BRITISH COLUMBIA HISTORICAL QUARTERLY We BRITISH COLUMBIA HISTORICAL QUARTERLY Published by the Archives of British Columbia in co-operation with the British Columbia Historical Association. EDITOR. W. Kaye L.-v •:r, B.C. SOCIATE EDITOR. lard E. Ireland. ;a, B.C. ADVISORY BOARD. J. C. Goodfellow, Princeton. F. W. Howay, New Westminster. Robie L. Reid, Vancou T. A. Rickard, Victoria. W. N. Sage, nmunicat be addressed either to the Editor or to the Asso Subscriptions should be sent to the Provincial Archives, Parliament Buildings, Victoria, B.C. Price, 50c. the copy, or $2 the year. Members of the Bril ubia Historical Association in good standing receive the .vithout further charge. Neither the Provincial Archives nor the British Columbia Historical Association assume ; onsibility for statements made by contributors to the magazine. BRITISH COLUMBIA HISTORICAL QUARTERLY " Any country worthy of a future should be interested in its past." Vol. V. Victoria, B.C., July, 1941. No. 3 CONTENTS. Articles : Page. The Strait of Anian. By T. A. Rickard 161 The Case of the " Moneta ": An Incident in the Story of Burrard Inlet. By F. W. Howay 185 Early Flour-mills in British Columbia. Part II. By F. W. Laing 191 Pioneer Surveys and Surveyors in the Fraser Valley. By W. N. Draper 215 Documents : Two Narratives of the Fraser River Gold-rush. I. Extracts from Friesach, Ein Ausflug nach Britisch-Colum- bien im Jahre 1858. With an introduction by Robie L. Reid 221 II. Letter from Charles G. Major, dated Fort Hope, September 20, 1859 228 Notes and Comments: British Columbia Historical Association 233 Similkameen Historical Association 235 Graduate Historical Society 235 Contributors to this Issue 236 The Northwest Bookshelf: Morrell: The Gold Rushes. By T. A. Rickard 237 Woods: History of the Agassiz-Harrison Valley. By F. W. Howay 240 Lyons: Francis Norbert Blanchet and the Founding of the Oregon Missions (1888-1848). Magaret: Father De Smet: Pioneer Priest of the Rockies. By Willard E. Ireland 240 Gates (ed.) : Messages of the Governors of the Territory of Washington, 1854-1889. By Ronald Todd 242 THE STRAIT OF ANIAN.* The Discovery of a NW Passage, has been a favourite Object of Pursuit, from the remotest period of our Navigation; but the early idea of such a Passage has been much misconceived, for it did not mean what has been in modern Times understood by the NW Passage. The idea, when that Passage was first attempted by the English, was to reach the Coast of Cataya, or Tartary by sailing to the Northward of America; This appears clearly by the Maps, belonging to Sir Humfrey Gilbert's Discourse, written in 1566, printed 1576; and to the Voyages of Frobisher, published in 1578: The last having found an Opening on the East of Groenland, named it Frobisher's Strait, supposing it led Westward to the Head of the Strait of Anian, and thenee Southward to Japan. A very short Track, indeed, from this Country, if The Sea had been navigable. This Fact being incontestible, " that by the Strait of Anian was then meant, The Strait, at the East Extremity of Asia, now called Bhering's Strait," Every antecedent Report of any Voyage having been made by a NW Passage, must have a reference to the alledged Passage, on the North of America, by what may be called the Hypo- borean Sea: and not to what is now meant by a NW Passage, through America .... The Object of the English in the early attempts for the discovery of a NW Passage, was not only to facilitate the intercourse with the East, but to open a new branch of Commerce, in the Countries thro' which the Passage was expected to lead the adventurous Navigator. Alexander Dalrymple, Plan for Promoting the Fur- Trade and Securing it to this Country, by Uniting the Operations of The East-India and Hudson's-Bay Companys, London, 1789. The importance of transoceanic transport for the importation of commercial products from the Orient was due to the fact that carriage by land in the sixteenth century, as to-day, was very costly; and so slow as to impair the quality of these products, chief of which were spices, while in transit. Moreover, the trade * Presidential address to the British Columbia Historical Association, October 11, 1940. British Columbia Historical Quarterly, Vol. V., No. 3. 161 162 T. A. Rickard. July was in the hands of Italian merchants, who in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries had established outposts on the Crimea, the Caspian Sea, and the Sea of Azov. It was estimated at Venice that products costing a ducat in the Far East became worth from seventy to one hundred ducats when they arrived there. By the time they reached the western extremities of Europe the cost was still further increased; thus it is no wonder that both the English and the French merchants were eager to find an all-water route free from Spanish or Portuguese interference.1 The urge to reach the Spice Islands and the importance given to the trade in spices require some explanation. Before farmers had learned the need for a rotation of crops, or the cultivation of turnips and carrots, it was customary in western Europe to kill cattle in November and preserve the meat by salting. To render this hard diet palatable, there was a demand for spices, such as pepper and cloves. Moreover during the mediaeval period and later, when tea, coffee, and cocoa were as yet unknown, and sugar was an expensive luxury, there was an immense consumption of condiments to give pungency to thin beer, to improve sour wine, and to season various home beverages.2 In days when personal cleanliness was not appreciated and streets were unsavoury with refuse, the demand for strong perfumes was insistent. Most of the spices used for seasoning and preserving the coarse and unwholesome food of those days was obtained from the tropical regions of Asia, the use of them having started with the flavouring of the simple rice food of the Oriental peoples. In Elizabethan England every housekeeper dame had a spice-box in which she might keep pepper, vanilla, cloves, nutmeg, or cinnamon. Fletcher says: " Here stands a bak'd meat, it wants a little seasoning; my spice-box, Gentlemen." In a later day, Cowper thanked a friend for " a tub of very fine spiced salmon." Thus the small variety and poor flavour of food at that time called for something to make it palatable; spices were needed for preserving and pickling edibles to an extent we to-day cannot appreciate. (1) Nellis M. Crouse, In Quest of the Western Ocean, New York, 1928, p. 8. (2) F. A. Kirkpatrick, The Spanish Conquistadores, London, 1934, pp. 349-351. 1941 The Strait of Anian. 163 The commercial significance of the spice trade is aptly illustrated by reference to the Magellan expedition. Sebastian del Cano, who took charge after the commander was killed on the island of Mactan, one of the Philippine group, loaded two ships with cloves obtained at the island of Tidore, in the Moluccas. One of these ships, the Vittoria, survived the misadventures of the world-round voyage and when she reached Spain her cargo of cloves paid for all the expenses of the five ships with which Magellan started and the entire cost of the expedition as well. Likewise the contract made by Drake with the Sultan of Ternate for the sale of cloves was " regarded as an achievement surpassing the capture of Spanish treasure."3 The maritime passage known as the Strait of Anian and supposed, during the sixteenth century and afterward, to connect the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, was an historic myth and a geographic enigma. It was the product of imagination nourished jn the minds of European navigators for the three centuries during which the exploration of the unknown parts of the world was most active in consequence of the discovery of a new continent by Christopher Columbus and antedated by some two hundred years the conception of a Northwest Passage. Columbus was not at all aware that he had discovered a new continent, but believed that he had reached the outer parts of India. For twenty years thereafter the Spaniards searched for a water-way farther westward. When they ascertained that the American coast was continuous and when, in 1513, Balboa crossed the isthmus that makes that continuity, the question arose how best to reach the Orient by sea. Balboa gave to the Pacific Ocean the name of the South Sea—El Mar del Sur—because he crossed the isthmus of Darien from north to south; he looked upon the Pacific as Ptolemy's Sinus Magnus, or Great Gulf, and expected to find the Spice Islands, or East Indies, not far from Panama.4 When this idea was disproved by Magellan, the initiative of seamen was incited to the search for a direct passage from Europe to Asia through the North American region. Thus the geographic enigma of the Strait of Anian was born. (3) James A. Williamson, The Age of Drake, London, 1938, p. 193. (4) George E. Nunn, Origin of the Strait of Anian Concept, Philadelphia, 1929, p. 8. 164 T. A. Rickard. July The origin of the name, like all else that concerns the illusive strait, is obscure. Ania was a Chinese province mentioned in Ramusio's text of Marco Polo's book,6 issued in 1559. The name Ania appears first on a map issued by the Italian cartographer, Giacomo Gastaldi, in 1561.6 Five years later Zaltieri, of Bologna, known usually as Bolognino Zaltieri, issued a map on which the Strait of Anian is shown, narrow and crooked, separating Asia from America.7 The strait was supposed to give convenient maritime access from Europe to Cathay, a romantic synonym for China. Cathay was the name by which China—or, more precisely, northern China—became known to mediaeval geographers. The Tartars of central Asia knew China by that name, and the Russians by contact with the Tartars brought the name into Europe. Marco Polo said that the Great Khan resided in the capital city of Cathay. Thus the northern position of Cathay caused it to become associated with an undiscovered sea-route through the northern parts of the American continent. The voyage of John Cabot,8 a Venetian whose real name was Zuan Caboto, in 1497, to the island of Cape Breton, and the voyage of Gaspar de Cortereal,9 a Portuguese navigator, three years later, to the coast of Labrador, had aroused the hope that a direct route to Cathay might be found in this northern latitude. (5) W. Marsden and T. Wright (eds.), The Travels of Marco Polo, London, 1926, p. 330. (6) Godfrey Sykes, " The Mythical Straits of Anian," Bulletin of the American Geographical Society, xlvii. (1915), p. 165. Gastaldi also wrote a pamphlet in 1562, La universale discrittione del mundo, in which " stretto Anian " is mentioned. See Nunn, op. cit., p. 33. See also Henry R. Wagner, The Cartography of the Northwest Coast of America to the year 1800, Berkeley, California, 1937, vol. I., p. 53. (7) Grateful acknowledgement is made to the American Geographical Society for kind permission to reproduce this map as published in their Bulletin of March, 1915, by Godfrey Sykes. See also Henry R. Wagner, Apocryphal Voyages to the Northwest Coast of America, Worcester, Mass., 1931, p. 6 (reprinted from Proceedings of the American Antiquarian Society, n.s. xli., part 1, April, 1931). (8) Henry Harrisse, John Cabot the Discoverer of North-America and Sebastian his Son, London, 1896, passim. (9) Henry Harrisse, The Discovery of North America, London, 1892, pp. 59-76. 1941 The Strait of Anian. 165 When Jacques Cartier, in 1534, landed on the Canadian shore, he was seeking a passage to the Orient. Sir Humphrey Gilbert, in 1576, commenting on Cartier's voyage, says that the mariner of St. Malo " heard say at Hochelaga [Montreal] in Nova Francia, how that there was a great Sea at Saguinay, whereof the end was not knowen: which they presupposed to be the passage to Cataia."10 Meanwhile Magellan in the course of his voyage round the world had found the strait which bears his name and was thus the first, in 1520, to sail from the Atlantic into the Pacific Ocean; but his strait provided at best only a long and dangerous route to the Orient. Moreover, the strait passed into the possession of Spain, while the Cape of Good Hope, first rounded by Bar- tholomeu Dias in 1486, was in the control of Portugal. Thus the way westward and eastward to the Spice Islands, or Moluccas, was barred to the English. Another route had to be found. Magellan regarded South America as a peninsula extending from Asia. Even Las Casas retained the idea and expressed it several times,11 although the separation of Asia from America had been asserted by Verrazano in the report of his voyage in 1524.12 Zaltieri's map of 1566 showed otherwise, as already mentioned. English seamen, such as Sebastian Cabot, Robert Thome, and Humphrey Gilbert, had become convinced, by the evidence of the oceanic currents, that America and Asia were separate land masses. The absence of Asiatic fauna in North America was confirmatory. The explorations of Cabot, Verrazano, and Cartier, as well as the voyages of sundry Spaniards, such as Gomez, Ayllon, and Ponce de Leon, northward from the Caribbean Sea had proved that the Atlantic coast of the new world was continuous from the Isthmus of Darien to the Arctic, and therefore that it was a continent, not merely an archipelago (10) "A discourse written by Sir Humphrey Gilbert, Knight, to prove a passage by the Northwest to Cathaia, and the East Indies," in Richard Hakluyt, The Principal Navigations Voyages Traffiques & Discoveries of the English Nation, Glasgow, 1904, vol. vii., p. 171. (11) Bartolome de las Casas, Historia de Las Indias, in M. F. de Navar- rete, Coleccion de Documentos Ineditos, Madrid, 1875, vol. lxii., p. 315; vol. Ixiii., pp. 204-5; vol. lxvi., pp. 371-4. (12) " New Light on Verrazano's Voyage of 1524," Journal of the Royal Geographical Society, xxxv. (1910), p. 429. 166 T. A. RICKARD. July of islands, as was aforetime fancied. The discovery of a river so large as the St. Lawrence should have been quite sufficient to suggest a continental watershed, and, by inference, the probable remoteness of the South Sea, or Pacific Ocean, in that latitude. Toward the middle of the sixteenth century therefore a sea-route was sought farther north; we begin to hear about a Northwest Passage to Cathay. In 1513 Robert Thorne, a merchant of London and a man of geographic vision, exhorted King Henry VII. to take in hand the business of exploration. Thorne was a friend of John Cabot and his son Sebastian. With them he had discussed the question of a passage northwestward; there was, he claimed, a much shorter way to the Spice Islands than the routes round the extremities of Africa and America, neither of which was open to English seamen. Fourteen years later, in 1527, he set forth his ideas in print; his treatise is addressed to the English Ambassador at Seville, where Thorne was then residing. " Now then," he says " if from the sayd New found lands [Newfoundland] the Sea be navigable, there is no doubt, but sayling Northward and passing the Pole, descending to the Equinoctial line, we shall hit these Islands [the Spice Islands or East Indies], and it should be a much shorter way, then either the Spaniards or the Portingals have."13 This route, he claims, would be more than 2000 leagues shorter than those taken either by the Spaniards or the Portuguese round the southern ends of America and Africa respectively. Thome's map fails to show the northern parts of America; he refuses to guess needlessly. Cathayo Orientalis is placed in northeastern Asia. Master Robert Thorne, in his pamphlet, says that even though the North be cold and the northern seas be blocked sometimes with ice, " there is no land unhabitable, nor Sea innavigable."14 There speaks the true explorer. As early as 1564 Abraham Ortelius, a Fleming, published a map of Italian origin in which the water separating northwestern America from northeastern Asia is made to cover twenty (13) The Booke made by the right worshipful M. Robert Thorne in the yeere 1527, Hakluyt, op. cit., vol. ii., pp. 176-7. (14) Ibid., p. 178. See also Walter Raleigh, The English Voyages of the Sixteenth Century, Glasgow, 1906, p. 33. 1941 The Strait of Anian. 167 degrees of longitude.15 This map was used by several promoters of northwestern exploration, including Gilbert. In 1566 Sir Humphrey Gilbert wrote A discourse of a dis- coverie for a new passage to Cataia,16 in which he sought to demonstrate the existence of a Northwest passage. One of his arguments is based upon " certaine Indians driven by tempest, upon the coast of Germanie. . . ."" This is derived from Pliny's story about the Indians that were driven by stress of weather upon the coast of Germany sometime previous to 57 B.C. Later they were presented by the king of the Suevi to Quintus Metallus Celer, the Roman pro-consul in Gaul.18 Gilbert cites other authorities that mention similar occurrences. Dominicus Marius Niger mentions Indians driven " through the North Seas from India, upon the coastes of Germany," which then included what are now Holland and Denmark. The North Sea was Mare Germanicum. Likewise Othon, in the story of the Goths, affirmed that in the time of the German emperors there were " certaine Indians cast by force of weather, upon the coast of the said Countrey."19 Furthermore, Gomara, in his history of the Indies, says that during the reign of Frederick Barbarossa (circ. 1160), "certain Indians arrived at Lubeck in a boat."20 Other confirmatory evidence might be mentioned. A Dane, named Swart, whose Latin name was Cladius Cavus, writing in 1409, mentions the skin-boats of the pygmies, or Eskimos, and states that one of their boats was hanging in the cathedral at Trondheim.21 A similar canoe, or kayak, was preserved in the church of Burra, one of the Orkney Islands, in 1690. Finally, a kayak occupied by " an Indian man " was found in the North (15) Wagner, Apochryphal Voyages, p. 6. , (16) David Beers Quinn, The Voyages and Colonising Enterprises of Sir Humphrey Gilbert, London, 1940, vol. i., pp. 129 ff. (Hakluyt Society, n.s. lxxxiii.) The pamphlet, although written in 1566, was not published until 1576. See also William Gilbert Gosling, The Life of Sir Humphrey Gilbert, London, 1911, pp. 68, 72, 98. (17) Ibid., vol. i., p. 148. (18) Pliny, Naturalis Historia, book II., lxvii., 170. (See translation by H. Rockham, London, 1938, vol. i., p. 305.) (19) Quinn, op. cit., vol. i., p. 148. (20) Francisco Gomara, Histoire Generate des Indes Occidentals, Paris, 1569, p. 9. (French translation by M. Fumee Sieur de Marley le Chastel.) (21) Fridtjof Nansen, In Northern Mists, London, 1911, vol. ii., p. 249. 168 T. A. Rickard. July Sea near Aberdeen, in northeastern Scotland, early in 1720. The " Indian man " died soon after being brought to land, probably in consequence of injudicious feeding. The kayak, together with a paddle, spear, and harpoon, are preserved in the Anthropological Museum in Aberdeen University. The engravings reproduced herewith were made available by the courtesy of the Director of the Museum, Mr. Harry Townend. Gilbert argued that these Indians could not have come in their little canoes around the Cape of Good Hope, because if they had, " then must they . . . have fallen upon the South parts of America."22 He remarks also: " And further it seemeth very likely, that the inhabitants of the most part of those countries, by which they must have come any other way besides by the Northwest, being for the most part Anthropophagi, or men eaters, would have devoured them, slaine them, or (at the least wise) kept them as wonders for the gaze."23 Nor could they have come from India through the Strait of Magellan, because there a strongly adverse current would prevent their passage eastward from the South Sea. Moreover, being Indians, that- is to say, inhabitants of India, they could not survive the cold of a northeastern route, round Siberia. Finally, the prevailing winds favoured a voyage from the northwest. Thus Gilbert accepted these Indian castaways as proof of the existence of a Northwest Passage. Gilbert's map shows open water north of Labrador and a clear passage to the strait, not named, between America and Asia, the northernmost part of which is named Anian.24 Who were these vagrant Indians of whose repeated fortuitous arrivals we have such ample proof? They must have been either Lapps or Eskimos. The question was discussed in an able manner by Lewis Spence in an Aberdeen newspaper.25 He argues that the wood of the kayak now in the museum at Aberdeen is Scottish fir (Pinus sylvestris) which grows in northern Europe, and that therefore it originated in Finland. But this argument is countered by the fact that the prevailing winds and (22) Quinn, op. cit., vol. i., p. 154. (23) Ibid., vol. i., p. 155. (24) Ibid., vol. i., pp. 149-156, map follows p. 164. (25) Aberdeen, Scotland, Press Journal, July 27, 1922. < f\)[ Terra-Se/ittnO'ioncttts "i\ _• .■ "',' .'L ***- /\ ;' .•-V^a bTcognYu* / / £'a/tCM_- .' *i//LtJslCU * /^.:;o -difo&c^cac " *., ., - -, ff(4/taMd.-~ 0 d/'fri &w6ij/tes. /#/. A >, >> >> ma Jj-.gro-O-O _hK ... s. B h u t. *£ 41 41 s•I••• Baa £ a g a a a t _ j o-s^'S'S-s s-° -° K ■" V ■" ■" ■" *=>=> u4 £iaQ o o _ o a- £<*~ ~ fc ^ ~ O Eh Eh >, ^. >. , CO i CO 1 co I -o | *o I -o S3 « S o) •;« « g a g a £ a o *S =■ *S 9 *S o ^ o -o O £1 "Co « o ^ O g rt g -i B <- ooo CQ tt 00 , 5* a> S* 5* &* i rt "_T ot S oi d id *a S J| "O -g *CI "O >o -_; n fe e id T id id . _ "° -- « 4> _ 4i .„ _. B -1 S " o o I *° t. I'd* i'°** 1*0* 1 g* g S i g _ 1 §_■§ sHVe" «ri 8NW o o o o US CO 00 rH « .3 ~ Jo ~ J, t, J, 3 £ 4> *■■ 1 a s s S SI ft g _ u .2 § _ .2 _ _ h t] E oa Tj £ C9 « »■ 5 o g M » 41 0>O « N .ff • ° o OOO | 1 i 5„ •g S 1 B w w O MS «0 00 ltll if 1 lilt- Is m *_, * " is a « g N g « - g « | o o o i i ! 1 i ( 1 c « i 4 C C s t a J 0 C 1 s 8 2 i ! « ■O B 0) Ji a ix * * s a i o 5 I a s: ] 5 s 1 _ - 0 1 0 0 p 1 c I j g U 4 •a 1 s C PIONEER SURVEYS AND SURVEYORS IN THE FRASER VALLEY. The ordinary person travelling through the Fraser Valley to-day, in an automobile over a paved road, has no idea of the difficulties encountered by the first surveyors in the Valley. Then there were no roads and the whole country was covered by a dense forest of large fir, spruce, and cedar, with a thick undergrowth of various kinds, including devil's-club. The flats were covered with scrub and water, in places 3 feet deep. A surveyor starting to mark out a line had not the slightest idea of what difficulties he would encounter before he arrived at his destination. A number of different systems of survey have been used in the Fraser Valley. The first was division into lots, in which each lot was surveyed independently, with no base-line established. The Royal Engineers did their work in this way. Lots were numbered in the order in which they were surveyed, Groups 1 and 3 being on the north side of the river and Group 2 on the south side. Through some unexplained reason Lots 326 and 329, Group 2, are on the north side of the river. The first few numbers are along the North Road but some of the higher consecutive numbers are miles apart. On July 25, 1859, J. W. Trutch entered into a contract with the Chief Commissioner of Lands and Works to survey a large tract of land into 160-acre allotments by the block and range system. Each block was to be 3 miles square and divided into thirty-six sections of 160 acres each. A section would thus be one-half mile square. The contract provided that the blazing of lines, marking of bearing-trees, and the limit of error were to be the same as were in use in the Oregon and Washington land districts in the United States. The bases for this survey were the Coast meridian, the International Boundary-line, and the first standard parallel, 12 miles north of the boundary-line. The lands subdivided under this system consisted of half a block at Halls Prairie; all the land between the first standard parallel and the Fraser River, west of the Coast meridian; the whole of Lulu Island west of Queens- British Columbia Historical Quarterly, Vol. V., No. 3. 215 216 W. N. Draper. July borough, and some land on Pitt Meadows east of the Coast meridian. As Trutch entered into this contract on July 25, 1859, and signed all the notes on September 30,1859, only two months later, he must have had a number of parties under competent surveyors in the field whose names have been lost. On January 4, 1860, Governor Douglas issued a proclamation giving any British subject the right to enter on and pre-empt any quantity of land, not exceeding 160 acres, by planting a post at one corner and giving a description of the land required to the Chief Commissioner of Lands and Works. The only stipulation was that the shortest side was to be at least two-thirds as long as the longest side. Nothing was said about the direction of the lines. When the land was surveyed, the surveyor started from the post and surveyed according to the record. He did not make any " tie " unless another claim happened to be close by. In the following year this regulation was amended, and it was stipulated that the lines must run to the cardinal points of the compass. Exceptions were permitted if natural features or the limits of previously located claims were used as boundaries. The result of the surveys carried out under these proclamations is that there are a number of irregularly shaped lots, such as Lot 36, Group 1, and surrounding lots in the City of Vancouver; and Lots 15, 16, and 17, Group 2, which make Lot 25 a triangle. These lots are between Annieville and St. Mungo. In 1866 the Chief Commissioner of Lands and Works was empowered to accept surveys described by any meter and bounds that he saw fit. An example of this is Lot 195, Group 1, surrounding Trout Lake, in the City of Vancouver. The " Land Act" of 1873 stipulated that boundary-lines were to be run to the cardinal points of the compass, and that the longest side was to be 1,078 yards or thereabouts and the shortest side was to be 768 yards or thereabouts. In 1874 the township system was introduced. In this system the township was 6 miles square, and divided into thirty-six sections 1 mile square. These in turn were divided into quarter- sections by posts set every one-half mile along the outside boundaries of the sections. No post was set at the centre of the section. 1941 Pioneer Surveys and Surveyors. 217 In the survey of the townships all the scattered lot surveys were linked up. A few new lots were created in cases where the settler had made improvements that proved to be on more than one quarter-section, and also in a few cases to give settlers access to navigable water. The bases of the township survey were the International Boundary and the Coast meridian. In this as in many other changes in the system of survey, most of the work was done before the Act authorizing the change was passed by the Legislature. The earliest land surveyors in the Valley who have left a record of their work were five or six members of the Royal Engineers. Very soon after them came J. W. Trutch, D. G. F. McDonald, and Edgar Dewdney. In 1861 provision was made for the appointment and bonding of seven surveyors, and in June, 1861, three were appointed— Edward Stephens, Alexander Calder, and Walter Moberly. The following were also sworn in, but as they did not furnish security their appointments were held up: J. W. Trutch, I. I. Cochrane, and R. Homfray. Governor Douglas then decided that no more surveyors were required. In 1864 there seems to have been an arrangement under which surveyors were appointed to certain districts. Thus when John A. Fraser, who was a nephew of the explorer Simon Fraser, applied for appointment as a surveyor for the District of Cariboo, the Colonial Secretary, when forwarding the application to Chartres Brew, Acting Chief Commissioner of Lands and Works, mentioned that E. Dewdney was acting in that district. The first surveying done by the Royal Engineers was to lay out a road from their camp at Sapperton to Port Moody. This is now the North Road. After that they surveyed the suburban blocks of the City of New Westminster and nearly all the lots between the Fraser River and Burrard Inlet. These included Stanley Park and Lots 181 to 185, Group 1, now part of the City of Vancouver, which were surveyed by Lance-Corporal George Turner. The Engineers also surveyed a few lots on the south side of the river. The city blocks of New Westminster were surveyed, from Leopold Place to the corner of Arthur Terrace (i.e., from the present Canada Place to the western end of Albert Crescent), 218 W. N. Draper. July by the Royal Engineers. Blocks 7, 29, and 30 were surveyed by E. Dewdney, and all the remainder of the city blocks by D. G. F. McDonald, a Scottish Engineer. On January 1, 1861, Captain R. M. Parsons wrote a long memorandum to Colonel Moody, from which I quote the following extract:— For the survey of preempted lands before all things I imagine it is necessary that persons of strict integrity be employed as it will be very difficult to check their work for a long time to come. They should be men of judgment also and hold a position that will give weight to their opinions for they will have to regulate the rude approximations to boundaries made by the pre- emptors themselves, so as to accord with the existing laws and to endeavor to prevent portions of land between preempted properties being rendered valueless by inconvenient and irregular outlines. He also mentioned the inconvenience caused by having to hire axemen who, if they were Indians, received a rate of pay equal to, and if they were white would receive a rate of pay greater than, the Royal Engineer who was in charge of the party. To-day a surveyor with modern means of transportation can go out and retrace any of the lines run by the early surveyors in the Lower Fraser Valley, do a day's work, and return home at night. In early days, however, when there were no roads, if they finished work at night more than a mile from camp it took too much time walking to and from their work, so camp had to be moved every day or two. Sometimes in good weather a party would take provisions for two or three days with them, and sleep in the open. When the Royal Engineers were laying out the suburban blocks of the City of New Westminster they could lay out the first blocks from their camp at Sapperton, but after these were laid out they had to have a small camp that they could move every few days. For the lots around Burnaby Lake they probably established a camp on the north side of the lake, from which they could by the aid of a boat or canoe survey quite a number of lots. There was only one good camp-site close to the water on Burnaby Lake, and I think that this was used as a semi-permanent camp; for some years ago there were quite a number of English flowers growing there of the same varieties as those growing at the main camp and at Colonel Moody's farm. When J. W. Trutch and Colonel Moody signed the contract in July, 1859, they evidently thought that the distance from the 1941 Pioneer Surveys and Surveyors. 219 International Boundary to the Fraser River was 3 miles longer than it proved to be, as the contract stipulated that the first standard parallel was to be 15 miles north of the boundary-line. As this distance came to the middle of the river, and when extended west would have missed Lulu Island altogether, they changed it to a point 12 miles north of the boundary. J. W. Trutch began his survey of the Coast meridian from the point where the International Boundary cut the shore-line of Semiahmoo Bay, near the present town of Blaine, and ran a line north. He probably had his camp at the mouth of Campbell Creek, as that was the camp of the American party who had been locating the 49th parallel. There were twelve or fifteen houses there that could be used and a road led thence to his starting-point. There was also a trail from there to Langley which would cross his line about a mile from the starting-point, and would be convenient for the survey of Block 1 north, Ranges 1 east and west.* J. W. Trutch ran the Coast meridian 18 miles north. On the way he first met high land covered with a heavy growth of fir, spruce, and cedar; then the Nicomekl Flats, covered with hard- hack and water; then more high land; then the Serpentine Flats, which had more water; then still more high land, and finally the flats on both sides of the Fraser River. In 1873 J. A. Mahood retraced the Coast meridian from the International Boundary to the first standard parallel and, unlike Trutch, he knew just what he was to encounter, as he had Trutch's notes. After the first mile and a half he destroyed all posts that had been set by Trutch and set new posts, making each quarter-section larger than Trutch had made them, with the result that when he arrived at the first standard parallel he was some 4 chains short. This is accounted for by his keeping his chain too long. While a chain is theoretically 66 feet long, in practice the old link-chain that was used in those days had a thousand wearing surfaces, and the links would stretch; and unless it was checked * See Trutch's Field Notes for the survey of Block 1 north, Range 1 west, New Westminster District. I have seen the old trail to Langley at a number of points between the mouth of Campbell Creek and Langley. 220 W. N. Draper. every day and corrected the sections would not measure the same as they do now with a steel tape. Mahood seems to have kept his chain consistently long in order to give each quarter-section 160 acres after the roads were taken off. Theoretically they should be 160 acres before the roads are taken off. Some of the other early surveyors were not as careful as Trutch and Mahood, so their chainage does not prove as satisfactory to the modern surveyors. The description of the difficulties met with in surveying the Coast meridian are sufficient to show what was encountered by the other surveyors. They never knew what they would meet before they reached the end of their line, and transportation presented the same troublesome problem. And now, to conclude, I may note an amusing experience of my own, which illustrates the way in which surveyors sometimes face big and little difficulties. Some years ago, while working on Pitt Meadows, when the Fraser was in flood, we had to wade in water up to our waists all day long. When we left our camp, which was on dry land, the men never hesitated for a moment but plunged into the water as soon as they came to it. After finishing our work there we moved to the Dry Belt, and the same men would construct a bridge to cross a stream 3 inches deep and 10 feet wide, in order to avoid getting their feet wet! W. N. Draper. New Westminster, B.C. TWO NARRATIVES OF THE FRASER RIVER GOLD-RUSH. I. Extracts from Ein Ausflug nach Britisch-Columbien im Jahre 1858, by Dr. Carl Friesach. [An Excursion through British Columbia in the year 1858; reprinted from the communications of the Philosophical Society, Gratz, 1875.] I purchased this pamphlet some twenty-five years ago; not that I could read it, for I have no knowledge of the German language, but any one could see from the title-page that it had something to do with the year of the first gold-rush to British Columbia, and when translated might be of interest. My friend E. E. Delavault, then Instructor of French at the University of British Columbia, and now Juge de Paix at Grandvilliers, Oise, France, who had a good knowledge of German, was good enough to translate it for me. As I had expected, the translation revealed that the pamphlet contained an interesting sketch of life in this Province at the time of Dr. Friesach's visit. Dr. Isabel Maclnnes, Associate Professor of German at the University of British Columbia, has been kind enough to revise the translation, and has made many valuable suggestions. Thanks to Mr. Stephen Raymer, formerly Vice-Consul for Serbia in Vancouver, it has been possible to obtain some information about the author. Carl Friesach was born in Vienna in 1821. In 1846 he received the degree of Doctor of Laws. In 1848-50 he took part in the Austro-Italian war as a member of the Austrian staff, with the rank of Captain. In 1852 he became Professor of Mathematics in the Nautical School at Trieste. He left Trieste in 1856 and travelled for five years, visiting England, North and South America, and the South Seas. He was in the United States in 1858, and hearing of the discovery of gold on the Fraser River he decided to visit the mines. In 1867 he became " Privat Docent" in the University of Gratz, in Styria, and in 1869 was appointed Professor Extraordinary for Astronomic and Geographic Mathematics. In 1870 he became Chief of the Observatory of Austria, a position he held for eighteen years, retiring in 1888. He died in Gratz on July 10, 1891. British Columbia Historical Quarterly, Vol. V., No. 3. 221 222 Gold-rush Narratives. July Much of Dr. Friesach's narrative is devoted to a description of matters he saw in Washington and Oregon, and to the general history and geography of the Pacific Northwest. Little would be gained by reprinting these pages, as the material is available elsewhere. On the other hand, descriptions of life among the miners on the Fraser River in 1858 are rare, and the highlights of Friesach's account of his visit to the diggings will be of interest and value to students. Robie L. Reid. Vancouver, B.C. In the course of his travels around the world Dr. Friesach reached the little city of Portland, Oregon, on August 26, 1858, intending to proceed thence to California. Upon his arrival, however, he " found the whole population in the greatest state of excitement on account of the news of the discovery of goldfields on the Fraser River; it was the only topic of conversation in the whole town." Turning aside in his travels, Friesach determined to " investigate the gold washings." From Portland he went overland to Olympia, and from there to Victoria, by way of Whatcom (now part of Bellingham) and Semiahmoo. The crossing from Semiahmoo took about ten hours, although the distance was only some 34 nautical miles. He arrived in Victoria in the early hours of the morning of September 6. His impression of the town follows:— We put up at the Hotel de France, a building not yet completed, and which provided so little accommodation that we had to leave the greater part of our baggage in the neighbouring store. After an excellent breakfast, which somewhat compensated for the poor accommodation, I took a walk through the town. Victoria which had in the course of the year 1858 sprung up like the aforenamed towns from a small Hudson's Bay Post to the dignity of a small town, had a population of about one thousand at this time. . . . The more active part of the town lies in the neighbourhood of the harbour, to which three streets lead. The houses, with one exception, are built of wood and in such a flimsy manner that a hurricane would certainly carry the whole town away. The streets are not paved and are very muddy in rainy weather. At the South end of the town opposite the Hotel de France, lies the Hudson's Bay Company's fort, which is surrounded by a palisade enclosing also a warehouse. Further inland the town is mostly made up of tents. In the harbour were three wooden wharves built by merchants of the town who charge a toll to the ships which tie up to them. 1941 Gold-rush Narratives. 223 In Victoria Friesach met a French merchant, with whom he had travelled from Panama to San Francisco, who was going to Fort Yale the next morning, to establish a general store there. He asked Friesach to go with him, and the invitation was accepted. They sailed from Victoria at daybreak on September 7, in the ill-fated steamer Seabird, and Friesach gives a graphic account of her destruction by fire:— Just as the breakfast bell was sounding the cabin was suddenly filled with choking smoke. Everybody rushed on deck in order to ascertain the cause; the smoke seemed to issue from the lower part of the vessel, but when the crew raised a hatchway in the bow of the main deck high flames and a cloud of thick black smoke suddenly burst forth. The fire extinguishers proved themselves absolutely inadequate to cope with the situation and in the first moments of panic it seemed that there was no hope of saving the vessel. A number of the passengers made a rush for the two lifeboats, of which only one was seaworthy, the other showing a hole the size of a child's head. After a while, however, the pilot was able to restore some order, partly by persuasion and partly by threatening the crowd with his revolver. On the other hand the proximity of land, only a few miles away, helped to revive the courage of the terrified passengers. As soon as I realized the danger, I hurried to my cabin to rescue my belongings. It was high time to do this for the smoke was almost unendurable and the burning wood crackled so threateningly that it seemed as if the cabins and decks must collapse at any moment. I hastily buckled on my arms, revolver, and hunting knife, and hung over my shoulder my knapsack, which contained some linen, my diary, and my two most precious possessions, a letter of credit and pocket chronometer. Then I endeavoured to get outside where I should not smother in the smoke, which I did on a kind of gangway which was in the lee of the wind. The boat was travelling at top speed. The engineer had long ago been compelled to leave his post, and the engine left to itself worked as frantically as if it were really concerned with our rescue. It was most fortunate that the pilot was able to remain at his post where he was protected by the pilot house, the glass panes of which, although cracked by the heat, did not fall in. Finally, at half past seven, pot quite fifteen minutes after the discovery of the fire, the doomed ship ran upon a sand bar which saved it from being shattered to pieces; as luck would have it she came broadside on against a natural pier of rock which was as good as a landing stage. The spot was part of a small uninhabited, rocky island [Discovery Island]. There were two women and a child on board who were quickly rowed to land in the lifeboat—the other passengers were supposed to look after themselves. This was not without difficulty. As all the passengers stood on the port side when she struck, it was no light matter to get to the starboard side through the flames and smoke, as the ship was lying with 224 Gold-rush Narratives. July her starboard side to the land. A number jumped into the water and tried to swim to the land. I saw my two friends climbing on the hurricane deck in a part which had not yet been reached by the fire, and I followed them. In this way we reached the lee side without difficulty, and letting myself down with my hands from the railing I reached the rock by a good-sized jump. It was high time that we did so, as we could not have remained on board another three minutes. We had barely reached a place of safety when the whole ship burst into flames. As the sides fell in we could see through the flames, the engines still working and the red-hot boiler. A few ran away, fearing an explosion of the boiler, but this did not occur. As the fire reached the cabins a regular musketry fire was heard from the many rifles which had been left there. At eight o'clock the whole ship was burned to the water line. It is a wonder that only two lives were lost in this disaster. It was never known whether the missing men found their death in the flames or in the waves. A horse which had been tied in the bow of the main deck was also lost when the deck fell in. A quantity of provisions and articles of furniture was saved, among these a mirror which had already been through two wrecks; but the provisions and stores which were on the lower decks were lost in the flames. Our one good lifeboat was ordered to Victoria with the pilot and a few of the sailors in order to provide the means of our returning to civilization. Fortunately the weather was fine and it was possible the journey might be made in six hours. When I recovered from the joy of my escape, I saw that it was inadvisable to spend a cold night in the open air in my thin summer clothes. In my haste I had left a bundle behind me on a bench in the dining room of the ship which contained warm winter clothing, but I found consolation in the thought that the loss would be easy to replace when we reached the Fraser. I was pleasantly surprised when I found the missing bundle among other parcels which were heaped along the shore. As it happened, I was the only one of the entire company who had not suffered any loss. Fortunately the smoke from the burning Seabird had been sighted from the steamer Wilson G. Hunt, which hastened to the scene and took most of the survivors on to Fort Langley. Friesach's narrative continues:— We moved at once on board the S.S. Umatilla, which was due to sail for Fort Hope in the early hours of the morning. Unfortunately the boat was not comfortably fitted up. It did not contain any cabins and even mattresses and blankets were lacking; the floor of the saloon was so covered with coal dust that it was impossible to lie down without getting very dirty. Moreover the passengers, who were mostly miners, were so numerous that it was difficult to find sleeping room. Finally 1941 Gold-rush Narratives. 225 two of us lay down on the dining table, another under it. Another, too fastidious in the matter of cleanliness, spent the whole night sitting on a bench. . . . The next morning we were awakened early by the noise of the machinery, but our departure was postponed until 8 a.m. by a thick fog which perceptibly lowered the temperature. When the fog lifted we had a wonderful panorama of the Cascade mountains [which appeared to be] scarcely a half mile distant with their strange jagged peaks and the ice-clad Mount Baker. We reached the mountains about ten o'clock, and from that time on we travelled through the most wonderful mountain landscape. The river runs mostly through a double abrupt wall more than a thousand feet high and follows a tortuous course through the rocks. The mountains covered with tall forests frequently tower up above snowline and on the higher peaks are glaciers, some of which run down in ravines almost to the river. We covered only a small distance during the afternoon on account of the swift current which got stronger as we neared our goal. In the evening we landed at a point where the river runs into a half circle, opposite a magnificent glacier, and made fast for the night. Some of the passengers had the gold fever so badly that they felt they must search the sands on the shore, but were disappointed when they did not find the smallest dust in their pan. They were still busy washing the sand when a few Indians came down stream in canoes, and in spite of the cold wind their only clothing was a woollen blanket which sometimes fell from their shoulders with the exertion of paddling. On September 9 we started at dawn. It was a cold and clear morning. Unfortunately we were prevented from enjoying the beautiful landscape by a strong wind, which, blowing in the direction of our course, caused the sparks from the smokestack to fall all about us, burning holes in our hats and clothes. The shores began to show some animation. Indian wigwams were alternating with the tents of the miners, of whom we encountered quite a number on the sand banks. At 8 a.m. we found ourselves only 200 feet distant from the landing at Fort Hope, but the current was so strong that our ship took a full half hour to reach the landing. Fort Hope is a tent city sheltering a few hundred oh the left bank of the Fraser. . . . The valley is thickly wooded and is watered by two creeks which flow into the Fraser near the village. There is a Hudson Bay Company's Fort near the village. Sir James Douglas, Governor of Vancouver Island, was staying there at the time, during a tour of inspection of the upper Fraser Valley. Although neither the Hunt nor the Umatilla belonged to the Company owning the ill-fated Seabird, yet the shipwrecked passengers were all transported to Fort Hope for the tickets bought in Victoria. In such things the travelling public in America is very considerately treated. Near-by is an important Indian settlement. 226 Gold-rush Narratives. July As soon as we landed we went to pay our respects to the Governor. When he heard that we could only spend three or four days on our trip, he recommended us to visit Fort Yale and, if possible, to go as far as the Grand Canyon, and he gave us a letter of introduction to the officer commanding at the Fort. We immediately prepared to proceed on our trip. We had been advised to use an Indian canoe going up-stream, because the Indians were the most reliable guides on account of their knowledge of the river and their experience in canoe work. We were, however, unable to secure Indian guides and had to be satisfied with American rivermen. The boat could comfortably seat 8-10 people, and there were, including the two boatmen, only six of us, but a forge-bellows, which had to be taken to Fort Yale, took up most of the room in the boat. At first we rowed along the left bank, where the current was not so strong, and fair progress made during the first hour. . . . We soon reached a bend of the river where the current was so strong that oars were useless, and part of the company were compelled to disembark and tow the canoe by a rope, while others stayed in the canoe to prevent it from being damaged by the submerged rocks. . . . On arriving at Fort Yale ... we went to the village to call on the officer in command . . . [who] after perusing the letter of introduction given us by the Governor, promised to let us have some Indian guides as soon as possible who would take us up the river to the Canyon. . . . Our urgent need for food induced us to cut the interview short. As we wandered among the tents we noticed a large cabin, displaying the sign, " American Kestaurant." The only table was occupied by three wild-looking men, one of whom was recognized by one of my friends as " Captain Pocahontas." In spite of our repugnance, we were compelled to sit at the table, and while awaiting our food, they talked with us and invited us to drink with them, but we refused on the pretext that we drank nothing but water. They were quite insulted at our refusal, and it looked as if we were going to be mixed up in a quarrel; but we remained calm and casually showed our weapons, and perhaps, bocause they had more enemies than friends among the bystanders, they departed, swearing as they went. The Gold Rush had attracted a large number of adventurers of the worst kind, and a number of bad characters whom the vigilance committee of San Francisco had sent away were to be found at Fort Yale in 1856 tsic; 1858]. . . . Though our meal consisted only of old fish, dried salmon, and almost undrinkable coffee, we had to pay several dollars for it; nevertheless we enjoyed it after the hard day's work. We then took a stroll around the camp, in the course of which we noticed a wonderful display of insects which decorated the walls of the tents. The place showed, at 1941 Gold-rush Narratives. 227 that time, great animation and might have contained three thousand inhabitants. The majority of these lived in tents, a few only in frame cabins. It would have been difficult to find in one place a greater mixture of different nationalities. Americans were undoubtedly in the majority —California, especially had sent a large contingent. Then followed Germans, French, and Chinese. Next came Italians, Spaniards, Poles, etc. The feminine population consisted of only six. Many Indians lived in the neighbourhood, who on the whole were on friendly footing with the Whites. In spite of the rough life and the privations arising from such a life in a new land, almost all had a healthy and happy appearance. The tents stood in groups, partly on the river bank and partly in the bush. The river, which here flows between a double wall of very high and rugged mountains, runs with many windings and whirlpools and makes navigation very dangerous. Hardly a day passes without some life being lost in the strong current. . . . As we waited for the Indian guides we resolved to visit Hill's Bar. A canoe took us across the river, and we reached the camp by a three-quarter hour walk along the bank. We found the river bank covered with miners for the distance of over a mile. Some of them were digging in the sand, others working at their rockers, others at their sluices. A sluice is a trough made of thin boards, a klafter* or so long, built on a slight incline; the gold-bearing sand is piled up at the end of the trough and is slowly washed down with the water, and the particles of gold contained in the sand are deposited in the bottom of the trough where they are retained by various devices. These consist mostly of a number of asperities and little hollows, amalgamated copper plates, and little depressions filled with quicksilver. When a certain amount of sand has been washed down the trough the bottom is carefully searched for gold particles, the quicksilver is distilled in iron retorts, the gold remaining in the vessel in the form of a shapeless mass called granulation. Experience has shown that this process derives a much larger quantity of gold than the rocker. However, the establishment of a sluice entails quite an expense; small partnerships, of six or eight partners, being generally formed to put one up. I was astonished at the enormous amount of gold which was found at Hill's Bar. Nearly all of those we spoke to reported very satisfactory results. A large number considered $30 per day an average production and assured us that they had taken as much as $80 to $100 on exceptionally good days. However, there are others who obtain only $4 to $5 a day, a few feet away from the lucky ones. There is hardly a more hazardous form of work than gold washing. The test of the pan often gives a good result when the soil is later on found to be hardly worth working. . . . After we had watched the miners for about an hour we purchased a small quantity of gold dust for a souvenir, and returned to Fort Yale, * A German measure of 2.07 yards. 6 228 Gold-rush Narratives. July pleased to have seen with our own eyes the wonderful gold mining which was considered by many in San Francisco to be a fable. At Yale, Friesach and his friend hired a canoe which took them, after an exciting trip down the river, to Fort Hope. There he boarded the steamer Maria for Fort Langley; and as she was proceeding thence to Port Douglas, at the head of Harrison Lake, he seized the opportunity to visit that settlement. From Langley he returned to Victoria in the Wilson G. Hunt, arriving on September 25. One last incident is of interest:— Before leaving Victoria I once more had difficulty in getting the necessary money for my return, for the reason that not one of the merchants could spare me the sum of fifty dollars, and the gold dust offered me was of no use to me. The secretary of the Governor came to my rescue at last, and sent me to the Hudson's Bay Company. The all-powerful Company having solved his financial difficulty, Friesach sailed in the Pacific for San Francisco on October 8,1858. II. Letter from Charles Major, dated Fort Hope, September 20, 1859. Some years ago Dr. W. N. Sage, Head of the Department of History in the University of British Columbia, had occasion to consult the file of the Toronto Daily Globe for the year 1860. In the first issue he found the following letter, in which Charles Major describes conditions in the Fraser River goldfields as they existed in September, 1859. The account is interesting because it pictures the state of affairs when the rush had fallen to a low and discouraging level. Only a matter of weeks after the letter was written, prospectors made promising discoveries in the Cariboo country, far to the north; and before many months had passed it became evident that the tide of fortune had indeed turned and that a new goldfieH of fabulous richness had been uncovered. The author's hearty denunciation of life and prospects in British Columbia is amusing, for he was destined to become one of the Province's leading citizens. Charles George Major was born in Ontario in 1839. After a brief schooling he became an apprentice in a dry-goods business conducted by one John Robson (the future Premier of British Columbia) and his brother. Attracted by the gold excitement of 1858, young Major set out 1941 Gold-rush Narratives. 229 for the mines, and arrived in New Westminster on June 1, 1859. In 1860 he and John Robson, who had also found his way to British Columbia, cleared a large part of the site of the city. In 1862 Major went to Cariboo, where he was employed by an express company. He drove the first four-horse stage through the Fraser Canyon on the new road to Cariboo in March, 1864. The same year he returned to New Westminster, where he established a business and lived the remainder of his long life. He died in 1929. W. K. L. [From The Daily Globe, Toronto, Canada West, January 2, I860.] NEWS FROM BRITISH COLUMBIA. (From the Sarnia Observer.) The following letter recently received by a person in this neighborhood, from the writer who is at present in British Columbia, was handed to us for perusal. As it contains much valuable and reliable information in reference to the country, we requested permission to publish it, which was at once granted. We therefore lay the most important portions of the letter before our readers, without further apology, satisfied that it will be read with interest by all:— Fort Hope, Frazer River Sept. 20th, 1859 Dear Sir:—I am afraid you will think I had forgot my promise,—but I wanted to know something about the country before writing to you. In the first place, do not think that I have taken a dislike to the country because I am not making money; the dislike is general all over the country. To give you anything like a correct idea of it would take more paper than I have small change to purchase, and more time than I could spare, and then it would only be commenced. The country is not what it was represented to be. There is no farming land in British Columbia, as far as I can learn, except a very small portion joining Washington Territory, and on Vancouver's Island, where there is one valley of 20,000 acres; but that cannot be sold until Col. Moody's friends come out from the old country, and get what they want. It never can be a place, because there is nothing to support it, except the mines, and just as soon as they are done the place goes down completely, for there is absolutely nothing to keep it up; and I tell you the truth the mines are falling off very fast. There is nothing in this country but mines—and very small pay for that; they are you may say, used up. We have been making two, three and four dollars per day, but it would not last more than two or three days; and so you would 230 Gold-rush Narratives. July spend that before you would find more. There has been great excitement about Fort Alexander, three hundred miles above this, and also about Queen Charlotte's Island. They have both turned out another humbug like this place. A party arrived here yesterday from Alexander, and they are a pitiful looking lot. They are what the Yankees call dead broke. They have been six hundred miles up the river. When they got down here they had no shoes to their feet. Some had pieces of shirt and trowsers, but even these were pinned together with small sharp sticks; and some had the rim of an old hat, and some the crown. They had nothing to eat for one week, and not one cent in money. This is gold mining for you! I expect the Frazer River fever has cooled down by this time, at least I hope so; for I do pity the poor wretches that come out here to beg. They can do that at home; as for making money, that is out of the question. Since we came here (to use the miners' term,) we have been making grub; and those who can do that, think they are doing well. If there are any making arrangements to come to this place, let them take a fool's advice and stay at home. I would just about as soon hear that anyone belonging to me was dead, as to hear they had started to come here. They say it wants a man with capital to make money here; but a man with money in Canada will double it quicker than he will here. And if I, or any other, was to work as hard and leave [live] as meanly, I could make more money in Canada than I can here. Since we have been on the River we have worked from half-past two and three o'clock in the morning till nine and ten o'clock at night, (you can see the sun twenty hours out of the twenty-four in the summer season.) —and lived on beans! If that is not working, I don't know what it is. Besides this you go home to your shanty at night, tired and wet, and have to cook your beans before you can eat them. And what is this all for? For gold of course; but when you wash up at night, you may realize 50 cents, perhaps $1. There have been some rich spots struck on this river, but they were very scarce, and they are all worked out; and the miners are leaving the river every day, satisfied there is nothing to be made. But now that I am in the country I will remain for a year or so, and if nothing better turns up by that time, I think I will be perfectly satisfied. I have met with some that I was acquainted with, and it is amusing to see those who felt themselves a little better than their neighbors at home, come here and get out of money, and have to take the pick and shovel, perhaps to drag firewood out of the woods and sell it, or make pack-mules of themselves to get a living. I do not mean to say that it is so all over the Colony, but it is from one end of Fraser River to the other. I dare anyone to contradict what I say; and I have good reason to believe it is as bad all over the country. I saw a patch of oats here the other day. They were out in head, only four inches in height, yellow as ochre, and not thick enough on the ground to be neighbours. Vegetables and other things are as poor in the proportion; 1941 Gold-rush Narratives. 231 and as for the climate, it is just as changeable as in Canada, if not more so. I can't say much about the climate on Vancouver's Island, but I think it is rather better. I met T.G., the carpenter, from Sarnia, who left there about a year ago. He went round the Horn, and he was ten months and fifteen days in coming here. He is cutting saw logs making a little over grub. He says he is going to write to the Sarnia Observer, and give this place a cutting up! There are a great many Canadians here, and they would be glad to work for their board. A man could not hire out to work a day if he was starving. I have seen some parties from California; they say times are very hard there. There are just three in our party now, H. H., J. R., and myself. There were two of the H's; one was taken sick and had to leave the river; he is in Victoria, and is quite recovered again; has been there two months, and has not got a day's work yet. I was very sick myself when I just came here, but am quite healthy now, and so fat I can hardly see to write. The rest are quite well. The Indians are not very troublesome at the mines; they are kept down pretty well. They are very numerous here and on the Island, the lowest degraded set of creatures I ever saw. It is estimated that the number of miners who make over wages, is one in five hundred; and the number that do well in the mines is one in a thousand. So you see it is a very small proportion. If you know anyone that wants to spend money, why, this is just the place. Anyone bringing a family here would require a small fortune to support them in this horrible place, hemmed in by mountains on all sides, and these covered with snow all the year. I have lived in a tent since I came up the river, and I have to lie on the ground before the fire and write; it gives a very poor light, so excuse the writing. It has been raining here steady one week, and the mountains are all covered with snow; for when it rains here it is snowing upon the mountains. It is a wild looking place. You will please tell our folks you hear from me, and that we are all well. I will write to some of them in about two weeks or so. I have wrote five letters already, but I have not heard from any of them; so many letters go astray in coming here and going from this place, that perhaps they do not get them at all. Give my respects to old friends, and tell them to be contented and stay at home. I remain, yours truly CHARLES MAJOR. NOTES AND COMMENTS. BRITISH COLUMBIA HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION. A special general meeting of the Association was held in the Provincial Library, Victoria, on the evening of May 9, 1941. The President, Mr. Kenneth A. Waites, presided. The principal business of the evening was the consideration of the proposed amendments to the constitution, which had been circulated previously to members. Each amendment was explained and discussed in turn, and all were passed, with minor changes in phrasing. For the information and convenience of members the constitution, as amended and approved by the meeting, will be printed complete in the next issue of the Quarterly. Victoria Section. Establishment of the salmon-canning industry on Rivers Inlet and the Skeena fifty years ago was reviewed by Mr. George Simpson McTavish, retired Hudson's Bay Company official and pioneer salmon-canner, in an address delivered at the meeting of the Section held in the Provincial Library on April 7. Mr. McTavish was closely associated with the development of the industry in its early stages. He described in detail the methods used when canning was carried on largely by hand-labour, from the catching of the fish to the hand-soldering of the cans. The first important change in methods was the invention of the " iron chink " to clean the fish. Since then various other machines have been introduced, and to-day the human hand hardly ever touches the fish. Modern fishing methods were depicted in an interesting motion picture shown and explained by Mr. George J. Alexander, Deputy Commissioner of Fisheries for British Columbia. The film covered the entire salmon-packing industry, from the spawning-grounds to the completed pack, including various methods of catching the fish, and every phase of canning. In the course of his address Mr. McTavish told how the old Hudson's Bay traders practically lived on pemmican, a highly concentrated food; and suggested that Canada might ship pemmican to England, as a last resort. One ship loaded with pemmican would carry as much food value as twenty ships with ordinary food products. Yukon: The Ways In was the title of the interesting paper read to the Section by Major H. T. Nation at the meeting held in the Provincial Library on May 9. Major Nation described each of the travel routes leading to the Yukon, and then traced in some detail the history of each, both before and during the period of the great rush to the Klondike. Incidentally, he gave much information about the Yukon of our own day. Mining, fur-trading, and tourist travel are the chief activities of the area. Contrary to the general impression, which pictures the Yukon as a frozen wilderness, a wide variety of garden products and grains can be grown. The country is well British Columbia Historical Quarterly, VoL V., No. 3. 233 234 Notes and Comments. July forested, although it is unusual to find trees over 20 inches in diameter. Temperatures range from 60 degrees below to 110 degrees above zero. There are 1,250 miles of connected waterways in the Yukon, navigable by stern- wheel steamers, and the construction of a railway from Skagway to White- horse has made the Yukon plateau easily accessible. Nevertheless, the population is still so small that it amounts to only one seven-hundredth of that of the Dominion, and hitherto it has not been tabulated in a separate census return—a state of affairs which contrasts sharply with the territory's area of 207,000 square miles, which is twice that of the British Isles. Major Nation paid a generous tribute to the work of Dr. G. M. Dawson, of the Dominion Geological Survey, and to earlier explorers, notably men of the Hudson's Bay Company, for their work in the Yukon. Mrs. Curtis Sampson, President of the Section, presided and introduced the speaker, who was thanked on behalf of the Association by the retired Chief Justice of British Columbia, the Hon. Archer Martin. On the evening of June 16, Mr. Willard E. Ireland, Provincial Archivist, addressed a meeting of the Section on Pre-C on federation Defence Problems of the Pacific Colonies. Mr. Ireland pointed out that British colonial activity in the Pacific Northwest was the direct result of the Oregon " war panic " of 1845-46. Prior to that time British interests in the region had been maintained by the Hudson's Bay Company; but the influx of American settlers and the arousing of American public opinion made more decisive action necessary. In 1845, Lieutenant William Peel, R.N., son of Sir Robert Peel, visited and reported upon the situation in the Columbia, and there met Lieutenants Warre and Vavasour, of the Royal Engineers, who had been sent overland from Canada on a military reconnaissance. Their reports convinced the British Government of the impossibility of holding the Columbia River as a boundary-line. The Indians were not the sole defence problem on the Pacific Coast. The threat of American filibustering activity in the Queen Charlotte Islands became acute in 1851-52. The Crimean War found the Colony of Vancouver Island completely defenceless in 1854, and while no effort was made to raise a militia the small screw steamer Otter was armed and manned. The outbreak of the American Civil War temporarily increased British interest in Pacific defence. Equipment was sent out from England and volunteer forces were raised, but once the Trent crisis subsided the British Government appeared to have lost interest, as was suggested by the withdrawal from British Columbia of the Royal Engineers in 1863. From 1867 onward the whole defence issue became comparatively insignificant. British policy was formulated more with an eye to the future status of the newly organized Canadian Confederation than to the purely local issues. Mr. Ireland's paper, which was prepared originally to be read before the annual meeting of the Canadian Historical Association in Kingston, in May, will be printed in the forthcoming volume of the proceedings of that society. 1941 Notes and Comments. 235 Vancouver Section. The many members who attended the meeting of the Section held in the Hotel Grosvenor on April 28 enjoyed a most interesting address by Mr. B. A. McKelvie on Facts and Fancies of British Columbia's Early History. Mr. McKelvie believes that North America was discovered by castaways and explorers from Asia, a thousand years before Columbus crossed the Atlantic, and he devoted much of his fascinating talk to a discussion of some of the manuscripts supporting this contention which have been discovered in the Chinese archives. These indicate that the Chinese visited the Pacific Coast frequently during the years A.D. 458-566. Mr. McKelvie has had new translations made of certain passages and he feels that these new versions clear up certain difficulties, and in so doing go far to establish the authenticity of the originals. He illustrated his point by describing one passage in some detail. As previously translated it seemed to make no sense at all, yet careful examination and interpretation of its idioms and phraseology revealed that it was a description of one phase of the process by which the Indians extracted oil from the oolachan. Turning to a later period, Mr. McKelvie reviewed certain evidence which suggests that Juan de Fuca may after all have been a real person. If not, it would seem to be a singular coincidence that Juan de Fuca's account of thcapproach to the strait which now bears his name agrees so completely with the physical aspect of the entrance as it is seen from an approaching vessel. SIMILKAMEEN HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION. The regular quarterly meeting of the Association was held on April 25. After the routine business there was considerable discussion of the paper on The Geographical and Geological Features of the Similkameen Valley, which Mr. C. R. Mattice had read at the previous meeting. Another subject discussed was the desirability of keeping a record of the local war effort. In addition to lists of men who had been accepted for active service it was felt that account should be taken of the many local activities which, in sum, make so important a contribution to the effort of the nation as a whole. Rev. J. C. Goodfellow then read the late Robert Stevenson's account of The Rose Expedition of 1862, and this was followed by a discussion in which all present took part. [J. C. Goodfellow, Secretary.] GRADUATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY. The final meeting of the year was held at the home of Dr. W. Kaye Lamb on the evening of May 22. The programme—which was interrupted by Vancouver's first test " blackout "—took the form of a round-table discussion of the topic: " What hope is there for rational reconstruction after the war? " Mr. Bob McKenzie, Mr. William Stirling, and Mr. Archie McCauley were the discussion leaders. 236 Notes and Comments. The following officers were elected for the year 1941-42:— Honorary President Dr. W. Kaye Lamb. Staff Representative Dr. W. N. Sage. President Mr. Ludlow Beamish. Vice-President Mr. John Meredith. Treasurer Mr. Vernon Hill. Recording Secretary. Miss Patricia Campbell. Corresponding Secretary. Mrs. P. Frith. Past President Mr. R. J. Boroughs. The Book Prize offered by the Society and awarded annually to the student leading the graduating class of the University of British Columbia in history was won by Mr. Harry Laronde, in May, 1941. CONTRIBUTORS TO THIS ISSUE. T. A. Rickard, D.Sc, A.R.S.M., has had a distinguished career as a mining engineer, editor, and writer. He is the author of Man and Metals and many other books. He is a Past President of the British Columbia Historical Association and a frequent contributor to this Quarterly. Judge F. W. Howay, LL.D., F.R.S.C, is the author, with the late E. O. S. Scholefield, of British Columbia from the Earliest Times to the Present, the standard history of the Province. His many books and articles are well known, and he is the acknowledged authority in the field. William N. Draper, B.C.L.S., has lived in British Columbia since 1877, and is one of the pioneer land surveyors of the Province. He is a member of the Historical Committee of the Corporation of British Columbia Land Surveyors, whose collection of records, historical memoranda, and photographs has been deposited in the Provincial Archives. F. W. Laing was for many years Secretary to the Minister of Agriculture of British Columbia. Since his retirement he has compiled a monumental tabulation of early land pre-emptions and grants on the Mainland. Noting that these contained numerous references to the location of flour- mills, Mr. Laing listed the entries and then turned to other sources to complete the story of the flour-milling industry. The present article is the result Ronald Todd, B.A., B.L.S., is Librarian in charge of the Northwest Collection of the University of Washington Library, Seattle. THE NORTHWEST BOOKSHELF. The Gold Rushes. By W. P. Morrell. (The Pioneer Histories.) London: Adam and Charles Black, 1940. Pp. xi., 427. Maps. $3. This is a scholarly book; the numerous references and the ample bibliography indicate a wide range of reading and careful research. It is also an interesting book. To any mining engineer, and to the larger public participating in mining speculation, the story of the gold-rushes is a tale that they will read with sympathetic understanding. The author will clarify their understanding of the subject The first two chapters deal with regions not well known to most of us, particularly Brazil. In that country the mining of gold began with a discovery in Sao Paulo in 1560, but no operations of more than local importance are recorded until 1697, when negro slaves were employed at the alluvial mines. There was a rush from Portugal to the mines in Sao Paulo. The introduction of the batea, for washing gold-bearing gravel, is credited to the West African negroes. The author traces the vicissitudes of the gold- mining industry and recounts the troubles of the Government in its efforts to collect the royalty of one-fifth claimed by the Portuguese king. Enforcement proved difficult, so a capitation tax was imposed. The gold-rushes, however, failed to found any stable industrial centres within the interior of Brazil. " The coastal cities," says our author, " and Rio de Janeiro in particular, grew rich through the supply of the spendthrift mineiros: the centre of gravity of Brazil shifted to the south and the seat of government was moved from Bahia to Rio in 1763. The mines were largely responsible for the increase of the population of Brazil from perhaps 300,000 at the beginning to over two and a half million at the end of the eighteenth century, for they had led to an influx of immigrants from Portugal and an importation of hundreds of thousands of slaves from Africa—thereby however confirming the dependence of the Brazilian economy upon slave labour." Next we come to Siberia. In that region, as in British Columbia, the search for furs preceded the seeking for gold. Peter the Great sought to encourage mining in Siberia, but not until 1829 was there much activity. Alluvial deposits were discovered in the Ural range in 1823, and six years later forty small mines were productive. The manual labour was done by serfs and by criminals. In this respect the first Russian gold-mines resembled those of Brazil. Ekaterinburg was the centre of the mining industry. Richer discoveries were made in the Altai Mountains in 1828, 1830, and 1832. The ground was frozen and the gravel had to be thawed, as in the Klondike district, before it could be washed to extract the gold. The proprietors worked their men hard, fifteen hours per day; while themselves indulging in riotous living. In a country so little organized, the effects of gold-mining were local. The gold-workings of the Yenisei and the Lena proved more important, especially in benefiting the finances of the Govern- British Columbia Historical Quarterly, Vol. V., No. 8. 237 238 The Northwest Bookshelf. July ment Life at the mines was hard and crude. Relations of employers with the workmen were bad. Methods of operation were inefficient. Improvement came with the completion of the Trans-Siberian Railway and the introduction of foreign experts. The author states that " Stalin's imagination was fired by reading about the California rush " and that the Soviet Government since 1933 " inaugurated a whole series of new rushes, which have raised Siberia to the second place in the world's gold production." He gives John D. Littlepage's book In Search of Soviet Gold as his source of information, but he does not quote him. I shall do so. Stalin became impressed with the fact that migrations of population were caused by gold excitements, and he wanted to divert Russian population into Siberia. Littlepage says (p. 26): " In some way not publicly explained, he [Stalin] became interested in the subject of the 1849 gold rush to California and began to read every book he could get on the subject. Among others, he read ' Sutter's Gold,' written a year or so previously by a French writer named Blaise Cendrars, a book which draws a vivid picture of the gold rush. He also read most of the writings of Bret Harte, and a history of California during and after the period of the gold rush by T. E. Rickard." This surely is a queer assortment of books for an economist to read, and the reviewer, as the author of A History of American Mining, is amused to find his own book mentioned in such a context. Joseph Stalin will be able soon to decide whether wars or gold-rushes cause a greater migration of peoples. The greatest of all gold-rushes, in its extent and its immediate consequences, was that to California in 1849. The author precedes his account by recording the earlier stampede to northern Georgia in 1829. This is important historically because it involved a clash with Indian rights to the land, and also because it gave useful experience to many of the men that went to California soon after Marshall's discovery in 1848. That is an old story, but the author revives our interest by his comment, recognizing the democratic instincts of the adventurers, mostly Americans, and their successful efforts to organize their mining camps in the Sierra Nevada. " If later," he says, " the courts, and the United States itself, recognized the customs of the miners as valid, it was a recognition due to their effective vindication of authority through the machinery of self-government." In California the gold-mining that began as an adventure developed into an industry. The Fraser River rush in British Columbia was a sequel and a consequence of the Californian excitement. It lacked much of the disorder and lawlessness of the American diggings, because the local Government on Vancouver Island, although without full authority, did rise to meet the difficulties created by the rush, in contrast with the laissez-faire attitude of such American government as existed in California in 1848 and 1849. Our author says advisedly: " Governor Douglas intended to make his authority felt; and his physical strength, decision of character, and long experience gave him confidence that he could handle the rough, honest miners and keep the troublesome in order. . . . The miners, respecting the man and feeling 1941 The Northwest Bookshelf. 239 that he had their interests at heart, did not find it necessary to develop the mining camp organization of California." There was a lack of the gun-play and opera bouffe rowdyism that gave a spurious glamour to the Californian diggings. The administration of justice was in vigorous hands. " The gold transformed a fur-trading outpost into a true colony, which had the vision to perceive that its destiny was Canadian." Space forbids further detailed treatment; however, the passages quoted will give a fair idea of the style and purpose of the book. It is to discuss the economic and political consequences of the gold-rushes. The author proceeds to describe the Comstock excitement and other silver, not gold, rushes in Nevada. Then comes Pike's Peak and Colorado. Twelve pages are given to Boise and the rushes first into Idaho and then into Montana, where ruffianism was most violently rampant. His accounts of the Australian diggings, also of those in New Zealand, are excellent. " Circumstances," he says, " and deliberate policy had given the Government a far more active role on the Victorian than on the Californian goldfields: it performed services which were there performed by the express, and services like that of police which there rested upon public opinion alone: but it was a long time before its administration could claim to be more worthy of public support than the rough-and-ready improvisations of California." A chapter is devoted to the diamond- and gold-rushes of South Africa. This, of course, is rich in historic interest. " Wealth and energy came to South Africa in abounding measure as a result of the discoveries of diamonds and gold, but democratising tendencies were evanescent in a society founded upon caste and in an industry demanding large-scale operation. They withered away amid the dust-storms and shanties of Kimberley, and the society of the rushes—of Kimberley first and then of the Rand— took shape, progressive indeed, but dominated by a highly concentrated financial power, a new source of divisions in an already deeply riven community." The last chapter deals with Alaska and the Klondike. At the end of his book our author says: " In the gold rushes tens of thousands of men took part, and though many faltered or fell by the wayside, the best of them evolved a new type of self-reliant character, a new free, careless social life. With all its faults it had a fine savour of the spirit of adventure, which is the salt of history." The book is well printed, and the author has had the good sense to provide the necessary maps. Mr. Morrell, Reader in History in the University of London, is to be complimented for this excellent study of conditions unlikely to recur. T. A. Rickard. Victoria, B.C. 240 The Northwest Bookshelf. July History and Development of the Agassiz-Harrison Valley. By J. J. Woods. Agassiz: Printed by the Agassiz-Harrison Advance, 1941. Pp. 68. 111. Obtainable from W. A. Jones, Agassiz, B.C.; 80 cents, postpaid. [Proceeds for the benefit of Agassiz-Harrison Red Cross Society.] This interesting booklet tells the story of Agassiz-Harrison Valley from the exploration of A. C. Anderson in 1846, and the arrival of the first settlers, T. B. Hicks and Captain L. N. Agassiz, down to the coming of the Canadian Pacific Railway, the incorporation of Kent Municipality, and the advent of modern utilities. Its preparation has plainly been a labour of love; the materials have been gathered in many talks with "oldtimers" during years of residence in the valley. The first chapter, dealing with " Early Pre-emptions " is based on the careful, painstaking work of Mr. F. W. Laing, of Victoria. Incidentally, a comparison between it and the chapter on " Some Pioneer Families " shows the vast distance between the entering " into possession " and " continuous occupation " required by the Pre-emption Proclamation of January, 1860, and actual bona-fide settlement. The commencement and development of hop-growing (an industry which suggested the name Kent Municipality), the establishment and work of the Dominion Experimental Station, and the discovery and establishment of Harrison Hot Springs are naturally given prominence. Into the sketch of those springs the author has incorporated many references to them found in early books. Upon the vexed question of their discovery he has omitted to mention that they were known as early as 1858 (see the Victoria Gazette, August 17 and December 30, 1858). Through the whole story runs the thread of intimate human contact, revealing clearly the trials and privations of pioneer life. There is a great dearth of such local histories in this Province, and it is to be hoped that this pamphlet may prove an incentive to others to undertake similar sketches of their own localities. The Okanagan Historical Society has set a high standard for such studies, and the British Columbia Historical Association might well take steps to encourage similar efforts. F. W. Howay. New Westminster, B.C. Francis Norbert Blanchet and the Founding of the Oregon Missions (1838- 1848). By Sister Letitia Mary Lyons. (Catholic University of America, Studies in American Church History, vol. xxxi.). Washington, D.C: Catholic University of America Press. 1940. Pp. 200. $2. Father De Smet: Pioneer Priest of the Rockies. By Helene Magaret New York: Farrar and Rinehart, Inc. 1940. Pp. 371. $3. The two books under review, quite apart from their historical content, form an interesting study in historiography. Although they both have as their subject the lives of pioneer priests of the Roman Catholic faith in the Pacific Northwest, in method of presentation they represent the extremes of current historical methods. 1941 The Northwest Bookshelf. 241 Miss Magaret, in relating the life-work of Pierre Jean De Smet from his arrival at the Potawatami Mission on the Missouri River in 1839 until his death at St Louis in 1873, makes no real contribution to our historical knowledge of her subject and, in consequence, scholars must still refer to the older Life, Letters, and Travels of Father Pierre-Jean De Smet, S.J., by Chittenden and Richardson, for authoritative information. The author's vivid—at times, almost lurid—imagination has had free play and the result has been the production of what might more properly have been called an historical novel of considerable interest and merit In interpretation of motives and feelings and in setting the stage the author has been singularly successful and has also exhibited considerable ingenuity in the reconstruction of direct conversation. But at best one feels that the author more closely approximates the work of the novelist rather than that of the historical biographer. Sister Letitia Mary Lyons, on the other hand, has made a scholarly contribution to American Church history and an admirable addition to the series published by the Catholic University of America. It is obvious that considerable research has preluded the writing of this book. Several sources, inaccessible to the average student, have been utilized and many extracts from new documents have been reproduced at length without impairing the literary qualities of the text. To mention but a few—the instructions to Blanchet and his co-worker, Modeste Demers, from Joseph Signay, Bishop of Quebec, and the subsequent reports by the missionaries to their superior. Into the broader story of the organization and propagation of Roman Catholicism in Old Oregon has been woven the biography of Oregon's first bishop. The part played by the Hudson's Bay Company in that story is clearly set forth and authenticated by copious extracts from documentary sources. It is unfortunate that minor errors have been allowed to obtrude themselves into the text in connection with the functional organization of the fur trade company. Careful consideration has also been given to the conflict with the early Protestant missionaries on the Columbia. Generally speaking, the subject-matter of this book relates to the territory south of the present International Boundary, but references to the visit of Modeste Demers to Fort Langley in 1841 and to New Caledonia in 1842 and to the organization of the diocese of Vancouver Island make it of greater interest to the student of British Columbia history. The volume is adequately indexed and contains a critical essay on sources. A serious study of the activity of the pioneer priests on the Columbia has been long overdue, and in bridging the gap the publication of this study makes a noteworthy contribution to our appreciation of an important pioneer undertaking. Willard E. Ireland. Provincial Archives, Victoria, B.C. 242 The Northwest Bookshelf. Messages of the Governors of the Territory of Washington to the Legislative Assembly, 1854-1889, edited by Charles M. Gates (University of Washington Publications in the Social Sciences, vol. 12), University of Washington Press, Seattle, 1940. Pp. 297. $3. This important collection of territorial documents, originally published as separates or as part of the journals of the Washington Legislative Assembly, brings within comparatively easy reach of student and general reader a compact body of information relating to pioneer life in Washington. The fourteen territorial Governors, in their annual messages to the Legislative Assembly, wrote, often voluminously, on all phases of the social, economic, and political life of the times—the opening-up of schools, asylums, penitentiaries and other correctional institutions, the building of wagon- roads, sale of public lands, development of the lumber, fishing, and mining industries, the Indian wars, fortifications, territorial finances, divorce, and immigration, to mention some of the topics discussed. Statistics and tables have been generously employed by many of the Governors in illustrating certain sections of their writings. Charles M. Gates has prepared a fitting introduction to the volume, outlining in some detail the historical importance of Washington's territorial era and indicating the value of the documents to any student attempting an interpretation of the history of our state. He says: " When studied as a continuous series, they afford the reader a single panoramic view of the territorial period, in which specific data contribute to clarify the evolution of a changing society." A brief biographical sketch accompanies the messages of each of the fourteen Governors and excellent full-page portraits are included for all but two. Maps of the Indian nations and tribes of the Territory of Washington (1851), of Oregon, Washington, and British Columbia (1860), and of Washington Territory (1886) lend pictorial attractiveness, and a detailed index of names, places, and subjects adds to the general usefulness of the volume. Local writers, teachers, and librarians surely will join with Solon J. Buck when he says in the foreword: " It is to be hoped that this volume will inaugurate a comprehensive series of documentary material for the history of Washington that will ultimately be comparable to the published collections of many of the older states." Ronald Todd. University of Washington Library. VICTORIA, B.C.: Printed by Charles F. Banfield, Printer to the King's Most Excellent Majesty. 1941. 600-641-3272 BRITISH COLUMBIA HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION Organized October 31st, 1922. PATRON. His Honour Eric W. Hamber, Lieutenant-Governor of British Columbia. OFFICERS, 1940-41. Ho Honorary Preside: Kenneth A. Waites - resident. B. A. McKelvie - 'resident. i Vice-Preside* Whxahd E. Ireland - Helen R. Boutilier Robie L. Red) ----- Archivist. MEMBERS OF THE COUNCIL. Mrs. M. R. Cree. .op. F. W. Howay. J. C. Go* Nation. Mrs. Curtis S E. S. Robinson (Victoria Section). (Vancouver Section). E. M. Cottc Section). OBJECTS. To enc" orical research and stimulate public interest in history; to promote the preservation and ■ sites, buildings, relics, ta and places of historical interest, and to cal sketches, studies, and docume MEMBERSHIP. Or<' y a fee of ?2 annually in advance. The fiscal year standing :r charge. to the Provincial Archives, Parliament Buildir ia, B.C.