HISTORY Journal of the British Columbia Historical Federation | Summer 2010 | Vol. 43 No. 2 | $7.00 Its OurF/a& TJ ^t '. Fight for it Work for it ] 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 British Columbia History welcomes stories, studies, and news items dealing with any aspect of the history of British Columbia, and British Columbians. Please submit manuscripts for publication to the Editor, British Columbia History, Andrea Lister 21-11870 232nd St., Maple Ridge BC V2X 6S9 email: bcheditor@bchistory.ca Submission guidelines are available at: bchistoryca/journal/index.html Book reviews for British Columbia History, K. Jane Watt, Book Review Editor, BC History, Box 1053, Fort Langley, BC VIM 2S4 email: reviews@bchistoryca Subscription & subscription information: Alice Marwood 211 -14981 -101A Avenue Surrey BC V3R 0T1 Phone 604.582.1548 email: subscriptions@bchistoryca Subscriptions: $18.00 per year USA: $30.00 (US Funds) International: $42.00 (US Funds) Single copies of recent issues are for sale at: - Book Warehouse, 10th Ave, Vancouver, BC - Book Warehouse, Broadway, Vancouver, BC - Caryall Books in Quesnel, BC - Coast Books, Gibsons, BC - Gray Creek Store, Gray Creek, BC - Otter Books, Nelson, BC - Royal British Columbia Museum Shop, Victoria, BC - Touchstones Nelson: Museum of Art & History, Nelson, BC 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 Production Mail Registration Number 40025793 Publications Mail Registration No. 09835 British Columbia Historical Federation A charitable society under the Income Tax Act Organized 31 October 1922 PO Box 5254, Station B., Victoria BC V8R 6N4 Under the Distinguished Patronage of His Honour The Honourable Steven L. Point, OBC Lieutenant Governor of British Columbia Honorary President Ron Hyde Officers President: Ron Greene PO Box 1351, Victoria, BC V8W 2W7 Phone 250.598.1835 Fax 250.598.5539 president ©bchistory.ca First Vice President: Barb Hynek 2477-140th St., Surrey, BC V4P 2C5 Phone 604.535.9090 vp l@bchistory.ca Second Vice President: Barry Gough P.O. Box 5037, Victoria, BC V8R 6N3 Phone 250.592.0800 vp2@bchistory.ca Secretary: Jean Wilson 303-3626 West 28th Ave., Vancouver, BC V6S 1S4 Phone 604.222.2230 secretary@bchistory.ca Treasurer: Ken Welwood 1383 Mallard Road, Parksville, BC V9P 2A3 Phone 250.752.1888 treasurer@bchistory.ca Mary Campone 611 Robson Drive, Kamloops, BC V2E 2B4 Phone 250.374.1509 director l@bchistory.ca Lorraine Irving 1131 East 23 Avenue, Vancouver, BC V5V 1Y8 Phone 604.874.8748 director2@bchistory.ca Teedie Kagume, Archivist 4575 Redona Ave, Powell River, BC V8A 3H5 Phone 604.485.9710 Work 604.485.2222 director3@bchistory.ca William R. Morrison 831 Cameron Way, Ladysmith, BC V9G 1N3 Phone 250.245.9247 director4@bchistory.ca Past President (ex-officio): Patricia Roy 602-139 Clarence St., Victoria, BC V8V 2J1 pastpres@bchistory.ca Editorial Advisory Committee Anne Edwards Jan Gattrell Catherine Magee Ramona Rose Bill Sloane Committees Education Brenda L. Smith #2711737 236th St, Maple Ridge, BC V4R 2ES Phone 604.466.2636 education@bchistory.ca W. Kaye Lamb Essay Scholarships Marie Elliott 7o BC Historical Federation, P.O. Box 5254, Station B, Victoria, BC V8R-6N4 essays@bchistory.ca Lieutenant-Governor's Award for Writing Barb Hynek 2477 140th St., Surrey, BC V4P 2C5 Phone 604.535.9090 writing@bchistoryca Membership Ron Hyde #20 -12880 Railway Ave., Richmond, BC V7E 6G2 Phone 604.277.2627 membership ©bchistory.ca Publications Jacqueline Gresko 5931 Sandpiper Court, Richmond, BC V7E 3P8 Phone 604.274.4383 publications@bchistoryca BC History Editor, Andrea Lister bcheditor@bchistory BC History Subscriptions, Alice Marwood subscriptions@bchistory Newsletter Editor, Ron Hyde newsletter@bchistory Website Editor, R.J. (Ron) Welwood webeditor@bchistory Recognition Barry Gough P.O. Box 5037, Victoria, BC V8R 6N3 Phone 250.592.0800 recognition@bchistoryca Website Award Duff Sutherland 301 Frank Beinder Way, Castlegar, BC V1N 3J1 Phone 250.365.7292 x 334 webprize@bchistoryca Historic Trails and Sites Tom Lymbery 1979 Chainsaw Ave., Gray Creek, BC V0B ISO Phone 250.227.9448 Fax 250.227.9449 trails@bchistoryca .bchistory.ca is the Federation's web site A complete list of the Federation's membership is available at www.bchistory.ca/membership/present/index.html While copyright in the journal as a whole is vested in the British Columbia Historical Federation, copyright of the individual articles belongs to their respective authors, and articles may be reproduced for personal use only For reproduction for other purposes permission in writing of both author and publisher is required. Membership The British Columbia Historical Federation has been working since 1922 with historical sites, societies, groups, museums, archives, etc. throughout British Columbia preserving and promoting British Columbia's history. The British Columbia Historical Federation is an umbrella organization embracing a variety of membership categories who are interested in the preservation and promotion of British Columbia's history. • Member Societies: Local and regional historical societies with objectives consistent with those of the Federation. All dues paying members of the local or regional society shall be ipso facto members of the Federation. • Affiliated Members: Groups, organizations and institutions without dues paying members with specialized interests or objectives of a historical nature. • Associate Members: Individuals may become members of the Federation. • Corporate Members: Companies are entitled to become members of the Federation. Annual Membership Dues • Member Societies: one dollar per member with a minimum membership fee of $25 and a maximum of $75 • Affiliated Members: $35 • Associate Members: $25 • Corporate Members: $100 For further information about memberships, contact Ron Hyde: Membership Chair BC Historical Federation #20 - 12880 Railway Avenue, Richmond, BC V7E 6G2. Phone 604-277-2627 email: membership@bchistory.ca «* 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 A Chance to Complete Your Collection Back issues of British Columbia History for sale British Columbia Historical News JftlUr jf^JWWfzT ?"^£*fe^^%^ Sa^K* Vol. 37 No. 4 - 2004 • British Columbia Historical News • What's in a Name: Captain Courtenay and Vancouver Island Exploration • The Swede Who Beat Death Rapids • Feast and Famine • Scots on the Coast before Alexander MacKenzie • John Ledyard • In Search of David Thompson • Token History • Book Reviews • Website Forays • Archives & Archivists $UU>>L QqLuvMos HISTO RY Vol. 38 No. 4 - 2005 • William Charles Heaton-Armstrong, 1853- 1917 • James Cooper Keith • Doctors Edward Charles & Isabella Delamge Arthur • The Kosiancic Farm in Crescent Valley • The Use of Saltings on the BC Coast • Through Japanese Eyes • Token History • Archives and Archivists • Book Reviews • Miscellany Vol. 38 No. 1 - 2005 • John Alexander Bovey • A Woman of Distinction • Axe Murder in the Okanagan • The Stikine-Teslin Route to the Klondike Goldfields • Token History • Book Reviews • Website Forays • Archives & Archivists 6umaLColumbia HISTORY t iJmr&^ Vol. 39 No. 1 - 2006 • In Stanley Park, You Say? • A Leap of Faith: The early years of the Reverend Edward Cridge • Frontier Medicine in the Chilcotin Region of B.C. • Death Sentence: the New Westminster Penitentiary • Boris Karlof in British Columbia • The Case of Private Roy Cromarty • David Spencer Ltd. and the "Shopping Coin" • Archives and Archivists • Book Reviews • Miscellany Stml QoLJU history flf" "■'',IwBgjP'. t*i*Jti& /-■^Kfl Vol. 38 No. 2 - 2005 • The Rise and Fall of Cinema, B.C.: Hollywood North Ahead of Its Time • Black Pioneer Fielding Spotts: School Trustee, Church Founder, Farmer • Victoria's Birdman: The Forgotten Story of William Wallace Gibson • The Great Le Roi Hoax: Buying Back a Canadian Mine • CHALA-00-CHICK: The First Fort George • Smith's Iron Chink: One Hundred Years of the Mechanical Fish Butcher • Token History • Fernridge Lumber Company, Limited of New Westminster, B.C Vol. 38 No. 3 - 2005 • Vancouver's Pioneer Art Gallery & Early Art Associations • The Life and Times of Foon Sien • Up Coast Adventures Continue • Gray Creek Hall • Lost Nanaimo—taking back our past • The Sullivan Diamond Drill of Coal Creek • Chala-oo-chick Revisited • Token History • The Moti Prize • Book Reviews • Archives and Archivists • Miscellany fiiitiJ.&UIuM ISTORY StitiiL CdouJAMlSlOICl msti.-. Mi ■/ *»'it ■*<: Vol. 39 No. 2 - 2006 • First Vancouver Island legislature • When The Rains Came Early: The fatal, freak summer freshet of 1891 • The Orchard Project: Seedlings of Hope on Gambier Island, B.C. • A Debt Acknowledged: Iby Koerner's Contribution to Vancouver • The Vancouver Poetry Society • John Cort and the Standard Theatre in Victoria • Why Tokens? • Archives and Archivists • Book Reviews • BC History Index from 38:1, 2005 to 38:4, 2005 • Miscellany Vol. 39 No. 3 - 2006 • Banks Island • Carroll Aikins: Poet, playright & theatre founder • Emory Creek: The Environmental Legacy of Gold Mining on the Fraser • British Columbia: Russian America's Legacy • A Note: One of the "lis" in BC History • Johnson Street Ferry: Token History • Archives and Archivists • Book Reviews • Miscellany BRITISH COLUMBIA HISTORY | Summer 2010 | Vol. 43 No. 2 29 SimL Cdc^UmStOKf mm.-.: p -jjg^ jueal QoLUi* H ISTORY SiMilGdaUia HISTORY S'UuJv fi/^X»HISTORY Vol. 39 No. 4 - 2006 • Banks Island • Carroll Aikins: Poet, playright & theatre founder • Emory Creek: The Environmental Legacy of Gold Mining on the Fraser • British Columbia: Russian America's Legacy • A Note: One of the "lis" in BC History • Johnson Street Ferry: Token History • Archives and Archivists • Book Reviews • Miscellany tjutiJ, CifW^HISTORY M^-~ Vol. 40 No. 1 - 2007 • "C" Battery and the Skeena Incident • Censured! Unsuitable for British Columbians • Leon Koemer • Wallace Island • From Budapest to Sitka • Dave Murray and the Atlantic Cafe: Token History • Archives and Archivists • Book Reviews • Miscellany Q'Utidli/ (^clun-i-bui HISTORY Vol. 40 No. 2 - 2007 • The Vancouver Race Riot of 1907 • A Celestial Love Story, or was it? • Sounds of Brass Ladner 1889 -1902 • Red Book Revealed • The Leland Hotel, Nakusp • Kingsmill Bridge in Italy • The Royal Navy and the Comox Settlement • The Hotel Phair • Archives and Archivists • Book Reviews • Miscellany Vol. 40 No. 3 - 2007 • Cridge: The Making of a Bishop • Social Efficiency and Public Education • Letters From Afar • Vanished: Field Crops & Wooden Artifacts • Third Time Lucky • C & C Taxi Service: Token history • Archives and Archivists • Book Reviews • Miscellany Suail &L„,ua HISTORY Q'UUdli/ {^.-cUu-rvbca- H I STORY Vol. 40 No. 4 - 2007 • St. Alice Hotel • A Case Based Analysis of an Early Curriculum Revision • Chinese Cemeteries and Grave Markers inBC • What Frankie Said... • MacDonald and Co., Bankers: Token history • Archives and Archivists • Book Reviews • Miscellany Vol. 41 No. 1 - 2008 • Windows to Our past • Pitt Lake Gold: Origins of a Legend • Alvo von Alvensleben • Telegraph Tyranny • Mart Kenny: A Western Gentleman • Brown Jug Saloon of Victoria BC: Token history • Archives and Archivists • Book Reviews • Miscellany Vol. 41 No. 2 - 2008 • Keeper of Lost Records • Are You on the Indian List? • Bibles and Booze • Reginald Elwin Davey • CBC's 150 Moments • Garrick's Head Saloon of Victoria BC: Token history • Archives and Archivists • Book Reviews • Miscellany Vol. 41 No. 3 - 2008 • Memoir: A Perilous Minefield for a Historian • Meteoric Career of Alvo von Alvensleben • Tales of the Past Fill Wigwam Inn • History of the St. Agnes' Well Hot Springs • "This Will Find Me" • Royal Engineers Families Project • George L. Ormsby of Eburne BC: Token History • Archives and Archivists • Book Reviews • Miscellany 30 BRITISH COLUMBIA HISTORY | Summer 2010 | Vol. 43 No. 2 S'UuJv ft/^X»HISTORY SuhaL Ci^fwHISTORY Stiu&L Cdi^bui HISTORY Suml (S^itoHISTORY Vol. 41 No. 4 - 2008 • The Corner and the K-W-C. • A Kootenay Saga • An '"umble Tradesman" • Nelson's Chahko Mika Carnival of 1914: Token History • Restoration of the 1223 • Book Reviews • Miscellany Vol. 42 No. 1 - 2009 • The Evolution of Security Intelligence in British Columbia • The SS Kootenay • The Nelson Ferry • Mrs. E.C. Clarke and the Queens Hotel, Nelson: Token History • Archives and Archivists • Book Reviews • Miscellany Vol. 42 No. 2 - 2009 • Chile, Peru, and The Early Lumber Exports of British Columbia • An Artist's Legacy • The Artful Dewdney • An Education in Gumbo • C.W.D. 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See the order form on page 31. a„s,:,/r.,/,.-,./L HISTORY ( in ' ' mM~^^ # 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 ■■■- ' . • ■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 ■19' 1 19' ts 19 JO 11 1941 j 91 anuary --'" ... 1942 f 1943 j 1944 c >rtober 9: yd j4 J5 1945 1946 ■ly56 | 1957 lid? ^^^^^H ■C H http://bchlstory.lbrary.ubc.ca/?db=bchf# 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 Deoefnbef [ 201D I = = "1 I 25 ^^ results per page « Sim pte~] [ 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 m 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
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Title | British Columbia History |
Publisher | Victoria : British Columbia Historical Federation |
Date Issued | 2010 |
Description | Vol. 43 No. 2 |
Extent | 64 pages |
Subject |
British Columbia--History |
Genre |
Periodicals |
Type |
Text |
FileFormat | application/pdf |
Language | English |
Notes | Titled "British Columbia Historical Association Report and Proceedings" from 1923-1929; "British Columbia Historical Quarterly" from 1937-1957; "BC Historical News" from 1968-2004; and "British Columbia History" from 2005 onward. |
Identifier | BCHistory_2010_vol043_no002 |
Collection |
British Columbia History |
Date Available | 2019-08-26 |
Provider | Vancouver : University of British Columbia Library |
Rights | Images provided for research and reference use only. Permission to publish, copy, or otherwise use these images must be obtained from the British Columbia Historical Association (info@bchistory.ca). |
CatalogueRecord | http://resolve.library.ubc.ca/cgi-bin/catsearch?bid=3202327 |
DOI | 10.14288/1.0380654 |
AggregatedSourceRepository | CONTENTdm |
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