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British Columbia History
Vol. 42 No. 1
40 pages
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R£ Stitids QdLrJUa HISTO RY Journal of the British Columbia Historical Federation | Vol.42 No. 1 I $5.00 m t in! in m '*rw This Issue: More Nelson | Intelligence | Newsletter | and more Pwl; ■■■Ml J British Columbia History Journal of the British Columbia Historical Federation Published four times a year. ISSN: print 1710-7881 online 1710-792X British Columbia History welcomes stories, studies, and news items dealing with any aspect of the history of British Columbia, and British Columbians. Please submit manuscripts for publication to the Editor, British Columbia History, John Atkin, 921 Princess Avenue, Vancouver BC V6A 3E8 e-mail: bcheditor@bchistory.ca Book reviews for British Columbia History, Frances Gundry, Book Review Editor, BC History, P.O. Box 5254, Station B., Victoria, BC V8R 6N4 e-mail: reviews@bchistory.ca Subscription & subscription information: Alice Marwood 211 -14981 -101A Avenue Surrey BC V3R 0T1 Phone 604-582-1548 email: subscriptions@bchistory.ca Subscriptions: $18.00 per year For addresses outside Canada add $10.00 Single copies of recent issues are for sale at: - Arrow Lakes Historical Society, Nakusp BC - Book Warehouse, 4th Ave & Broadway, Vancouver - Books and Company, Prince George BC - Gibson Coast Books, Gibsons BC - Galiano Museum - Gray Creek Store, Gray Creek BC - Royal British Columbia Museum Shop, Victoria BC - Otter Books in Nelson - Touchstones Nelson: Museum of Art & History - Caryall Books in Quesnel This publication is indexed in the Canadian Magazine Index, published by Micromedia. ISSN: 1710-7881 Articles appearing in this journal are abstracted and indexed in HISTORICAL ABSTRACTS and AMERICA: HISTORY AND LIFE Production Mail Registration Number 1245716 Publications Mail Registration No. 09835 Member of the British Columbia Association of Magazine Publishers While copyright in the journal as a whole is vested in the British Columbia Historical Federation, copyright of the individual articles belongs to their respective authors, and articles may be reproduced for personal use only. For reproduction for other purposes permission in writing of both author and publisher is required. British Columbia Historical Federation A charitable society under the Income Tax Act Organized 31 October 1922 PO Box 5254, Station B., Victoria BC V8R 6N4 Under the Distinguished Patronage of His Honour The Honourable Steven L. Point, OBC Lieutenant Governor of British Columbia Honorary President Ron Hyde Officers President: Ron Greene PO Box 1351, Victoria V8W 2W7 Phone 250.598.1835 Fax 250.598.5539 president@bchistory.ca First Vice President: Gordon Miller Pilot Bay 1126 Morrell Circle, Nanaimo V9R 6K6 vp1 ©bchistory.ca Second Vice President: Tom Lymbery 1979 Chainsaw Ave., Gray Creek V0B 1S0 Phone 250.227.9448 Fax 250.227.9449 vp2@bchistory.ca Secretary: Janet M. Nicol 611 - 1035 Pacific Street, Vancouver V6E 4G7 secretary@bchistory. ca Recording Secretary: Jill Rowland % BC Historical Federation, P.O. Box 5254, Station B, Victoria V8R 6N4 recordingsec@bchistory.ca Treasurer: Ken Welwood 1383 Mallard Road, Parksville V9P 2A3 Phone 250.752.1888 treasurer@bchistory.ca Member at Large: Anne Edwards Box 148, Moyie V0B2A0 Phone 250.829.0666 Fax 250.829.0676 memberl ©bchistory.ca Member at Large: Lorraine Irving 1131 East 23 Avenue, Vancouver V5V 1Y8 Phone 604.874.8748 member2@bchistory.ca Past President (ex-officio): Patricia Roy 602-139 Clarence St., Victoria V8V 2J1 pastpres@bchistory.ca Committees Education: Brenda L. Smith #27 11737 236th St, Maple Ridge, V4R 2E5 Phone 604.466.2636 education@bchistory.ca W. Kaye Lamb Essay Scholarships: Contact: Marie Elliott % BC Historical Federation, P.O. Box 5254, Station B, Victoria V8R-6N4 essays@bchistory.ca Lieutenant-Governor's Award for Writing: Barb Hynek 2477 140th St., Surrey V4P 2C5 Phone 604.535.9090 writing@bchistory.ca Membership: Contact: Ron Hyde #20 12880 Railway Ave., Richmond V7E 6G2 Phone 604.277.2627 or Fax 604.277.2657 membership@bchistory.ca Publications: Contact: Jacqueline Gresko 5931 Sandpiper Court, Richmond V7E 3P8 Phone 604.274.4383 publications@bchistory.ca BC History Editor, John Atkin, bcheditor@bchistory.ca BC HistorySubscriptions, Alice Marwood, subscriptions@bchistory.ca Newsletter Editor, Ron Hyde, newsletter@bchistory. ca Website Editor, R.J. (Ron) Welwood, webeditor@bchistory. ca Recognition: Contact: Tony Cox P.O. Box 75, Lions Bay, VON 2E0 Phone 604.921.9496 recognition@bchistory. ca Website Award: Contact: Duff Sutherland, History Instructor, Selkirk College, 301 Frank Beinder Way, Castlegar, V1N 3J1 Phone 250.365.7292 x 334 webprize@bchistory.ca Cover Image: Nelson's Queens Hotel dining room in 1899 Touchstones Nelson photo 1959.007.048 A complete list of the Federation's membership is available at www.bchistory.ca/membership/present/index.html www.bchistory.ca is the Federation's web site Membership The British Columbia Historical Federation has been working since 1922 with historical sites, societies, groups, museums, archives, etc. throughout British Columbia preserving and promoting British Columbia's history. The British Columbia Historical Federation is an umbrella organization embracing a variety of membership classes. • Member Societies: Local and regional historical societies with objectives consistent with those of the Federation. All dues paying members of the local or regional society shall be ipso facto members of the Federation. • Affiliated Members: Groups, organizations and institutions without dues paying members with specialized interests or objectives of a historical nature. • Associate Members: Individuals may become members of the Federation. • Corporate Members: Companies are entitled to become members of the Federation. Annual Membership Dues • Member Societies: one dollar per member with a minimum membership fee of $25 and a maximum of $75, including a subscription to the Federation's journal and newsletter; • Affiliated Members: $35, receive the Federation's journal and newsletter • Associate Members: $35, receive the Federation's journal and newsletter • Corporate Members: $100, receive the Federation's journal and newsletter For further information about memberships, contact Ron Hyde - Membership Chair BC Historical Federation, PO Box 63006, Richmond, B.C. V7E 6K4. Phone 604-277-2627 email membership@bchistorv.ca "Any country worthy of a future should be interested in its past" W. Kaye Lamb, 1937 HISTOHY The Journal of the British-Columbia Historical Federation-} Volume 42r .Number 1- 2009,,- The Evolution of Security Intelligence in British Columbia Jeremy Buddenhagen 2 The SS Kootenay Bruce Rohn 8 The Nelson Ferry Jean Webber 11 Mrs. E.C. Clarke and the Queens Hotel, Nelson: Token History Ron Greene 16 Archives and Archivists 19 Book Reviews 21 What Keeps a Town?, British Colonist, 1899 29 Miscellany 30 From the Editor In the past year a couple of building demolitions in one of Vancouver's older commercial neighbourhoods revealed some interesting and well preserved advertising. This painted wall was visible for just a few weeks before being covered by new construction. Hewer Hardware was founded by Mr. Gordon Hewer in the early 1920's and is still in business today. It goes to show history can be found everywhere. BRITISH COLUMBIA HISTORY - Vol. 42 No. 1 The Evolution of Security Intelligence in British Columbia Jeremy Buddenhagen Jeremy Buddenhagen a student at Camosun College was the winner of the W.K. Lamb Esssay competition for 1st and 2nd year course students. The British Columbia Historical Federation awards two scholarships annually for essays written by students at BC colleges or universities, on a topic relating to British Columbia history. The 3rd and 4th year winner will appear in a future issue of BC History NOTES 1. In 1821, the courts of Upper Canada were given jurisdiction in all civil and criminal cases west of the Great Lakes, but this arrangement was a "dead letter", in as far as it applied to the remote area west of the Rockies." (E.O.S. Scholefield and F.W. Howay, British Columbia: From Earliest Times to the Present, (Vancouver. SJ. Clarke, 1914), II, 25). 2. Barry M. Gough, Gunboat Frontier: British Maritime Authority and Northwest Coast Indians. 1846-1890, (Vancouver. UBC Press, 1984), 16. 3. William Fraser Tolmie, Physician and Fur Trader: The Journals of William Fraser Tolmie, (Vancouver: Mitchell Press, 1963), 175. The geographic isolation of British Columbia compelled visiting traders to establish security policies without sufficient resources to exercise total control. Because Britain regarded the area that became British Columbia as relatively insignificant, fur traders, concerned about Native threats to their economic security, created its earliest security services. They did so by using force to instill fear among the Natives. While the fur traders did not generate a sophisticated intelligence apparatus, they did begin to establish strategic and effective communication with Natives as Hudson's Bay Company (H.B.C.) employees sought to maintain 'law and order' in an area where no court had jurisdiction.1 With the onset of the Gold Rush in 1858 and the continued lack of a garrison to support the colony, authorities could no longer rely on terror to provide security. Instead, they created the positions of Gold Commissioner / Magistrate. While this approach was taken largely for fiscal reasons, it was an effective means of peacekeeping without requiring extensive policing in the vast British Columbian wilderness. Early in the nineteenth century, American traders urged ship owners planning to visit British Columbian waters to take a "large complement [of] swivel guns, and small guns."2 Thus, for example, the Hudson's Bay Company increased the crew of the 'William & Anne', by thirteen Hawaiians. William Fraser Tolmie noted on his 1833 trip to Milbanke Sound that "the ship's crew would be constantly armed to the teeth."3 The overlying security issue for early European traders was the safety of vessels and crew from theft. However, once the land based fur trade developed, the situation was extremely tense. The historian, Judge EW Howay explained: For years the maritime traders had sown the dragon's teeth, for trifling offences, for theft, for failure to aid them in recovering their property, for failure to trade with them, they had ruthlessly turned their guns upon the Natives and killed them, taken their chiefs for ransom, taken and destroyed their property. Now the crop was appearing. The whole trade was impregnated with mutual distrust. The Native, equipped with the deadly weapons of the white man, was ready to return force with force. He was ready, too, to take revenge for earlier wrongs.4 A turning point occurred when the Hudson's Bay Company employed a one man security service. This first Native 'policeman' was Waccan, or Jean Baptiste Boucher, a mixed blood who arrived with Simon Fraser at Stuart Lake in 1806, later married a Carrier in 1811 and settled after finding employment James Douglas BC Archives photo A 01227 with the H.B.C. as an interpreter.5 Secretly, Waccan was H.B.C.'s unofficial "gendarme" and "chief executioner." Waccan was often sent to villages to "stir up the natives and send them hunting" for suspects who "exerted themselves on behalf of the white traders."6 Waccan outlasted several "Chief Factors" who relied on him to enforce European law and order as he was "a name to conjour [sic] with among Natives."7 Waccan's ability to enforce law and order was in part due to his ability to blend in with the Native population. If a Native killed other Natives it was less likely to elicit retribution than if a European carried out the executions. Waccan also enjoyed a more familiar connection with the indigenous Natives than did his employees and this provided more access to their affairs. In 1828, Governor George Simpson of the Hudson's Bay Company arrived at Fort St. James accompanied by guns, bugles, and a piper. Simpson wanted to impress upon the Native residents that "unqualified proof of their 'good conduct'" was required or "swift, drastic retaliation would follow."8 Forts were the established centres of power and power quickly diminished as distance from the fort increased. Under these conditions "surveillance of Natives was impossible."9 The early land based fur trade sought to extend the security of the palisades, in order to "reconfigure an alien territory and discipline its peoples so that an ordered, profitable trade was possible."10 BRITISH COLUMBIA HISTORY - Vol. 42 No. 1 The limited security of the palisades gradually expanded despite the official policy of London to avoid repetition of the bloody Native wars in the United States. Richard Blanshard, the first governor of Vancouver Island (1850-51), sought to secure the frontier with violent consequences. In response to the murders of 1849-1850 on the coast, Blanshard sent the 'HMS Daedalus' to a Newitty village and destroyed the village and any possessions the ship's crew could find. The following summer Blanshard sent the 'Daphne' and destroyed a second settlement and any property its crew could find.11 James Douglas, the chief factor of the H.B.C. and Blanshard's successor as governor, was troubled by these events. Douglas informed Alexander Barclay, the London secretary of the H.B.C: In all our intercourse with the Natives, we have invariably acted on the principle that it is inexpedient and unjust to hold tribes responsible for the acts of individuals: that being without law or government every native should be responsible only for his own acts; and, not for the acts of any other member of the tribe, unless they espouse the cause and take up arms in defence of criminals. I recommended that course ... but my advice was followed but in part; as the Tribe was attacked because they could not surrender the criminals. n Douglas undoubtedly deplored Blanshard's tactics. He did not like military expeditions that could spark a Native war. Although his concern for the Natives is debatable,13 Douglas realized that the ways of the past would not be acceptable to the new colonists or the public in England.14 When Vancouver Island became a colony in 1849, the British Parliament was beginning to ask questions of the affairs of the Company.15 While the fur trade left a legacy of animosity, it paradoxically marked the beginning of Native collaboration with White authorities. This was crucial to the successful establishment of the colony. Without the cooperation of Natives, trading was impossible and the security of the traders and settlers would be in serious jeopardy. The historian, Tina Loo, has commented that: "Native people's engagement with the law ... was ...not limited to standing in the dock or on the scaffold, for some also played a role in its enforcement whether as constables, trackers, guides, interpreters, or Crown witnesses." She adds that in this way, the Native peoples "established their presence and significance in extending European power."16 The willing collaboration of the Natives thus enabled the extension of the H.B.C's security policy. Richard Blanshard BC Archives photo A 0111.3 James Douglas had hoped to formalize a Native police force to help transform the Native encampments around Victoria and discontinue "gunboat diplomacy" in favour of collaboration for acculturation. Especially in the summer, when Native peoples gathered there for trade and seasonal employment, non-Native residents of the Victoria area regarded the Native camps as a source of significant disorder and misconduct.17 Officials were nervous about the Natives who congregated in increasing numbers at Victoria and New Westminster each spring. The native visitors often arrived in groups of a hundred or more, all dramatically painted, feather flags flying from their massive canoes, drums and chants echoing as they paddled into the harbour. In their camps at the edge of town, living conditions worsened, disease flourished and hostile groups skirmished with each other.18 As "a remote and isolated outpost of empire," the colony of Vancouver Island was denied a "garrison of regular troops." In reporting the murder of three men, Blanshard complained that "want of force" meant he could not attempt to capture the murderers. He called for a garrison of regular troops, preferably Marines, "to repress and over-awe the natives." London was not impressed nor was Douglas, the agent of the H.B.C, which would have to maintain the force. In an attempt to meet Blanshard part way, Douglas recommended the creation of a rural police composed of retiring company servants who would be granted 20 acre lots.19 Douglas expected that this force 4. Frederick William Howay, "A - List of Trading Vessels in the Maritime Fur Trade, 1785-1825," in Royal Society of Canada, Transactions, 1930-1934. There is some debate over the extent the "dragon's teeth" had actually been sown, see, for example, Robin Fisher, Contact and Conflict: Indian-European Relations in British Columbia, 1774-1890, (Vancouver. UBC Press, 1992), and Duane Thomson and Marianne Ignace, "They Made Themselves Our Guests: Power Relationships in the Interior Plateau Region of the Cordillera in the Fur Trade Era," BC Studies, no 146 (Summer 2005): 3-35. Both works challenge the notion that Natives were helpless and preyed upon by Europeans and had little power to resist. 5. A.G. Morice, The History of the Northern Interior of British Columbia, formerly New Caledonia, 1660-1880, (London. Lane, 1906), 58, 249. 6. Morice, The History of the Northern Interior of British Columbia, 248. 7. Morice, The History of the Northern Interior of British Columbia, 250. 8. Cole Harris, The Resettlement of British Columbia: Essays on Colonialism and Geographical Change, (Vancouver: UBC Press, 1998), 33. 9. Harris, The Resettlement of British Columbia, 48. 10. Harris, The Resettlement of British Columbia, 34. 11. Gough, Gunboat Frontier ch. 3. 12. Douglas to Barclay, April 16,1851 quoted in Hartwell Bowsfield ed., Fort Victoria Letters, (Winnipeg: Hudson's Bay Record Society, 1979), 176. (underlining in the original). BRITISH COLUMBIA HISTORY - Vol. 42 No. 1 13. For example, despite condemning Blanshard's attacks, in the same letter of 15 April 1851 Douglas wrote that the 'Daedalus' had "a salutary effect." The Newitty were in "a state of great alarm and have promised to deliver the murderers to the first Ship of War which arrives on the coast." Hamar Foster notes, furthermore "... the distinction he makes between whether one 'could not' and 'would not' surrender perpetrators is a fine one." "The Queen's Law is Better Than Yours: International Homicide in Early British Columbia," in Jim Phillips, Tina Loo, and Susan Lewthwaite, eds., Essays in the History of Canadian Law, V (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, for The Osgoode Society for Canadian Legal History, 1994), 56. 14. Foster, "The Queen's Law," p. 56. 15. Gough, Gunboat Frontier, 17. 16. Tina Loo, "Tonto's Due: Law, Culture, and Colonization in British Columbia," in Hamar Foster and John McLaren, eds., Essays in the History of Canadian Law: British Columbia and the Yukon, VI (Toronto: Osgoode Society for Legal History, 1995), 142. See also William T. Hagan, Indian Judges and Police: An Experiment in Acculturation and Control, (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1966). 17. Numerous examples of disorder that spilled out into the city can be found in Bowsfield, Fort Victoria Letters. Paul Tennant argues these police forces are an extension of Douglas' assimilationist system; see Paul Tennant, Aboriginal Peoples and Politics: The Indian Land Question in British Columbia, 1849-1989, (Vancouver: UBC Press, 1990), ch. 3. This argument would seem to follow from Marxist theory, see Robert C. Tucker ed., The Marx- Engels Reader, (New York: WW. Norton, 1972), 598. would not be expensive but would suffice to protect the settlement since apart from "petty depredations" the Indians of Vancouver Island had made "no overt attempt at violence...on the persons or property of the white inhabitants." Thus was born the Victoria Voltigeurs.20 The Voltigeurs, essentially a volunteer force of largely ex-fur trading "French Canadian Half-breeds," were on call to deal with any violence or disturbances outside Victoria that involved settlers and the Native population.21 The first instance in which they were called into action followed the murder of Peter Brown in 1852 in Saanich.22 The suspects were believed to have fled to Cowichan and, according to a member of Douglas' Indian "secret service," another had gone to Nanaimo. A few innocuous entries in the H.B.C. accounts fist the costs to track down the suspects: "Paid as rewards to Indians for Secret Service on the Expedition," and "For the following paid to Indians by order of the Governor for Secret Service on the Expedition to Cowetshin."23 Cole Harris remarks, "Spies could be hired ... though data about them are sparse, [they] were always part of the trader's repertoire."24 Douglas had clearly developed a new strategy to ensure security in the colony. The approximately one dozen Voltigeurs in their colourful uniforms along with 130 sailors and marines made a dramatic show of force and convinced the people at Cowichan and Nanaimo to surrender the suspects, but did not guarantee long term security for the colonists. By 1858, security intelligence in British Columbia was moving away from Native agents toward a European dominated service. A new threat to law and order was largely from American miners and a fear that the United States government would not respect the 49 parallel.25 Additionally, miners increasingly displaced and disrespected Native territories, increasing tensions that lingered from the fur trade. Security policy had to change. The establishment of a Police Force facilitated government penetration into the vast wilderness of British Columbia. With the government came law and order in the form of magistrates. The magistrates acted as "vast stores of information regarding the colony."26 Early in 1858 news that gold had been discovered on the Fraser River reached San Francisco. Within a few months, twenty-five thousand gold-seekers flooded British Columbia. At its peak, nearly three years later, approximately forty thousand had arrived. Among this throng of gold seekers, many were Chartres Brew, Gold Commissioner BC Archives photo R 01127 veterans of the California gold rushes in 1848-1849. These men were rowdy "cowboys" willing to solve disputes with their six- shooters and accustomed to frontier justice by the name of Judge Lynch. Gunboat diplomacy and Native secret services would no longer suffice to keep the peace in British Columbia. With so many American miners flooding into British territory and even some American publications calling the new colony of B.C. "our Territory,"27 Douglas was keen to establish British law on the mainland to reinforce Imperial sovereignty.28 To appreciate the conditions with which early law enforcement and government had to contend, it must be remembered that 150 years ago British Columbia was practically a wilderness, most of it unexplored by Europeans. It was cut off from the east by the Rocky Mountains and other ranges yet to be conquered by railways and roads. Access to the colonies was by ship around Cape Horn or by ship to Panama where a railway crossed the isthmus.29 In some cases one lone constable was responsible for an area as large as Pennsylvania. The development of accurate intelligence was critical to allocate sparse resources and maintain law and order. The next milestone in the evolution of security was marked by the appointment of Chief Inspector Chartres Brew as Gold Commissioner.30 When Brew arrived in Victoria in 1858, he explained to Douglas BRITISH COLUMBIA HISTORY - Vol. 42 No. 1 he had a prefiminary plan for establishing a police force and could have one hundred men trained within four months, well before the gold rush's second season.31 Instead, Douglas appointed Brew as Chief Gold Commissioner as well as Chief of the Constabulary. As Gold Commissioner, Brew was armed with magisterial powers.32 Each magistrate was allowed to appoint six constables who were to act as clerks, recorders, collectors, and postmasters. They soon became integrated into the colonial administration.33 The constabulary, the most consistent government presence in the most isolated regions, evolved into the provincial police after Confederation. Some constables continued to have several titles and responsibilities, including assessor and tax collector, registrar of births, deaths and marriages, returning officer, government agent and notary public. They were also expected to collect license fees, make weather reports, gather vital statistics, check cattle brands or, in other words, perform any task the provincial government asked of them. In the process, Provincials became well-known members of the community, on a first-name basis with many residents.34 As miners flooded areas reported to have gold, a Gold Commissioner who was also the magistrate was sent to administer the law, record claims, and collect revenues. A constable traveled throughout the area collecting fees and announced the arrival of the law. In his travels a constable easily recognized potential trouble makers as "much of his patrolling was done by socializing - stopping in at a ranch house for a chat and a piece of pie, visiting over coffee at a cafe, calling on a native elder." Gold Commissioners forwarded regular reports to Gold Commissioner / Chief Inspector Brew, these summaries helped direct the development of the colony. As each area grew a grand jury was organized, consisting of gold commissioner, other officials, and a chief justice. The grand jury included members of the local community, usually store and saloon owners who were realistic about the conduct of miners. "A constable was expected to be a storehouse of information about his area, have a good idea about trouble spots, and know about strangers." In rural areas constables were "responsible for their region's statistics," and as white settlers spread, constables became increasingly involved with policing Natives. Most constables learned to speak Chinook, a language used in the fur trade to facilitate communication.35 The local magistrate and his constable's dizzying array of responsibilities signaled an attempt to police the burgeoning colony through intelligence rather than direct authority. While the 'Sappers' (The Royal Engineers) were always on hand to engage in "Peacekeeping," constables were encouraged to exercise creativity to resolve disputes quickly and peaceably. In the wake of the various gold rushes the magistrates had become "well acquainted with the colony and its people."36 In writing about Lower Canada, the historian Allan Greer commented that "for much of the nineteenth century, policing was a "ramshackle affair"37 Tina Loo agrees that the same can be said of British Columbia's constables whose ability to cope had "more to do with the relative lack of violence in the colonies than to the skills and resourcefulness of the law's officers." 38 Although the effects of the appointment were likely unanticipated at the time, combining the roles of Gold Commissioner and magistrate established what can only be termed security intelligence. The collection of information in the hands of both local magistrates and then centralized with Chief Inspector Brew is a clear practice of control through information in order to direct the strategic deployment of scarce resources, clearly not an uncoordinated and "ramshackle affair." For most of the first half of the nineteenth century, the state was absent from British Columbia, "held off by sheer physical isolation." For fifty years, "the land-based fur trade in the northern Cordillera operated beyond the protective reach of the state."39 The extension of power was accomplished by club, whip, and fist.40 followed by "Gunboat Diplomacy." It was in this climate that the performance by Simpson at Fort St. James took place.41 Lessons delivered by terror were a deterrent for a time, but they did not provide dependable security. The use of 'gunboat diplomacy' to "shell a recalcitrant Native village into submission was costly-both in economic and moral terms."42 In the years surrounding colonization Douglas turned to "less costly" strategies of power. Information and collaboration held the key to maintaining law and order in the vast British Columbian wilderness. The gold rushes drove the impetus to form a "police" force, which conquered the mountains and valleys that had previously impeded the establishment of security. The "vast storehouse" of information the Provincials held established a legacy of security intelligence as the strong-arm of the law in British Columbia. • 18. Lynne Stonier-Newman, Policing A Pioneer Province: The BC Provincial Police 1858-1950, (Madeira Park BC: Harbour Publishing, 1991), 10. 19. Douglas to Barclay, March 21, 1851, in Great Britain, Papers Relative to the Affairs of British Columbia Part 1, (London: Printed by George Edward Eyre and William Spottiswoode, 1859- 1862). 20. This paragraph draws on B.A.McKelvie and W.E.Ireland, 'The Victoria Voltigeurs," British Columbia Historical Quarterly (hereafter BCHQ), XX (July 1956), 222-223. 21. McKelvie and Ireland, "The Victoria Voltigeurs," 223, and James K. Nesbitt, 'The Diary of Martha Cheney Ella, 1853-1856," BCHQ, 13, (July-October 1949). 22. Lindsay E. Smyth, "Murder at Christmas Hill: Sir James Douglas and the Peter Brown Affair," B.C. Historical News, 30 (Fall 1997): 22, 23. McKelvie and Willard Ireland, The Victoria Voltigeurs," 229; Harris, The Resettlement of British Columbia, 66. Harris has a slightly different entry to McKelvie and Ireland, different spellings of Cowichan (in quotation), and different entries for payment to the Spies. Douglas referred to the Voltigeurs as "police" on numerous occasions. 24. Harris, The Resettlement of British Columbia, 59, n101. Interestingly I cannot find any reference to spies in Alexander Ross, The Fur Hunters of the Far West: A Narrative of Adventures in the Oregon and Rocky Mountains, (London: Smith, Elder and Co., 1855). 25. Frederick John Hatch, "The British Columbia Police, 1858-1871," (UBC, M.A. thesis, 1955), 6. BRITISH COLUMBIA HISTORY - Vol. 42 No. 1 Save The Date! Greetings from the BC Museums Association! 26. Stonier-Newman, Policing A Pioneer Province, 34. 27. P.H. Brown Royal Canadian Mounted Police Veteran's Association, 92 Years of Pride: 1858-1950 The British Columbia Provincial Police, (Okanagan Division of the British Columbia Provincial Police Veterans Association, 1973[?]), 3-4.. 28. Douglas felt it wise to "err on the safe side and maintain a respectable military force in order that the power as well as the dignity of the British Government should be represented." Douglas to Lytton December 27,1858, in Great Britain, Papers Relative to the Affairs of British Columbia Part II, (London: George Edward Eyre and William Spottiswoode, 1859- 1862), 47. Furthermore, Douglas was concerned about raising the police force from miners as the majority were Americans for this appeared to be "a most dangerous policy to put the sword in the hands of aliens who had no love for British Institutions and might turn it against the government." Douglas to Lytton, July 2,1859. 29. Hatch, "The British Columbia Police," 1; Brown, 92 Years of Pride: 1858-1950, 5. 30. Brew is popularly cited as the "Chief Inspector of Police," however, Hatch remarks, "The colonial Police never became organized along military lines and never were centrally controlled. Brew, however, who actually became one of the magistrates of British Columbia, signed all official correspondence with the letters C.I.P. (Chief Inspector of Police) after his name. It is probable that it is from this anomaly that popular opinion has claimed Charles Brew as Head of the British Columbia Colonial Police." Hatch, "The British Columbia Police," Also see unsigned article, "Story of the British Columbia Police Closely Parallels History of the Province," Shoulder Strap, 22, (1950), 5. 31. Stonier-Newman, Policing A Pioneer Province, 22,11. and passim. Stonier-Newman remarks: "There was no way Brew could have realized the importance of his dual appointment. Because of it, British Columbia became a jurisdiction where revenue raising was combined with law enforcement for decades to come, a rare combination in the British Empire." Throughout his career, Brew objected to the combination of revenue collection and policing. Despite the possibility for corruption, Brew managed to eject undesirable elements in the constabulary no matter how well they were connected See also F.W. Howay, The Early History of the Fraser River Mines, (Victoria, BC: 1926), 84. and British Columbia Archives, Brew Files, 1859, Colonial Papers, OR 1372,8-1310. 32. Hatch, "The British Columbia Police, 1858-1871," abstract. 33. Stonier-Newman, Policing a Pioneer Province, 34, 7 34 Stonier-Newman, Policing a Pioneer Province, 34,17, 29, 31. 35. "Peacekeeping" is from Hamar Foster, "The Queen's Law is Better Than Yours: International Homicide in Early British Columbia," 48. Foster is using this reference to the "Bute Inlet Massacre/ war" and is somewhat out of context; however, the quote is representative of the inability to maintain boots on the ground in all areas to keep the peace. See also, F.W. Howay, The Work of the Royal Engineers in British Columbia, 1858-1863, (Victoria: R. Wolfenden, 1910). Beth Hill, Sappers: The Royal Engineers in British Columbia, (Ganges, B.C.: Horsdal and Schubert, 1987). Frances Woodward, "The Influence of the Royal Engineers on the Development of British Columbia," BC Studies, no. 24, 1974-75,3-51. 36. Hatch, "The British Columbia Police," 38. 37. Allan Greer and Ian Radforth, eds., Colonial Leviathan: State Formation in Mid-Nineteenth Century Canada, (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1992), 19 quoted in Loo, "Tonto's Due," 132. 38. Loo, "Tonto's Due," 133. 39. Harris, The Resettlement of British Columbia, 33. 40. Morice, The History of the Northern Interior of British Columbia, ch. 18. 41. Tolmie, Physician and Fur Trader, 175. 42. Loo, "Tonto's Due," 133. See also Gough, Gunboat Frontier. The BCMA Council is extremely pleased to announce the BCMA Provincial Workshop, October 15-17, 2009 in Osoyoos, BC. The BCMA's Provincial Workshop this Fall will be a departure from the usual annual Conference format, offering 12 in-depth, half-day workshops in three concurrent streams that will each produce more practical "toolkits" on timely issues, standards and best practices that registrants will take-away and can apply at their own institution. A concurrent 1 or 2-day specialized workship will also be offered. The BCMA expects a Conference "feel" to this year's Provincial Workshop, with the all important networking opportunities, Special Guest Luncheon, BCReports, annual Awards Banquet and AGM Breakfast. The workshop format will make participation more flexible and affordable in these tough economic times, while enabling more institutional staff to attend and benefit from workshops in their specific field or practice. Led by Gayle Cornish and the Board of Directors of the Osoyoos Museum, a regional Host Committee has already been established with the support of the: - Penticton Museum - Penticton Art Gallery - Grand Forks Art Gallery - Oliver Museum & Archives - Okanagan Historical Society (Oliver-Osoyoos Branch) - Nk'Mip Desert Cultural Centre - Osoyoos Indian Band; and, - Osoyoos Desert Society with more coming onboard as plans are being finalized. The BCMA Council wishes to extend its sincere appreciation to Gayle and her colleagues in the region who came forward with an offer to host, immediately following Conference 2008 last November. Council is hard at work filling the traditional Program Committee role with the finalized workshop program to be confirmed early this Spring. Individual "workshop blogs" are now being created and stakeholders will soon be invited to contribute ideas and essential content they want addressed in workshop sessions and the resulting toolkits. Please watch for additional announcements and updates on the BCMA-L & MBEN listservs and the BCMA website. BRITISH COLUMBIA HISTORY - Vol. 42 No. 1 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^B Hi SEE:: ;~_ _S3 Steele and Co. photograph mounted on a card with the name Patenaude Bros. David Mattison's Camera Workers of British Columbia website lists Steele as visiting Trail in 1896, it is likely this photograph was taken in the same year Photo: Greene Collection BRITISH COLUMBIA HISTORY • Vol. 42 No. 1 7 The SS Kootenay One of the most reliable boats on the Arrow Lakes Bruce Rohn Bruce Rohn is a member of the Arrow Lakes Historical Society and collector of photos and information on all the boats of the Arrow Lakes. Bruce has used the archives in Nelson and of the Arrow Lakes Historical Society plus the Nelson Daily News in his research. Bruce lived in Renata and in the 1960s, at the age of 16, BC Hydro allowed him to set fire to his house before the community was relocated when the valley was flooded by the nearby hydroelectric dam. At the time the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) was negotiating to acquire all assets of the Columbia Kootenay Steam Navigation Company (CKSN) - in the winter of 1896-97, two steamers were already in the early stages of construction. The 'SS Slocan' was being constructed at the Rosebery shipyard and the 'SS Kootenay' at the Nakusp shipyard. Mr. Mara's company (CKSN) would complete the steamers and the CPR would pay the expenses. In early March of 1897, work was temporarily suspended on the 'SS Slocan' so that the crew could come over to Nakusp to assist in completing the 'SS Kootenay'. Business was pressing on the Arrow Lakes. She was launched on March 27th. Her length was 183.5 by 32.6 feet with a 6.2 foot in depth. Gross tonnage was 1117. Her engines were somewhat underpowered and were previously used in the Fraser River steamer the 'William Irving'. Her cost was $23,007. On her first through trip to Trail on May 25, 1897, the Trail Creek News stated the following: "... The new steamer strongly resembles her sister boat, the 'SS Nakusp', but is 12.5 feet longer and a foot wider. With her new coat of white paint trimmed in yellow, she was pronounced as pretty a craft that sails the inland waters. Her interior fittings are carried out in sumptuous style. The woodwork is done in a natural finish relieved by white trimmings. The ladies' cabin is especially handsome, fitted out with heavy Brussels carpets, big mirrors and luxurious leather furniture. Captain W.E. Nesbitt is in command with Doug Stephens as chief engineer...." On June 1,1897, the CPR put on a daily boat service between Arrowhead and Trail alternating the 'SS Kootenay' with the 'SS Nakusp'. When the 'Nakusp' got stranded on the Kootenay rapids below Robson for two months in the fall, the 'Kootenay' picked up her passengers and tried to pull her off of the gravel bar, but all attempts failed. The river was dropping rapidly and the boat was sitting broadside to the current. After the 'SS Nakusp' burned in December, the 'SS Kootenay' alternated with the 'SS Rossland'. The 'Kootenay' possessed a hydraulic steering apparatus which takes over the labour of turning the wheel by hand. Captain Wm. Short, who took over from Captain Nesbitt, used it for a while but most of the captains felt the wheel didn't respond as well when it was engaged. Captain Short left the 'Kootenay' in June of 1898 to take command of the Stikine River steamers, as did many Kootenay steamboat personnel. When the whole project collapsed in the Stikine, Captain Short came back to command the 'SS Kootenay' until he went to the Yukon in April of 1902. One of Captain Short's high points was when his daughter Ethel married onboard the 'Kootenay' on March 21,1900, at Arrowhead. The ceremony took place in the ladies' parlour, with a meal, toasts and songs with Mrs. Captain Robertson at the piano. Captain Lyman Fraser, who took over from Captain Short in 1902 and along with engineer, Tom Patterned after the short-lived SS Nakusp, the sternwheeler SS Kootenay, became one of the most reliable boats on the Arrow Lakes. Photo courtesy of the Arrow Lakes Historical Society BRITISH COLUMBIA HISTORY - Vol. 42 No. 1 f%r McKechnie, became the main crew for the next nine years. In 1911 Captain Fraser left for the coast and Tom McKechnie left in 1916 to eventually become superintendent engineer of the BC Lake and River Service at Nelson in 1918. Walter Wright learned his trade as pilot on the 'SS Kootenay' until he got his master's papers in 1909. He would go on to become one the the great captains in the BC Lake and River Service. A familiar pattern would develop for the next nine years with the 'SS Kootenay' and the 'SS Rossland' alternating the daily run, Robson to Arrowhead with the 'SS Minto' in relief capacity. Boats rarely went to Trail after the railway from Trail to West Robson was built. West Robson became the transfer point. Crews of the boats lived at Arrowhead and a certain rivalry developed between the 'Rossland' and 'Kootenay'. The 'Kootenay' with her shallow draft and flat bottom design made her handy for negotiating the narrow channels and beach landings during low water. It became the favorite among the people that lived along the lake much like the 'Minto' held in later years. In May and June of 1904, the 'Kootenay' was thoroughly overhauled, repainted, recarpeted and refurnished throughout. This was the first since she was built. The first three months of 1907 would test her grit and durability. In January she got stuck in ice below Nakusp for a couple of days. The route north from Nakusp to Arrowhead was all but closed due to ice. Passengers who left Nakusp on February 5th had to walk the last part of the way over the ice into Arrowhead. On February 7th both the 'Rossland' and the 'Kootenay' started out from Nakusp to break a channel through to Arrowhead. In March, the 'Kootenay' got stuck in ice opposite Oatscott and took two weeks to break through to Needles. The 'Kootenay' was taken out of service for two and a half months in the spring of 1909. In order to accommodate the large tourist season the CPR expected, sixteen additional staterooms were built on the main deck for the officers. The old officers' quarters were revised and equipped for passengers. She was also fitted up with electric bells in all staterooms and electric fans in the dining room. With the building of the 'SS Bonnington' in 1911, the 'Kootenay' and the 'Minto' with their shallow draft were put on the winter run and the 'Rossland' and the 'Bonnington' went on the summer tourist run. The 'Kootenays' crew would transfer to the 'Bonnington' and the 'Minto's crew would transfer to the 'Rossland'. The well appointed dining room on the SS Kootenay reflects the level of service offered by the CPR on all its sternwheelers. Photo courtesy of the Arrow Lakes Historical Society BRITISH COLUMBIA HISTORY - Vol. 42 No. 1 This schedule would be kept until the daily boat service was reduced to three round trips per week in October 1915. After Capt. Lyman Fraser left for the coast in December 1911, Capt. George Robertson came over from Kootenay Lake to run the 'Kootenay'. Excursions were the main highlights for the 1913 and 1914 seasons. On July 1, 1913 about 200 Rossland excursionists arrived at Edgewood on the 'Kootenay' specially chartered for the occasion. The weather suddenly cleared on the arrival and the crowds started visiting the hotel while the band which accompanied them played a selection of national airs. Many rushed to the boat house and secured boats. A big crowd retired to Bantings' hall for dancing, led by the Rossland band. The band played a farewell before boarding the 'Kootenay' and a large crowd of Edgewoodites lined the wharf. The merchant's picnic from Revelstoke to St. Leon July 29, 1914 marked the last time CPR boats went up to Revelstoke. The 'Minto' and 'Kootenay' were secured with 540 people taking part. They left the Revelstoke wharf at 7:30 a.m. with two bands playing and much laughter and shouting. At St. Leon, the guests played sports while many went boating and fishing. For the return trip, the bands changed boats and there was a pie-eating contest with the winner getting a box of cigars. One of the 'Kootenay's' last hurrahs was on June 7, 1915, when she arrived at the Nakusp wharf. The town presented a gala appearance with flags flying everywhere and a large crowd met the contingent at the wharf with the brass band playing patriotic selections. It was a red letter day for Nakusp when farewell was said to the advance party of the 54th Battalion regiment. The years 1911 to 1914 were in many ways the days of wine and roses for steamers on the Arrow Lakes. This was the BC Lake and River Service's greatest period of growth, but it was about to die quickly. WWI started in August of 1914, the transfer barge service ended in June 1915 and the Kettle Valley Railroad's first through trip from Hope to Nelson came August 1,1916. The glory days were gone for the lake service. The harsh winters of 1916 and 1917 made it official. With the opening of the Kettle Valley Railroad, the Arrow Lakes became a local route instead of a 'connector' to the coast. The daily boat service was reduced to three round trips per week on October 31,1915. Just over two months later on January 11,1916, the 'SS Kootenay' got stuck in an ice jam below Burton and was there for more than forty days. With ice 30 inches thick along with 18 inches of snow, dynamiting and sawing began on the ice between the boat and the ice breaker. The 'Kootenay' got within 8 miles of Nakusp on February 20th when it entered the ice field of the Upper Arrow Lake and was progressing only a mile a day. Teams from Nakusp were busy for three days conveying coal to the 'Kootenay' in mid-lake with it finally reaching Nakusp on February 26th. The strain on the hull from the ordeal was too great and she became a relief boat. She was inspected for the last time in May of 1917 and sat at the Nakusp shipyard for most of 1918-1919. In March of 1920, Davy Stephens, who was the first engineer on the boat in 1897, began to dismantle her and the old tug 'Columbia' at the shipyard. The hull and frameworks were towed to the mouth of Nakusp creek a couple of months later to be dismantled by Harry Rawlings, a Nakusp contractor. The last chapter in the 'Kootenay's life was carried out by Captain Robert Sanderson, one of the Arrow Lakes most esteemed steamboat men. Maybe sensing an end to the steamboat era, he saw an opportunity to salvage what was left of her. He brought the boat into the CPR slip in June of 1921 to turn her into a machine shop and residence. He later towed it up to Pingston Creek where he would live for the next three years with his daughter Marion and son- in-law Osborne Sutherland. Upon his death in 1924, Captain Charlie Johnson with his tug 'Secord' towed the 'Kootenay' back to Nakusp in April of 1925, where she was beached at Crescent Bay, her last resting place. The Sutherlands used it as a residence for a while until they moved into Nakusp. Her deteriorating hull and first deck lay on the beach for many years until she was destroyed by fire on August 15,1940. Ironically, Lyman Fraser, her captain for many years, died a few days before on August 6th. • BRITISH COLUMBIA HISTORY - Vol. 42 No. 1 The Nelson Ferry Jean Webber Children live in the present, they say. And that is probably true. Certainly in the spring of 1925 when I accompanied my family across the ferry from Nelson's Fairview to our new home on the North Shore it never occurred to me that a mere twelve years earlier there had been no ferry.1 Nor in the twelve years to follow when ferry schedules regulated our comings and goings did I ever consider what life on the North Shore might have been like without the ferry. Perhaps our parents saw in the piles which stood before most lakeshore properties with the occasional weathered boathouse still tethered to them evidence of a period in which each settler had to be responsible for his own transportation. For us children the piling offered convenient markers in our swirnming games. As for the future, "when they build the bridge," that was not very real either in spite of the men with their transit instruments who arrived at pre-election intervals to pound stakes into the "rise" in our orchard. My father explained that they were surveying the northern footings of a bridge that would make our land more valuable, but this concept of development was wholly adult. We measured the value of those acres according to the number of Indian Paintbrushes, Tiger Lilies and Blue Lupins they produced. When finally the bridge was built in 19572 our family was long gone. Somebody else made "all that money." Nor did the bridge, in the end, finally come to rest on our property in spite of all those stakes. The ferry was our reality and an important influence in the life of any child growing up "across the lake." A.R.C. Duncan, speaking of man's need to realize himself as part of a community, says: "We become persons only through our relations with other persons." Waiting for the ferry in all seasons and in every kind of weather, huddling about the coal stove aboard in the ferry waitingroom, or leaning companionably against the ferry rail on some golden afternoon such relationships were almost forced upon us. Adults and children conversed. I recall Mr. Cuthbert, one mellow evening, telling of Irish peasants drying up a neighbour's cow by putting the evil eye upon it. He spoke with a gentle urbanity which didn't quite express belief in such practices but still left the impression that such things might happen. And there was Jack Mulholland, the prospector-poet, with his wisdom of the hills. "Don't know how anybody can get lost in the mountains. Only two ways to go. One's up and the other's down. When you finish doing the one you got to do the other," he would say. One day our return from school coincided with Jack's return from a few convivial hours spent in town. When he heard that we had had a track meet at school, Jack immediately arranged an impromptu continuation on a deck mercifully clear of cars. The ferrymen went about their business with bemused smiles as if they understood something that we did not. For our part we were amazed at the way in which old Jack could out-hopstep-and-jump us all. We soon learned to categorize adults. The most important classification had to do with the prospect of cadging automobile rides. There were those who probably would give us a ride, those who probably would not, and those who definitely would not. Alia Johnstone was in the first category. One terribly wet morning Alia loaded all she could get into her little roadster with its rumble seat, rushed up Nelson Avenue to the Hume School and then doubled back to rescue the remainder of our bedraggled lot. Even adults who seldom spoke to children made This is a reprint of an article that appeared in Vol 20 No 1 winter 1987 On Nov. 7, 1957, the cable ferry which had moved cars, trucks and people across the lake for many years was replaced by the $4,000,000 toll bridge spanning the West Arm of Kootenay Lake at Nelson. BRITISH COLUMBIA HISTORY - Vol. 42 No. 1 11 1. The Nelson Daily News of 29 September 1913 reported that the Board of Trade crossed by ferry on 27 September and travelled by automobile to Balfour. However, it would seem that regular service really began 30 September. An item in the paper of 1 October 1913 says in part:" The ferry across the west arm was yesterday operated throughout the day at half hour intervals and only twice was the service interru pted by some minor incident. "Today it is expected that considerable equipment will be added to the ferry and those in charge are at present arranging a schedule for each day, which will be in force as soon as the engine of the ferry is tuned up and in perfect running order. "A consider able amount of traffic made use of the ferry yesterday." An item in the paper of 28 November 1913 states: "In about a week the provincial government ferry at the shipyards will commence a night service and will operate until 11 o'clock. At present it runs until 6 o'clock in the evening." The names of the ferrymen are given: George Clerihew and Ernest Cole. In January 1912 the Nelson City Council had asked the provincial government to build a bridge at Nelson. The Nelson Daily News of 17 January 1912 carried an editorial of this subject. However, the bridge was built at Tagum. The paper of 3 April 1913 reported that a contract to construct a ferry had been let to Hale and Stepp. The ferry was to be 60' long and 20' wide. "It will carry four teams." There was to be a centre cabin for people and an engineroom to house the gasoline- powered motor. The paper of 5 September 1913 reported the laying of the cable. 2. Program for the bridge opening ceromonies, Nelson Museum. Ground breaking ceromonies had been held 22 October 1955. The bridge was opened 7 November 1957. Until 1963 a toll was charged. indelible impressions on our young minds. One of these was the Sheriff, a gentleman always addressed by his official title. Very old country - highly polished shoes and leather leggings, breeks, a tweed jacket, impeccable shirt and tie, and fedora. As I remember he could laugh but in rather a rnirthless fashion. In my childish mind I could never quite dissociate him from Nottingham. One morning the rhythm of our twenty-minute service was interrupted for the laying of a new ferry cable. In order to accommodate the regulars going to work and to school a tug had been engaged to push the ferry barge. On our trip there was some difficulty in getting the two vessels suitably attached to one another. The Sheriff came bustling over to the ferry rail and began giving orders to the men below in the tug. There was not a flicker of acknowledgement on the part of the boatmen. Obviously they preferred their problem to the Sheriff's solution. Finally the Sheriff moved off, very dignified, back ramrod straight, but we all knew that the great man had suffered a defeat, a defeat at the hands of those whose boots were not polished. There was a tweedy couple who had very little to say to anyone. When they did talk to an adult it was usually to refer to something which they had read in one of the numerous library books which they carried to and from town. I believe that they were the people responsible for the introduction of the word "diversion" into my vocabulary. Not much was said at home within our hearing, but one spring morning my brother and I set off with our father, who had the righteous air of one vindicated and supported by official action, to climb three quarters of the way up Elephant Mountain. There, with the shovel we had carried with us, Dad dammed a channel which had been carefully and laboriously dug about a shoulder of the mountain in order to divert water from the creek on which we and two neighbours held the water rights into a somewhat smaller gully to the east. Of course one of the chief delights of the ferry trips was the association with our school fellows. When I first began school in the fall of 1925 the only other elementary pupils crossing were Julia Koftinoff and her cousin Fanny. Out of the ferry acquaintance developed the habit of visiting each other's home. Julia's home was bare of furniture and decoration but spotlessly clean. I was fascinated to see her mother spinning on a wheel that might easily have come right out of the story of Rumpelstiltskin. Mrs. Koftinoff, responding to my interest, offered, in Russian translated by Julia, to teach \>W* Nelson and the North Shore my mother how to spin. I rushed home elated with this marvellous invitation only to meet with mother's surprisingly vehement refusal to participate. Mother was not an arts-and crafty person, preferring rather to read in what time could be saved from household tasks which had to be accomplished without a washing machine or a vacuum cleaner. She had worn druigidh (sic) (homespun textiles) as a child and was only too happy to be released from the cottage industry provision of such necessities as textiles. At that time Julia and Fanny were the only Doukhobors in our school. One day a gang, fastening on this difference, began calling "Doukhobor, Doukhobor, Two-by-four" and other such crude and rude rhymes after the two girls. Sheeplike, I joined in. To this day I can see Fanny standing at the edge of the playground, her face dark with hurt and a sense of betrayal. One morning Julia informed me that her father had bought a new white linen tablecloth because Peter Verigin was coming to dinner. Very soon after that both families moved away - "back to the Community," my father said. I cannot forget the part which the ferrymen played in our growing up. George Clerihew, Nelson's first ferryman and the person on day-shift throughout my childhood, was one of those people who respected the person of even the youngest of his passengers. One afternoon when I was six years old, I was bouncing a ball on deck when suddenly the ball went overboard. I cried out. Immediately Mr. Clerihew's head appeared BRITISH COLUMBIA HISTORY - Vol. 42 No. 1 out of the wheelhouse above. "What's wrong, Jean?" he asked. "I've lost my ball." Mr. Clerihew stopped the ferry right there in the middle of the lake, lowered the apron, came down on deck, took the pike-pole from its rack and retrieved my precious ball. There was another passenger aboard, a man in a car, and he had the grace to make no complaint about this interruption in his journey. Indeed that was a more patient age. One February our old Airedale, while attempting to cross the lake, went through the rotten ice and was unable to extricate himself from the hole he had made. The ferrymen launched the ferry lifeboat and made their way to him, breaking the ice as they went. Paddy was still alive when they reached him but as they lifted him into the boat blood flowed from his nose and mouth and he was gone. The old dog had been struggling almost an hour in the icy water. As ferry traffic increased and ferry schedules developed from every hour in the morning and every half-hour in the afternoon to twenty-minute service all day long and regular trips after midnight, the ferry staff increased from two to five.4 Mr. Johnson, a short, sturdy man, served on deck afternoons through my high school years. Once he annoyed me mightily. A young man with Down's Syndrome took to visiting me. Special classes, sheltered workshops and organized social activities for the mentally handicapped were unheard of in those days. Eric had good and caring parents but there was absolutely no community backup in support of them. Mr. Johnson began to tease me about my "boyfriend." I felt, and justifiably, that his leer was a deprecation of Eric. I snubbed Mr. J. for several days. However, in retrospect, that incident pales before something that happened one cold winter afternoon. My friend Wilhelmina and I had just walked home from Junior High over the ice and snow of the Bluff, Wilhelmina wearing only thin patent leather slippers. How happy my friend was to feel the comfort of the waitingroom stove! Mr. Johnson came in to stoke the fire and as he left he looked me in the eye and muttered angrily, "No child should be sent to school in shoes like that." Now Mr. Johnson knew how hard it was to clothe his rather large family on a ferryman's income and he knew that the Professor, Wilhelmina's father, did not have such money at his disposal for his numerous household. It is even possible that the family did not meet the stringent requirements for getting on the relief roll. Against whom was the ferryman's ire vented? We were in the depth of the depression and Mr. Johnson had a government job. At any rate a new line of thought began to open for me. My parents had demonstrated compassion for the Professor and his family in tangible ways but it was Mr. Johnson who taught me that poverty was not to be accepted passively. Poverty was to be rebelled against. The ferry and its landings figured in our sports. A chair from the waitingroom steadied our first attempts to skate. Later we rode our soap-box cars down the long slope of the wooden landing slip only to be caught up short by the force of the water. We canoed under the slip through the supporting piles forcing our way as close as possible to the place where water and wood met. By the almost daily change in our course through the piling we measured the recession of those great spring freshets which we experienced annually before blasting at Grohman Creek and the proliferation of dams on the river narrowed the gap between high water and low. The final plunge of our pre-breakfast swims was often taken from the rail of the ferry as it pulled out on its six-forty run, the momentum of the ferry giving a twist to our bodies and adding to the shock of the icy Kootenay water. Ever more powerful than these physical delights was the growing awareness of life which I now associate with that North Shore landing. One summer morning when I was seven and my brother almost five, we were rowing about the ferry slip when a car came down the approach with its horn honking. There was no response from the ferry which was quite legitimately moored on the town side between its hourly runs. The man got out of his car and, coming down to the water's edge, began to shout, his hands cupped about his mouth, "Help! S.O.S." He called again and again. Perturbed as he was, he ignored my brother and me. I wanted to say, "We'll go for the ferryman," but we were shy and also we had had instructions to keep near the shore. Curious, we tied up the boat and wandered up past the car. There in the car was a woman obviously in agony and very big - big with child I later figured out (How did I come to that conclusion in those days before TV made children knowledgeable beyond their years and when adults did not think it necessary Or desirable to inform young children about the facts of life? I think that I overheard some talk about a baby being born on the steps of the hospital and a half-recognized name was mentioned). During the depression caravans of families, all their possessions loaded on an old truck, into a 3. The Nelson Daily News of 23 January 1925 carried the following report on ferry traffic for the previous two years: 1923 1924 Single rigs 1060 878 Double rigs 145 111 Passengers 75 96 Freight (tons) 137 65 Horses 65 41 Cattle 1 4. The accident was reported in The Nelson Daily News of 14 January 1933 with stories following on the 16th and 17th. The accident occurred just before 7 o'clock 13 January 1933. Drowned were Mr. and Mrs. Wasyl Androsoff of Mossleigh, Alberta. Escaped: William Cherstibitoff, 27 years, car owner, of Mossleigh, Alberta. Joe Novak, 27 years, of Arrowhead, Alberta. Bill Foffonoff, 24 years, driver, of Falcon, Alberta. BRITISH COLUMBIA HISTORY ■ Vol. 42 No. 1 touring car, or on a wagon drawn by a four-horse team, took their places in line waiting for the ferry to carry them across the Kootenay on their journey from droughtridden Saskatchewan to some place in British Columbia where they would at least have wood and water. Then there was that dreadful winter night when I was on my way home from our Girl Guide meeting and I waited and waited for the ferry to return to the town side. Finally it arrived and I learned that there had been an accident. A car holding five people on their way from Alberta to visit relatives living along the Kootenay River had come down the hill. In the dark the driver had mistaken the ferry approach for a road down into and through a prairie coulee. As the lake was at its winter low the slip was bare almost to its extremity. Before the driver realized his situation and before the water could stop the car he had driven off the end of the ferry slip into deep water. The three strong young men were able to break a window and force their way out of the vehicle. Although they could not swim they were bouyed up by their heavy winter coats and the wind drove them onto the landing. An elderly couple in the back seat were not able to extricate themselves and drowned. When I reached home the atmosphere of our little house was heavy with the smell of thick winter clothes drying and three stunned young men sat drinking hot sweet tea. The poor desolate fellows, one of whom I think was a lawyer, stayed that night with us. A few days later a beautiful bouquet of pink carnations arrived for my mother.5 Even fleeting friendships could be meaningful. There were the elderly Chinese who worked in the gardens of some of our neighbours and lived their solitary lives in the shacks provided. Also there were young loggers and miners who lived in some cheap cabin between jobs. These people often offered us coins. We were delighted with the prospect of an unexpected ice-cream cone, chocolate bar or bag of cent candy. Later I understood the pathos of those modest gifts from lonely men hungry for family and an associaiton with children. One Chinese was different, Charlie Bing. He was much younger than the old gardeners, taller, more robust, and exuded a cheerful self-confidence. We always thought of Charlie as one of our friends although he never offered us money. Charlie had a Chinese wife and children on his Willow Point farm. Much later when I learned about such things as head taxes my observations clicked into place in a maturing world view. Among the loggers and miners was a young Swede who intrigued me. He was tall, blond and generously moustached, a very Viking to my mind fresh from reading Norse legends, learning about Leif Ericsson in school, and hearing mother read aloud Thelma by Marie Corelli. One fortunate afternoon I found myself alone with this hero, waiting for the ferry in the rustic summerhouse at the edge of Lakeside Park. "What is your favourite subject at school?" the Viking asked. "I like arithmetic," I answered. "Oh," he said, "do you know a very fast way of checking a multiplication question?" "You could reverse the multiplier and the multiplicand and multiply it out again," I replied. "But that might take a very long time," he objected. "Suppose you had a question so big that it covered this floor," and he made a gesture with his arm which embraced the whole of the summerhouse. "How could you check it in a few minutes?" I had to admit ignorance. Then the Viking taught me how to check multiplication by casting out nines. The process did not occur in our school curriculum until three or four years later when I was in Junior High and then the teacher did not look a bit like Leif standing at the prow of his dragon ship, nor did he have the imagination to stimulate our interest by hypothesizing a multiplication question twelve feet by twelve feet. The 1957 bridge is a fine structure, beautiful in design and I am sure much needed. Even in the late thirties ferry lines could be horrific. Forgive me though when I say that I cannot drive across that bridge without suffering a dreadful feeling of loss. What will anyone learn as he drives to the North Shore? Whom will he meet? What will he see of life? And certainly no one is going to learn how to cast out nines from a Viking or anyone else as he speeds above the water of the West Arm of Kootenay Lake. • BRITISH COLUMBIA HISTORY - Vol. 42 No. 1 Vancouver's Chinatown Nominated as a National Historic Site of Canada Vancouver's Chinatown is the vibrant centre of an evolving and enduring culture. It is a place that speaks to important historical themes in Canada relating to urban immigration and settlement patterns, the formation of cultural identity through community organizations, and the expression of social and cultural history through a specific vernacular architecture that is characteristic of the neighbourhood. From the application: The City of Vancouver, Joe Wai (on behalf of the late Dr. Edgar Wickberg), the Chinatown Society Heritage Buildings Association, Chinese Canadian Historical Society of BC and the Chinese Benevolent Association of Vancouver submitted an application to the Historic Sites and Monuments Board of Canada at the end of February 2009 for Vancouver's Chinatown. The City of Vancouver took the role of lead nominator and facilitated a community consultation process for the preparation of the nomination package. The City of Vancouver undertook a community consultation process in order to inform the Chinatown community and general public about the nomination, and to seek their feedback and determine the level of support. The City held pre-consultation meetings with key community groups; formed a Proponent Group to assist with the preparation of the nomination, members included interested community group representatives, the City of Vancouver and BC Heritage Branch staff; held a Public Open House on the draft nomination; and held consultation meetings with key community groups (Chinese Benevolent Association, Chinatown, Historic Area Planning Committee, Chinatown Society Heritage Buildings Association, Vancouver Chinatown Revitalization Committee, Vancouver Heritage Commission); distributed a "Fact Sheet" on the nomination process to community groups, Societies, and interested members of the public. Consultation materials were made available in English and Chinese, and verbal translations were made at all meetings as necessary. The general public was informed of the Chinatown nomination through an Open House. The nomination has received excellent coverage from both English and Chinese TV, radio and newspapers. • National Historic Sites of Canada Cost-Sharing Program Parks Canada is pleased to announce the launch of the NEW National Historic Sites of Canada Cost-Sharing Program. Parks Canada recognizes the need to support, maintain and improve the health and wholeness (the commemorative integrity) of national historic sites of Canada. This role is an integral part of our mandate, which includes protecting and presenting nationally significant examples of Canada's cultural heritage. The National Historic Sites of Canada Cost- Sharing Program is a contribution program whereby up to 50% of eligible costs incurred in the conservation and presentation of a national historic site, are paid to the site owner in the form of reimbursements. A recipient can receive up to a maximum of $1,000,000. Eligible recipients are incorporated not-for-profit organizations, other levels of government, and aboriginal organizations. Projects eligible for funding include those intended to develop technical and planning documents agreed by Parks Canada as necessary to ensure the site's commemorative integrity, and conservation projects to preserve, rehabilitate and/or restore components of a national historic site in order to ensure its commemorative integrity. Conservation projects may also include the development and implementation of presentation projects that focus on communicating to the public the reasons for designation as a national historic site. Applications for financial assistance will be assessed according to established criteria. Please note that funding is limited. The application deadline for fiscal year 2009- 2010 is April 24,2009, with subsequent twice-yearly application deadlines to be announced. For further information, please contact the Program Office for the National Historic Sites of Canada Cost-Sharing Program: Planning and Programs Branch, National Historic Sites Directorate, Parks Canada 25 Eddy Street (25-5-Q), Gatineau, Quebec, K1A 0M5 Phone: 1-866-377-1947 Fax: 819-953-4909 Email: partagedesfrais. costsharing@pc.gc. ca Web Site: http: I Ipc.gc. catprogs/ Ihn-nhs/ppf- cspl indexje. asp BRITISH COLUMBIA HISTORY ■ Vol. 42 No. 1 15 Mrs. EX. Clarke and the Queen's Hotel of Nelson Token History By Ronald Greene Ron Greene is currently the president of the BC Historical Federation i "n May when we meet in Nelson we will be little more than a block away from the former Queen's hotel (605 Baker -Street), or at least its successor, for the original wooden structure was destroyed by fire many years ago. The hotel was described by Charles St. Barbe in 1897 as one of Nelson's newest first-class hotels, a fine three storey structure with twenty-four large outside guest rooms, lighted by electricity, central heating, wide halls, sample rooms, dining I room and bar. It had been built by Richardson | and Perdue.1 The regular reader may have noted that in past articles we have not written about any women. There are several reasons for this. Firstly one hundred years ago British Columbia was still a pioneer country and there were many more men than women. In the Nelson Riding women represented only 26.1% of the population.2 Secondly, married women were expected to stay at home. Some professions such as teaching and nursing were available although when a woman married she retired. And we might note that the women in the oldest profession tended not to leavemuch trace. Of course there were some women in respectable businesses and one legitimate field of work that attracted quite a few women was the operation of hotels and boarding houses. Mrs. Elizabeth C. Clarke3 came to Nelson in 1896 from Calgary. There she had been associated with the Royal Hotel which she had operated for ten years.4 Since she mentioned it regularly in her advertisements, Mrs. Clarke must have been quite proud of the Royal Hotel's reputation. Before Calgary she was in Winnipeg as her three children were born there.5 In Nelson Mrs. Clarke ran the Clarke Hotel for two years until May 1898 when she took on the lease of the Queen's Hotel. In 1897 Charles St. Barbe called Mrs. Clarke "a womanly woman of education and culture."6 Licensing regulations of the day were stringent and drafted with a Victorian period mindset. A woman who was living with her husband could not hold a liquor licence. In that case the licence had to be in her husband's name. But if she were single, widowed or living apart from her husband she could hold a licence. The 1899 Liquor Licence Act stated that, "No licence under this Act shall be issued or transferred to any person of the Indian, Chinese or THE QUEEN'S HOTEL Ltfht*4 Japanese race."7 However, this was disallowed by the Federal Government. Disallowance, an interesting topic in its own right, was used by the Dominion government more against British Columbia legislation than that of any other province as the British Columbia government was more rabidly anti-Oriental than any other province. Since Japan was officially an ally of Great Britain the Dominion Government was sensitive to not embarrassing Imperial policy by allowing anti-Japanese legislation. But the provincial government got around the "problem" of disallowance by requiring that licence holders be registered on the provincial voters' list.8 This THE QUEEN'S HOTEL BAXSR STREET KR& EL C. CL^ARKE. Proprietress RATES 12 PER DAY Largs and comfortable bedrooms, and first claaa dinln* rtom, Sample rooms for I commercial mem. - amendment was introduced to eliminate the Chinese and Japanese from holding liquor licences but had the unintended consequence of eliminating women licence holders as they had not yet been enfranchised. However, this consequence was corrected with a further amendment in 1903.9 It appears that Mrs. Clarke was separated but not divorced from her husband as the license was in her name. The 1901 Canada Census showed her as a married woman, not divorced, the head of the household and a Roman Catholic. We have not found any indication that her husband, Michael John Clarke, ever lived in British Columbia. Over the years that Mrs. Clarke was operating the Queen's Hotel she was BRITISH COLUMBIA HISTORY - Vol. 42 No. 1 British Columbia Historical Federation Newsletter NO. 25 March 2009 ISSN print online 1710-1433 1710-1441 YOU MAY COPY AND CIRCULATE TO YOUR MEMBERS website bchistory.ca From the President's Desk As I am writing this, I am sitting in a warm clime not conducive to deep thought or any other kind of work for that matter, although I am getting quite a bit of reading accomplished. Unfortunately modern technology has enable my tormentors (read Federation colleagues) to track me and remind me of pending deadlines. The early bird registration for the Nelson Conference is fast approaching and I strongly suggest that you register and reserve accommodation sothatyou don'tmissouton what should be a very good time. I am delighted to advise that His Honour, the Lieutenant-Governor, has accepted our invitation to attend the Conference and will attend the Thursday Reception and present the Book Awards. The last time we were in Nelson, we visited many important spots in the Kootenay's early history which proved to be very interesting. We hope that many of our new Member Societies will be represented by delegates who will be able to visit and learn about some of the old time Kootenay communities such as Nelson, New Denver, Silverton, Sandon and Kaslo. Our last Council Meeting was held January 24th in Richmond and despite several members being unable to attend, we had a productive session. An interesting presentation was made by Johnson Inc., a firm which provides services to associations such as the BCHF, through which our members can obtain medical travel insurance and/or home insurance. We will be evaluating this proposal in the coming days. We have started looking at revamping the makeup of the Council to reflect changes which have taken place since the bylaws were changed 25 years ago. Hopefully the changes will enable the Federation to function well for the next 25 years. Ronald Greene, President The 2010 Conference being hosted by the Vancouver Historical Society has plans well underway reports Conference Chair Larry Wong. The theme: Everchanging Vancouver: Transportation Created City is shaping up to be an exciting and interesting venue for participants. Mark your calendars now for May 6-8,2010. Historic Craigflower Manor damaged by fire Fire damage to the historic 150 year-old farmhouse will cost more than $100,00 to repair but could have been much worse. The fire department acted quickly and were sensitive to the significance of the site and ' there was very little water damage. Smoke damage was extensive throughout the heritage building that was built in 1853 as a farmhouse and later used as a school house and museum before being acquired by the province in 1967. The building is owned by the British Columbia Land Conservancy and operated by TLC and Friends of Craigflower. 1908 -1914 McLennan & McFeely Catalogue Good news for researchers - the 1908 - 1914 McLennan & McFeely catalogue is now available from the City of Vancouver Archives. The various goods in the catalogue are illustrated in rich detail and accompanying text. The project was made possible by funding from the British Columbia History Digitization Program at the Irving K. Barber Learning Centre, University of British Columbia and the Burnaby Village Museum for the generous cooperation. Access this excellent resource at the Vancouver Archives http://vancouver.ca/ctyclerk/archives/digitized/McMchtml/ index.htm The BCHF Newsletter is published quarterly. Co-Editors Ron Hyde newsletterfchbchistorv. ca Ron Welwood webeditorfcfrbchistory. ca. To get your own copy of the Newsletter mailed to you for 4 issues, send $5 cheque payable to BCHF and mail to: B.C.H.F Newsletter Steveston PO Box 63006 - Richmond, B.C. V7E 6K4 Conference Updates Wed. May 13 - 6 pm BCHF Council Meeting Hume Hotel - Emporium Room Thurs. May 14 7-9 pm- Touchstones Nelson (TN) Opening Reception highlighting the Honourable Steven L. Point, OBC awarding the Lieutenant-Governor's Medal for Historical W riting fo Mowed by a demonstration of TN's third consecutive Virtual Museum Canada Project, Sternwheelers ofKootenay Lake Virtual Exhibit. Fri. May 15 - 5:30 pm Advocacy Session - Touchstones Nelson Boardroom Fri. May 15-8 pm Blay and Ginger A workshop production based on the Lives and Times of Selwyn G. Blaylock and Albert "Ginger" Goodwin at the TNT Playhouse, Anglican Church Hall, Ward and Carbonate Streets. BCHF delegates are encouraged to provide feedback to the playwrights, Stephen Fowler and Jane Sinclair. Sun. May 17 - Kaslo, Langham Cultural Centre. The Gallery features Alec Garner's sternwheeler paintings of the West Kootenay (on loan from TN) and a Japanese Canadian Museum Interior Museums Forest History Archive A new Affiliate Member of the Federation, the Interior Museums Forest History Archive, is a relatively new group dedicated to preserve the history of the B.C. interior forest industry by -encouraging individual interior BC Museums to welcome the collection of the forest history, photographs, materials and memorabilia into existing or newly created forest archives - motivating individuals, families and local forest related enterprises to work with their community museums to share photographs, materials, stories, etc. to enhance their collections and forest history archive - implementing an information network with a data base of materials to assist researchers George; Matheson, spokesman for the IMFHA feels that once the Museums of the interior fully understand the p o s i t i v ramifications of the IMFHA project, they will endorse and join ^"^"^^ it. Once all those involved in the forest industry realize the importance of their own histories, they will march into their own local museum where they will be able to safely preserve it forever. Once the central IMFHA data base is up and running - a free service to museums - they will be happy to have an extra electronic magnet drawing visitors and researchers to all aspects of their archives." If you have pictures, information, stories, etc. buried in albums, boxes, etc. relating to the history of the interior forest industry, dig them out for your local museum and contact George Matheson toll free at 1-888-986-2266 or email at kvp@kvp.bc.ca. Exciting Digital Capturing Services A Vancouver Island company-Unisave -offers state of the art digital capturing services that shoots each frame individually on 8 mm film for the best reproduction possible. In addition, their equipment can convert old analog film to digital including old Beta, VHS tapes and hi8 video tapes. It can also capture audio from old records or cassette tapes. The Company can greatly improve the quality of A old slides (any format including old glass slides) ^^ and old negatives. For $1.25 each, they will copy and enhance each slide to bring out old colors and improve badly exposed original film and film ^■^ with embedded dust or scratches. Another service is the production of , memorial videos using pictures, music and old video or audio footage. The company offers TV broadcast quality productions and can develop historical videos from old photographs and videos. A local historical review could be provided to schools for history lessons and local library for the new generation of video watchers. If you wish more information, see the advertisement on page four or contactKenCrauseatinfo(a).unisaveclub.com or phone Delta Museum and Archives celebrate their 40th year In recognition of their 40th anniversary, Delta Museum and Archives unveils their newest exhibit "40 Artifacts for 40 years". Archives Curator, Wendy Nichols, selected 40 artifacts, one donated in each year that the Museum has been open and this eclectic group of forty shows the wide range of artifacts held by the Museum and an opportunity learn how each one has a role in telling the rich story of Delta's past. There is a documented history for each artifact on display and while researching the items, Ms Nichols found many of the records for these items gave only a tiny clue as to their history and shows the importance of collecting as much of the artifact's history as possible at the time of its donation. The Museum is located in the heart of Ladner Village and isopenTues.-Sat. 10:00 am-4:30 pm. 40 Artifacts for 40 Years will be on display until December 19, 2009. The British Colonist - Victoria - now online Canadian historians now have complete access online to one of the oldest daily newspapers in Western Canada and best records of British Columbia history. A new website www.britishcolonist.ca contains every issue of the British Colonist from the first issue of Decern ber 11,1858 to the end of June 1910 for a total of 100,544 pages. The paper, published in Victoria, B.C. covered the entire province and predecessor colonies and was the main paper in the region until the rise of Vancouver papers early in the 20th century. Launched exactly 150 years after the first publication of the paper, the digital collection is an anniversary gift from the successor newspaper, the Victoria Times Colonist, the University of Victoria Library, UBC's Ike Barber Learning Centre, the Electronic Library Network of British Columbia, the BC Public Library Services Branch and the Greater Victoria Public Library. The new site is important for historical researchers and genealogists as its content predates the establishment of the province and Canada and offers a rich and full look at British Columbia's history. Welcome to our new Members Bella Coola Valley Museum Association Castlegar Arts Council Chase & District Historical Society Golden & District Historical Society Kamloops Museum & Archives Lumby & District Historical Society Native Daughters of British Columbia - Post No. 1 (Hastings Mill Store) 100 Mile & District Historical Society Summerland Museum & Heritage Society AFFILIATE MEMBERS 83 Mile House Farm Equipment Museum Interior Museum Forest History Archives (Vernon) (see article in this Newsletter) Kilby Historic Site (Kilby Store & Museum) ASSOCIATE MEMBERS K.K. -Vancouver D.M. - Quathiaski Cove V.P. -Maple Ridge CORPORATE MEMBER Invisible Hand Legacy Books (check out website www.invisihand.com The Federation now has 144 memberships 11,862 members throughout British Columbia Mark Forsythe advises CBC's BC 150 website lives on * >f * % I Mark Forsyth advises that the CBC Radio's special BC 150 website for the sesquicentennial received very good response and generated considerable new material which is being shared with the Royal BC Museum. It has been decided to continue as a BC History website in 2009 and Mark will continue to feature personal stories and photographs from listeners, a history quiz, interactive map, blog and various links and resources. Plans are to highlight a different BC Museum each month through a main page link to the Museum. When you have an important new exhibit or activity, let Mark know about it. We page www.cbc.ca/bcalmanac Or contact Mark at mark.forsvthe(5)cbc.ca Special Events A Happenings around B.C. March 14 -1:30 -3:30 pm Marpole Museum & Historical Society annual Spring Tea & Fund Raiser at St. Augustine Church Hall, 8680 Hudson St. Vanc'r. Admission $5.00 March 28-29 - noon - 5 pm London Heritage Farm's Annual Japanese Tea with art, demonstrations and tea ceremony-6511 Dyke Rd Richmond 604-271-5220 Friday April 17th - 8 pm Hollyburn Heritage Society is presenting the video Diamond Head Chalet - a Family's Journey at the Brackendale Art Gallery. The 56 minute video includes rare 16mm color moving film shot in Garibaldi Provincial Park during the 1940's. May 2-3-Richmond Museum Society celebrates Heritage with the Doors Open program. It offers residents from the Lower Mainland a free opportunity to explore many of Richmond's art, cultural & heritage facilities during the Doors Open weekend and celebrates Richmond's past, present and future at over 40 sites. May 14, 15, 16 - The Federation's History in Your Neighborhood with Workshops, Conference & Heritage Tour by Touchstones Nelson. Register now - some events limited Kelowna Museums launched a new Virtual Tour for visitors to explore the four museum locations in an interactive 360° tour on their website. Produced by Chris Malins who has completed virtual tours for several other non-profit organizations, the virtual tour gives a great introduction to the various Kelowna Museums prior to a visit. To view the 360° virtual tour, visit www.kelownamuseum.ca - click on Links & Resources then the 360° button. May 28 - Vancouver Historical Society speaker Jacqueline Gresko on The History of the Archdicese of Vancouver: The Contribution of Maritimers. Conserving Yesteryear for Tomorrow In 1895 the Delta municipality built a dyke from North Delta to Canoe Pass and around to the Tsawwassen Indian Reserve to protect Delta from flooding. Suffering from considerable damage from winter storms in its early years, the two mile sea dyke required extensive repairs in 1910 - 1911 and again in 1914. New Westminster civil engineers Burnett and McGugan submitted the "Gulfside" dyke repair plans to the Municipality of Delta. The plans were attached together with metal grommets and beautifully drawn and colored. In 2003, the Delta Museum and Archives received a generous donation of maps from a local resident, which included the "Gulfside" repair plans. The Archives were excited about the plans as they contained so much new information about Delta and were so beautiful but the age of the 1914 plans presented a problem for storage and usage without doing further harm. Because of their historic and social significance, the plans were a prime candidate to be restored to their original condition by a professional conservator. "Conservation in the Archives" is on display until May 22, 2009 in the Archives Foyer at the Delta Museum and Archives where visitors can witness through a series of photos, the steps taken by Fraser/Spafford Ricci Conservation Inc. to clean and preserve the plans from further deterioration. This transformation is stunning thanks to the funding from the Government of Canada through Library and Archives Canada and the National Archival Development Program. SHAWSABEY an Assurex Global Partner Proudly supporting the B.C. Historical Federation and their members by offering preferred, competitive rating for Non-Profit Directors & Officers' Liability Insurance for information contact Karen McGee - 604-689-2441 Toll free 1 -800-684-1911 email kmcgee@shawsabey.com Set In Stone - A History of Trail's Rock Walls The Rock Wall Enthusiastico Society of Trail announced that their original printing of 750 copies of their book Set in Stone - A History of Trail's Rock Walls is sold out. Good news is that a second printing has been ordered and will be available May 15, 2009. The book has become a treasured historical keepsake about the community of Trail and its history. 150 of the second printing of 750 have already been presold. To preview some of the hilites and reviews see - book review by Nora Landucci can be seen at www.geocities.com/jlcrowe59/ - preview the book and some of the photographs at www.southkootenay.com/cms/RW- project.448.0.html Orders can be placed by mailing a cheque payable to The Rock Wall Project for $75 per book and mailed to: The Rock Wall Project Entusiastico Society 1454 Neilson Street Trail, B.C. V1R3Y9 email therockwallproiect@telus.net Phone250-364-2488 UniSave Conversion Services Qualify Video and slide Conversions • 8mm film to DVD ■ VHS, Hi8 and DV tape to DVD • Beta tape to DVD « Scan rced & enhanced sides to CD or DVD • Cassette & LP records to CD • Memorial Video production (by quale) • DVD & CD reproductions 11-50] Our services Include printing artwort onto the DVD as well as inserts for the case. All graphic design and Insertion Included as standard. Rush orders avalabl© %S% discount 1o members of BCHlF W booked before March 20th 2009 Email: infb@unjs»\^lt&.eam Tel: 1 (250] 752-8342 or (250) 244^509 Notes 1 Charles St. Barbe, First History of Nelson, B.C., with sketches of some of its prominent citizens, firms and corporations, CA. Rohrabacher & Son, Nelson, B.C. 1897, p. 14 2 Government of Canada, Fourth Census of Canada 1901, Volume I, Population, King's Printer, 1902, p. 27/28 3 Canada Census 1911,9-39, page 25 Elizabeth Coulter Clarke, nee Kelley, was bom in Scotland in 1852 according to the census. The Census did not provide any information on when she came to Canada. Additionally the daughter's marriage certificates gave Mr. Clarke's name as Michael John. Mary Helen's marriage certificate GR2962 Marriage Registration 02-09145170, microfilm B11384 and Marguerite Lillian's mam'age certificate 08-09-144592, microfilm B11384 Above: Horse-racing on Baker Street in 1898. The building on the far right is the Queens Hotel Touchstones Nelson photo 1984.123.005 Left: In 1970 the hotel building was destroyed by fire Touchstones Nelson photo BRITISH COLUMBIA HISTORY • Vol. 42 No. 4 Charles St. Barbe, p. 21 5 Mary Helen (known as Nellie) was born in Winnipeg in 1878, Marguerite Lillian (Lillie) was born in Winnipeg in 1880 and James Christopher was born in Winnipeg in 1882. Marriage certificates, 1901 Census, and Officer's Declaration Paper (Canadian Over-Seas Expeditionary Force) 6 Charles St. Barbe, p. 21 7 62 Vict. Chapter 39, An Act respecting Liquor Licences, 27th February 1899. 8 Edward, Chapter 40, An Act to amend the 'Liquor Licence Act, 1900," 21st June 1900. The Liquor Licence Act, 1900 (64 Vict. Chapter 18) had removed the offending Chinese & Japanese references and replaced the disallowed 1899 Act. 9 Edward 2, Chapter 16, An Act to amend the 'Liquor Licence Act, 1900, 4th June 1903. The Licence Act technically only applied to areas outside municipalities but influenced the licensing rules within them. 10 mentioned by Shawn Lamb in conversation with the author, March 5,2009 11 GR2951 Death Registrations 31-09-464256, microfilm B13143 and The Nelson Daily News, June 23,1931, p. 5 12 The Daily News, Nelson August 16,1916, p. 8 13 The Daily News, Nelson, September 27,1917, p. 8 active in the Catholic community, for instance giving a card party in aid of the Roman Catholic Church fund in January 1905. Father J. Althoff, the local Catholic priest, was said to have dinner at the Queen's Hotel every night.10 Adolph Lapointe purchased the Queen's Hotel from W.E. McCandlish in July 1908 and intended to operate the hotel after Mrs. Clarke's lease expired in 1908. In August 1908 Mrs. Clarke gave up her lease after ten years and retired from the hotel business. The 1911 Canada Census showed her living with her daughter Nellie Mclean, Nellie's husband William, and their two children. William "Billy" Mclean (he later used the spelling MacLean) was a soda water manufacturer in Nelson. He had arrived in Nelson by 1897 to manage the Thorpe Bottling company branch, and when that closed he carried on as the MacLean Bottling Works. He was a Conservative M.P.P. from 1912 to 1916. Billy MacLean died suddenly in 1931 aged 59.11 When Thomas Madden of Madden House died suddenly in September 1912 Mrs. Clarke came out of retirement and took over the Madden House by November 1912. It is hard to say whether Mrs. Clarke ran a genteel house or not as in August 1916 Ross Young was given a stiff sentence (four years and lashes) for assaulting Robert Yuill in the Madden House.12 Her last advertisement for the Madden House was run September 30,1916. The first mention of Mrs. Thomas Madden assuming the management of the Madden House was days before Prohibition took effect.13 Mrs. Madden was planning to operate a portion of the Madden House as a hotel and had rented another part to the Canadian Pacific Railway for its freight, passenger and telegraph offices. Unfortunately during World War I the Daily News of Nelson had so much available news from the war front that it very rarely mentioned local events and people. Some people who had been mentioned regularly, weekly or monthly before the war were not mentioned for years during the war. Another problem is that the editor or publisher may not have been on good terms with the local Catholics. There were many ads from other Christian denominations, but nothing from the Catholics, and there was no coverage of Catholic events. The only mentions of Mrs. Clarke after September 1916 that have been found are when Mrs Madden took over the Madden House and when her daughter, Lillie, died. In February 1908, the younger daughter, Lillie, married Archibald McKenzie Brown who was the manager of the Queen's Hotel under Mrs. Clarke. This marriage was all too short as Mr. Brown died January 26,1912 while working in Fernie as a druggist's clerk. His death was caused by accidental poisoning by a narcotic. The death certificate also mentioned "undue use of Brandy and Absinthe." Lillie died March 11, 1920 of pneumonia resulting from Influenza. In addition to two children, a girl aged 7 and a boy aged 11, she left her mother and sister, Nellie, in Nelson and brother Dr. J.C. Clarke of Seattle. Mrs. Clarke subsequently may have left the province as she neither remarried nor died in British Columbia. She is not mentioned in city directories of the early 1920's. • ^#S%v BRITISH COLUMBIA HISTORY - Vol. 42 No. 1 Archives and Archivists Submitted by Elizabeth Hunter, Museum & Heritage Manager, City of Quesnel. Edited by SyMa Stopforth, Librarian and Archivist, Norma Marian Alloway Library, Trinity Western University Oral History Collections at the Quesnel and District Museum and Archives Thanks to the foresight of the members of the Cariboo Historical Society the oral history collection at the Quesnel and District Museum and Archives dates back to the 1950s, with a few interviews of "Cariboo Pioneers" whose personal memories stretch back to the 1890s and early 1900s. These were originally recorded on reel-to-reel tape recorders and have been transferred, first to cassette tapes and now to digital wav records to ensure their continued accessibility. During the 1970s and 1980s author and historian Branwen Patenaude conducted interviews with long-time residents as background research for her various writing projects. She taped these sessions and in 1998 she donated copies to the archives. In 2006 the Friends of the Quesnel Museum launched an oral history project - purchasing equipment, offering training sessions and developing a long list of people to be interviewed. To date they have recorded the life stories of over forty Quesnel area residents. Since the majority of the volunteers have greater comfort with cassette recorders, most interviews are recorded in this format, rather than using digital recorders. The original tapes are archived and a digital copy is created as a backup and for public access. The Friends have created a booklet containing a transcription of each interview and a portrait of the subject. A number of recent grant-funded projects have allowed the Quesnel Museum and Archives to commission video interviews focusing on particular cultural groups. In 2007, in partnership with the Southern Carrier First Nations, ten interviews were recorded with female Elders from the Lhatakoh and Lhoosk'uz Dene Nations and the Ulkatcho and Ndazkoh Bands.1 A DVD titled Elders' Stories: Memory and Wisdom, was produced, featuring stories told by six of the women. A second series of interviews was filmed in 2008 and the DVD Elders'Stories: Survival on the Land was published.2 The interviews are in English or Dakelh. Doreen Patrick of Ndazkoh conducted the interviews and translated portions of those recorded in Dakelh. The full length interviews are available to researchers at the Quesnel and District Museum and Archives on DVD. Use of the material is protected by an information sharing protocol, with permission required from the appropriate band. The edited stories have been integrated into museum exhibits as video kiosks which allow the Dakelh to tell their stories directly to visitors. Short excerpts from the Survival on the Land DVD are accessible through a website published by the Quesnel Museum in conjunction with the exhibit River of Memory: Reflections on the Fraser Expedition, (http: / / www.city.quesnel.bc.ca/Museuml / OralHistories / oralhistories.htrrd). In a similar project, a collection of video interviews of members of Quesnel's Chinese community was filmed when a new gallery was being prepared to exhibit the photographs of Quesnel merchant and well known photographer CD. Hoy3. The full-length interviews are archived, and edited stories are available on DVD and through a kiosk within the exhibit.4 Faith Moosang, who was working for the Quesnel and District Museum & Archives to produce these videos and to curate an exhibit of Hoy's contemporary, the photographer C.S. Wing5, also donated copies of sixteen interviews she had filmed in 2002 as background research for a documentary on CD. Hoy.6 In these she presented long-time residents from the Quesnel area with a series of Hoy's portraits taken c. 1910, eliciting stories about the subjects. There is an urgent need to collect the stories of Quesnel's South Asian community. The first members to settle in Quesnel arrived in the 1960s, when the expanding forestry industry provided new jobs. The community continued to grow through the 70s and 80s. Members of the second generation tended to leave Quesnel to pursue higher education and professional opportunities. As their parents retire, they too move to BC's Lower Mainland to join extended family and a larger South Asian Community. Thus Quesnel is losing many of the "pioneer" families with the greatest knowledge of the community's history. Ten interviews have been recorded during the past two years, with much more work to be done, as the museum plans to install an exhibit representing Quesnel's Indo- Canadian Community in the fall of 2009. • Notes 1 Funding for this project was provided by the Government of Canada, Department of Canadian Heritage, Museum Assistance Program and the Cariboo Chilcotin Aboriginal Training Education Centre. 2 The College of New Caledonia funded the continuation of this project as part of their Aboriginal Service Plan. 3 The Chinese Oral History Video Project was funded by the Province of British Columbia Arts Now Legacy Fund, the Friends of the Quesnel Museum, the Integris Credit Union and the Rotary Club of Quesnel. 4 The DVDs Elders' Stories: Memory and Wisdom, Elders' Stories: Survival on the Land and Chinese Community Quesnel: Short Stories are available through the Quesnel & District Museum and Archives. Contact museum@citv. quesnel. be. ca 5 The exhibit Upstairs at Wah Lees: Portraits form the C.S. Wins Studio opened at the Quesnel Museum in 2008 and is on tour to museums and galleries in BC. Contact ehunter@citv.quesnel.be.ca for current locations or future availability. 6 Chow Dong Hoy, Portraits from the Frontier, directed by Lynn Booth and Faith Moosang (Vancouver, BC: Make Believe Media, 2003). BRITISH COLUMBIA HISTORY ■ Vol. 42 No. Above: Doreen Patrick has been a critical member of the Elders' Stories team. Fluent in English and Dakelh, she has been the principal interviewer, transcribing and translating much of the material collected. This year, in a reversal of roles, she "found out how hard it is to answer the questions." Doreen shares her childhood memories and her commitment to preserving her culture on Elders' Stories: Survival on the Land. Top Left: Stella Mclntyre interviews Paul Gauthier for the Friends of the Quesnel Museum Oral History Project. Left: William Cassam relates his experiences learning to trap and working as a hunting guide in Elders' Stories: Survivial on the Land. 20 BRITISH COLUMBIA HISTORY - Vol. 42 No. 1 Book Reviews Books for review and book reviews should be sent to: Frances Gundry, Book Review Editor, BC History, P.O. Box 5254, Station B., Victoria, BC V8R 6N4 AT -j hi,; far k EMPIRE © At the Far Reaches of Empire, the Life of Juan Francisco de la Bodega y Quadra. Freeman M. Tovell Vancouver, UBC Press, 2008. 4% p., illus. $32.95paperback. Freeman M. Tovell retired to Victoria in 1980 after spending thirty five years in the Canadian Foreign Service where his postings included ambassadorships to Peru and Bolivia. Prior to joining the Foreign Service, Tovell served in the Royal Canadian Navy during World War II. He holds degrees in history from the University of Toronto and Harvard. In addition to devoting his retirement to research and writing, Tovell was Foreign Service Visitor at the University of Victoria; he has published many articles on the Spanish presence on the west coast including at least nine on Bodega y Quadra. At the Far Reaches of Empire is an interesting, compelling, meticulously researched, fact filled biography of one of Spain's more prominent naval officers, the Peruvian, Capitan de Navio Juan Francisco de la Bodega y Quadra. "Bodega y Quadra" the author tells his reader, "was the pre-eminent Spanish naval officer in the period 1774-1794 on the Pacific coast of North America." Bodega is familiar to those interested in the history of the maritime exploration of western North America and particularly those of us who live on Vancouver Island where the isolated west coast post at Nootka Sound was the site of a showdown between Spain and Great Britain in the late 18th century. Author Freeman Tovell writes with ease and presents an interesting, clearly written and compelling chronicle of the life of Bodega. Compelling? It is impossible to skim a chapter or two; TovelTs reader will be drawn in to savor and digest each chapter of this work which will appeal to the everyday reader and scholar alike. At The Far Reaches of Empire is presented in three main parts coupled with an introduction to Bodega, his family and early years entitled Beginnings. This is followed by three parts each consisting of several chapters: 1 The Explorer, 2 The Commandant and 3 The Diplomat. Tovell sums it up concisely and pays tribute to his subject, Directly and indirectly, Bodega was responsible for the greater part of the Spanish exploration and mapping of the North Pacific Coast. He gave outstanding service in three distinct roles; first, as an explorer on two expeditions that investigated the Pacific north from Mexico as far as Cook Inlet; second, as commandant of the Naval Department of San Bias for two terms; and third, as a diplomat negotiating with George Vancouver. Tovell closes his biography with a chapter titled Endings. Endings examines events in Bodega's personal life including his marriage, a ne'er-do-well son, his broken health, his death on 26 March 1794, and the settling of his estate. In his closing paragraph, Tovell noted that charting the Northwest Coast of North America produced Russian, British, French and Spanish "giants in the history of maritime exploration." He referred to the contributions of the Spanish naval officers who appeared within the pages of his book and closed with this tribute to his subject, "Pre-eminent among them was Juan Francisco de la Bodega y Quadra Mollinedo, a Spanish naval officer of the eighteenth- century Enlightenment." A truly impressive book, At the Far Reaches of Empire is complemented by an extensive index, 5 appendices, a glossary of Spanish terms, a chronology of Bodega's life, and 50 pages of detailed end notes. TovelTs extensive bibliography reveals the depth of his research. He has consulted primary sources in and from archives and libraries in Spain, Mexico, California, Ottawa, Ontario and British Columbia. These repositories include the Archivo General de Indias in Seville, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Real Academia de la Historia, the Biblioteca del Palacio Real, the Biblioteca National, the Archivo del Museo Naval and the Archivo Historico National in Madrid as well as archives in Valladolid and Ciudad Real. In addition, Tovell consulted an extensive list of secondary sources. UBC Press is to be commended for publishing At The Far Reaches of Empire in a handsomely bound hard cover edition as well as a more reasonably priced soft covered edition. I recommend it highly; it will be a valuable addition to your BC bookshelf. Brian A. Young of victoria is a research consultant and retired archivist (BC Archives) J^f CITIZEN DOCKER MAKING A NEW SEAL ON HC VANCOUVER WATERfttONT Citizen Docker: Making a New Deal on the Vancouver Waterfront, 1919-1939. Andrew Parnaby. Toronto, University of Toronto Press, 2008. 243p., illus. $27.95softcover. This elegantly written book fills an important gap in our understanding of British Columbia's labour history between the last century's two world wars. As the title suggests, Andrew Parnaby's Citizen Docker examines contested notions of citizenship and entitlement on the BRITISH COLUMBIA HISTORY ■ Vol. 42 No. 1 21 Vancouver waterfront - the rise and fall of welfare capitalism in a period bookended by major strikes in 1923 and 1935. The 1920s was a period of retrenchment for BC's working class, after militant industrial unionism had peaked during the Great War and suffered a final blow after the 1923 longshore workers' strike. Waterfront employers in the Shipping Federation sought to forge a new workforce and a new working-class identity based on "mutual obligation" and cooperation, rather than confrontation. Major William Claude David Crombie, a military officer, was hired as Labour Manager to lead this transition - replacing the strikers with men who had crossed picket lines and enlisting them into a compliant company union - the Vancouver and District Waterfront Workers Association. Parnaby traces the evolution of Crombie's model for "industrial peace," which was predicated on "decasualization" to create a stable (and co-operative) workforce. This process bore similarities with practices in other industries and other jurisdictions but developed distinct attributes on the Vancouver waterfront. Through meticulous research of company and union records, Parnaby recreates the texture of labour relations in the 1920s. Citizen Docker also provides potent insight on the interaction of class and gender identity among waterfront workers. According to Parnaby, "married men - citizens - occupied a privileged position within the waterfront's labour-capital consensus" (42). Docker's wives, meanwhile, "were responsible for turning wages into sustenance and shelter" (73). The book moves off the waterfront, touching on family life and leisure as encouraged through union "smokers" (dances), hockey tournaments, and summer picnics by chartered steamer to Bowen Island. The married male worker was viewed by Crombie and the Shipping Federation as a bulwark against radicalism and militancy on the wharves. Yet conversely, encouragement of the "male breadwinner ideal" also kindled feelings of masculine entitlement that sowed the seeds for confrontation in the 1930s. With the onslaught of the Great Depression in the 1930s, this militant minority - aligned with the Communist Party of Canada, its Workers' Unity League, and the newspaper Heavy Lift - rose to prominence. Militants were elected to lead the former company union, impelling waterfront workers toward a bloody 1935 strike - which was ruthlessly crushed by the Shipping Federation and local, provincial and federal police in episodes such as the apocalyptic Battle of Ballatyne Pier. To be sure, Parnaby's book is not perfect. Early chapters lack detail on the work process itself - the dynamics of "life on the hook" that is so integral to the author's study. Moreover, Parnaby's treatment of aboriginal longshore from the Squamish Nation - the subject of a compelling chapter - is only loosely integrated with the main body of the work. Taken as a whole, however, Andrew Parnaby has provided an important contribution on a neglected period in British Columbia history - an era of industrial quiescence when paternalism defined relations between workers and employers. Benjamin Isitt is Postdoctoral Fellow and Assistant Professor of History at the University of Victoria. His award-winning research has appeared in publications including the Canadian Historical Review and Canadian Journal of Political Science. Early in the Season: a British Columbia Journal Edward Hoagland. Vancouver and Toronto, Douglas ft Mclntyre, 2008. 176p., illus. $24.95 hardcover. Edward Hoagland made two visits to British Columbia's rugged northwest interior seeking stories for books. His first trip in 1966 resulted in Notes from the Century Before. Before it was published, he set out again, in the summer of 1968. Early in the Season, published forty years later, is his journal from that second adventure. Today Hoagland is an award winning American essayist and travel writer. In June, 1968, when he left his home in New York for the second trip, he was at the beginning of his career and unsure of his future. He left his new wife, pregnant with his first child. His country was "stupid with sorrow" over the assassinations of Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. Given the times, and his own uncertainties, the author may have been seeking more than material for a book. Diverse in geography, flora, fauna, and people, BC's northwest interior belonged to the First Nations peoples until the 1800s, when newcomers came seeking furs and gold. Hoagland was interested in the later settlers who came from various backgrounds to find a new way of life in the wilderness. He travelled on foot, by bus, plane and truck to isolated outposts back of nowhere, seeking interviews with the men who had become prospectors, miners, trappers, traders, freighters, bush pilots, loggers, swindlers, bootleggers, whatever 22 BRITISH COLUMBIA HISTORY - Vol. 42 No. 1 it took to survive in the lonely and often unforgiving country. Crisscrossing the countryside in his quest for stories, the only things the author feared were grizzly bears and the "dizzying loneliness," but he noted cities can be just as lonely and dangerous as the wilderness. He saw the Omineca through the eyes of an artist. His words paint captivating portraits of the individuals and fine images of the awesome land. He saw poplar forests white in the sun; mustard yellow clouds; double rainbows of garish green and marmalade orange' white lichen and green moss "thankful when it rained." He didn't find many settlements attractive. Fort St James was "strewn about in a hodgepodge manner." In Vanderhoof, although it was summertime, "the raw streets" had "people in winter coats, clodhopper boots and beleaguered expressions." He portrayed people as he saw them. A prospector's long white hair and beard was "a circle of hair as big as an inner tube around his face." Another fellow had "large piercing eyes, clear but slightly adrift and crazy looking. He's all bones, his bulky clothes hang off him an extreme alarming boniness, just enough bones to walk with." Women were few and far between. Hoagland didn't find them attractive. Calling one a "Plain Jane" was high praise. The journal reflects the intolerant attitudes that were the norm in the back country forty years ago. The words are jarring now, but that is the way it was. At times Early in the Season seems as much about the author as it is about the Omineca, but he an interesting guide and he paints an engaging picture of a colorful time and place in BC's history. Diana French is the former editor of the Williams Lake Tribune and the author of books and articles on the Cariboo Chilcotin including The road runs west: a century along the Bella Coolal Chilcotin road. Myra's Men. Building the Kettle Valley Railway, Myra Canyon to Penticton. Maurice Williams. Kelowna, Myra Canyon Trestle Restoration Society, 2008. 168 p., illus. $20.00paperback. The Kettle Valley Railway had a short but dramatic life. Now abandoned, it is best known to present generations in many areas as an important part of the TransCanada Trail. However, Myra Canyon and its trestles remain justly world-famous. Built across the mountains of southern British Columbia in the early 1900s the KVR became a key trans- provincial link and part of long-desired Coast-to-Kootenay railway connection. As for so many railways in British Columbia, the idea of the line was much easier to conceive than the railway was to build, and the KVR, like the Canadian Pacific in the Fraser Canyon or in the Selkirks, presented many challenges to the surveyors, engineers and construction workers, and later to the operating crews who followed. The early 1900s were tough times, and building a railway was no exception. It was dangerous, grinding work, with few rewards. But it did provide a wage (or in some cases a contract), and for many people it was a beginning in the new country. At the time when the Kettle Valley was built, there were few opportunities for people who had limited skills beyond an ability to work long hard hours. Mining, logging and fishing were all difficult ways to make a living, with often very dangerous and unpleasant working conditions. Farming could be just a bad, with the enticing promises to new immigrants of bumper crops more illusion than a reality. It is unlikely that anyone who worked on the construction of the Kettle Valley is still alive, for to be even a very young man between 1910 and 1915 a person would now be well over 100 years of age. Even 25 years ago, there were only a very few survivors from these early days of the Kettle Valley. I was lucky to meet some of these people and talk to them about their youthful experiences, recalled - often with frail memories - as a sometimes arduous, but nonetheless exciting time in their lives. Relentlessly, time takes away from us the direct experiences of earlier generations, and we are left with documentary records, newspaper reports, letters, an occasional diary. When a history project deals with the labours of people, from almost a century ago, who had recently arrived in a region, often coming from countries where different languages were spoken and who also often had little formal education, the task becomes even more challenging. In bringing us the story of Myra's Men (meaning the men who worked on Myra Canyon construction; Myra Newman, for whom the station and canyon were named, was a daughter of the Kettle Valley tracklaying foreman), Maurice Williams searched widely and has drawn on an impressive range of diverse sources, giving us many insights into the lives of the workers and their accomplishment. We now have a much better idea of where these people originated, what they ate, what their working conditions were like, what they got paid and what their lives were like. Myra's Men covers unionizations (the Wobblies movement), recruitment of labour, hiring agencies and practices, labour abuses, camp conditions, meals and boarding conditions, the division of labour, "white" versus "foreign" labour, policing, and many other interesting and important themes. After the completion of the Kettle Valley, many of the labourers moved on to other construction projects, were swept away by the World War, took up farming or logging, or in some cases stayed on as section workers or other employees of the railway. Some made the Kettle Valley a lifetime career. It is sad that BRITISH COLUMBIA HISTORY - Vol. 42 No. 1 23 no letters home or diaries were available to bring the workers' perspectives and personalities into focus, but considering the language and education barriers facing the workers, this is not surprising. An excellent selection of photos, emphasizing construction scenes and people at work on the line, accompany the text. These give us a clear idea of the camp conditions, safety conditions and apparel (or more accurately the complete lack of such articles) that workers had in those long-ago times, as well as insights into the tools and equipment that were used on the Kettle Valley's construction. Appendices list a great deal of information about the work of construction and the number of people employed, and finally a list of people who lost their lives in bunding the railway. The book is published, very appropriately, by the Myra Canyon Trestle Restoration Society, a group who have done so much to preserve the heritage of the Kettle Valley Railway through the initial rebuilding of the abandoned railway trestles through Myra Canyon, and then, after the catastrophic fires of 1993, to the complete reconstruction of many of the bridges that were destroyed by the wildfires. At $20.00, this book is a very good value indeed. Maurice Williams' book is a very welcome, thoughtful and carefully documented volume, and an enjoyable and informative book that adds an important chapter to the story of the Kettle Valley Railway, and to railway labour and construction in general in British Columbia. The best place to read this book is, of course, sitting up above one of the huge trestles in Myra Canyon while you imagine those long ago labourers at work on the railway as it inched its way along the face of the canyon. Then look down on one of the trestles, and consider the work that went into rebuilding it for the reopening of the TransCanada trail over the past few years. One could say there have been several generations of Myra's Workers. Bob Turner is a curator emeritus at the Royal BC Museum and has written extensively about transportation history. Seeking Balance: Conversations with B.C. Women in Politics. Anne Edwards. Half moon Bay, B.C., Caitlin Press, 2008. 288p., illus. $28.95 softcover. British Columbia was not the first Canadian province to enfranchise women but it has the distinction of having had the first female cabinet minister, the first female speaker of the legislature, and the first female premier. In addition, Canada's only female prime minister came from the province. All told, ninety-six British Columbia women have served as Members of the provincial Legislative Assembly (MLA) or of the federal House of Commons (MP) and four have served in both. Anne Edwards, an experienced journalist and former MLA, interviewed sixty-six of them about their backgrounds and their experiences in politics. The women, who represent all the major political parties, were keen to reply; only one (unnamed) refused to be interviewed because she did not see herself "as a woman polititian."(16) The well-chosen title Seeking Balance covers several of the book's themes. Edwards' main goals were to examine why women hold fewer than a quarter of the seats in the Legislature or the House of Commons, to show that women still do not have full equality, and to demonstrate that women have skills to bring to political life. A central thesis is that women have a different political style than men. Whereas men follow a military model, women seek consensus. Because it likes a fight, the media reinforces this combative mode^ Edwards and her interviewees agree that politicians do not always get respect. A chapter "Six Hours of Sleep - or Less" reveals that legislators do earn their keep as Edwards outlines a typical working day and week. In addition, MPs face formidable travel as do MLAs from beyond the south west coast. Political life is hard on families and finding a balance between political and family responsibilities is difficult. Although many cited the support of spouses and children, others saw their marriages dissolve in divorce. Why then did these women get involved in politics? Whether they had a particular issue or general dissatisfaction with the status quo, all saw a need for political change. Not every interviewee accepted the "feminist" label but all agreed that women are not treated equally in employment. The active feminists of the 1970s and 1980s, remarks Edwards, were more likely to be social rather than maternal feminists. Yet, when asked about their accomplishments in politics, the interviewees mentioned reforms relating to women and children. Only when similar studies appear for other provinces will we know if British Columbia's uniqueness extended beyond "firsts" for women in politics. Although interviewees were asked "What makes BC different politically from the rest of Canada?" few of them apparently replied to that tantalizing question. As well as the interviews and her own comments, Edwards drew on standard secondary sources and the press. A number of well-chosen photographs and several tables and charts complement the very readable text. The book will appeal to all who are concerned with the workings of British Columbia politics but especially to those who are interested in the place of women in politics. Patricia E. Roy is Professor Emerita of History at the University of Victoria and Past President of the British Columbia Historical Federation. 24 BRITISH COLUMBIA HISTORY - Vol. 42 No. 1 The Epic Voyage of Captain George Vancouver: Madness, Betrayal and the Lash. Stephen R. Bown. Vancouver and Toronto, Douglas & Mclntyre, 2008. 254p., illus., maps. $34.95 hardback This new look at the life of Captain Vancouver, RN, can best be seen against a considerable historiographical backdrop. The first survey of the life of the navigator whose statue adorns the cupola of the British Columbia Legislature was published in 1930 by George Godwin, British Columbia lawyer and author, who delved into Admiralty and Colonial Office papers and unearthed considerable evidence. In 1960 there appeared the best biography to date, by Admiral Bern Anderson, USN: Surveyor of the Sea: the Life and Voyages of Captain George Vancouver. Anderson was a student of Professor Samuel E. Morison of Harvard, and his work shows true scholarly genius and knowledge of command and navigation. In Anderson's wake sailed W Kaye Lamb - not as a biographer but as an editor of Vancouver's A Voyage of Discovery to the North Pacific Ocean and Round the World, 1791-1795 (published by the Hakluyt Society in London 1984). Lamb unearthed almost every relevant document from which to frame, in the introduction to his edition, a comprehensive and judicious account. It was not biography. But others, too, have joined the bulging bibliography, including John Naish, The Interwoven Lives of George Vancouver, Archibald Menzies, Joseph Whidbey and Peter Puget: The Vancouver Voyage of 1791-1795 (1996). B. Guild Gillespie wrote On Stormy Seas: the Triumphs and Torments of Captain George Vancouver (1992) and Ted Roberts, A Discovery Journal, now in its second edition. Neither of these last two is included in Bown's list of sources. It may be gathered from this brief survey that the life and voyage of Vancouver continues to be, a subject of considerable interest, not only in British Columbia and Canada, but in the United States, the United Kingdom, Spain and elsewhere. Bown's book, while adding little new evidence, repositions Vancouver in the newer literature which seeks to present more classic historical dispositions in a new light. Some might describe it as old wine in new bottles. Bown writes with flourish, and the result is a fast-paced narrative even if we do not gather anything new or see anything not already found elsewhere. In that sense, his book may, happily, open the Vancouver story to those unacquainted with its depths and quirks. But it does not advance Vancouver scholarship and adds little that is new. Vancouver, son of a customs bureaucrat of Kings Lynn, went to sea early in life, and made two voyages with James Cook, arriving first at Nootka in 1778. Vancouver, who was mauled at Kealakekua Bay just before the master mariner was stabbed in the back, had sailed almost all seas, from most southerly Antarctic waters to high Bering Strait. His own voyage had a number of interlocking obligations: to survey the coast of Northwest America where only speculation had been given by European cartographers and armchair geographers and, above all, to act as British cornrnissioner to complete a deal with his Spanish counterpart, Bodega y Quadra, at Nootka in late 1792 as to the terms of restitution. Vancouver could not get what he thought the British ministry wanted or expected and, in the circumstances, sent home for further instructions. Later a mutual restitution was agreed upon by the two governments, and in the event Vancouver acted wisely - as tact required. He was not a dupe' of the Spanish. Nor was he upstaged by Spanish flamboyance, food and wine. British parsimony at sea forbade that. Nonetheless, he and Bodega y Quadra became great friends (although Britain and Spain were at war within a few years of this). If he had little difficulty with the Spanish he had complications with his ship's company - and what commander on a long voyage has not experienced this? Much of Vancouver's difficulty lay with a young, cocksure midshipman, Thomas Pitt, later Lord Camelford, who happened to be tied by blood with the most powerful political house in England. Camelford was a loose cannon and he committed many infractions of naval discipline. He thus had to be punished, much to his spirited annoyance. Vancouver dismissed him from his ship and sent him home to England, where Pitt began a campaign of slander against his former commander. Bown goes into the details and the consequences: Vancouver was hounded, one might say almost to death, in London and Petersham, Surrey, and became the laughing stock of the politicos generally and the cartoonist Gillray particularly. One of Vancouver's brothers saw his book through the press. That work was his last will and testament, even if his life ended in sadness and distress. Such is the twist of history, for now Vancouver ranks first among equals in the business of Northwest Coast navigation and in the premier rank of sailors generally, completing the longest and most successful voyage: 65,000 miles in four and two-thirds years. Some points of addition or correction would have improved this work. Vancouver had a natural facility for native languages. He did not use the cat of nine tails on Pitt; the punishments were with cane or rope "starter." You could not use a cat below deck; it required more headroom. Bown overplays events for dramatic effect, as at p. 118. Vancouver anchored in Birch Bay, not Boundary Bay. Bown is unaware of recent scholarship by Cole Harris that explains the depopulation of First Nations due to smallpox just prior to Vancouver's visit to the coast. Robert Gray did not sail up the Columbia River; he anchored in the estuary. The statement to the effect BRITISH COLUMBIA HISTORY - Vol. 42 No. 1 25 that Vancouver could not abide a lack of control or disobedience of orders is simply ridiculous; command is political control and it rests on obedience and deference. That the abandonment by his government was slowly unhinging Vancouver cannot be sustained. A clearer discussion of the medical evidence and contrary opinions would strengthen the work. Barry Gough of of Victoria was founding director of Canadian Studies at Wilfrid Laurier University and is the author of numerous books and articles on the history of the British navy in the on the Pacific Coast. The Promise: Love, Loyalty & the Lure of Gold. Bffl Gallaher. Surrey, B.C., TouchWoodEditions, 2008. 180p., illus. $18.95paperback. Based on the memoirs of gold miner Robert Stevenson and told in his voice, The Promise is an engrossing portrayal of Stevenson's friends, Sophia and John "Cariboo" Cameron. The story illustrates the physical and psychological tribulations the Camerons experienced during and after the Cariboo gold rush. Originally, Bill Gallaher wrote a song based on the Camerons' saga because the tale was "about Canada and Canadians, something that defined us as a people." Gallaher found a song could not fully express the story, so, in 2001, he published his first book: "the ballad that I never wrote, one without music or rhyme, but a ballad nevertheless." Seven years later, The Promise is again in print. New audiences can now read this elegiac and unforgettable depiction of Canadian history. The Promise focuses on the lust for adventure and money that led three Ontario farm folk to the mountains and creeks of BC. They not only had to travel vast distances and survive bitterly cold winters, they had to cope with unscrupulous characters, unfriendly Indians, bandits, and diseases such as smallpox and typhoid (mountain fever). The novel highlights some of the "devil of a time" endured by the women who accompanied their husbands to the gold fields. After being swept up by her husband's "enthusiasm" and "forceful nature," Sophia Cameron spent two-and- a-half weeks on a "wild and frenzied" sea voyage to Cuba before sailing on to Victoria, BC. During the journey, her young daughter became ill. The girl died in Victoria, and at Williams Creek, Sophia gave birth to a stillborn child. Yet, she did not complain until she came down with typhoid. Before dying, she made her husband promise to return her body to Summerstown, Ontario. Sympathetic to Cameron's plight, Stevenson agreed to help him fulfill that promise. After deciding upon an ingenious way to preserve her remains, the two men spent five weeks transporting Sophia's body to New Westminster. They had to contend with waist deep snowdrifts, temperatures as low as 35 below, a sled that weighed 500 pounds and kept overturning, icy and treacherous slopes, and nearly died themselves. The rest of the novel describes another promise, one that Cameron did not keep. As a result, suspicion and gossip plagued John Cameron after he buried Sophia in Ontario and then resettled and remarried there. A wealthy man after staking a profitable claim in Williams Creek, Cameron's riches did not bring him happiness. He died a disappointed man. Besides engagingly retelling Stevenson's memoir, Gallaher dispels some myths associated with the BC gold rush. He also includes the stories of some of BC's characters of the day, such as "Dutch Bill" Dietz and Ned Stout, and a female hotelkeeper with several pseudonyms and a secret identity. Gallaher includes numerous black and white photographs and sketches of people and places; he also provides informative footnotes for each chapter. The Promise highlights "people, as they have always been down through the ages and as they will always be, full of greatness and pettiness, beauty and ugliness, innocence and guile. Only the conventions of time and place differ." Gallaher captures those essential qualities in this dramatic tale of gold-fever, integrity, love, and derring-do. Sheryl Salloum is a freelance writer living in Vancouver. Hfc Tragedy at Second Narrows: The Story of the Ironworkers Memorial Bridge. Eric Jamieson. Madeira Park, BC, Harbour Publishing Co., Ltd., 2008.301 p., photos, illus., index. $32.95 hardcover. Eric Jamieson's book, Tragedy at Second Narrows: the story of the Ironworkers Memorial Bridge, provides insight into various facets related to the erection of the Ironworkers Memorial Second Narrows Crossing. During its construction, two spans collapsed in six seconds taking the lives of 18 men on June 17,1958. Another man perished in the rescue effort. This tragedy was "the worst industrial accident the city has experienced." Legends and myths of the disaster evolved as events unfolded. For readers who grew up hearing stories of the occurrence, Jamieson's investigation assists with clarifying fact from fiction. Accurately reporting events to 26 BRITISH COLUMBIA HISTORY - Vol. 42 No. 1 the public at the time was difficult because details related to the collapse were complex, as was the Royal Commissioner's report into what caused the spans to fall into Burrard Inlet. Jamieson's research revealed multiple explanations for the collapse—no single circumstance could fully account for the tragedy. The first three chapters discuss why the crossing was needed, the political climate of the time, and the main actors associated with the designing and construction of this challenging structure. Next, descriptions of the collapse and the rescue effort interweave with the voices of survivors and close relatives of people connected to the tragedy. Jamieson enhances the specifics of the June 17th catastrophe by employing a narrative style. As a side note, Jamieson takes the reader into the lives of the spouses and families, highlighting what they were enduring in the hours following the collapse. This information is followed by details related to the Royal Commission. The final chapters outline the salvaging of the collapsed spans, discuss the stoppage of the bridge's construction as a result of labour unrest due to government legislation, and describe the placement of the final span along with other events related to the opening of the bridge. In the Epilogue, Jamieson gives a comprehensive yet concise summation of the tragedy and related issues. This book would be of interest to a general readership. Those studying political events during this time period, those seeking insight into how the many facets of bridge construction safety evolved, and people wanting to study the urbanization of the Lower Mainland, to name a few, would find Jamieson's book a valuable resource. In his compilation, Jamieson turned to various archival materials (such as newspapers, the Royal Commission's report, and government documents) and information collected from interviews. Photographs and illustrations augment the text; as the adage goes, "a picture is worth a thousand words." The reader is advised to spend time viewing details in the photographs (a magnifying glass would be of assistance). Jamieson's explanations of technical concepts are presented with terminology that most readers would find understandable. Overall, he is to be complimented on capturing all facets of the tragedy and events surrounding the construction of the bridge. This book would be a welcome addition to public and private libraries. Dr. Kirk Salloum is an educational consultant living in Vancouver, BC. Victoria Underfoot: Excavating a City's Secrets. Brenda Clark, Nicole Kilburn, & Nick Russell, editors. Madeira Park, Harbour Publishing, 2008.144pp., illus., index, $24.95 paperback Searching for a special gift for a family member or friend, Victoria resident or visitor? Victoria Underfoot will delight anyone who might be intrigued by the city's archaeological legacy. This very readable book consists of short but informative chapters describing key features of ancient and historic sites in Greater Victoria, along with useful comments on the value of archaeological research. Accompanying the chapters are very brief focus pieces highlighting such topics as the early economic importance of dogs for aboriginal people, conditions of life among Chinese men left to fend for themselves in a local leper colony, and "mudlarking" in the Gorge. Throughout the book are excellent visual aids for understanding chronology and stratigraphy, as well as photographs and drawings of recovered artifacts, buildings, burial sites, and early residents of the region. A helpful map with site locations follows the Table of Contents, and a bibliography is included for the reader who wants to learn more. A glossary or footnotes would have been useful to the archaeologically uninitiated for clarifying such terms as toggling harpoons. The editors' "Introduction" provides an overview of subject matter and a provocative discussion of the importance of archaeology, both as reconstruction of the past and as an on-going process of knowledge collaboration involving not only archaeologists, but also members of modern First Nations and immigrant communities. Each article speaks to the enduring importance of pre-contact and historic archaeological research as key to understanding the shared continuity of our collective urban heritage. Accounts of the city's First Nations sites encompass descriptions of artifacts and other cultural remains, supplemented with discussions of how shifts in settlement locations and artifact styles may reflect human adaptations to the challenges of social and environmental change. Other chapters describe the process of doing archaeology. For example, logistic problems in excavating and retrieving a single, 3000-year-old yew-wood wedge preserved in a watery site at Esquimalt Lagoon are vividly recounted, along with a useful explanation of radiocarbon dating. Narratives of historic archaeological projects include a descriptive account of a variety of artifacts unearthed in an excavation of the Provincial Royal Jubilee Hospital garbage dump: porcelain doll parts, safety pins, bedpans, and blue bottles that might have contained arsenic. Discovery of ceramics in a site beneath Victoria's Chinatown afford the reader a glimpse of dietary patterns among Chinese workers who came to Victoria to make new lives for themselves in the 19th century. And recent efforts by Victoria's Old Cemeteries Society to document, with the aid of noninvasive ground-penetrating radar, historic mortuary remains beneath the surface of the BRITISH COLUMBIA HISTORY - Vol. 42 No. former "Old Burying Ground", will surely motivate readers to visit Pioneer Square. Descriptions of research at Rodd Hill and at the reversing falls in the Gorge provide absorbing information covering both archaeological and historic detail, while the on-going restoration of Ross Bay Villa, built in 1865, will encourage renewed interest in this site, as well. Those who have walked along Victoria's Broad Street will be captivated by the essay on a curious bit of truly underfoot archaeology - the translucent glass blocks, now purple from the sun, embedded in city sidewalks. Numbering in the hundreds of thousands in the early 20th century, the eight- centimetre square prisms allowed natural light to illuminate underground storage areas and delivery passageways. A spirited plea for preservation of the remaining 11 thousand blocks offers ideas for making them a tourist attraction. Another plea underlies the book's final chapter, "Call Before You Dig", an informative summary of heritage conservation legislation and of ways to promote protection for provincial archaeological sites. Victoria Underfoot is not only about the contents of urban archaeological sites. It is also a narrative of how archaeological research can iUurninate the past and make it meaningful for the future. For instance, an analysis of the transition, some 1500 years ago, from below-ground burials to above-ground, stone and earth burial cairns concludes with an account of the destruction of most cairns by colonial treasure-seekers. What remain are "remnants of sacred landscapes" (p. 61) reflecting the technological and social creativity of the ancestors of modern First Nations people and the predations of Europeans who destroyed these landscapes "without any consultation with the very visible First Nations communities" (p. 61). Ultimately, many First Nations groups came to hold negative views of archaeology, views that have persisted as existing laws protecting archaeological sites continue to be disregarded. Yet today, active partnerships involving archaeologists, students of archaeology, and both First Nations and immigrant communities are promoting a new, more inclusive stewardship of our cultural heritage based on respect and sensitivity. This message of the potential relevance of a new "action archaeology" (p. 65) to descendant communities is the most compelling feature of Victoria Underfoot. Marjorie Mitchell taught anthropology at Camosun College and is currently an Adjunct Assistant Professor of Anthropology at the University of Victoria. Voices from the Sound; Chronicles of Clayoquot Sound and Tofino 1899-1929. Margaret Horsfield. Nanaimo, B.C., Salal Books, 2008.365 p. illus., maps. $45. hardcover. Margaret Horsfield's previous book, Cougar Annie's Garden, enchanted enough people to make it a best seller and win the Roderick Haig-Brown Prize in 2000, but the enchantment worked most strongly on the author herself. The history and aura of this portion of Vancouver Island's far west coast captured her imagination and interest with such intensity that they have become central to her work and her personal life. She has poured seven years of discovery and research into the new book Voices from the Sound, which promises to be, like Cougar Annie, both a labour of love and a critical and commercial success. The "voices" from the past which Horsfield heard as she moved beyond the garden belonged to: Walter Dawley, merchant, and his customers; Charles Moser and Maurus Snyder, priests; Douglas Scott Dixson, physician; James Jones, prospector and adventurer; Cosmos Damian William, pupil at the Christie Indian School; Edward GiUam, captain of the SS Princess Maauinna; Mrs. Rolston, one of his passengers; and the other inhabitants, long-term and transient, of Clayoquot Sound in the early years of the twentieth century. Another Tofino enthusiast, Leona Taylor, introduced Horsfield to Dawley's papers at the Provincial Archives, and those papers, with Fr. Moser's diary, became her starting point and the book's core. Probably the first to explore these documents in detail, she recognises that she must not be the last: "their usefulness and their historical value are such that they merit much greater attention in the future." She opens a window into an era, shows us the passing scene, draws our attention to people, places and incidents, each of which might merit a book to itself. Her lively narrative links and spins the quoted passages into a whole which feels real, and mercifully free of polemic. While not hiding signs that all may not be well - trees come down on the shores of Clayoquot Sound; too many children die at the Christie School - she promotes no agenda apart from the telling of a story. Horsfield is publishing and distributing Voices from the Sound through her own Salal Books, as she did Cougar Annie's Garden, but this time she has received some deserved assistance from the Canada Council and the BC Arts Council. The beautiful, if hefty, volume invites the slow turning of pages, the visiting and revisiting of people and scenes. The photographs and documents, scraps from letters, ledgers, and advertisements, remastered and reproduced by Mark Kaarremaa, call for special commendation. The clarity and quality are astounding. Briony Penn's maps are too pretty to be useful. Her calligraphy confuses the coastline, already created sufficiently confusing by Mother Nature. Perm has also provided attractive line drawings to fill out the ambience where no photograph was available. We are obliged to Margaret Horsfield for taking us back a century to a not-so- strange world, where coastal travellers considered a mere fifteen-day layover between boats nothing to fret about, and where, even in those early days of tourism, locals complained of seasonal overbooking. Phyllis Reeve reads history on a hilltop overlooking the Salish Sea. 28 BRITISH COLUMBIA HISTORY - Vol. 42 No. 1 WHAT KESBPS A TOWN. kelson Newspaper df-urin& on Thin In- foresting Problem. From the Nelson Tribune. Just what keeps Kelson i^oing is a question which more than one visitor has asked. It Is not a mining town. It has Lhe Silver King mine and the smelter, the Athabasca, the Duucnn company's mine**, the l*oorman, «*ud several other j leaser properties, but nil of these would I fall to keep up a much smaller town than i NeJsoJi. It ir manifest, therefore, that Nelson must hare interests other than I mining, and Interests which in them- | selves are the cciual in importance with J mining. In casting about to ascertain what these interests are tew people give j Nelson's transportation business that prominence which if' should have. I Everyone knows that Nelson has two ' railway systems serving it, and most peo- t pie know that there are six steamers j wliiih call regularly at the city wharves. I but few have any idea that the handling of the goods which arrive in Nelson 'aud depart from it gives employment to over 200 men, or that there is handled daily over one thousand tons of freight. Such is the case however. With its several branch lines centering in Ne'sou. and its ferry connection with the Crow's Nest branch, the Canadian I*aHf»c Railway is of course the largest j empl'-yor of labor. Week in week out the Canadian T*oc?fic mores in and out! of Nelson sonic U;>0 carloads of mor- can disco and general freight, and in the moving of it furnishes employment for l-i2 men. It educed to a daily basis these figures mean that averaging the days through the week there is moved on the ' .Canadian Pacific Railway at Nelson 42, carloads each day. Of this number 38 carloads represent the incoming business and 4 carloads the local outgoing. Of the 38 cars which are hauled into Nelson 24 cats remain here, and the remainder is what is classed as through freight, going through to Rossland and other points iii southern "Kootenay. The few cars which are mentioned as outgoing local represents merely a portion of the trade which the merchants of Nelson do with the retail traders in other parts of the province. In the company's employ In this service there are, including the men in the up-town office, something like sixty-four, while in the steamboat service in connection with the railway there are sixty- eight men. The steamboat service includes the steamer Moyie and a crew of t went v. the steamers TCoknneo and Keelson with ciews of eighteen each, and the steam tug Ymlr with a crew of seven, all of which are usetl for the purpose of feeding froiarbt to the railway and receiving freight from it. There is also to be included the men employed in the local shipyard, who at present nnrnber about ten. They are employed solely in work upon the company's boats, and during the winter while the new steamers were building, numbered close upon sixty, with a payroll of 34.O00 per month. This nceonnts for 132 men employed by th** company in the moving of freight. Th»*n there is the Nelson & F^ort Sheppard railway to be dealt with. It is not ho large a concern as the Canadian Pacific, as it has but one line into Nelson, while the Canadian T*acitic has virtually thiee. In connection with it. however, the steamers International and Alberta are operated, and collectively they funi'sh emp'oyment for 4S men.. On the railway proper at Nelson there are employed in the handling of freight 1S2 men, and the average number of carloads hnmll< d each week is 03, This business is equally divided between incoming and outgoing freight. The incoming is made up chiefly of merchandise and the outgoing of ore from the Slocan. The merchants of Nelson are doing a considerable jobbing trade over the Nelson Sc Forr Shcppard. however, and it is a trade which appears to be growing. On each freight which is pulleo out of Ncl- s«n there is made up a carload of small shipments from the wholesale bouses in Nelson to points along the line between Nelson and the boundary, and for some time past the railway company has averaged three carloads per week of merchandise consigned from Nelson to points in Boundary Creek. In addition to the tonnage which the steamers touching at Nelson receive direct from the two railway companies, there is also a considerable local tonnage frr m Nelson to points along Kootenay lake, "which averages from twenty-fire to thirty tons per day. There is also another class of men who receive employment through the handling of this freight tonnage in addition to the 180 men so employed upon the railways and steamers, and these are the tenmsteis who move the freight to and from the railway freight sheds mid steamboat wharves- There nre just twenty of them in Nelson. They make an even 2*:o employed in the local handling of fre'ghl entering into and departing from Nelson. They arc more in evidence, however, than the other ISO. and with their teams give that evident *c of business life wihcli outsiders, . not knowing the volume of Nelson's business, cannot understand. The British Colonist Saturday March 25, 1899 BRITISH COLUMBIA HISTORY - Vol. 42 No. 1 29 Miscellany Powell River Museum hosting the 2011 BC Historical Federation Conference. "Dear Mr. Greene: At our Board meeting today, it was agreed to host the BC Historical Federation Conference in Powell River in 2011. Thank you. Teedie Kagume Co-ordinator 2008 Pierre Berton Award The National History Society's 2008 Pierre Berton Award for the dissemination of Canadian history has gone to the Great Unsolved Mysteries in Canadian History project based at the University of Victoria. The project, which mounts historic "cold cases" and invites students and others to solve them while learning about our history - has three of its twelve mysteries focused on British Columbia. The original mystery in the series, "Who Killed William Robinson?" is the story of three murders of black men on Salt Spring Island in 1867-68. The other two BC mysteries are "We Do Not Know His Name: Klatsassin and the Chilcotin War" of 1864 and "Explosion on the Kettle Valley Line: The Death of Peter Verigin," the charismatic leader of the Doukhobours whose train car exploded near Castlegar in 1924. The websites and teacher support material can be found at www.canadianmvsteries.ca. A Virtual Tour A Virtual tour of the Doukhobor Textiles Exhibit is now on our website! Celebrating 100 years of Doukhobor Settlement in British Columbia This is the Web component of a physical exhibit which was on display at Touchstones Nelson between November 15, 2008 and January 18,2009. Check it out at http://www. touchstonesnelson.ca / exhibitions / virrual_ exhibitions.php This is the work of Alistair Fraser who will be our conference piper and photographer and, if you recall, helped to design our website. British Columbia's Early Newspaper Online Canadian historians now have complete access online to one of the oldest daily newspapers in Western Canada and best records of British Columbia history. A new website, www.britishcolonist.ca, contains every issue of the British Colonist — from the first one, on December 11,1858, to the end of June 1910, a total of 100,544 pages. The paper, published in Victoria, B.C. covered the entire province and predecessor colonies and was the main paper in the region until the rise of Vancouver papers early in the 20th century. Launched exactly 150 years after the first publication of the paper, the digital collection is an anniversary gift from the successor newspaper the Victoria Times Colonist, the University of Victoria Library, UBC's Ike Barber Learning Centre, the Electronic Library Network of British Columbia, the BC Public Library Services Branch and the Greater Victoria Public Library. "December 11 is the exact date of the 150th anniversary of the Times Colonist," says Times Colonist Editor-in-Chief Lucinda Chodan. "We're delighted to mark that occasion by giving something back to the community that has helped us thrive for the last century and a half—a legacy in perpetuity to the citizens of Victoria, Vancouver Island and British Columbia." Until now, the British Colonist newspaper, under many differing titles, has been available only on microfilm in a few libraries. The newspaper is the sole source of some types of information. For instance, during the first 30 years of its existence the newspaper covered the proceedings of the British Columbia legislative assemblies, which makes it the only documentation of its kind of this body. The British Colonist also reported on most court cases and is the only surviving record of judicial proceedings in the early days of the colony. "The new site is important for historical researchers and genealogists," says Chris Petter, the head of Special Collections at UVic's McPherson Library, who helped to manage the project. "Some of its content even predates the establishment of the province and Canada. As such, the site will provide historical researchers—including students and genealogists - with a rich full look at our history." Kilby Historic Site Celebrates Sun. May 10th Annual Mother's Day Treat your Mother to an old-fashioned day! Enjoy a special Quiche Brunch in the Harrison River Restaurant. Mon. May 18 Victoria Day Celebrations Enjoy an old fashioned Ice Cream Making demonstration at 2 pm and High Tea in the Harrison River Restaurant. Sat. June 13th Behind the Scenes Curator's Tour. Explore areas of the museum and other heritage buildings that are not normally open to the public; then try your hand at our trivia challenge & win a prize! Sun. June 21 Father's Day - Black Powder Event. Enter the old west, with black powder gun enthusiasts, cowboy shows and Trader's Row. Live entertainment and country-style BBQ in the Harrison River Restaurant. Dress in black powder garb and get free admission. 215 Kilby Road, Harrison Mills, BC Phone: 604-796-9576 Email: info@kilby.ca 30 BRITISH COLUMBIA HISTORY - Vol. 42 No. 1 Governor's Correspondence Coming On-Line As the University of Victoria prepared to shut down its last IBM mainframe - a technology workhorse that housed all research applications since the late 1960s - UVIC faculty and staff discovered important digital files. They contained Emeritus Professor James Hendrickson's massive project undertaken in the 1980s: the transcription from difficult-to-read archival documents of all the Vancouver Island and British Columbia Colonial Despatches of all the government documents that passed between Victoria and London in the colonial period might have been lost forever. Colonial Despatches (the 19th century spelling of dispatches) are the most authoritative documentary source available for the gold rush, Aboriginal relations and the colonial period in BC. They were a special kind of correspondence communications between the governor of a colony and the Colonial Office in London. The despatches included related correspondence, maps, legislation, and clippings. Governors were required to report on everything of importance that happened in their colony. The Colonial Despatches paint a compelling picture of the colonial period of BC, says UVic history professor John Lutz. Thanks to a grant from the Ike Barber Foundation, matched by UVic Libraries, Hendrickson's transcriptions of the 1858 despatches, originally encoded in the pre- Internet era, have been re-encoded to current international standards. The 1858 Despatches are now available at <http://bcqenesis.uvic. ca/> and as funding becames available the full set of correspondence from 1846-1871 will come online. Whonnock P.O. Safe Carried Bodily Away, Saturday Yeggs who broke into the post office at Whonnock, B.C. took the heavy safe from the building and moved it away in a wheelbarrow. The safe weighed 200 pounds and contained $18 in cash, $132 in postal notes abd $74 in stamps. The postmaster, Mr. Whiting, did not discover the loss until arriving at the postoffice on Sunday afternoon when he immediately notified the police. Later the safe was found carefully covered up with old pieces of carpet on the adjoining lot, where Mr. W.L. Baines resides. The postal notes and the stamps were still in the safe when found. The door of the safe had been pried off with a chisel. Weekly Gazette 13 March 1936 For more tidbits like this visit: http: 11 whonnock-history.blogspot. com/ Exciting New Exhibit for 2009 "Our Hudson's Hope Cowboys: Packers on the Trail" The museum has received $10,972 through the BC150 Heritage Legacy Fund grant program to collect and collate archival material for our 2009 Summer Exhibit "Our Hudson's Hope Cowboys: Packers on the Trail - a 75th anniversary celebration of the 1934 Charles Bedaux Expedition." This has enabled the museum to purchase previously unpublished photographs from the Library & Archives in Ottawa that will greatly enhance the museum's collection and the exhibition. As well, a virtual exhibit under the same title on our web site will help promote the project globally Many thanks to Ross Peck and Jay Sherwood for volunteering so much of their time to this project. Come Visit the Museum this Summer. May 16th - Museum will open daily for the Summer Season. May 24th - Opening of the Summer Exhibit with Shirlee Smith Matheson and Nadine MacKenzie. Along with numerous other books, Matheson has written a young adult novel entitled "Keeper of the Mountains" based on the Bedaux Expedition. MacKenzie has written a biography of Bedaux. July 10th - Jay Sherwood has edited the well known "Bannock & Beans" manuscript by Bob White, one of the cowboys on the expedition. This has been republished by the Royal BC Museum with additional photographs and text. Steve Koerner will also be giving a talk on his research into the Bedaux Expedition. July 11th - Plans are underway to float a raft carrying the "Hudson's Hope Cowboys" down the River at the Paddle for the Peace event. July 12th - Cowboy Family Reunion for descendants of the cowboys who took part in the expedition and have helped enormously with research and loaning artefacts and archival material. Hudson's Hope Museum P.O.Box 98 Hudson's Hope, B.C. VOC 1V0 Ph: (250) 783-5735 Fax: (250) 783-5770 Email: hhmuseum@pris.ca Vancouver post Card Club Show and Sale Sunday May 31,2009 at the Hastings Community Centre 3096 East Hastings Street. Access for the public will be 10:00 am to 4:00 p.m. The event is designed to allow dealers and members to interact but also to interest others in the hobby and to increase membership. The Show aspect of this event continues to improve when excellent displays of postcards are mounted by members illustrating various collecting subjects. For further information contact Don Steele at dsteelel@shaw.ca or by telephone at 604-922-9688. BRITISH COLUMBIA HISTORY - Vol. 42 No. 1 Your Last Chance to Purchase Windows to Our Past! ^Columbia Historical Federation Windows to our past . , . istorY 0f British Columbia ^HlBra^^ To celebrate British Columbia's 150th birthday, the British Columbia Historical Federation has publlllll a 24 page booklet with 117 postcards and images from 1880's thru 1930 Windows to our Past-A pictorial History of British Columbia. This exciting publication has many historic pictures from private collections, small museums and member societies. The Federation is most pleased that the majority of readers will never have seen the pictures and information featured. This is a lovely addition to a library, resource for researchers and an interesting glimpse of British Columbia's colorful history. Priced at $5.50, which includes mailing to any address in Canada ($6.50 to U.S.A. and $8.50 to other countries) you might like to have a copy for your collection, donate a copy to your local or high school library. Residents of your local seniors' homes would love to reminisce about some of the events featured in this publication. If you wish to include a note to the recipient, include it with your order and we will enclose it with Windows^) our Past when mailing. Send your order and cheque to BC Historical Federation, PO Box 63006, Richmond, B.C. V7E 6K4. For additional information contact Ron Hyde at newsletter@bchistory.ca BRITISH COLUMBIA HISTORY - Vol. 42 No. 1 British Columbia Historical Federation Awards and Scholarship Information W. KAYE LAMB Essay Scholarships Deadline 15 May 2009 The British Columbia Historical Federation awards two scholarships annually for essays written by students at BC colleges or universities, on a topic relating to British Columbia history. One scholarship ($750) is for an essay written by a student in a first or second year course; the other ($1000) is for an essay written by a student in a third or fourth year course. To apply for the scholarship all candidates must submit (1) a letter of application and (2) a letter of recommendation from the professor for whom the essay was written. First and second year course essays should be 1,500-3,000 words; third and fourth year,1,500 to 5,000 words. By entering the scholarship competition the student gives the editor of BC History the right to edit and publish the essay if it is deemed appropriate for the magazine. Applications should be submitted to: Marie Elliott, Chair BC Historical Federation Scholarship Committee, PO Box 5254, Station B, Victoria, BC V8R 6N4 BC History Web Site Prize The British Columbia Historical Federation and David Mattison are jointly sponsoring a yearly cash award of $250 to recognize Web sites that contribute to the understanding and appreciation of British Columbia's past. The award honours individual initiative in writing and presentation. Nominations for the BC History Web Site Prize must be made to the British Columbia Historical Federation, Web Site Prize Committee, prior to the 31 st of December each year. Website creators and authors may nominate their own sites. Prize rules and the online nomination form can be found on The British Columbia History Web site: http://www.victoria.tc.ca/resources/ bchistory I announcements, html Anne & Philip Yandle Best Article Award A Certificate of Merit and $250 will be awarded annually to the author of the article, published in BC History, that best enhances knowledge ot British Columbia's history and provides reading enjoyment. Judging will be based on subject development, writing skill, freshness of material, and appeal to a general readership interested in all aspects of BC history. The British Columbia Historical Federation invites submissions for the 27th Annual Historical Writing Competition for authors of British Columbia History. Eligibility • To be eligible for this competition, books must be published in 2009. • Non-fiction books representing any aspect of B.C. History are eligible. • Reprints or revisions of books are not eligible. • Books may be submitted by authors or publishers. • Deadline for submission is December 31, 2009. Judging Criteria Judges are looking for quality presentations and fresh material. Submissions will be evaluated in the following areas: • Scholarship: quality of research and documentation, comprehensiveness, objectivity and accuracy • Presentation: organization, clarity, illustrations and graphics • Accessibility: readability and audience appeal Lieutenant-Governor's Medal and Other Prizes The BC Lieutenant-Governor's Medal for Historical Writing will be awarded together with $600 to the author whose book makes the most significant contribution to the history of British Columbia. The 2nd and 3rd place winners will receive $400 and $200 respectively. Certificates of Honorable Mention may be awarded to other books as recommended by the judges. Publicity All winners will receive publicity and an invitation to the BCHF Awards Banquet at the Federation's annual conference in May, 2010. Submission Requirements Authors/Publishers are required to send three copies to the Chair of the Writing Competition Committee. Barb Hynek 2477 140th Street, Surrey, B.C. V4P 2C5 Email: bhvnek@telus.net Phone: 604-535-9090 Books are to be accompanied by a letter containing the following: • Title of the book submitted • Author's name and contact information • Publisher's name and contact information • Selling price Submission Deadline: December 31, 2009 By submitting books for this competition, the authors agree that the British Columbia Historical Federation may use their name(s) in press releases and in its publications. Books entered become the property of the BCHF. Return Undeliverable Canadian Addresses to Circulation Department. British Columbia Historical News Alice Marwood, 211 -14981 -101A Avenue Surrey, B C V3R 0T1 Canadian Publications Mail Product Sales Agreement No. 40025793 Publications Mail registration No. 09835 680 12/7 xxP 1(H) UBC LIBRARY, CENTRAL SERIALS PO BOX 2119 VANCOUVER BC V6B 3T5 v_/3J13iCi3. We acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada, through the Publications Assistance program (PAP), toward our mailing cost .iijOSAtetCTR-VfeJR" »ig1»ft^#''T»7?^M¥ Postcard courtesy of Ron Hyde
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