An
Eucletaw Chief, The
Beaver Magazine, Winter
1965, 53.
19. Taylor, 198-199.
20. B.C. Packers memo
from Betty (no surname
given) to Bob Eveleigh.
Bob Eveleigh was a B.C.
Packers executive who
was an active token
collector. There were
minor discrepancies
between the memo
and the Registrar of
Companies file.
21. The interesting point
here is that Wallace
Fisheries Limited
went into voluntary
liquidation in 1934
several years before
the resolution! Wallace
Fisheries Limited
transferred all its assets
to British Columbia
Fishing £t Packing Co.
Ltd., by resolution of
December 29, 1927.
Registrar of Companies,
BC00244, microfilm
B05180.
BRITISH COLUMBIA HISTORY | Summer 2010 | Vol. 43 No. 2 35
The Salvation Army's Mountaineers
Evangelizing the Interior of British Columbia
by R.G. Moyles
R. Gordon Moyles
is a Professor
Emeritus at the
University of
Alberta, having
taught courses
in English
and Canadian
Literature. In
addition to several
books on academic
subjects, he has
written extensively
on The Salvation
Army, including
the official history
of the Army in
Canada called The
Blood and Fire in
Canada (1977; rev.
2004). Among his
most recent books
are William Booth
in Canada (2006)
and Come Join
Our Army (2007).
Gordon lives in
pleasant retirement
in Edmonton, and
travels often to
beautiful British
Columbia.
When, in 1878, William Booth
established The Salvation Army,
adopting a military style and an
aggressive mode of evangelism,
one of his principal injunctions to his soldiers and
officers was: "go to the people with the Gospel."
Do not, he urged them, stay inside your places of
worship (your 'barracks') and expect people to
come to you; go out into the streets, attract them
with your uniforms and music, and persuade
them to come in. More important, seek people,
especially the poor and disadvantaged, in their
dens, or anywhere the Gospel has not penetrated.
William Booth was living in London,
England, one of the densest and most-crowded
cities in the world. His orders were, in that
context, easy to carry out. And even in the
smaller cities of Canada, to which the Army
came in 1882, in places like Toronto, Hamilton,
Vancouver or Halifax, it was not difficult to
comply with his wishes. Indeed, The Salvation
Army, in its early years, became identified as an
open-air mission. Salvationists were seen daily
on the streets, holding 'open-air' meetings; they
could be seen frequently in the taverns, selling
their War Crys; they visited the local jails and
hospitals; they hosted dinners at Christmas and
Fresh Air camps for the poor in summer; and
did everything they could take the Christian
Gospel to the people.
But, to those who lived in the rugged
and almost inaccessible mountains of British
Columbia? That seemed to be another matter
altogether. Or was it?
Thomas Coombs, the young Commissioner
of the Canadian Territory, did not think so. In
late 1887, shortly after the Army had planted
its flag in Western Canada, he called for
volunteers to serve as 'outriders' in the interior
of British Columbia to visit the scattered miners,
lumbermen and ranchers along the Fraser River,
along the lower Thompson, and into the Nicola
Valley. With headquarters at Kamloops, they
were to ride west and south to such places as
Nicola and Douglas Lake Ranch, then to Lytton,
until they turned north to visit such places as
Spence's Bridge, Lillooet, Clinton, Dog Creek,
Alkali Lake, 150 Mile House, Williams Lake
and as far north as Soda Creek.
It was an ambitious venture, and many
people must have thought that Commissioner
Coombs, fresh out from England, had no idea of
the immensity of the country or the seemingly
insuperable obstacles in the way of evangelistic
outreach. Others might have insinuated (or
even openly declared) that all Booth's soldiers
seemed a little crazy anyway, and nothing they
tried would surprise them. But the Salvationists
themselves firmly believed that where there
was a will, and The Salvation Army had
already shown that it had one, there would be
a way. And, in their many imaginative efforts at
evangelization, they had proved that to be so.
In the summer of 1890, then, and for a
year or two after, Salvation Army officers on
horseback, men such as Captains George Arkett
and Robert Smith, followed the routes the
gold-seekers had taken many years before and
engaged in an itinerant kind of Salvationism
aimed at making contact with the lonely miners
and ranchers of British Columbia.
"Gold is precious," wrote Captain Smith.
"That is why there is so much risk and labor
attached to it. The same with soul-saving among
the Cascade Mountains in British Columbia.
Souls are precious, but hard to get them into the
Kingdom of God."
On his first foray as a Salvation
'mountaineer' Smith left Kamloops on August
6, 1890, arriving the next morning at Spence's
Bridge. There, while waiting to purchase a
horse and supplies, he assisted Rev. Murray, the
Methodist minister, in his services. There were,
he wrote, "about forty [Indians] present and a
few white people." A few days later, when fully
outfitted, he began his campaign in earnest.
On the 16th I started on my journey
to Lytton visiting the people along
the [Thompson] river. After climbing
mountains and valleys, and being careful
in two or three places not to make a false
step and fall into the river, I arrived at
Lytton at about 6 p.m. After enquiring
about a place to hold a meeting in for
Sunday, I was told the trustee of the
school lived three miles out of Lytton,
and that he would be in about 9 o'clock
in the morning. But I was told they
never allowed anyone to hold meetings
in it.
In the afternoon, I took the open-air,
had about forty Indians and a few
white people to talk to. Had a very nice
36
BRITISH COLUMBIA HISTORY | Summer 2010 | Vol. 43 No. 2
meeting. Sunday is the busiest day
of the week. People come in for the
week's provisions and then leave again
towards night.
I sold six War Crys, one man giving
me a dollar for one. I started next
morning for Lillooet up the Fraser, a
distance of 42 miles, visiting the people
along the river. It is a horse trail along
the mountain sides, some places very
steep and dangerous, but my faithful
companion took me safely across. I
stayed at the half-way house for the first
night, arriving at Lillooet next day.
Gold mining is the principal work here.
Good-hearted people, very sociable and
kind. Had a meeting in a bar-room that
night, and one in the open-air on the
night following; had good attention and
they also helped in the singing. There
are only seven white women there.
Left a good impression and [had] an
invitation to come again. I started for
Clinton next, distance of 48 miles. Also
visited the farms along the roads, and
stayed that night on the top of Pavilion
Mountain, about 5,000 feet above sea
level. Arrived in Clinton the next day,
I secured a hall for my meeting. Some
told me that they had been wishing
the Salvation Army would come to
Clinton, but the people failed to come
and hear the Salvation Army. Quite a
few people were sick, and it being such
a rough night may account for it. Some
are longing for real salvation.1
Captain Smith commenced a short
second tour on September 24, 1890, from
Spence's Bridge to Ashcroft where he arrived
on October 3. At Lytton his meeting was in the
Court House (where he sold twelve War Crys,
but had no seekers), and in Lillooet he had
to make do with the bar room of the hotel. In
that town Captain Smith met Mr. Stevens, the
Methodist minister, with whom he shared the
Sunday services ("helping each other as best
we could"), and during the week he conducted
five 'salvation' meetings which, all admitted,
was something new for Lillooet. "Got to Clinton
on the 30th," Smith continues. "Had two
meetings here. Visited among the people. Got
to Ashcroft on the 3rd of October. Had a prayer
meeting with the young people here at 7 p.m.
Real blessed time. Had a public meeting after.
Very good meeting, but no souls. A man took
up the collection here, and whether his chum
was only putting in one bit or not I don't know
but he told him he took nothing less than two
bits (25ct). Held a meeting on Sunday morning,
and as the Methodist minister was announced
for night I went to another place 17 miles away,
where they had only had a religious meeting
once in four or five years. Had a real good
meeting. Tears flowed freely, but none yielded.
I am glad to say I am well in soul and body,
and my horse is skukum (strong)."2
In the late Spring of 1891 Captain
George Arkett and Cadet Jarvis joined the
'mountaineer' team, this time travelling southeast from Kamloops into the ranching area of
the Okanagan and keeping diary-like accounts
of their adventures and experiences:
May 30, 1891: On Monday I go to
Douglas Lake, but most of the men are
away working on another ranch, so not
many come to the meetings. We had
a nice time. This morning I bid them
goodbye and started for Stump Lake,
some twenty-five miles. I only got a
little way on the trail when I was lost.
I turned here and there, over hills and
into valleys. Soon it began to rain, and
I could not see the sun, but after a few
miles' ride I came to a large mountain
and I rode my horse up to the top. Soon
the sun came in sight and I made afresh
start for the open mountain country,
and after going a few miles I saw two
horses running in the distance. Then I
started my horse faster. Soon I came to
see the foot marks and I said 'Glory!' A
few minutes brought me to the brow of
a large hill. I looked into the distance.
I could see a lake, and as I go on I see
a straw stack. I said to myself 'This
is nice' I began to take things quite
easy then. Stopped on the side of a
big mountain to feed my horses, also I
asked God to bless the bread and meat
the Chinaman gave me, and I did enjoy
it.
Notes
1. Canadian War Cry,
Sept. 13,1890.
2. Canadian War Cry,
Dec. 6,1890.
BRITISH COLUMBIA HISTORY | Summer 2010 | Vol. 43 No. 2 37
June 25, 1891 War
Cry with Captain
Robert Smith's
account of their
tour.
Well, I have my dinner eaten, and I
think my horse has had enough grass
for a few hours' drive, so I shall put my
pen and paper into the saddle-bags and
get on my horse and see where I am, for
I am sitting on the ground on the side
of a mountain writing and lost at the
same time, but I shall try it again, so
good-bye for this time.
-
Tra?el8.
Alter leaving Stuitip1 Late. we visit
jtlOitc iVv 'vairey of -Sockfore, where the
people received os-kindly, and where we
had a efittrteo of tulfcinc to them about
Jeans, and then across the mountain to
Douglass Lake, whore we arrivo about nine
o'clock at night. ' Next night we have &
meet!lit, arid nn3 then wo go to Minnte
Lata the ne*t day. It rained a ad noured
down; almost like a sheet ol water, but we
got there and had a nice' little meeting- "
Then '.73 jji uisi liit* Mountains lo irio
Nicola valley. I have heard poepTo talk
abotU â– â– â– - ' . • â–
Quite obviously, Captain Arkett did find
his way out of the those mountains and into
others, for the next time we hear from him he
has travelled a fair distance and is well up into
the Chilcotin district:
Alkali Lake [he writes] is left behind,
and after a few hours' ride, the Fraser
River come in sight. Going up and down
hill, winding around the mountains. I
arrived at Dog Creek, which is a small
place. I was received well, and made
arrangements to have meetings here in
future.
Next day at it again, for I am a
stranger in a strange land, and do not
know how long it will take me to get
out. I travelled through lots of timber
country, and at a large hill I came across
some men working on the road. In the
valley below was an Indian town. The
place is called Canoe Creek. I stopped
with a farmer all night. Next day was
Sunday, and it did seem strange to me,
for I had been used to going to a 'big
go,' and here I was, sitting by the side of
the road talking to some men who were
working on the road. I spent this night
on some hay with a horse blanket over
me. Of course it was better than some
places I have seen. . . . Lillooet is the
next place. I saw the miners washing
and crushing rocks to secure the gold.
They work hard after the gold that helps
in this life, but they forget the pearl of
greatest value. We had nice meetings,
although no person came to Jesus.
Lytton was next. I could not find the
key of the hall, so I had a meeting on
the street, which had a good turnout. Next day, after travelling some
fourteen miles, I came in sight of 'Old
Man Mountain,' near Spence's Bridge,
so you see I was nearly home. Along the
Thompson River could be seen Indians
washing out gold and fishing. I sang
a little song with the help of an old
Indian, which was a treat to me, also
prayed God to bless them. There are
very few saved people in the mountains.
38
BRITISH COLUMBIA HISTORY | Summer 2010 | Vol. 43 No. 2
... I have completed my thirty-three
days' tour, travelling 633 miles. Also
my horse and myself are strong, and
Victory is rising in the west.3
Before the summer was over, Captain
Arkett was off again on a second 200 mile (320
km) tour, accompanied this time by Captain
Robert Smith. The headline for his submission
to the Canadian War Cry went like this: "Broke
His Neck — Bit by a Rattlesnake — Horse-Flies
and Prairie Chickens." The reader might have
been a little disappointed, however, to find
that the neck broken was that of the Captain
Arkett's guitar which had been slung around
Captain Smith's neck. "While trotting along,"
writes Smith, "my horse stumbled over a stone
and my stirrup broke. I should have been all
right, but my horse, as he was gaining his feet
again, struck another, and this time landed me
over his head, and as I had a guitar strapped
to me, I fell on top of it, but hurt myself worse
than the guitar, so both I and the guitar are in
tune yet."4
It was also revealed that the rattlesnake
bite had been inflicted on an Indian whom
the mountaineers visited, not on one of them.
But the hardships were real nonetheless.
The trail to Williams Lake was
"an old pack trail that used
to be in use at one time
to carry provisions to
the Cariboo Mines"
and was difficult
to navigate for
both horse and
men. Having
arrived at their
northernmost S
CO
destination, Soda ^
Creek, and after j
holding a meeting
in the street,
Captains Arkett
and Smith turned
around to retrace
their route to Kamloops.
Apart from complaints
concerning the thousands of
"large flies" which bit both them
and their horses, their comments are succinct
and unrevealing. Of 150 Mile House they
commented that "Drink is the great curse here."
As for Clinton, it was "a place of deadness,"
but Ashcroft was beautiful, not only because
of its natural beauty but, importantly for them,
because their meetings had been well-attended
and successful. It was, they stated, "the only
place we have had testimonies and this is
nice."
Further south, in the Nicola Valley, both
weather and terrain were more accommodating.
"At Stump Lake," Arkett writes, "I rested one
day, also had lots of prairie chickens to eat.
Chaperon Lake was the next place. This is a
large cattle district, also large hay meadow.
Sixteen men made themselves comfortable
outside the cabin on a plank seat, and your
humble servant preached the words of life.
They listened well. Minnie Lake is a little place,
but the people were glad to see us come.
Coming across the mountains on
Monday the cattle would run from me
like deer. They are very wild. My last
day, I traveled 38 miles. It was very
warm, but we are happy. I came across
a whiskey bottle and a little label on it,
and these were the words, "Warranted
to keep in any climate," and we have
a Salvation that keeps us good, in any
climate.5
It must have been a
source of much pleasure
to many lonely people
(mainly men) along
the Fraser River to
see and talk with
itinerant preachers,
even if they were
bent on saving their
souls. For many of
them were lonely,
and a few cut off
from civilization.
"I visited a poor
old man," writes
Cadet Jarvis, "seventy-
three years of age, in a
miserable state: so bad with
rheumatics he could scarcely
move one foot past the other; and
although he has a good farm, and lots of
stock on the mountains, yet he is living in a
miserable hovel without the necessities of life.
3. Canadian War Cry
June 27,1891.
4. Canadian War Cry
July 25,1891.
An artistic
impression of a
Salvation Army
Mountaineer.
BRITISH COLUMBIA HISTORY | Summer 2010 | Vol. 43 No. 2 39
5. Canadian War Cry
Sept. 14,1891.
6. Florence Kinton,
"Our Mountaineer
Outriders," All the
World, X (1892): 100-08.
I determined I would stop with him overnight,
and cut him some wood, and try and clean the
place up a bit. I tried to point him to Jesus, read
and prayed, and lay down to sleep on a pile of
sacks in the corner, with my saddle for a pillow,
and left the poor old fellow asleep."
In another lonely old shack a man lived all
alone, miles away from any human habitation.
The Salvation Army 'outrider' finally left him a
War Cry and departed. The next time he visited
he found the old man in great excitement, for
he had read the Army's paper right through to
the 'Missing' columns, and there before him
was his own name, and inquiries from friends
who had lost sight of him for thirty-five years.
It was, he believed, an act of providence and
the possibility of being re-united with his
family gave him great joy.
And so the accounts went, with talk of
Dog Creek and Alkali Lake, of mosquitoes and
rattlesnakes, dangerous precipices and rapid
rivers, and of many prayers, open-air meetings
and testimonies as the Army's 'mountaineers'
rode into people's lives and, though they
eventually rode into the sunset as well, they
(and the Army they represented) were not soon
forgotten.
Writing about the Army's 'mountaineer
brigades' in All the World in 1892, Florence
Kinton offered this rather fanciful assessment of
their achievement: "Artists came this way and
sketched and painted to intoxication. Tourists
travelled, and returned to tell their friends.
Sportsmen and anglers hunted and fished in
the lakes, till they could load the gun and bait
the line no longer. Then a Salvationist chanced
along, and he thought of the human beings,
and wondered what about their spiritual
necessities, and began to cast about to devise
some plan by which this scattered population
could be gathered in for Jesus, and taken hold
of by the Army. After long thinking out and
puzzling over, it was concluded that, since
the mountain could not come to Mahomet,
Mahomet should go to the mountain; or, more
correctly, that the outriders should travel
among the mountaineers."6
It was, perhaps, a slight exaggeration
of the achievement, for, like many such, it
was a short-lived venture. But it nevertheless
illustrated just how effectively The Salvation
Army could adapt itself to local conditions.
And, although there may not have been many
converts made from such an effort, it did serve
to make the Army's presence felt far beyond
the confines of the downtown barracks of
Vancouver. It was, as one 'outrider' put, it a
"little bright light" for the many who never
saw a clergyman from one year to the next.*
40
BRITISH COLUMBIA HISTORY | Summer 2010 | Vol. 43 No. 2
From Mimeograph to Multiple Pathways
The BCHF takes another leap into the Electronic Age
by Jacqueline Gresko
The British Columbia Historical
Federation Council and the
Publications Committee are pleased to
announce that, thanks to a partnership
with the University of British Columbia
Library, the federation's publications 1923-
2007 have been digitized and will be available
on the University of British Columbia Library
website. Ingrid Parent, the University Librarian,
and Christopher Hives, the University
Archivist, joined us at the conference awards
reception and banquet, Saturday May 8, 2010
in Vancouver. The federation recognized
Chris Hives and the University of British
Columbia Library for developing the project.
A soft launch of the digitization took
place before the official launch.
1. Go to the the BCHF website at www.
bchistory.ca.
2. Click on the Publications link.
NEW! Federation Publications L 1923 - 2007
s
or
3. go directly to the university library
website at http://bchistory.library.ubc.
ca/?db=bchf#.
The digitized publications include the BC
Historical Association Annual Reports 1923,1924,
1929, the BC Historical Quarterly 1937-1958,
and BC Historical NewslBC History 1968-2007.
The university library and BCHF are sharing
a unique historical record with communities
across the province. The BCHF website
provides the covers and contents for Vol. 41,
2008, on, and copies of BCHF Newsletters. We
look forward to discussing an update at five
year intervals of the UBC Electronic Publication
Hosting Agreement with the BCHF. A 2012
update would coincide with celebration of the
BC Historical Federation ninetieth anniversary.
A brief history of the project
Members of the BC Historical Federation
Council and Publications Committee had
discussed for several years how to digitize the
federation's past publications. An invitation
from Chris Hives, University Archivist,
University of British Columbia Library, got the
project going. He invited Jacqueline Gresko
and Ron Hyde, members of the Federation
council, to consider cooperating with the
university library on a digitization project.
The BC Historical Federation publications
committee prepared recommendations that the
council and Annual General Meeting of May
2009 endorsed.
The digitization of the BC Historical
Association Reports and Quarterly and the BC
Historical Federation's BC Historical News and
BC History brings a wealth of historical articles
to the Federation's 170 member societies and
24,285 individual members, but also to students,
researchers and readers across the province.
The digitization project fits the Federation
and the University Library's shared goals to
stimulate public interest and to encourage
research in the province's history.
In June 2009, Ronald Greene, president
of the BC Historical Federation, signed an
Electronic Hosting Agreement with the
University of BC Library "to help promote
access to important sources of information
pertaining to British Columbia history." That
agreement for a digitization project moved the
federation further into the electronic age, from
single to multiple pathways of communication.
In the early-twentieth century the federation
began newsletters and printed journals. Now
in the twenty-first century the federation and
the publications committee coordinate website
communication and email as well as journal,
newsletter and direct mail. The federation's
current newsletter, begun in 2003 by Ron Hyde,
goes out in print, by email and on the website.
This history of BC Historical Federation
publications appears on the University of BC
Library website:
The British Columbia Historical
Association, organized on 31 October
1922, published four Annual Reports
and Proceedings between 1923 and
1929 in order to "stimulate some
interest in the study of British Columbia
history."
However, it was not until January
1937 that the British Columbia
Historical Quarterly was published
by the Archives of British Columbia in
co-operation with the British Columbia
Jacqueline is
the BC Historical
Federation
Publications Chair
and served as
president of the
federation from
2003 to 2006.
Her most recent
publication is
Traditions of
Faith and Service:
Archdiocese of
Vancouver 1908-
2008. Her current
research projects
include one on
women missionaries
and one on Royal
Engineer families.
BRITISH COLUMBIA HISTORY | Summer 2010 | Vol. 43 No. 2 41
Further Reading
Anne Yandle, "British
Columbia Historical
News: A Short History,"
BC Historical News vol.
37, no. 4, Winter 2004, 2.
Historical Association. The masthead
for each issue indicated "Any country
worthy of a future should be interested
in its past", a phrase coined by W. Kaye
Lamb, editor and Provincial Archivist.
It was hoped that by publishing the
Quarterly "the writing of worthwhile articles upon many aspects of
British Columbia's history" would be
encouraged. This objective was achieved
but, unfortunately, printing of the
publication diminished to thrice per
year (1949), semi-annual (1951) with
the last and final issue as a bi-annual
(Jan. 1957-Oct. 1958 printed in 1963).
After a decade without a publication
the British Columbia Historical Society
recruited reluctant volunteer editor,
Philip Yandle, at its 1967 annual general
meeting; and the inaugural issue of
British Columbia Historical News
appeared in the spring of 1968. Early
issues included news from member
societies and of local historical interest
as well as a feature article. As the
journal matured fewer news items and
more feature articles were published.
To reflect this change in content, the
title was revised to British Columbia
History in 2005.
In the summer of 2009 the University of
British Columbia Library, in partnership
with the B.C. Historical Federation,
began work on a project to digitize
and provide full-text searching for all
of the Federation's publications. Taken
collectively the various publications
represent an outstanding resource for
chronicling the historical development
of the province as well as the wonderful
and diverse research that has been done
to date. The provision of digital copies of
the publications as well as the capacity
to effectively and efficiently search their
contents will undoubtedly provide
enhanced access to these important
sources of information.
Acknowledgments
The BC Historical Federation thanks
Chris Hives, University of BC Archivist and
Ingrid Parent, University of BC Librarian
for the partnership on digitization of the
federation publications. We thank Gary
Mitchell, Director Collections, Research and
Access, Royal British Columbia Museum,
and Provincial Archivist, for advice on the BC
Historical Quarterly digitization. On January 30,
2009 he wrote to Ron Greene, President of the
Federation "to authorize the British Columbia
Historical Federation to digitize the entire run
of the British Columbia Historical Quarterly."
The Federation now has clear copyright on
publications produced from 1923 to the present.
We appreciate the contributions of historical
society members who began the publications,
and the editors, authors, reviewers and
publications committees who kept them going.
We recognize the members who generously
donated back issues for digitization. We thank
the current publication committee members for
their support, particularly website editor Ron
Welwood. Last, we thank the members who
provided feedback on the test website.
Personally I would like to make two
points. First, doing an inventory of the journals
in June 2009 made me think about the ebb
and flow of historical organizations in British
Columbia and also the evolution of historical
studies. The digitization project provides
opportunity to research articles on both topics
and to gain new insights. For example the
1924 BC Historical Association Annual Report
panoramic photograph of the BC Pioneer
reunion. The photograph has been available
through the BC Archives, but the digitization
of the report provides the photograph and the
identification of people in the picture. The list of
names includes Emily Carr and Susan Allison.
These women wrote about Aboriginal peoples
and childhood in a time when white men and
past politics dominated historical studies of
the province. I look forward to seeing what
students make of this.
Secondly, I want to say how pleased
I am as a University of BC graduate to be
able to participate in the University Library's
digitization of BC Historical Federation
publications.*
42
BRITISH COLUMBIA HISTORY | Summer 2010 | Vol. 43 No. 2
BRITISH COLUMBIA HISTORY | Summer 2010 | Vol. 43 No. 2 43
Introducing the Digitization Project
http://bchistory.library.ubc.ca/?db=bchf#
Basic Search
Use the basic
search to search
for key words.
Publica
Search
Browse by Year
Use your mouse to
scroll through the
expanding menus to
find a specific issue.
Clicking on that issue
opens up the PDF so
you can read, print,
or save the issue.
1
BC Historical
Quarterlu'
1937
1938
1939
1940
â– 19'
1 19'
ts
19
JO
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1941 j
91
anuary --'"
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1945
1946
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| 1957
lid?
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Publications of the British Columbia Historical Federe tion
BCHutorifilNews/
BC Histon
British Columbia
Historical News
MIL. II Jt^.1.-.
BRITISH COLUMBIA
HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
y -t*iXf *f t fnnmt
~^!'ii(i\li (^oUuviSuZ HISTORY
Search.
Advanced Search
Use the advanced search to sort
by date, title, or author.
Use stemming to find the
suffixes for a root. For example
you could search for Smith
and find the Smithes and
Smithsonian as well.
You can also restrict the search
to a specific date range.
\i/All words v/Any words
| Sort by author J] LJ Reve
Stemming: | Hone | [\
BRITISH
COLUMBIA
HISTORICAL
QUARTERLY
<- OH htp:/;uthBtory.luraiY.uux:.ca/index.php?db=tchW * D- A'
Publications of the British Columbia Historical Federation
January
1923 tO
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201D
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« Sim
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[ Search ]
Results are shown in a list with links to either a text version
or the fully searchable PDF.
h Columbia Histnri
tish Columbia Histor
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44
BRITISH COLUMBIA HISTORY | Summer 2010 | Vol. 43 No. 2
Archives & Archivists
Edited by Sylvia Stopforth
Librarian and Archivist
Norma Marian AUoway Library
Trinity Western University
Krisztina Laszlo
holds a joint
position at the
University of
British Columbia as
Archivist at MOA's
Audrey and Harry
Hawthorn Library
and Archives and
Archivist for the
Morris and Helen
Belkin Art Gallery.
Museum of Anthropology Opens New Research Facility
by Krisztina Laszlo, Archivist
I On January 23 and 24 this year the
UBC Museum of Anthropology (MOA)
celebrated the completion of its Partnership
of Peoples renewal project, and the launch
of the 'new' MOA. Through the addition of
a new wing and expansion of our former
temporary exhibit gallery our existing building
space has almost doubled. Part of this expansion
is the brand new Audrey and Harry Hawthorn
Library and Archives (AHHLA), a facility that
brings together opportunities for primary and
secondary research in one space.
The Library holds a large collection of
staff publications and other resources about
the museum itself. Subject areas of strength
include museum studies, conservation and
preservation, Northwest Coast material culture,
and world ceramics and textiles. Also available
in the reading room are terminals to access the
Reciprocal Research Network (RRN) and the
MOA Computer Access Terminal (CAT). The
latter allows users to explore the museum's
36,000 objects from around the world, including
images and information about their makers and
the location and culture from which they come.
For example, researchers can easily browse
the 6559 objects that originate from British
Columbia, and quickly retrieve more detailed
information about specific items of interest.
Currently the MOA CAT is only available in-
house, although there are future plans to make
it accessible on the museum's website.
The RRN is an online tool that facilitates
reciprocal and collaborative research about
the cultural heritage of the Northwest Coast
by bringing together information about
material culture housed in both national and
international institutions. The RRN, by linking
to the collections databases of other museums,
allows members of originating communities and
other researchers a means to access information
about objects that have been geographically
dispersed and which they may not otherwise be
able to learn about or access in person. The RRN
is available to all individuals with an interest in
Northwest Coast culture. Researchers visiting
the AHHLA can sign on with a guest password
to explore the network. The RRN can also be
accessed from home, please see the following
website for more information: http://www.moa.
ubc.ca/RRN/about_overview.html
The AHHLA is also linked to the Oral
History Studio, a new facility at MOA intended
to support work with communities and
researchers to record oral histories associated
with the material culture housed in the museum
and to capture endangered languages. Much of
the content that will be created in this lab will
be available to researchers in the future.
The Archives houses the institutional
records of the Museum of Anthropology, dating
back to the late 1940s when it was located in
the basement of the old Main Library at UBC.
Institutional records provide a rich source
for those interested in how the museum has
grown over time, developed relationships with
First Nations communities, and expanded its
collection. The Archives also houses private
records that reflect the thematic interests of
the museum's collections. A large number
of textual, photographic, audio and moving
image records about Northwest Coast First
Nations are available, as well as those relating
to other world cultures. Every continent is
represented (with the exception of Antarctica)
and multiple regions and cultures within these
larger geographic areas have records associated
with them. The creators of private records held
at MOA come from many backgrounds which
include missionary, military, aid work, teaching,
and anthropology.
The centralization of the museum's
research resources in one location has provided
a dynamic space where one can access both
primary and secondary sources on a relevant
topic. Access is also provided to many of MOA's
digital initiatives through terminals housed
in the research area. The AHHLA is open to
researchers during the work week, although
access to the Archives is by appointment.
Please contact us for a schedule or to book an
appointment, http://www.moa.ubc.ca/. •
BRITISH COLUMBIA HISTORY | Summer 2010 | Vol. 43 No. 2 45
OM -
A researcher examines archival photographs at the Audrey and Harry Hawthorn Library and Archives at the UBC Museum
of Anthropology
46 BRITISH COLUMBIA HISTORY | Summer 2010 | Vol. 43 No. 2
Book Reviews
This is Frances Gundry's last issue as Book Review Editor. We thank her for her
work. Books for review should now be sent to K. Jane Watt, Book Review Editor, British Columbia History. Box 1053, Fort Langley BC V1M 2S4.
Battlefront Nurses in WW I
The Canadian Army Medical
Corps in England, France and
Salonika, 1914-1919
Maureen Duff us.
^Victoria, BC. Town
and Gown Press,
^2009. 168 p., illus.
$29.95 paperback
Whether
one is interested
in the history
of Canadian
military nursing
or this country's role in
the Great War, Battlefront Nurses in
WW I is informative and engaging.
Maureen Duffus uses the diary entries
of Nursing Sister Elsie Dorothy Collis
and a memoir by Sister Mary Ethel
Morrison to convey the experiences of
front-line nurses. In addition, Duffus
includes photographs, newspaper
clippings, archival records, postcards,
maps, information on the little
known Salonika Campaign, and one
watercolour painting, to present new
and insightful historical perspectives.
She specifies that the book "is not a
comprehensive history" of WW I or
its military nurses; rather, her "subject
is the Nursing Sisters of the British
Columbia unit of the Canadian Army
Medical Corps which left for overseas
duty with the Canadian Expeditionary
Force in August, 1915. Their story has
been overlooked - like 'The Forgotten
War' at Salonika in which they served."
The nurses also worked at Canadian
military hospitals in England and
France.
Young, adventurous, and brave,
Sisters Collis and Morrison, like
many of their 2,504 Canadian nursing
colleagues, tended patients with
diphtheria, dysentery, malaria, and
typhus; those burned from gas attacks,
and those suffering from various
wounds. Their records show that the
nurses themselves sometimes died or
suffered injuries during bomb attacks
on field hospitals or torpedo attacks
on ships. Some also succumbed to the
diseases they were treating.
After spending time in British
military hospitals, Sisters Collis and
Morrison sailed to Egypt. For six weeks,
they stayed in Cairo where (always
chaperoned) they rode on camels,
visited the pyramids and mosques
and spent a dark night becalmed on a
Nile riverboat alone with "three native
men." When they arrived back at
their hotel they "were stiff with cold
and our hair was stiff with fright."
Next, they traveled over
dangerous seas to Salonika, Greece,
and the "forgotten war" on the
Macedonian Front. Sister Morrison
noted their "duties were constant,
our wards difficult." Some days the
hospital admitted up to 200 patients;
and, in 1917, the nurses treated 20,000
cases of malaria. Nothing, however,
deterred their enthusiasm for caring
for the "boys." For example, for
Christmas 1916, the Sisters decorated
the "wards, messes, and dining hall,"
prepared presents for every patient,
and cooked and served a festive meal,
including turkey, for the "420 there.
They did enjoy it so much." Sometimes
the nurses also provided theatrical
entertainment in the form of concerts
or comedic skits.
In 1917, the nurses were
transferred to Etaples, France. There
were many casualties at the Western
Front, and Collis noted that some days
she had "not finished dressings until
2 p.m." Moreover, the hospitals were
often bombed or strafed by machine-
guns. In spite of the danger, the nurses
"went from hut to hut to attend" their
patients. After the war ended, both
Sisters returned to BC and successful
nursing careers.
In addition to the fascinating and
well-researched text and extraordinary
array of images, Maureen Duffus
includes short biographies of Sisters
Collis and Morrison, four appendices,
a Selected Bibliography, and a list of
Other Sources and Websites.
Sheryl Salloum is a free lance writer
living in Vancouver.
BRAVO: The History of Opera
in British Columbia
Rosemary
Cunningham.
^Madeira Park,
BC. Harbour
^Publishing,
2009. 208p.,
illus. $34.95
{hardback.
The
|2 0 0 9 - 1 0
Season in
British Columbia is
significant in the history of the
arts in general and opera in particular.
At a time of financial austerity and
despite severe funding cuts both the
major companies, Vancouver Opera
and Pacific Opera Victoria, expanded
the scope of repertoire and reached
new heights of artistic and popular
support as they celebrated their
fiftieth and thirtieth anniversaries
respectively, Rosemary Cunningham's
book could not be more timely. It
should be required reading for all
British Columbians who are proud of
their cultural heritage and especially
for those elected to political office.
Mrs. Cunningham writes as a
true amateur (defined in the Oxford
English Dictionary as "one who
loves") of both the glory of opera and
the vagaries of history. Enchanted by
opera as a young girl she continued
to attend regularly together with her
late husband to whom the book is
dedicated. Their actual experiences
as audience members were largely
confined to local productions but
her intellectual curiosity led her
BRITISH COLUMBIA HISTORY | Summer 2010 | Vol. 43 No. 2 47
to study the origins and evolution
of opera production in her native
province. The Prologue to the book is
a masterfully abridged account of the
touring companies which visited the
West in the nineteenth century and
the determined efforts of the local
population to host them in appropriate
manner and in suitable venues. In
this chapter, as throughout her text,
the book benefits from the author's
admirable research skills, honed no
doubt in her professional work as a
librarian.
Whimsically the book is divided
into "Acts" rather than "Chapters",
recounting chronologically the
evolution of the two companies
from enthusiastic, semi-professional
beginnings to their present much-
acclaimed status among Canadian
professional opera companies. Mrs.
Cunningham describes the early
struggles and pays tribute to the
determined pioneers and to the many
artists, both local and world-renowned,
who won enthusiastic following from
the population. Today Pacific Opera
Victoria boasts the highest per capita
attendance in North America while
Vancouver Opera, a few percentage
points behind, holds the number two
spot. Between then and now there
are many stories and some charming
anecdotes to be told of a variety of
remarkable people - artists, craftsmen,
administrators, teachers and volunteers
- whose individual contributions made
possible such impressive development.
The author contends that opera, the
perfect art form, "has the power to
transport to heights of imagination
and emotion" and to remind us of "our
common humanity" that lasts beyond
the evanescent impact of a wonderful
evening.
So much material in less than two
hundred pages. It all makes fascinating
reading but I wished that some of the
author's enthusiasm shown in the
preface had permeated her writing
style in the central parts of her
narrative. Modestly Mrs. Cunningham
permits herself few judgments or
statements of personal taste while
chronicling the sequence of events. She
briskly lists individual productions,
she is frank in dealing with financial
and administrative issues gathered
from a meticulous study of board
minutes and she remains impartial in
describing the inevitable crises and
personality clashes that arose from
time to time.
The "Finale" to the book is in
no sense an ending. It delights in the
present and looks forward to the
future. It is an uplifting document
in that it tells of burgeoning interest
in opera throughout the Province as
evidenced by the emergence of semi-
professional companies, festivals,
competitions and school tours. It is
enthusiastic and respectful about
the many training programs for
emerging artists. In the author's
words, "opera is on a roll in British
Columbia". City Opera Vancouver, a
new professional company dedicated
to presenting chamber works was
created in 2007 and is winning critical
acclaim. Dedicated teachers working
individually or in one of numerous
institutions, including among others
UBC, the University of Victoria and
the Victoria Conservatory of Music,
discover and nurture new talent.
Bravo is beautifully produced,
giving it the instant eye appeal of a
coffee- table volume. The photographs
and illustrations are lavish, visually
demonstrating the high quality of
productions to the general reader as
well as having a special attraction for
those who remember the past with
warmth and nostalgia. Historians will
appreciate an excellent index, detailed
end-notes and three appendices
[listing productions of the two major
companies and of Modern Baroque
Opera (active 1996-2003)].
In this short review it would be
invidious to mention individual names.
I urge you to buy the book. You will
be rewarded by meeting in its pages
many remarkable, individualistic
and brilliant personalities who figure
in the history of opera in British
Columbia. Among them is a young
would-be toreador by the name of
Placido Domingo in an encounter
with a BC bull. .. Turn to the book for
this and other stories and for a sober
assessment of past achievements and
future hopes.
Maryla Waters is the Chair of the
Pacific Opera Victoria Foundation.
Remembering Roberts Creek
1889-1955. Roberts Creek, BC
The Roberts
Creek Historical
^Committee
and Harbour
Publishing, 2008
190 p. illus.
$24.95, soft
cover
Originally
published in 1978, this
interesting local history was compiled,
written and edited by a committee of
ten members of the Elphinstone New
Horizons. The committee notes that it
has tried to include stories of as many
as possible of the earlier settlers.
The district of Roberts Creek
is defined as that 7 m (11 km) coastal
stretch halfway between Gibsons
and Sechelt on the Sunshine Coast.
Populated by the Sechelt First
Nation for thousands of years, the
first Europeans to make an impact
appeared in the 1880's when the coastal
edge was extensively logged. Many of
today's roads originated as skid roads
of yesteryear.
48
BRITISH COLUMBIA HISTORY | Summer 2010 | Vol. 43 No. 2
The first permanent settler was
Will Roberts who, in 1889, took up a
quarter section at the mouth of (what
became known as) Roberts Creek.
Settlement grew very slowly; the
population in 1921 totalled 200 and, by
1951, it was still only 556.
However, the same "boat
only" access brought many summer
vacationers. Vancouver wives and
children, there during the week,
looked forward to the Friday arrival of
the "Daddy" boat! Private camps and
camps for Boy Scouts and Girl Guides
further added to the summer influx.
Meanwhile, the settlers depended
primarily upon the logging industry
for their income and upon the Union
Steamships for their supplies. The first
store, opening in 1908, obtained its
supplies by rowboat from the coastal
steamers until the government wharf
was built in 1914. A ten hour rowboat
ride to Vancouver was also necessitated
when a seriously injured or ill settler
required immediate hospitalization.
A number of settlers became
farmers growing vegetables and fruit
and raising cattle, pigs and chickens.
Social life was always important
within the district. At one point, an
early pioneer had her piano taken by
horse and cart to dances so that she
could provide the music. As times went
on, schools, churches and organizations
such as the Masons, Farmers' Institute
and the Roberts Creek Players Club
were founded.
The book is organized into
seven chapters. A picture of the
occupations, settlement, institutions
and parks is gradually developed.
However, the stories of and many
amusing anecdotes about the pioneers
and their descendants are of primary
importance.
Three district maps, from
1890-1900, 1910-1920 and 1920-1955
respectively, help the reader to become
oriented. Well-chosen black and white
photographs are found throughout.
This book may be initially
frustrating for those who like a tidy
chronology of events. However, it is
ultimately a very rewarding read.
British Columbians should be
proud of citizens such as these from
Roberts Creek who, with few resources
beyond reminiscences and "family
treasures", do such a remarkable job of
preserving our local histories.
Bob Hastie is a retired school
administrator now living in Victoria
who grew up in Powell River.
Biographies of B.C. Postcard
Photographers.
Margaret Waddington, comp.
Vancouver, BC, Vancouver Postcard
Club, 2006. 60 p. Softcover, $20.00
plus $3.00 postage, available from
the compiler, Margaret Waddington,
3855 West 36th Avenue, Vancouver,
B.C. V6N2S5, Tel. (604)266-4709
Established on November 11,
1980, the Vancouver Postcard Club
(http://www.vancouverpostcardclub.
ca) commemorated its 25th anniversary
by publishing this compilation of
revised biographies from its newsletter
which it began issuing in 1981. This
slim volume describes 56 individuals
who represent the practice of postcard
photography throughout the province
from around the turn of the 20th century
to the mid-1990s. Designed more for
its members, libraries and individuals
such as this reviewer, whose own
work is cited in almost every entry,
I would not recommend this work as
an introduction for the general public
into BC's postcard history since there
is no overview that discusses the
complicated evolution of the Canadian
postcard in relation to the history of
photography. We are lucky, however,
to have several publications as well
as some Web sites, including those of
other Canadian postcard clubs, that
provide the historical context, as well
as the story and technologies behind
the lives documented in this volume.
Out of the 56 individuals you
may not be surprised that only three
females are represented, including
Helen McCall of Gibsons, whose
work of the 1920s and 1930s is
preserved by the Sunshine Coast
Museum & Archive, and Mary
Spencer of Kamloops, best known for
her photographs of train robber Bill
Miner and his two companions. The
postcard portraits of Vancouver's first
Chinese photographer, Yucho Chow,
helped the city's Chinese community
keep in touch with their family in
China and elsewhere. While nearly
all the biographies are one page and
include at least one illustration, at
least two outstanding photographers,
J.H.A. Chapman of Victoria, whose
negatives are preserved by the BC
Archives (Royal BC Museum), and
Vancouver's P.T. Timms, whose output
is preserved by the Vancouver Public
Library, were given longer treatment.
Not all the photographers were based
in BC, as A.E. Cross, Bill Gibbons and
Harry Pollard spent most or all of their
photographic careers in Alberta. Some
photographers such as G.C. Killam of
Smithers and Cliff Kopas of Bella Coola
were also community builders, while
others such as Artie ("Mr. Lillooet")
Phair became prominently identified
with their home town. The biographies
make it clear that photography for
many of these individuals was not
a full-time occupation. Some were
amateur photographers, while others
drifted into and out of photography
from other jobs or supplemented their
photographic income with other work.
That they all contributed in some way
to the visual record of our province is
what makes these men and women
significant.
Several individuals wrote these
biographies, consequently the level of
detail and quality of writing varies.
BRITISH COLUMBIA HISTORY | Summer 2010 | Vol. 43 No. 2 49
Each entry includes a list of sources.
I think an extra page devoted to the
handful of books about postcard
photography in BC would have
helped interested readers. Such a page,
however, exists on the club's Web site.
None of the entries indicate when they
were originally published and not
all of the illustrations are captioned,
though some are self-explanatory. The
Vancouver Postcard Club continues to
publish these biographies, usually one
per newsletter, and my hope is that the
executive will not wait another quarter
century before publishing a second
volume.
David Mattison is a Victoria archivist
who recently retired from the British
Columbia Archives.
The Life and Art of Frank
Molnar, Jack Hardman, LeRoy
Jensen
Eve Lazarus,
[Claudia Cornwall,
Wendy Newbold
{Patterson.
Introduction
\by Max
Wyman. The
Unheralded
\ Artists of BC
series (#2).
Salt Spring Island, B.C.,
Mother Tongue Publishing, 2009.
xii, 146p. illus. $34.95softcover.
The first volume in the
Unheralded Artists series, reviewed
by Harvey A. Buckmaster in British
Columbia History Vol. 42 No.3. reminded
us of the life and art of sculptor
David Marshall. This second volume
advocates for three of Marshall's
contemporaries, "wildly creative
individuals who emerged as artists in
the fertile 1950s and 1960s". Like him,
they languished off-centre from the
British Columbian and Canadian art
scene as exhibited and marketed by
public and private galleries.
None of them is represented in
the Vancouver Art Gallery's Vancouver:
Art and Artists 1931-1983, or, more
surprisingly, in the 2009 online project
Ruins in Process; Vancouver Art in the
Sixties, but their influence spread more
widely than they realized, and their
stories reveal much of the province's
cultural history in the second half of
the twentieth century.
Frank Molnar, born in Hungary
in 1936, fled to America in 1956 during
the Hungarian Revolution, and to
Canada in 1962 during the Vietnam
War. He found a student-community
of his compatriots transplanted to
UBC's Sopron School of Forestry.
Vancouver gave him the space and
peace he needed in order to paint,
and his Kitsilano neighbourhood was
an enclave of artists and poets. When
Capilano College established an art
and design school, Molnar became one
of the first instructors, revealing a gift
for teaching and mentoring, testified to
in a preface by Charles van Sandwyck.
Eve Lazarus interviewed Molnar and
his wife Sylvia in their present Point
Grey home, its walls covered with
a lifetime of large, bold paintings,
splendidly photographed for this
volume.
Jack Hardman, sculptor and
printmaker, born in New Westminster
in 1923, died in 1996, years before
Claudia Cornwall wrote about him, but
she found willing witnesses in people
close to him, notably his first wife,
the poet Marya Fiamengo, his fellow
artist Joe Plaskett, and his second
wife Bernice. Hardman, the most
"modernist" of the three artists, the
most volatile, and the least physically
and emotionally stable, fitted her
epithet "artist, mentor, enfant terrible."
After a year in England, Hardman lived
on Capital Hill, North Burnaby, another
artists' and poets' neighbourhood
including Jack and Doris Shadbolt and
Harold Mortimer Lamb. A charismatic,
inspiring and sometimes frightening
instructor, he taught for many years
at Burnaby Central High School, As
Director of the Burnaby Art Gallery,
1975-1981, he brought his energy and
flair to the exhibition and acquisition
policy, and encouraged a generation of
young artists. The book's format is well
suited to his spare, linear works.
LeRoy Jensen was born in
Vancouver in 1927. Wendy Newbold
Patterson, a student of Jensen's, says
his maternal grandfather Hackett
"owned and ran the first sawmill"
in Vancouver, a statement I have not
been able to verify. Jensen's adventures
ranged widely: art lessons with a
Japanese tutor in Nagasaki , wartime
at a Vancouver boarding school, the
merchant navy at age 14, postwar
dissatisfaction with the Vancouver
School of Art, Europe 1949-53, return
and frustration with the reigning
clique of artists, formation with David
Marshall and Jack Hearn of their own
clique The Pendulum Group, odd jobs,
two marriages, studying "ontology",
the Kootenays, the Okanagan, the
Gallery of BC Arts, the Europe Hotel
in Gastown, the White Lunch diner
on Hastings Street, the Vancouver
Free University, Greenpeace, the
Limners group in Victoria, and Salt
Spring Island, where he died in 2005.
His brooding paintings, suggestive of
Rouault, are perhaps not at their best
on these glossy pages.
The book portrays British
Columbia as a place where art can
and does happen. As Max Wyman, a
prominent contributor to our recent
cultural past, writes in the introduction,
"we now have a clearer idea of what
was going on in our small corner of the
world of art."
Phyllis Reeve reviews from Gabriola
Island and is curating an online
exhibition of Donald Lawrence's
"Fiddle Reef Remembered".
50
BRITISH COLUMBIA HISTORY | Summer 2010 | Vol. 43 No. 2
The Quadra Story: A History of
Quadra Island
Jeanette Taylor.
^Madeira Park,
BC, Harbour
| Publishing, 2009.
\272 pp., illus.,
[maps, $32.95,
\hardcover.
At
[275 square
Ikilometers
(106 sq. m),
Quadra Island is the
largest of the many islands located
between Vancouver Island and the
BC mainland. It forms a stopcock at
the north end of Georgia Strait where
swirling tides clash head on with the
incoming waters from Queen Charlotte
Sound. In 1792 Captain Vancouver and
his men were successful in finding a
passage around Quadra to the Pacific
Ocean, but eighty years later the island
blocked a serious attempt to route
the Canadian Pacific Railway across
central British Columbia to Vancouver
Island. Blasting through the Coast
Mountains would have been costly
enough, but island bridging presented
too many obstacles. This intriguing
information is just a small example of
what can be found in Jeanette Taylor's
delightful and well written Quadra
history. Taylor does not waste time
examining a "What if?" scenario or the
details of the challenging geography.
Her focus is on who and what made
the island a vital community over the
last two centuries. Fishermen, miners,
loggers, and the permanent settlers all
receive due attention. There is special
emphasis on First Nations peoples,
beginning with the first chapter about
their early history, and continuing
through the book as they are forced to
co-exist with non-Native settlers. Well
designed maps and a multitude of
photographs illustrate places, people
and events.
An earlier history, Evergreen
Islands (Grey's Publishing 1979) by
Doreen Andersen, provided a well
researched overview of the northern
islands, but during the last three
decades great strides have been made
by federal and provincial governments
and the B.C. Archives in releasing
information of crucial importance
for local historians and genealogists:
Census Records for 1881, 1891, 1901
and 1911; B.C. Vital Statistics for births,
deaths and marriages; and the British
Colonist on the internet. Using these
new resources and many others Taylor
gathered enough information to write
two books. The first, Tidal Passages: A
History of the Discovery Islands (Harbour
Publishing 2008) examined the smaller
islands in Discovery Passage. Quadra
rightly deserves its own volume
because it was the central base for the
satellite islands, providing steamship
access to Vancouver, postal service,
entertainment, and groceries long
before Campbell River, the present
centre of commerce, was even thought
of.
An island is a finite entity. It can
only have so much water, so many
trees, so much grassland. Abuse this
natural system and a downward spiral
of environmental problems ensues.
Residents of the southern Gulf Islands
learned this lesson early on and are
now ensuring that new homes have
rainwater catchment systems and
forested land is better protected.
Quadra differs from the southern Gulf
Islands in many ways. A large amount
of Crown Land and a beautiful chain of
lakes provide a wilderness aspect to the
island. With an abundance of natural
resources, it has supported logging
and mining industries and a thriving
fishing fleet that served a cannery at
Quathiaski Cove. While both regions
shared the "hippie" or back to the land
movement in the 1960's, and a freeze
on development in 1969, the freeze was
lifted on Quadra when community
plans and by-laws were put in place.
When land development pressures
continued on the southern Gulf Islands
a further bulwark to preserve its rural
character was needed and the Islands
Trust was legislated in 1974.
Taylor describes how Quadra
has managed well under the regional
district system but the ever expanding
population of the Lower Mainland,
with more disposable income and better
access to Vancouver Island, increases
vulnerability. It will be interesting to
see how the island weathers the coming
pressures for vacation property and
recreation opportunities. Hopefully,
Taylor is collecting a new set of data
for an historical update two decades
from now.
Marie Elliott has published two
books about the history of the
southern Gulf Islands, Mayne Island
fr the Outer Gulf Islands, A History,
and Winifred Grey, A Gentlewoman's
Remembrances of Life in England and
the Gulf Islands of British Columbia,
1871 -1910. She currently serves as
a board member on the Gulf Islands
Alliance.
Tibetans in Exile: the Dalai
Lama and the Woodcocks
Alan Twigg
| Vancouver,
BC, Ronsdale
Press, 2009.
\271p. illus.,
maps. $21.95
[softcover.
Alan
iTwigg's book
| traces the
improbable
links in a chain that
saw British Columbia artists
Jack and Doris Shadbolt bring George
Orwell's colleague, George Woodcock,
and Inge, his mountain-loving German
BRITISH COLUMBIA HISTORY | Summer 2010 | Vol. 43 No. 2 51
wife, from subsistence living in Sooke
to Vancouver, then onwards to travel in
India, culminating in 1961 in a meeting
with His Holiness the Dalai Lama at
Dharamsala, India.
No one could have anticipated
that this chain would lead to a nearly
50-year relationship that has seen more
than $3 million raised to aid Tibetan
refugees in India and Nepal, more than
300 projects created to resettle them
and provide health care and education,
and a connection forged between Tibet
and British Columbia that continues
to grow. George said this was Karma
working out its appropriate destiny
— through the Tibetan Refugee Aid
Society (TRAS), created in 1962 to
alleviate the situation of the thousands
of refugees who had fled Tibet for India
in 1959, and later, in 1981, through the
creation of a second charity, Canada
India Village Aid.
While George's Woodcock's place
in Canadian letters is well known, the
interviews that are the basis of Twigg's
book turn a spotlight on his and British
Columbia's Tibet connection. At the
same time, the book brings his wife,
Inge, out of the shadows. It serves
not only as a case study of the impacts
of two federal programs, Canadian
University Students Overseas and the
Canadian International Development
Agency, but also shows the impact of
Tibetan culture, leadership and people
on British Columbians.
While George corresponded
with aid workers, funding agencies,
government organizations and TRAS
supporters, Inge managed fundraising
by instigating art sales, flea market
and rummage sales, handicraft sales
and sponsorships of individual
children. She knew "every artist from
Horseshoe Bay to Abbotsford, and
[did not hesitate] to make demands."
Between its founding in 1962 and 1980,
TRAS raised more than $3 million, the
majority organized by UBC professor
John Conway, who matched the
Woodcocks' industriousness and zeal.
After George's heart attack in
1971, Prof. Conway took up the TRAS
challenge and set up a highly efficient
administration. This saw TRAS
tap into funding from the federal
Canadian International Development
Agency, whose matching dollars
greatly expanded its ability to help the
Tibetans, while TRAS maintained its
policy of working closely through local
partners and not paying for westerners
to visit India. Prof. Conway also saw
that the TRAS papers were preserved
in the UBC Library's Special Collections
Division.
The legacy was created by
many people. In 1963, the Woodcocks
returned to Dharamsala and met two
CUSO workers, Judy Pullen and Lois
James, who had been assigned to
help Tibetan refugees. Judy married a
Tibetan man, T.C. Tethong, and the two
of them created the Mundgod Tibetan
settlement in south India and then
came to Canada and settled in Victoria.
"TC" has gone on to be a key part of
the Dalai Lama's government in exile
over many years, while Judy has been
indefatigable in advancing the welfare
of Tibetans and the independence of
Tibet.
The book paints the picture of
daily life in the refugee settlements
through extracts from Judy Tethong's
letters back to her family. There are
also interviews with John Conway and
George Woodcock speaking of TRAS,
the Woodcocks and their wide circle
of friends. Two key TRAS supporters,
Dorothea Leach and Daphne Hales,
are interviewed as well. Dorothea and
her husband Barry were very active in
TRAS, and Dorothea was a close friend
of Inge's until Inge's death in 2003;
Daphne has always been very involved
in TRAS projects, making frequent
visits to the Himalayas.
Not mentioned in the book is
a TRAS adjunct group in Victoria,
founded in 1969. Most Victoria
members have been to India, sponsored
Tibetan children and, through garage
sales and hand-woven carpet imports,
raised many thousands of dollars for
projects that were ineligible for CIDA
partnerships. Judy and TC's presence
in Victoria supported this group
with information, inspiration, and
encouragement.
The Tibetan relationship
with British Columbia, started in
Dharamsala by the Woodcocks, has
been punctuated by visits from His
Holiness the Dalai Lama, starting with
his visit with TRAS Board members in
Seattle in 1979, then continuing with his
visiting Vancouver in 1980, 1993, 2004,
2006, and 2009. Some of the later visits
were organized by Victor Chan, who
had also met the Dalai Lama in India
and who went on to help establish a
Tibetan Studies program at UBC and
to co-found the Dalai Lama Centre for
Peace and Education in 2005. The Tibet-
BC relationship will continue into the
future, as there are now more than
100 Tibetans living in the province,
TRAS continues its fund-raising and
support work, and has been joined by
other organizations such as Students
for a Free Tibet and the Canada Tibet
Committee. Finally, the Tethong family
continues their untiring efforts to help
both the Tibetans in exile and those
still in Tibet.
The book concludes with a 10-
page inventory of TRAS projects
from 1967-2009. There is no index or
bibliography of further reading, both
of which would have been helpful.
Irwin Henderson is a long-time
member of the Victoria Branch, BC
Tibetan Refugee Aid Society.
52
BRITISH COLUMBIA HISTORY | Summer 2010 | Vol. 43 No. 2
Women on Ice: The Early
Years of Women's Hockey in
Western Canada
Wayne Norton.
^Vancouver,
BC,Ronsdale
Press, 2009.
Illus., 165p.
[$21.95
\paperback.
This
Ubook tells
Ithe story
Pof the early
years of
women's hockey in
Alberta and British Columbia
with occasional references to
developments in Manitoba and
Saskatchewan. The story focuses on
the Vancouver Amazons, the Banff
Winter Carnivals and the important
part each played in women's hockey in
the west during the 1920s and '30s. The
West Kootenays was the birthplace and
geographic centre of women's hockey
in B. C. but it was the well-connected
Vancouver Amazons who brought
celebrity status to successive Banff
Winter Carnivals from 1921 on as they
returned annually to compete against
a succession of women's hockey teams
generally from Calgary and Edmonton
for the title of women's ice hockey
champions of western Canada.
In addition to an Introduction and
Afterward, the book consists of thirteen
chapters divided into two sections. The
first, labelled Beginnings, contains nine
chapters and starts with an account of
the origins of women's hockey in the
Kootenays in the late 19th century after
which the scene shifts to the west coast
for the next five chapters. Following
the move of the Patricks, B.C.'s
premier hockey family, from Nelson to
Vancouver in 1911 and their creation of
the Pacific Coast Hockey Association,
the book follows the fortunes of
the Vancouver Amazons over two
decades. While connections to the
Patricks and members of Vancouver's
elite brought the Vancouver Amazons
much needed local support, the Banff
Winter Carnivals provided the equally
necessary opportunity to compete with
western Canada's best women's ice
hockey teams. The remaining chapters
outline the history of women's hockey
in Alberta where the game had taken
hold earlier than in coastal B.C. because
of several advantages including natural
ice and the proximity of competitors.
The second section, Rivalries and
Networks, examines the regional stories
of women's hockey by looking at
developments over time in four areas,
the west coast and Fernie in B.C., and
Calgary and Edmonton in Alberta.
Norton has made excellent
use of a less than desirable source,
contemporary newspaper accounts,
to demonstrate that the early years
of ice hockey in western Canada
differed significantly from the
better documented experience in
Ontario and Quebec. His extensive
research in a wide spectrum of
newspapers substantiates his thesis
that women's hockey in western
Canada "experienced an explosion
of popularity" during World War
One and not afterwards as in Central
Canada. Similarly, press reports make
it clear that community-based teams
were at the core of women's hockey
in western Canada, a role played by
collegiate teams in Central Canada.
And, while we do not have the words
of the young women who first played
hockey in western Canada, the book
is enriched by many photographs of
these pioneering teams.
The opening decades of the
20th century witnessed increased
acceptance of women in strenuous
sports and by the 1920s playing
women's ice hockey had become
fashionable. It was in this context that
women's hockey reached its peak of
popularity in B.C. and Alberta before
disappearing by the end of the 1930s.
Women's ice hockey became popular
in Canada during the first wave of
feminism in the opening decades of
the 20th century and only regained
popularity with the resurgence of
feminism at the end of the century.
Norton's work, one of the first
attempts to document the histories of
individual women's hockey teams and
the beginnings of regional organization
in B.C. and Alberta, has begun to fill a
large gap in the histories of Canada's
earliest women's hockey teams. He calls
on others to do the same for interior
B.C. teams and those in Saskatchewan,
Manitoba and Atlantic Canada. In
the Afterword Norton discusses
the jurisdictional disputes and
organizational challenges that emerged
during the early years of women's ice
hockey in western Canada and argues
that great distances, organizational
gaps and a lack of financial resources
continue to challenge women's ice
hockey teams to this day. The book
ends with the hope that having the cup
donated by former Governor General
Adrienne Clarkson recognized as the
symbol of the Canadian women's ice
hockey championship will provide the
"necessary unifying national symbol."
Patricia Dirks is a retired Canadian
historian currently living in Victoria.
BRITISH COLUMBIA HISTORY | Summer 2010 | Vol. 43 No. 2 53
Miscellany
Wallace B. Chung and
Madeline H. Chung
Collection
The Wallace B. Chung and
Madeline H. Chung Collection, a
designated national treasure, has a
new virtual home.
The handsome website, found at
http://chung.library.ubc.ca
<http://chung.library.ubc.ca/>,
highlights the Chung Collection's
three main themes: immigration and
settlement, early British Columbia
history and the Canadian Pacific
Railway Company.
Focus groups consisting of
faculty, staff, students and community
members provided feedback on the
development of a new site for the
Chung Collection, which is housed at
UBC Library's Rare Books and Special
Collections division.
Highlights include quick search
and advanced search functions, a "most
viewed items" feature, an appealing
re-design and an extensive catalogue
of digitized items.
UBC Library invites you to visit
the site and delve into one of Canada's
most exceptional historical collections.
Images from the Likeness
House
This ew Royal BC Museum book
turns the page of photographic history.
You do not need to be a photography
buff to appreciate this new Royal BC
Museum (RBCM) book.
In Images from the Likeness
House, Dan Savard, author and senior
collections manager of the RBCM
anthropology audio visual collection,
explores the relationship between First
Peoples in BC, Alaska and Washington
and the photographers who made
images of them from the late 1850s to
the 1920s.
"This book is a powerful visual
testament to the perceptions - and
misperceptions - of the First Peoples
who lived on this land more than a
century ago," says RBCM CEO Pauline
Rafferty. "It also goes behind the lens
by explaining how, or why, an image
was taken, and what it might mean to
researchers today."
Images from the Likeness
House features photographs, as
they have survived, without digital
enhancements. They range from the
earliest glass-plate images made by
photographers to snapshots taken by
amateurs on nitrate film.
"Some of these images were
produced by outsiders, who knew little
about the cultures they recorded," says
Savard. "You have to ask yourself - is
this the photographic record that First
Peoples would have chosen to leave of
themselves?"
"In one of the photographs, you
can see a metal stand behind the feet
of Tsimshian Chief Arthur Wellington
Clah - this was, presumably, for him to
lean against during the long exposure
time," says Savard.
The book is available at your
favourite bookstore and at the Royal
Museum Shop for $39.95.
Interwoven: N'laka'pamux
Basketry and Basket
Makers
May 15-August 22
The Langley Centennial Museum
is happy to present its newest exhibit,
Interwoven: N'laka'pamux Basketry
and Basket Makers, on display from
May 15 to August 22. The N'laka'pamux
(pronounced n-lah-KAP-muh) people
are formerly known as the Thompson
(River tribes), and their territory
includes the region from Spuzzum to
Spences Bridge, and east to Merritt/
Nicola.
Benchmarks of Historical
Thinking
.
a Education
NIvmiTY Of MIIIjM COlUMII
A 1-Week Summer Institute for
History Teachers, Curriculum Leaders,
and Educators in Museums and
Historic Sites
UBC's Benchmarks of Historical
Thinking project will provide the
methodological core of the institute's
work on curriculum, lesson, and
exhibit design and development.
The Benchmarks approach opens
up the interpretive nature of history
by examining such fundamental
concepts as primary source evidence,
historical significance, and continuity
and change. The History Education
Network (THEN/HiER) will bring
scholars from across Canada to present
the latest research on history education
and the best of contemporary school
practices.
The unique program will include
lectures, breakout groups, and visits
to Ottawa sites rich in historical value
such as Library and Archives Canada
(conference venue), the Canadian
War Museum, and the Canadian
Museum of Civilization. This is an
excellent opportunity to deepen your
understanding while enjoying the
beautiful and historic National Capital
Region.
Join your colleagues from across
Canada for an enjoyable and profitable
week in Ottawa this summer!
For additional information and
to apply or register, visit
http://eplt.educ.ubc.ca/
programs/institutes/bht.php
or contact Jo-Anne Chilton at
mailto:joanne.chilton@ubc.ca
(toll-free 1-888-492-1122).
54
BRITISH COLUMBIA HISTORY - Summer 2010 | Vol. 43 No. 2
Letter to Geographical Names Office
Re: Gerry Andrews
President Ronald Greene presented the following letter at the British Columbia Historical Federation Annual General
Meeting on May 8, 2010 asking the Geographic Names group to name a geographical feature for the late Gerry Andrews.
The letter was endorsed by the members of the BCHF.
British Columbia Historical Federation
Ronald Greene
P.O. Box 5254 Stn B
Victoria, B.C.
V8R6N4
Geographical Names Office
GeoBC: Crown Registry and Geographic Base
Integrated Land Management Bureau
P.O. Box 9355, Stn. Prov. Gov't.
Victoria, B.C. V8W 9M2
Dear Sirs:
Ph: 250-598-1835
Fax: 250-598-5539
e-mail: president@bchistory.ca
6 May 2010
The British Columbia Historical Federation wishes to propose that a suitable geographic feature in British Columbia
be named in honour of the late Gerald Smedley Andrews. As he was generally known as Gerry Andrews we request that the
naming, if accepted, be that way. He had a particular fondness for the Flathead Country, where he did his first professional
work, and we think that he would be most pleased if something there could be named for him.
Gerry Andrews was born in Manitoba in 1903. As he was too young to serve during the First World War he volunteered
as a Soldier of the Soil in 1918 and spent a summer working on a grain farm in Purves, Manitoba. After a year of Arts at
U.B.C. and a year of study at the Vancouver Normal School, Gerry taught one year at Big Bar, two years at Kelly Lake, and
another year at Big Bar, in order to raise enough money to enter university. He obtained a degree in Forest Engineering
at the University of Toronto, graduating with First Class Honours in 1930. Following his graduation he joined the Survey
Division of the B.C. Forest Service. His use of some aerial photographs converted his superior, F.D. Mulholland, to an aerial
survey enthusiast. Because of the province's financial problems arising from the Depression, in 1932 Gerry was facing an
indefinite unpaid leave, Ray Bourne of Oxford invited him to study at the Imperial Forestry Institute. In part, by working as
a deckhand on a freighter he reached England. Within two weeks he absorbed all that he could in Oxford and was advised
to apply to the Forestry School in Tharandt, near Dresden, Germany, where the curriculum in photogrammetry was state of
the art. He taught himself German using primary school textbooks and making contact with the local people. About a year
later, Gerry ran out of money and had to return home but did receive a special certificate covering his studies. Resuming
work for Forest Surveys Division in May 1934 he quickly demonstrated the value of aerial photogrammetry.
When the Second World War broke out he tried to join the Canadian Army, but it wasn't ready for him so he joined
the British Army in April 1940. It took a transfer to the Canadian Army for his special skills to be recognized. For his work
developing the Eagle V aerial camera, an associated mount and his work with the manufacturers, he was made a Member
of the Order of the British Empire (M.B.E.) in February 1944. By then he was working on aerial surveys of the Normandy
beaches - to determine the depths of the water and the slopes of the land - in preparation for D-Day. After V-E Day, Lt.-
Col. Andrews was sent on a solo mission to a number of countries including Italy, Egypt, Sudan, South Africa, Iraq, India,
Ceylon, Australia and the Philippines, to report on military surveys, air photo interpretation and post-war rehabilitation.
Gerry Andrews returned from a distinguished wartime career to the Forest Service's air survey section, but soon was
with the Surveyor General's Branch as the first Air Surveys Engineer. He became the Surveyor General of British Columbia
in 1951, a position he held until he retired in 1968. After "retiring" he prepared a report for the Federal Government on
the survey departments of all the provinces, and later taught air photo interpretation for six months on behalf of CIDA in
BRITISH COLUMBIA HISTORY - Summer 2010 | Vol. 43 No. 2
55
Paraiba, Brazil. Among his volunteer work he served as President of the British Columbia Historical Association for 1972-
1974.
In addition to his M.B.E. (Military Division) Gerry Andrews received many honours including an Honorary Doctorate
in Engineering from the University of Victoria (1988), an Order of British Columbia (1990), and the Order of Canada
(1991). But all these recognitions vanished when he passed away at the age of 102 in 2005. We believe his name should
be commemorated in perpetuity as a great British Columbian and Canadian whose achievements have contributed to the
welfare, not only to British Columbians and Canadians, but to Europeans and others around the world.
The writer has no relationship with Gerry Andrews other than knowing him through the Victoria Historical Society.
The BC Historical Federation is the current name of the British Columbia Historical Association, which he served as
President.
Yours very truly,
Ronald Greene, President
British Columbia Historical Federation
Gerry Andrews
56
BRITISH COLUMBIA HISTORY - Summer 2010 | Vol. 43 No. 2
Awards and Scholarship Information
W. KAYE LAMB Essay Scholarships
Deadline: May 15, 2011
The British Columbia Historical Federation
awards two scholarships annually for
essays written by students at BC colleges
or universities, on a topic relating to British
Columbia history. One scholarship ($750) is
for an essay written by a student in a first or
second year course; the other ($1000) is for
an essay written by a student in a third or
fourth year course.
To apply for the scholarship all candidates
must submit (1) a letter of application and
(2) a letter of recommendation from the
professor for whom the essay was written.
First and second year course essays should
be 1,500-3,000 words; third and fourth
year,l,500 to 5,000 words. By entering
the scholarship competition the student
gives the editor of BC History the right to
edit and publish the essay if it is deemed
appropriate for the magazine.
Applications with 3 printed copies of the
essay should be submitted to: Marie Elliott,
Chair BC Historical Federation Scholarship
Committee, PO Box 5254, Station B,
Victoria, BC V8R 6N4
Anne 6t Philip Yandle Best Article
Award
Deadline: To be eligible, the article must have appeared
in the BCHF journal British Columbia History for 2009
A Certificate of merit and $250 will be
awarded annually to the author of the
article, published in BC History, that
best enhances knowledge of British
Columbia's history and provides reading
enjoyment. Judging will be based on subject
development, writing skill, freshness of
material, and appeal to a general readership
interested in all aspects of BC history.
BC History Web Site Prize
Deadline: December 31, 2010
The British Columbia Historical Federation
and David Mattison are jointly sponsoring a
yearly cash award of $250 to recognize Web
sites that contribute to the understanding
and appreciation of British Columbia's past.
The award honours individual initiative in
writing and presentation.
Nominations for the BC History Web Site
Prize must be made to the British Columbia
Historical Federation, Web Site Prize
Committee, prior to the 31st of December
each year. Web site creators and authors
may nominate their own sites. Prize rules
and the online nomination form can be
found on The British Columbia History
Web site: http://bchistory.ca/awards/
website/index.html
Best Newsletter Award
Deadline: March 1, 2010
Newsletters published by member societies
are eligible to compete for an annual
prize of $250. They will be judged for
presentation and content that is interesting,
newsy and informative.
- Only member societies of the BC
Historical Federation are eligible
- Only one issue of a society's newsletter
will be evaluated
- Submit three printed copies of this best
issue from the previous calendar year
- BCHF reserves the right not to award a
prize in a given year should applications
not be of sufficient quality
Submit three printed copies of a single
newsletter issue to: Barry Gough, BCHF
Recognition Committee, P.O. Box 5037,
Victoria, BC V8R 6N3
Certificate of Merit
Deadline: March 1, 2011
Group or individual who has made a
significant contribution to the study,
project, or promotion of British Columbia's
History.
Certificate of Recognition
Deadline: March 1, 2011
Given to individual members or groups
of members of BCHF Member Societies
who have given exceptional service to their
Organization or Community.
Certificate of Appreciation
Deadline: March 1, 2011
Individuals who have undertaken ongoing
positions, tasks, or projects for the
Federation.
Nominations
Any member of the Federation may
nominate candidates for Certificates of
Appreciation, Certificates of Merit or
Certificates of Recognition. Nominations,
supported by a letter explaining why
the nominee is deserving of a certificate,
should be submitted to the Chair of the
Recognition Committee by 1 March of each
year.
The Lieutenant-Governor's Medal
for Historical Writing
Deadline: December 31, 2010
Each year, the British Columbia Historical
Federation invites submissions for its
Annual Historical Writing Competition
to authors of British Columbia History;
and the winning author is awarded the
Lieutenant-Governor's Medal for Historical
Writing.
Eligibility
- To be eligible, a book must be about
BC history and be published within the
competition year
- Non-fiction books representing any
aspect of BC History are eligible.
- Reprints or revisions of books are not
eligible
- Books may be submitted by authors or
publishers
- Deadline for submission is December
31 of the year in which the book was
published
Submission Requirements
- For information about making
submissions contact Lieutenant-
Governor's Award for Writing
- Authors/Publishers are required to
submit three copies of their book
- Books are to be accompanied by a letter
containing the following:
1. Title of the book submitted
2. Author's name and contact information
3. Publisher's name and contact
information
4. Selling price
- Books entered become the property of the
BC Historical Federation
- By submitting books for this competition,
the authors agree that the BC Historical
Federation may use their name(s) in press
releases and in its publications
Judging Criteria
Judges are looking for quality presentations
and fresh material. Submissions will be
evaluated in the following areas:
- Scholarship: quality of research and
documentation, comprehensiveness,
objectivity and accuracy
- Presentation: organization, clarity,
illustrations and graphics
- Accessibility: readability and audience
appeal
Publicity
All winners will receive publicity and an
invitation to the Award's Banquet at the
Federation's annual conference in May
following the year of publication.
Lieutenant-Governor's Medal and Other Awards
The BC Lieutenant-Governor's Medal for
Historical Writing will be awarded together
with $600 to the author whose book
makes the most significant contribution
to the history of British Columbia. The
2nd and 3rd place winners will receive
$400 and $200 respectively. Certificates of
Honourable Mention may be awarded to
other books as recommended by the judges.
Johnson Inc. Scholarship
Deadline: September 15, 2010
Canadian residents completing high school
and who are beginning post-secondary
education. 100 scholarships of $1500 each
for Canada.
Return Undeliverable Canadian Addresses to Circulation Department.
British Columbia Historical News
Alice Marwood, 211 - 14981 - 101A Surrey, BC V3R 0T1
Canadian Publications Mail Product Sales Agreement No. 40025793
Publications Mail registration No. 09835
The Cranbrook Alpine Club was active around the time of Conrad Kain, a mountainer who climbed in Europe and New Zealand.
It would appear that the Alpine Club was formed around this time due to the excitement of a renowned climber living in the area.
Conrad Kain undertook the first surverys of the Bugaboos in 1910 and the Mount Robson region in 1911. (note the insect netting
from many of the hats, both women and men, of the Alpine Club members.
From the Ron Hyde collection
British Columbia History
British Columbia History 2010
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