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British Columbia History
Vol. 46 No. 4
52 pages
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HISTORY t€t> Publication of the British Columbia Historical Federation | Winter 2013 | Vol. 46 No. 4 | $7.00 The Vision of Mahon The legacy of Edward Mahon includes the system of urban parks in North Vancouver known as the Green Necklace CITY Of NORTH VANCOUVER THE GRAND BOULEVARD BRITISH COLUMBIA Emory Creek Revisited The environmental legacy of gold mining A Dane in Canada The Tale of the Counsel, church-builder, V^nl^n^ founder of Dania Homes T V . ! and the Scandinavian A radarless freighter that Businessmen's Club crashed near Barkley Sound HISTORY British Columbia History is published four times per year (Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter) by the British Columbia Historical Federation. ISSN: print 1710-7881 online 1710-792X Subscriptions: $20.00 per year (CDN Funds) USA: $32.00 (per year (CDN Funds) International: $44.00 per year (CDN Funds) British Columbia History welcomes stories, studies, and news items dealing with any aspect of the history of British Columbia, and British Columbians. Please submit manuscripts for publication to the Editor, British Columbia History, Andrea Lister PO Box 21187, Maple Ridge BC V2X 1P7 email: bcheditor@bchistory.ca Submission guidelines are available at: bchistory.ca/journal/index.html Book reviews for British Columbia History, K. Jane Watt, Book Review Editor, BC History, Box 1053, Fort Langley, BC VIM 2S4 email: reviews@bchistory.ca Subscription & subscription information: BCHF c/o Magazine Association of BC 201-318 Homer Street Vancouver, BC V6B 2V2 email: subscriptions@bchistory.ca Phone: 604.688.1175 Single copies of recent issues are for sale at: - Caryall Books, Quesnel, BC - Gray Creek Store, Gray Creek, BC - Otter Books, Nelson, BC - Royal British Columbia Museum Shop, Victoria, BC - Touchstones Nelson: Museum of Art & History, Nelson, BC ISSN: 1710-7881 Printed in Canada. Production Mail Registration Number 40025793 Publications Mail Registration No. 09835 We acknowledge the financial support of the Goverrnment of Canada through the Canada Periodical Fund of the Department of Canadian Heritage. 1*1 Canadian Patrimoine Heritage canadien Canada 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 www. bchistory.ca Under the Distinguished Patronage of The Honourable Judith Guichon, OBC Lieutenant Governor of British Columbia Honorary President: Jacqueline Gresko Are you an Undergraduate History Student? Each year, the British Columbia Historical Federation offers two W. Kaye Lamb Scholarships for student essays relating to the history of British Columbia. Prize for a student in the 1st or 2nd year is $750 Prize for a student in the 3rd or 4th year is $1,000 Eligibility The essay must be written by a student registered in a university or college in British Columbia. Candidates must submit their application for this scholarship by May 15th, 2014. See full rules and criteria on the BCHF website: http://bchistory.ca/awards/essay/index.html ^„/,i/te/™.Z,_HISTORY The Vision of Mahon Cover Image: The grand vision for North Vancouver: the Grand Boulevard. Artist's rendition of the widest section of the Grand Boulevard, looking south towards Burrard Inlet. The Terminal City looks decidedly polluted by industrial activity. Read the story on page 7. Scan of original in Mahon Family Records (MFR), used with permission Editorial Advisory Committee Anne Edwards Catherine Magee 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. *_StV WWds i-&4*444& Published by the British Columbia Historical Federation I Winter 2013 I Vol. 46 No. 4 t^et&fogsrt&i. 7 Edward Mahon — A Talented Visionary by Walter Volovsek Although it broke him financially, entrepreneur Edward Mahon lived through the upheaval of the century with great dignity and grace and left behind a legacy. IE The White Sultan of Victoria 1_J by Paul G. Chamberlain The extraordinary adventures of Brigadier Sir James Timothy Whittington Landon KCVO taking him from sleepy Oak Bay to the Sultanate of Oman. O f\ ^ Dane in Canada ^T ^J by Karl Jessen The little-known story of a Danish immigrant who founded a retirement home for elderly Danes and a Scandinavian Businessmen's club. ^ A Emory Creek: Enviromental ^ r Legacy Revisited byG. B. Leech Environmental history is a relatively new discipline; however, a more inter-disciplinary approach can result in a more in-depth understanding of the past. 32 Sailing without Radar; the Fate of the Vanlene by Vern Giesbrecht This is the story of how a 10,500-ton freighter sailed across the Pacific without radar, eventually crashing near Barkley Sound on the west coast of Vancouver Island. 36 Finding Juan de Fuca in Kefalonia by Alan Twigg What Alan Twigg did on his summer vacation: Become the British Columbian to see the first statue erected to honour the first European who likely reached BC waters. 40 Archives & Archivists by Laura Gloor; edited by Sylvia Stopforth The photographs and words of Charles McLaughlin, an avid outdoorsman, come together with excerpts of his account of a 1912 trip through the Peace River country. 48 Cabinets of Curiosities by Naomi Miller Former editor Naomi Miller has three items in her family cabinet that date back to the 1800s and harken back to days of black powder and snuff. 3 Editor's Note You Never Know 4 Inbox Letters from Readers 42 From the Book Review Editor's Desk K. Jane Watt Ordinary Folk, Not Much Different from Ourselves BRITISH COLUMBIA HISTORY | Winter 2013 | Vol. 46 No. 4 1 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 0 www.bchistory.ca 0 info@bchistory.ca Under the Distinguished Patronage of The Honourable Judith Guichon, OBC Lieutenant Governor of British Columbia OFFICERS PRESIDENT Barry Gough Phone 250.592.0800 president@bchistory.ca FIRST VICE PRESIDENT Gary Mitchell Phone 250.387.2992 vpl@bchistory.ca SECOND VICE PRESIDENT Derek Hayes Phone 604.541.7850 vp2@bchistory.ca SECRETARY Judy Lam Maxwell Phone 604.418.8560 secretary@bchistory.ca TREASURER Kerri Gibson Phone 250.386.3405 Fax: 250.361.3188 treasurer@bchistory.ca PAST PRESIDENT (EX-OFFICIO) Barb Hynek Phone 250.535.9090 pas tpres ©bchistory.ca HONORARY PRESIDENT Jacqueline Gresko honorary@bchistory.ca DIRECTORS Marie Elliott essays@bchistory.ca Maurice Guibord director3@bchistory.ca Ron Hyde directorl@bchistory.ca William R. Morrison director4@bchistory.ca Sharron Simpson director5@bchistory.ca K. Jane Watt director2@bchistory.ca Ken Wuschke director6@bchistory.ca EDITORS Andrea Lister, British Columbia History Editor bcheditor@bchistory.ca K. Jane Watt, Book Review Editor, British Columbia History reviews@bchistory.ca Sylvia Stopforth, Archives & Archivists Editor, British Columbia History Andrea Lister, BCHF Newsletter newsletter@bchistory.ca R.J. (Ron) Welwood, Website Editor webeditor@bchistory.ca Derek Hayes, Online Encyclopedia Editor vp2@bchistory.ca COMMITTEE CHAIRS CONFERENCES Barb Hynek MAGAZINE LIAISON K. Jane Watt magazine@bchistory.ca HISTORICAL WRITING AWARDS William Morrison writing@bchistory.ca MEMBERSHIP Ron Hyde membership@bchistory.ca W.KAYE LAMB ESSAY SCHOLARSHIP Marie Elliott essays@bchistory.ca RECOGNITION Gary Mitchell recognition@bchistory.ca HISTORIC TRAILS AND SITES Tom Lymbery Phone: 250-227-9448 Fax 250-227-9449 trails@bchistory.ca For awards and scholarship information see inside back cover. MEMBERSHIP The British Columbia Historical Federation has been working since 1922 with historical sites, societies, groups, museums, archives, etc. throughout British Columbia preserving and promoting British Columbia's history. The British Columbia Historical Federation is an umbrella organization embracing a variety of membership categories which are interested in the preservation and promotion of British Columbia's history. Member Societies: Local and regional historical societies with objectives consistent with those of the Federation. All dues paying members of the local or regional society shall be ipso facto members of the Federation. Affiliated Members: Groups, organizations and institutions without dues paying members with specialized interests or objectives of a historical nature. Associate Members: Individuals may become members of the Federation. Corporate Members: Companies are entitled to become members of the Federation. ANNUAL MEMBERSHIP DUES Member Societies: one dollar per member with a minimum membership fee of $30 and a maximum of $75 Affiliated Members: $35 Associate Members: $35 Corporate Members: $100 For further information about memberships, contact Ron Hyde, Membership Chair BCHISTORY.CA: THE FEDERATION WEBSITE AND COMPANIONS BOOK STORE The website Book Store now has over 85 books on its shelves from the British Columbia Historical Federation and member societies. Books can be purchased through bchistory.ca using PayPal. Purchase books about BC history: www.bchistory.ca/publications/store/index.html DIGITAL ARCHIVES Federation publications from 1923 - 2007 can be accessed from the main page. Click on the Publications link from www.bchistory.ca Or go directly to the university library website at http://bchistory.library.ubc.ca/?db=bchf# The archive of BCHF Newsletters can be found at http://bchistory.ca/publications/newsletter/index.html ONLINE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF BRITISH COLUMBIA HISTORY A comprehensive database of British Columbia history, available free to all online in a "Wikipedia"style format. Submissions will be reviewed for accuracy. The name of the author will be attached to the entry with links to the author's website. Be a part of this exciting new project today and write a few words about your area of interest! http://bchistoryonline.com BRITISH COLUMBIA HISTORY | Winter 2013 | Vol. 46 No. 4 Editor's Note You Never Know The course of history is full of serendipity as I was reminded while putting this issue together. I was doing the usual fact-checking and research to write the deck for the Edward Mahon article that starts on page 7 when I came across the Eleanore Dempster fonds 151 at the North Vancouver Museum and Archives. (A deck, by the way, is a blurb, or sentence or two that reveals what the article is about.) "Wait a minute, I am sort of related to Eleanore." I read on, reminded that she is the author of The Laughing Bridge: A Personal History of the Capilano Suspension Bridge. Her husband's maternal grandmother Elizabeth Rebbeck MacEachran lived at the bridge and managed the tea-house for 25 years for Edward Mahon. The archival description says that Edward Mahon is Eleanore Dempster's husband's uncle by marriage. I open up my family tree and there he is, Edward Mahon, but I had not yet researched him as the connection to my family is more directly through Edward's sister- in-law. History having a personal connection is very evident in this issue of British Columbia History. Karl Jessen writes about his uncle, a Danish immigrant who founded a retirement home for elderly Danes and a Scandinavian Businessmen's club. The late Geoffrey Leech took personal issue with an academic paper published in British Columbia History in 2007 that referred to the environmental impact of gold mining at Emory Creek. Geoffrey Leech spent his career as a geologist at the Geological Survey of Canada and worked at Emory Creek relief camp during the depression so had first-hand knowledge of the camps. Naomi Miller tells us about items that belonged to her great-uncle. Paul Chamberlain's story takes us away from personal stories all the way to the Sultanate of Oman. While the story is not strictly speaking BC history it, to quote Anne Edwards of British Columbia History's Editorial Advisory Group, "tells a lot about the continuing function of Victoria in asserting their British ancestry, ways, and habits". It can be interesting to look outside our borders and see where BC born people travelled and what they accomplished. Alan Twigg's piece tells of his pilgrimage in search of Juan de Fuca's birthplace. The story of the Vanlene brings to mind recent news stories of oil spills, accidents, and corporate responsibility. While author Vern Giesbrecht is not personally connected to this story we are all affected by environmental accidents so when read in that light perhaps we do have an individual connection. Closer to home, British Columbia History and the history world at large has lost one of its own. Donald Lyon, a member of the Editorial Advisory Group and long-time supporter of the BCHF, passed away October 11, 2013. He will be missed by all who knew him. Andrea Lister Editor Submission Guidelines Manuscripts that have been published elsewhere or are under review for publication elsewhere, will be considered at the editor's discretion. • Word Count 1000 to 5000. • Electronic version, with file extension (either .doc or .rtf), will be required should the article be accepted for publication. • Endnotes must follow Chicago Manual of Style, do not insert notes in text. • Photocopies/scans of research material/ quoted material (pages from books, documents, or journals you have used) for fact checking are appreciated. • Illustrations are encouraged: ° submit copies of permissions (or assurance of permission) for the images; ° sufficient resolution for high-quality reproduction, 300 DPI (dots per inch) minimum or a pixel dimension of 1200x1500 pixels, (with the exception of images such as coins; minimum 600x600 pixels) preferable in jpg or tif format; ° Not embedded in text—send as separate files; ° Please provide suggested captions for the illustrations; ° Image credit information must be provided with all illustrations; ° Low-resolution images may be sent with initial submission in cases where images would need to be purchased from an institution. • A two-three sentence biographical note about the author and photo. If a manuscript is accepted for publication, major changes will be cleared with authors before publication. Authors will also have the opportunity to do a final proof check prior to publication. You agree to grant the BCHF First Rights (the right to be first to publish your material in North America) or Reprint Rights (your material has been published before and this is now a reprint; the original publisher will be credited at the time of reprint), and Electronic Publishing and Multimedia Rights (the right to publish the work on the internet) and to publish that work in British Columbia History for no payment. Future online publication of your work and the right to reprint it in a future publication is included in your granting of publication rights to the BCHF. The British Columbia Historical Federation assumes no responsibility for statements made by contributors. BRITISH COLUMBIA HISTORY | Winter 2013 | Vol. 46 No. 4 3 Inbox Letters from Readers Gordon Windwick pasting up a Great Western Garment Co. (GWG) poster and perhaps wearing the advertised product of this successful Alberta company. Exact date and location unknown. Our Neon Nightmare by Katherine Hill Before the Community Arts Council of Vancouver and its concern about neon and billboard blight in Vancouver there was my father, Gordon Windwick: just a happy Scottish immigrant from the Orkney Islands, thankful to have a job in Canada in the 1930's installing some of those eyesores. He worked for both Ruddy-Duker and Neon Products of Western Canada in Vancouver and Victoria. I found a "FORM 7A" he had roughed out for his 1938 Income Tax. It lists only Ruddy- Duker and Neon Products as employers, and a total income of $1,249.95. Not bad for a single 31 year-old man in those days. In the early 1940's my father began a career with the fire department in the Municipality of Oak Bay and traded the denim coveralls and billboard paste for a nice uniform, more exciting work and higher pay. Things have gone full circle now and one of my sons now produces these large billboard ads in a printing shop in Calgary. Regards, Greg Windwick, Victoria Neon Jungle The front cover with The Neon Jungle brought back memories of the war years in Vancouver. All street signs were shut off and street lights, and even car headlights were shaded to reduce the city glow that the Japanese submarines could use to outline the ships they were torpedoing offshore. We had no way of knowing if any ships were actually being sunk, until the publication of War on Our Doorstep, by Brendan Coyle was published in 2002, which reports of at least 8 ships hit on the West Coast. It was amazing to see the lights begin to come on again in 1945 — especially the neon of the Granville Street Theatres. One of the most spectacular neons was on Pender Street near Richards — the Niagara Hotel with its glittering moving cascade of lights (sadly disfigured when Ramada took over this hotel) I am still a neon enthusiast. Tom Lymbery Gray Creek BC BRITISH COLUMBIA HISTORY | Winter 2013 | Vol. 46 No. 4 Nikkei photo essay I was pleased with the publication of the Nikkei photo essay. It was an historic event not only for the Japanese but also for the community. Sincerely Alice Glanville Update on Kenny Huston You were very kind to forward us a copy of your fall British Columbia History, in which my father's photograph appeared in Dr. Haynes' piece on Kenny Huston's remarkable recovery following the One- Eye Lake plane crash, which took place west of us, fifty-two years ago last month. Certainly, a series of remarkable persons were involved in Kenny's recovery, from Dr. Haynes' initial splinting of Kenny's leg and catheterizing of his arm veins, and the intubation of the patient along the trail back to await the Beaver's arrival, to the further splinting of Kenny's multiples fractures in Williams Lake, and then to my orthopedic surgeon father at the Vancouver General, who, along with his partner, Hector Gillespie, tended Kenny for the next three years. But along with the professional care, Kenny's undaunting courage and determination were largely responsible for his amazing recover - Kenny still greets us with a grin when we chance to meet him street in downtown Williams Lake! Thank you so much for your kindness in providing us with a copy of your magazine. Sincerely Barrie (Boucher) and Tony Bayliff Send us your thoughts. British Columbia History welcomes reader's letters and emails, while reserving the right to edit them. Email your story to: bcheditor@bchistory.ca, or mail it to: Editor, British Columbia History, PO Box 21187, Maple Ridge, BC V2X 1P7. BRITISH COLUMBIA HISTORY | Winter 2013 | Vol. 46 No. 4 hsdi British Columbia Historical Federation Annual Conference June 6-7, 2014 Cloverdale: Surrey's Historic Centre This exciting two-day event will be centered in the community of Cloverdale, taking place in a number of venues throughout the town. Friday » Field trip to Stewart Farm and Crescent Beach » This will be a bus trip offered at an additional charge to registration fee and will include lunch and on-site tours » Session on genealogy featuring the specialized resources at the Cloverdale Library » Guided walking tour of Historic Cloverdale » Multimedia introduction to Surrey's History » An evening reception will be held in the Surrey Museum. Saturday AGM followed by lunch and speaker. During the afternoon delegates will have a number of activities to choose from including: » Visit to Fraser Valley Heritage Railway - Offering 55 minute rides on restored interurban cars (delegates will need to purchase a $10.00 ticket at the station). » Visit to the new BC Vintage Truck Museum » Speaker on the early days of Surrey Saturday Evening - Awards Banquet at the Sunrise Banquet Centre Over both days there will be a number of suggested activities to be done on your own such as visits to the Surrey Museum exhibits, the Municipal Archives and the historic Christ Church Cemetery all located in Cloverdale. registration $ 150.00 per person Field Trip $32.00. Space is limited and preference will be given to conference registrants. Registration will be open to anyone interested in history and is not restricted to members of the Federation. For accommodations, rooms have been blocked at conference rates at two local hotels. Schedule and registration forms will be available via our website bchistory.ca in February Anyone who is unable to access forms on-line will be able to request a print copy. Presented in partnership with Surrey Historical Society surreyhistoryca Image: Courtesy of Cloverdale Business Improvement Association For information contact: BCHF Conference Coordinator, Barb Hynek email: pastpres@bchistoryca phone: 604-535-9090. BRITISH COLUMBIA HISTORY | Winter 2013 | Vol. 46 No. 4 Edward Mahon — A Talented Visionary by Walter Volovsek Although it broke him financially, entrepreneur Edward Mahon lived through the upheaval of the century with great dignity and grace and left behind a legacy. As he lay dying after surgery for intestinal cancer, the mind of Edward Mahon wandered over a rich landscape. Much had been ventured. Financial success had come, to be followed eventually by heavy losses. There was a legacy of parklands that would survive him. His sweetest memories were of his more academic interests: astronomy, mining exploration, thermodynamics, machining, dowsing for oil. Edward died on 18 June 1937, just as Emily Carr was reaching out to his wife - and her former student - Lilette: We are so grieved about Mr. Mahon, poor darling; I can't imagine him in hospital - with his gentle humour, its as if he'd be there always getting a kick out of all you do and enjoying all sorts of things from a good many angles. With you I hope sleep overtakes him gently - please give him my very much love if he is likely to want it. He occupies a corner of my heart.1 Edward's miscalculations during the Depression, combined with his generosity to others less fortunate, had left Lilette with very few resources, and she was forced to seek financial assistance from his siblings. It was a most unlikely ending to an illustrious life. Edward was born on 1 June 1862 in Rawmarsh, Yorkshire, where his father William was ministering to his Anglican flock. The Mahon family estate, however, was in County Galway, near a village called Ahascragh. It was called Castlegar and it had been in the hands of the Mahons since the late 1600s. In 1852 William ascended to the title of the Fourth Baronet and Castlegar should have been his principal residence, but his sense of duty to his parish convinced him to stay in England and raise his family there. On occasion, the family did visit their ancestral home. Edward graduated from Oxford, having earned a degree in Law after briefly contemplating following in his father's footsteps. In 1888 he articled in Dublin, but his heart was not in his chosen profession.2 Soon an opportunity was presented to him, which would vastly broaden his horizons. Edward's older brother, John Fitzgerald Mahon, had been taken under the wing of his uncle, John Ross Mahon. In 1836 John Ross Mahon had partnered with Robert Rundell Guinness to form a land management agency known as Guinness Mahon & Company. The agency flourished during the very difficult times precipitated by the potato famine, and eventually it evolved into a multifaceted financial institution. When he died unmarried in 1887, John Ross was a wealthy man, Walter Volovsek is a retiree from Selkirk College, where he managed the Biology laboratories. Besides developing interpretive panels along community trails, he has been commissioned to develop history sequences along the Castlegar Millennium Walkway, in Castlegar Spirit Square, and at Brilliant Suspension Bridge Regional Park. He maintains a website (www. trailsintime.org) to provide additional information on regional history. Siblings and friends at Rawmarsh; circa 1885. The close resemblance between Gilbert (left) and Edward (with racket) often led to confusion. Geraldine (right) later operated the 'lace industry'. BRITISH COLUMBIA HISTORY | Winter 2013 | Vol. 46 No. 4 Edward posing on the steps of Castlegar manor during one of the family visits to Ireland. and his considerable fortune passed on to his protege John.3 In 1889 John embarked on a world cruise to scout out investment opportunities for himself and other contributors. In due time he settled on Vancouver as being the principal area of interest. As he was tied to his banking enterprise at home, he persuaded Edward to emigrate to BC. Edward reached Vancouver in October 1890. The following year he ventured to the West Kootenay District to scout out mining opportunities. Here he acquired 320 acres (145.7 ha) opposite the confluence of the Columbia and Kootenay rivers from Albert McCleary, a homesteader and ferryman. For much of the decade, Edward alternated his real estate operations in the Vancouver area with mining activity in the Slocan, Rossland, and Greenwood camps. He was assisted in the mining ventures by his younger brother Gilbert, as well as relatives that had emigrated to Saltspring Island earlier. By far his most profitable acquisition was a set of silver claims near Silverton which became collectively known as the Vancouver Group. In 1897 Edward partnered with Fritz Augustus Heinze, who was building his Columbia & Western Railway from his Trail smelter, supposedly to the coast. The partnership would see the development of Edward's Kootenay city, which he wanted to honour with the name of his ancestral Irish home. Heinze, however, had many other irons in the fire, and three months later he struck a deal with the CPR to take over all his assets in BC, including the railway, the smelter, and his interest in the Castlegar townsite. Castlegar's future in essence departed with Heinze, as the new owner was not very keen on private development partnerships. While neighbouring cities thrived, Edward's city would linger in legal limbo, ironically to be rescued by the same depression which would bankrupt Edward.4 The Mahon real estate transactions focused predominantly on the North Shore, although John had purchased considerable land holdings during his 1889 visit in what is now Burnaby, as well as smaller lots in Vancouver City and Hastings Townsite. On 28 July 1891 the North Vancouver Land & Improvement Company was launched; its mandate was in land acquisition, marketing, and development. Dovetailing neatly with it was the firm of McFarland and Mahon (replaced by Mahon, McFarland & Mahon in 1895), with the principals being Edward, Gilbert and J.W. McFarland. It attended to the practical details of land transactions, including financing, insurance, and management for absentee landlords. By the middle of the decade the North Vancouver Land & Improvement Company owned the greater part of the land base that would become the City of North Vancouver in 1907. DL 271 was a key property in its early development, as was adjacent DL 274, later owned by Alfred St. George BRITISH COLUMBIA HISTORY | Winter 2013 | Vol. 46 No. 4 Hamersley. Initially, lot sales were relatively slow and the mining adventure in the West Kootenay provided welcome relief from the doldrums. Sales peaked midway through the first decade of the twentieth century before falling off again. By this time, Edward was a wealthy man. He was now living in a new home that had been designed by W. T. Dalton and paid for by his brother John. It was located on the corner of Burrard and Seaton (now West Hastings) streets. Like most other North Shore land developers, Edward preferred the greater comfort and relatively civilized status of the 'Terminal City'. The north end of the sizeable tapering lot was devoted to formal gardens and lawn tennis courts, and a vegetable garden was maintained on land leased from the CPR. Service staff included a cook and a gardener. The house became the social centre for Vancouver's elite. Edward threw lavish parties, facilitated by his social contacts at the Vancouver Club as well as his many customers. Land was not the only commodity being sold. In 1905 he started to import Irish lace, which was a real hit with the ladies. His sister Geraldine operated the 'industry' (as she put it) in Ireland, which was based on home production.5 Edward's popularity was also enhanced by his sparkling personality and intelligence. His family connections to the Third Earl of Rosse, the great astronomer who advanced the study of nebulae with the world's largest reflecting telescope, sparked an early interest in astronomy. Edward acquired several telescopes, to keep an eye on his North Shore developments as well as the stars.6 The other hobby which endeared him to his friends was ornamental turning. During a 1902 visit to London Edward purchased a second-hand Holtzapffel lathe, along with cabinets of attachments and tools, as well as the definitive books on ornamental turning. He took courses in the operation of this sophisticated lathe before returning to BC. Back home, he installed the instrument in an annex that was built on the west side of the house. An electric motor replaced the treadle drive. He would spend countless hours, attired in a suit, turning out objects of great beauty, as well as practical things. Photography also fascinated him. He did not take photographs himself but instead relied on a close friend, Edward Stolterfoht, to document various facets of his life. Edward Stolterfoht is a tragic figure. His passion for playing the piano was brutally curtailed in the summer of 1907 by a carriage accident at Nanaimo, in which he sustained severe head injuries that kept him comatose for days. In a Edward at his Holtzapffel lathe. Note the overhead pulleys which enabled various movements of the cutting tool in addition to the movement of the work piece itself. BRITISH COLUMBIA HISTORY | Winter 2013 | Vol. 46 No. 4 9 Edward and a business associate in the Dining Room of the house on Seaton Street. The room was not used for dining, but rather as an extension of the Drawing Room as the partition between them was rarely closed. Photo by Edward Stolterfoht. touching letter he thanks Edward for sitting by his bedside an entire night and talking to him in order to keep him from slipping away. Stolterfoht remains a figure in the shadows, conversing with Edward in bittersweet letters. His photography, however, shines with exceptional brilliance, and adds a special presence in the documentation of Edward's life.7 There is no doubt that Edward greatly appreciated beauty in all its aspects. Entries in his 1890 diary often focus on aspects of city design, which he either admired or criticized. His land development enterprises allowed him to implement some of his ideas. In 1905 his land company approached Alfred Hamersley for a matching donation of land that would make possible the first park for the embryonic city. Victoria Park was the first link in a chain of greenways which eventually would encircle the city core. Planted boulevards were another feature, as exemplified by Keith Road as it approaches and embraces Victoria Park. Nearby Ottawa Gardens was a mini-park for an exclusive subdivision. Edward's vision flowered fully with the development of the Grand Boulevard - North Vancouver's Champs Elysees - and an adjacent park. Its narrower extensions north and west completed a loop of greenways that are now known as The Green Necklace. Mahon Park closed the loop on the west side. Edward also acquired land holdings privately, starting with DL 204 near the mouth of Lynn Creek that he bought from widowed Mary Linn in 1891. He made major investments in the Capilano valley and on Hollyburn Ridge. Two well-timed acquisitions in the valley were the Capilano Flume Company and the Capilano suspension bridge 10 BRITISH COLUMBIA HISTORY | Winter 2013 | Vol. 46 No. 4 property. He leased the former to Japanese lumbermen - an act of courage at a time of blatant discrimination against Orientals. The latter he improved in many ways and operated as a tourist destination. The suspension bridge operation paid him other benefits. He acquired it just after the death of a friend, J. K. Rebbeck, mechanical superintendent for Albion Iron Works in Victoria. His widow, Elizabeth, and her three children were left in dire circumstances. Edward came to the rescue by offering Elizabeth the position of resident manageress for the suspension bridge operation. She would become his mother-in-law. Edward had been admiring her eldest daughter Lilette for some time. In a somewhat rash act, he had sent the 17 year-old girl an invitation to the Vancouver Club 1908 New Year's Ball. She was told to decline, but the situation was saved by a suitable chaperone. The following year Lilette was in France with her sister for a two-year stay, until the girls were recalled in 1910 to the bedside of their gravely ill father. Edward and Lilette were married on 26 April 1911. He was nearing fifty. She was twenty two. A delayed honeymoon to Europe followed: they visited Edward's relatives in England and Ireland, and undertook a motorcar tour of France.8 Prior to the wedding, Edward had a lovely Oriental cottage built on a parcel of land just west of the Capilano River. The work was done by Japanese craftsmen, presumably out of gratitude for his trust. This story is somewhat clouded by a newspaper article that identifies the owner as Mr. Dillon. It may be that the work was commissioned as a wedding gift for Edward by his Irish relatives. William, the eldest son, had ascended to the title of Fifth Baronet upon the death of his father in 1893. In 1905 he married Edith Dillon, daughter of Lord Clonbrock, in a lavish ceremony for which Edward made a special trip home to be his best man. Sir William and Lady Edith visited Edward in 1910. The Oriental cottage provided the recently-married couple a retreat in the woods. It also allowed Edward to claim a residence on the North Shore, which had political benefits.9 On 29 June 1913 Lilette gave birth to a boy they named Bryan. He would be their only child. A pampered childhood helped brighten up the gloom of war. Edward found new uses for his lathe as he made working toy cannons and, later, a pedal car for the growing boy. The Seaton Street house provided an ideal spot for watching military parades and monitoring action in the harbour. In the 1920s Edward started to divest himself of his holdings. In 1924 he sold the subdivided parcel with his Oriental cottage to George E. Herrmann, who commenced with alterations that turned the grounds into an equestrian estate that he called Spuraway. In the autumn of 1926 he started negotiations with a marine consortium for the sale of his house. A deal was struck, and he vacated the premises in late 1928. He received nearly $100,000 for the property for which John had laid out not quite $8,000 in 1897.10 The family relocated to a larger Lilette, Bryan and Edward at Capilano Suspension Bridge, 1915. Stolterfoht took a sequence with other family members at the same setting. BRITISH COLUMBIA HISTORY | Winter 2013 | Vol. 46 No. 4 11 f % projec. The Gj Neckh TheV Maho boo whicl artic bas TheG.. Necklace ca be obtaine directlv from authc 617 F Stre Castl BC,1' 1Y3 (250 3l 6135^ in Gn Vanco C T» Watson, 4" -959' Vancouvi BC,\ 4Y3 (60< 6915 $25.00 exem plu shippii appli ^^^ house on the corner of Burnaby and Broughton streets. The old house was demolished to make way for the Marine Building. Bryan was attending school by this time and starting to show an interest in aviation. He would in due time join Boeing and work his way to managing flight test operations for the Seattle aeronautical giant. As the stock markets were collapsing, Edward was approached by E.A. Cleveland for the acquisition of all his properties in the Capilano watershed upstream of the proposed new dam. He obtained the 993 acres (401.9 ha) for half the assessed value. Edward had been a heavy player in the stock market and he tried to hold on. As a recovery seemed to be taking hold in the spring of 1930, he started buying stocks at seemingly bargain prices. The final gut-wrenching slide commenced the next year. The Great Depression also affected his other streams of income. George Herrmann could no longer make the scheduled payments on his Spuraway property, and Archibald MacEachran, who acquired the Capilano suspension bridge property in 1935 after the death of Elizabeth (whom he had married in 1921), found himself in similar difficulties. Edward tried to make the best of it and focused on new possibilities. He spent considerable sums supporting two fruitless projects. One was the development of a world- class astronomical observatory, first on Grouse Mountain, and later in the Capilano valley. The visionary behind these schemes was T.S.H. Shearman, the Dominion meteorologist for Vancouver. Unfortunately, Shearman's ability to dream considerably exceeded his technical expertise and his projects collapsed. The second enterprise was based on Edward's mining interests, which by this time had shifted to oil. He supported George G. Fleming in his unconventional approach to prospecting by dowsing for oil. The method was later refined to mineral exploration and put to the test on Texada Island.11 A more promising endeavour was the establishment of a winter sports centre on a portion of Edward's Hollyburn Ridge properties in West Vancouver. He engaged R.D. Brewis to construct a first rate lodge at West Lake. It soon outpaced the competing operation at First Lake, especially after the ski jump was constructed. Edward financed the work and subsidized the operations. It was, however, a losing proposition. Edward's faith in better prospects was based on the development of the British Pacific Properties on the flanks of Hollyburn Ridge. Edward had started negotiating with A.J.T. Taylor as soon as he found out about the plans. He tried to sell the undeveloped lots to the British Pacific consortium in 1932, but they could not strike a deal. Another attempt was made in 1936, this time for a developed recreational area. Taylor kept leading him along, but in September he broke off negotiations. Brewis took over operations on a lease basis, 'for what he can make out of it'.12 During these trying times Lilette was pursuing her artistic interests. She also worked hard to correct the deficiencies she perceived in education by serving on school boards and various parent-teacher associations. In 1935 she ran for the Reconstruction Party in the federal election. Bryan was swept away by various ventures in the field of aviation. He had taught himself to fly with a Boeing glider that was towed by a car to get briefly airborne. Attempts at running an aviation school were followed by a dealership for the Taylor Cub. All of these were generally unproductive ventures which Edward subsidized as best he could. Now in his seventies, Edward could still muster enough energy to hike up the steep trail to West Lake for the ski jumping competitions. His health had been good, buoyed up by his ever-active mind and optimistic personality. Late in 1936 it all started to change. The meticulous entries in his Accounting Journal are replaced by a coarser, heavier hand. According to Bryan, he was feeling 'pretty weak and blue' since Christmas of that year. On 2 May 1937 he was taken to St.Paul's Hospital. The last entry in the Accounting Journal is for a blood transfusion on May 11. By early June, he was clearly slipping away, as Bryan noted: He doesn't take much interest in anything and sleeps most of the time. When he talks, it is about many things such as thermodynamics, electricity, and so forth. He is quite delirious. He perks up and takes quite a lot of interest, and is much more coherent if 12 BRITISH COLUMBIA HISTORY | Winter 2013 | Vol. 46 No. 4 he is told about some development in his business interests . . ,13 The funeral service was held on June 22. Joseph McFarland was one of the honorary pallbearers. Ill himself, he had tried to sort out Edward's insurance interests during his incapacitation. He would follow him into the grave a month later. In keeping with his modest outlook on life, Edward was cremated. Some time later, Bryan scattered his ashes at West Lake, Edward's last love affair with nature. The essence of his spirit was best captured by the North Shore Press: The demise of Edward Mahon in Vancouver last week, has removed one who stood in the foremost ranks of those who, from the early days, held a firm and unfaltering faith in the North Shore and one who gave tangible expression to that faith by an open-handed generosity in planning this city on a basis that would promote the happiness and the welfare of the residents .... His personal qualities were such that those who knew him best held him in the sincerest respect and regard, qualities that led those who were closely associated with him to regard him as a prince among men, a man never known "off poise" but at all times and under all circumstances always the courteous, kindly, helpful friend and advisor - one whose memory will remain green as long as life shall last.14* Sir George Mahon visited Edward in 1936 while taking banking courses in Boston. This is one of the last photographs of Edward. BRITISH COLUMBIA HISTORY | Winter 2013 | Vol. 46 No. 4 13 Endnotes 1. MFR (Mahon Family Records) are the basis for most of my information. I was privileged to have complete access to all the records relating to Edward and his family, now in the possession of Marolyn Mahon, his daughter-in- law. This letter was written jointly with another person whom I have not been able to identify, but it bears Emily's signature and her address. 2. Family history details from various letters and charts as well as George C. Mahon's scholarly genealogical study, prepared around 1890. Fuller details are provided in my book The Green Necklace: The Vision Quest of Edward Mahon. 3. George Mahon states this inheritance was £220,000. This would have been a very considerable fortune, worth at least twelve million dollars today by a very conservative estimate. 4. I worked out the Castlegar story on a hunch when I realized Edward's townsite plan was missing the first 12 Blocks. My guess that these had been contributed by Heinze from his railway grant land was confirmed by a 1905 map of the Columbia & Western Railway. Further investigations documented the legal turmoil that followed Heinze's departure from BC. Edward's portion of the Castlegar townsite was populated only during the Depression, mainly by independent Doukhobors who farmed the large blocks of land. 5. Excellent records of this house exist in MFR, including the original blueprints and cost summaries. This textual record is supplemented by Stolterfoht's excellent photographs. 6. The sister of Edward's maternal grandmother (Alice Lloyd) married Laurence Parsons, the Second Earl of Rosse. The famous astronomer William (1800 - 1867) was their son. 7. Edward Stolterfoht was a bachelor approaching sixty when he suffered the accident. He had bought land from Edward's company, and was a close family friend. Numerous letters survive, written during his various travels. Their tone changes dramatically after his accident, which destroyed most of his hearing. His photographic negatives include glass plates and celluloid film. They allowed me to prepare an exhibit on Edward's life. 8. In declining her invitation, Lilette slipped up, addressing Edward as Dear Mahon. He picked up on this later during her stay in France, when he addressed her as Dear Rebbeck. The correspondence between Lilette and her mother is very touching; a compilation was prepared by Marolyn Mahon. On their way to Europe, the married couple had Shapiro Multigraphs taken in Toronto, which Lilette hand-tinted later. She also compiled a meticulous scrapbook of their motorcar tour through France. 9. Robert Taylor, historian of the Spuraway property, pointed this article out to me. (The Express, April 18,1911). He could not document a Mr. Dillon as being a North Shore resident, leading me to speculate on the Dillon family connection. 10. $100,000 CDN in 1928 converts to approximately $1,338,043 CDN in 2013 money; "Inflation Calculator," Bank of Canada, accessed September 20, 2013, http://www.bankofcanada.ca/rates/ related/inflation-calculator/. 11. I am indebted to Sharon Proctor for contributing some data on Shearman. We exchanged information. She was preparing an article on the Grouse Mountain Observatory. The correspondence between Edward and George Fleming as well as Bill Lewis from the Texada operation provided considerable comic relief at this difficult time. George had indoctrinated Bill into the art of 'doodlebugging'. 12. For my West Lake chapter I analyzed Edward's financial records, and studied pertinent letters, as well as non-family sources such as Florence Brewis' account ("The Other Side of the Mountain", in Pioneer News, Oct. / Nov. 1995). Her account has the wrong date for Edward's death. It also blurs her own participation; she was Florence Barr, Brewis' assistant, who later married him. (personal communication by his daughter of a former marriage, Elizabeth (Brewis) O'Sullivan, via Peter Watson). There is extensive correspondence between Edward and Taylor in MFR. The quote comes from Edward's report to the Commissioner of Income Tax, 9 November 1934. 13. MFR: letter by Bryan Mahon to his uncle Waller Rebbeck, dated June 1 1937. 14. Excerpts from obituary in the North Shore Press, June 25,1937. Florence Barr prepared brochures for both winter and summer operations. The cover page of the winter version is shown here. Florence married Roland Brewis during their association at West Lake. 14 BRITISH COLUMBIA HISTORY | Winter 2013 | Vol. 46 No. 4 The White Sultan of Victoria by Paul G. Chamberlain The extraordinary adventures of Brigadier Sir James Timothy Whittington Landon KCVO taking him from sleepy Oak Bay to the Sultanate of Oman. A sleepy suburb in Victoria is a rather surprising place to begin the story of a latter-day Lawrence of Arabia who overthrew a sultan, married a princess, and then boxed his way to the top of England's Rich List. Yet archives in the City of Victoria clearly confirm that it was in British Columbia that Tim Landon, a modern nabob who might just as easily have stepped out of the pages of a Boy's Own adventure story, began his extraordinary career as a soldier of fortune, an arms dealer and an international financier, a career that led to a pivotal role in an event Prime Minister Edward Heath once vowed "would not be told in our time."1 Timothy Landon, or the 'White Sultan' as he came to be known, was born in Victoria to a family on Beach Drive on August 20,1942. His father, Arthur H.W. Landon, was a senior British officer serving in the Canadian Army and his mother, Elizabeth, was a local girl who had once worked as a makeup artist in Hollywood. While Tim was still a boy, his father took the family back to England and Landon followed his three brothers to Eastbourne College. He sang in the choir, played in the orchestra and even considered becoming a thespian, but in 1960 his talent for boxing led him to Sandhurst. By all accounts Landon did not distinguish himself at Britain's elite Royal Military Academy: he graduated 182 out of 208 cadets.2 His colonial heritage appears to have amused his colleagues, and quite by accident he became good friends with another student, a young man who experienced some bullying of his own. It turned out that his friend was none other than Qaboos bin Said, the son of the Sultan of Oman. Qaboos did not forget Landon's kindness. Landon was gazetted in the 10th Hussars in 1962, a surprisingly fashionable regiment for a man with no means, and he soon found himself in Germany.3 Once more he failed to impress his peers. Halfway through his three year commission, however, he was posted to the Trucial Coast on the Arabian peninsula. For Landon this was a game changer. The young officer accompanied Captain (later Major- General) John Friedberger and four NCOs on an overland journey across Europe to Iran; from here the contingent crossed the shark infested waters of the Persian Gulf by dhow to what is now the United Arab Emirates.4 No sooner had Landon stepped ashore than he drove across the Buraimi Oasis into Oman and did an overland patrol as far as the RAF base at Salalah near the border with Yemen. The sands of Arabia were a stark contrast to the scenery along Willow's Beach, Victoria, which Landon had known as a boy, and Oman must have made a deep impression on him, because after completing his three year commission in the 'Shining Hussars' Landon left the British Army to join the Sultan's Armed Forces (SAF) as a contract officer. It was 1965 when Landon felt the sand beneath his boots again, and by now Oman was in the grip of a desert revolt. The Popular Front for the Liberation of the Occupied Arabian Gulf (PFLOAG) had fired its first shots in 1963; oil production had begun the following year and by 1965 it was clear that if the insurgency was not halted Oman would fall into the hands of rebels.5 To make matters worse, the Russians were beginning to exploit the tribal unrest, and oil companies stood to lose a fortune.6 Unfortunately, Whitehall bureaucrats were still smarting from the debacle over the Suez Crisis a decade earlier, so a decision was made to dispatch the SAS under the aegis of a training exercise.7 Even with this firepower, however, things soon spiralled out of control: in 1966 there was an assassination attempt on the elderly Sultan, and shortly afterwards the Trucial Oman Scouts were on the retreat. Landon arrived just as things began to get interesting. Landon was stationed initially in Dhofar as an intelligence officer. According to Sir Ranulph Fiennes, who was then serving in Dr. Paul G. Chamberlain is a historical geographer who teaches in the School of Continuing Studies at the University of Victoria; he specializes in Middle East studies and has a special interest in history, comparative religion and current political events in the region. BRITISH COLUMBIA HISTORY | Winter 2013 | Vol. 46 No. 4 15 the SAS, Landon made a big difference: "We'd never had good intelligence before, but Tim provided it. He got to know the locals, learnt their language and kept us in the picture."8 On returning from an intelligence course in England in 1967, Landon attracted the attention of Brigadier Malcolm Dennison. As head of intelligence in Muscat, Dennison knew that unless he could win over the hearts and minds of the people, counterinsurgency would ultimately fail. British advisors wanted the elderly Sultan to spend more money on expanding the infrastructure: roads, schools, hospitals and port facilities all had to be built if they were to win over the people, but bin Said was too cautious; the old man pointed out that revenue was not yet coming in and besides he regarded an educated populace as potentially hostile to his regime. Evidence that he'd been negotiating secretly with American oil companies made the British nervous.9 It was time to act. By now Qaboos had left the British Army and was back in Oman where he was being closely watched by his suspicious father, who was a virtual recluse. Major Dennison, aware of Landon's friendship with Qaboos at Sandhurst, arranged for the two to meet regularly at the palace in Salalah; his plan was to have Landon persuade the Sultan's son that unless he deposed his father, Marxist rebels would soon overrun the country, valuable oil revenues would be lost, and the Soviet regime would have a stranglehold on the Strait of Hormuz. Evidently Qaboos listened to his friend, and late on the afternoon of July 23, 1970, a plan was put into motion. It is exciting to think of a wild colonial boy brandishing a revolver, mounting a stone staircase and demanding the old Sultan's abdication at gunpoint like a character in a John Buchan novel. But Landon never did draw his pistol; although he was in the palace with Qaboos during the takeover, he did not enter the room where the action unfolded. Perhaps this was just as well because what was to have been a very British coup turned out to be a rather messy affair. No sooner had the Sultan been instructed to sign the letter of abdication, presented to him by Sheik Brak al Ghafri, than the Sultan drew a revolver from under his cloak and accidentally shot himself in the foot. Only when the British had bundled him onto an RAF transport to fly him out of the country did they realize that he had signed the abdication document in English, but not the version in Arabic. They had to rush back to retrieve the Arabic document and force Said to sign it before the plane took off. When the Sultan finally landed in England, he was taken to his new home at the Dorchester Hotel. He died in exile two years later and is buried in the same cemetery as Dodi Fayed. Once asked his greatest regret, the Sultan retorted, "Not having Landon shot!"10 Within days of the coup his son Qaboos bin Said became the new Sultan of Oman, and he invited Landon to be his principal equerry. Oil revenues soon began to flow, and Oman's infrastructure expanded dramatically. Tom Love, an engineer who worked in Oman, and who now lives in Victoria, recalls this extraordinary period: "When Qaboos took office in 1970 there was barely 10 miles of road and only one hospital; Oman was transformed overnight from a medieval backwater into a modern state." And he adds, "On the tenth anniversary of the Sultan's reign he paid off the mortgages of every household in the country. Qaboos was an immensely popular man."11 By 1975 the Dhofar Rebellion had come to an end. The country's burgeoning wealth had enticed the rebels to abandon the PFLOAG for a more comfortable way of life in the Sultanate, but success was also due in no small part to the country's rapid militarization. In 1980 alone the country spent $600 million on arms purchases, and it was in these matters that Landon took a keen interest. As consigliere to the Sultan, Landon quickly rose from a junior contract officer to a brigadier and his close working relationship with the Sultan soon earned him a reputation as a man with the keys to the kingdom. Over the next decade, Landon supervised the Omanisation of the SAF, making it one of the best equipped armies in the Middle East. Although Landon's former military colleagues resented being replaced by Omani soldiers, there were many who breathed a sigh of relief: oil companies enjoyed windfall profits; British contractors experienced a bonanza; and the West could finally rest easy that the Strait of Hormuz would continue to remain in friendly hands. 16 BRITISH COLUMBIA HISTORY | Winter 2013 | Vol. 46 No. 4 After a decade working in the 'Jewell of Arabia', the Brigadier returned to London to take up a diplomatic post as a counsellor with the Omani embassy. He helped to organize the Sultan's visit to Great Britain in 1982 and was rewarded for his efforts with a Knight Commander of the Royal Victoria Order (KCVO). It was an honourary investiture, however, because by this time Landon held an Omani passport, as well as a Canadian one; there were also some questions raised as to his business activities.12 Before leaving Oman, Landon got involved in a controversial scheme to ship oil from Oman to Rhodesia and South Africa via Japan while both countries were under strict international trade embargoes for their apartheid regimes.13 After his return to London, Landon opened an office on Mayfair's Upper Brook Street to deal principally with the sale of arms. His intimate connection with Margaret Thatcher and her son, Mark, led to a lucrative trade selling weapons in Afghanistan throughout the 1980s.14 During the same decade he managed to smuggle Bofors guns into Oman for the Sultan's private yacht, despite the objection of the Swedish government.15 Landon's activities came up again a decade later in connection with a bribery scandal unearthed by an investigation by the Swedish media over a deal by the giant telecom company Ericsson to supply telecommunications equipment to Oman.16 By now, any time the Brigadier's name appeared on the radar screen in Washington it set off alarm bells, and the Duke of Edinburgh is rumoured to have expressed his personal distaste at the activities of the wild colonial boy.17 In 1977 Landon made news of a very different kind. He married a glamorous, European aristocrat named Princess Katalina Esterhazy de Galantha, a scion of Austro- Hungarian nobility. When some doubt was cast on her pedigree, the press labeled him Mr. Perhapsburg. It was petty jealousy. By now Landon was so rich the couple's heritage didn't matter, and rumours that he received a cheque from the Sultan for a million pounds on his birthday every year only fuelled speculation.18 His financial success, however, was due in no small part to his savvy business acumen: Landon invested his money shrewdly in stocks, bonds and property at a time when YEMEN kilometres real estate prices in England were soaring. He not only bought the most fashionable home in Faccombe, he purchased the entire Hampshire village, including its 4,000 acres of farmland; he soon owned grouse moors in Yorkshire and Scotland, and in 1994 he paid a reported ten million pounds for one of the finest shooting grounds in the country, the 36,000 acre Gunnerside Estate, formerly belonging to the Earls of Peel.19 Over the years, he commissioned the building of a series of lavish yachts for his personal use, each named after his wife Katalina; in addition to these floating palaces, one reputed to have cost more than 35 million dollars, he also owned a Boeing 737, which he kept on standby at Farnborough Airport.20 As his wealth grew, Landon became increasingly concerned about his personal safety: his name never appeared in Who's Who, and he travelled around London as inconspicuously as possible in black taxi. But in 2003 the White Sultan was caught in a scandal that almost brought him down. Map of the Sultanate of Oman BRITISH COLUMBIA HISTORY | Winter 2013 | Vol. 46 No. 4 17 With the breakup of the Soviet Union, several Eastern European countries joined NATO and they quickly began to modernize their weapon systems. In 2004 British Aerospace (BAE), the biggest arms manufacturer in Europe, won a lucrative contract to lease Gripen fighter jets to the Czech air force. The deal, worth four hundred million pounds, soon came under investigation by Czech police, Swedish authorities and the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) in London over allegations of secret payments made to agents who helped to bribe Czech officials.21 These agents were later identified as Richard Hava of the Czech arms company Omnipol; a former Canadian finance minister, Otto Jelenik, who had returned to Prague as a private businessman; and an Austrian Count named Alfons Mensdorff- Pouilly who, it turned out, was employed by Valurex, a Swiss-based company owned by Timothy Landon.22 Investigation further revealed that beginning in 2003 Landon's company received over four million pounds for its role in the deal, but Landon's lawyers adamantly denied any wrongdoing, claiming "we are not guilty of corrupt practices."23 After an investigation that lasted almost six years, the SFO in the UK finally announced that charges against the only agent ever to be prosecuted in the scandal, Landon's intermediary Count Alfons Mensdorff-Pouilly, were to be dropped. Nevertheless, in 2009 a report by retired British judge Lord Woolf cast a dark shadow over the whole affair, noting that BAE "had paid insufficient attention to ethical standards."24 The following year the arms giant pleaded guilty to charges of false accounting, and making misleading statements; it was fined nearly 300 million pounds.25 The White Sultan's reputation was tarnished but, as always, he was found not guilty of corrupt practices. Unfortunately, Landon never lived to see this day. The White Sultan died of Lung cancer on July 6, 2007, at the age of 64, and was buried quietly in the village of Faccombe in Hampshire. He is survived by his wife and one son, Arthur, who is one of the most eligible bachelors in England, and reputed to be friends with Prince William and Harry. It is difficult to assess the legacy of Timothy Landon. Some found him difficult to deal with; others even considered him rather arrogant. He was, after all, a product of the British Empire. Yet he did risk his life in the Dhof ar War, he helped to topple an unpopular regime, and he played a pivotal role in the modernization of Oman. Perhaps his greatest achievement, however, was in helping to ensure that the Strait of Hormuz did not fall into hostile hands, an astonishing legacy given today's rising tensions with Iran. The White Sultan never did give up his Canadian citizenship. He often flew back to Canada for skiing holidays and there are even rumours that he purchased property.26 Unfortunately, the house in which Landon grew up on Vancouver Island has long since disappeared: archives at the main library in Victoria clearly identify the home at 2551 Beach Drive as the residence of his parents in 1942, the year Landon was born, but that street address no longer exists. Few who live in this fashionable neighbourhood today are even remotely aware of the extraordinary adventures of the man who once lived next door to them. It appears that Victoria's White Sultan, the modern-day Lawrence of Arabia who toppled a Gulf State, married a European princess and amassed a fortune greater than the Queen of England, will remain as elusive in death as he was in life.27* Endnotes 1. Beasant, J. Oman: The True-Life Drama and Intrigue of an Arab State (London: Mainstream Publishing, 2002) frontispiece. 2. Beasant, J. Ibid., 155. 3. Gazetted: announce or publish (something) in an official gazette. Random House Kernerman Webster's College Dictionary (New York: Random House, 2010. 4. Dhow: a lateen-rieeed coastal Arab sailing vessel with !gg one or two masts. 5. McKeown, J. 'Britain and Oman: The Dhofar War and its Significance'. Unpublished Master's Thesis (Cambridge: Cambridge University, 1981) 19. 6. Times, July 20, 2007, 59. 7. Beasant, J. Op. Cit., 124. 8. Barber, M. 'Brigadier Tim Landon'. Guardian, August 28, 2007, p.2 http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/2007/aug/ guardianobitiaries.military. 9. Beasant, J. Op. Cit., 113. BRITISH COLUMBIA HISTORY | Winter 2013 | Vol. 46 No. 4 10. Telegraph. 'Brigadier Tim Landon', July 12, 2007, p. 2 http://telegraph.co.uk/news/ obituaries/1557161/Brigadier-Tim- Landon.html. 11. Love, T. Personal Communication, December 9, 20012, Victoria, British Columbia. 12. Telegraph, Op. Cit., 3. 13. Beasant, J. Op. Cit., 162. 14. Beasant, J. Ibid., 160. 15. Beasant, J. Interview. Uppdrag Granskning Television and Dagens Eko Radio, January 16, 2008, Stockholm, Sweden. 16. Beasant, J. Ibid. n.p. 17. Beasant, J. Op. Cit., 160. 18. Barber, M. Op. Cit., 2. 19. Beasant, J. Op. Cit., 161. 20. Barber, M. Op. Cit., 2. 21. Leigh, D. and R. Evans. 'Count Named in BAE Corruption Inquiry'. Guardian, February 21, 2007, p. 1 http://www. guardian.co.uk/business/2007/ feb/22armsuknews. 22. Leigh, D. and R. Evans. 'Czech Republic'. Guardian, June 7, 2007, p. 1 http://www.guardian.co.uk/ world2007/jun/07/bae23. 23. Leigh, D., R. Evans and M. Milner. 'British Millionaire Linked to BAE Commission Payments in Papers'. Guardian, February 22, 2007, p.l http:// guardian.co.uk/world/2007/ feb/22/bae.freed omofinformation 24. Leigh, D. Austrian Officials Arrest BAE Lobbyist on Money- Laundering Charges'. Guardian, March 2, 2009, p. 1 http://www. guardian.co.uk/world/2009/ mar/02/bae-arrest-austria-count 25. Leigh, D. Ibid., 2. 26. Globe and Mail. 'Life of the White Sultan Shrouded in Controversy', July 14, 2007, A18. 27. Beasant, Op. Cit., 158. % In the Spring 2014 issue of British Columbia History First Time on the Ice: The Vancouver Ladies' Hockey Team, 1914-18 One hundred years ago this month, in February 1914, a dozen women gathered at the Vancouver arena hoping to form a women's hockey team. by Wayne Norton Baseball's Demon of the West Samuel Davies Schultz, musician and composer of merit, journalist, barrister-at-law, judge, and pitcher. by Sarah H. Tobe Canada's Rowing Eights ie remarkable Cinderella victory by Canada's rowing eights crew (a group of green UBC students coached by a hard- nosed hotel owner). by Jason Beck & BRITISH COLUMBIA HISTORY | Winter 2013 | Vol. 46 No. 4 19 A Dane in Canada by Karl Jessen The little-known story of a Danish immigrant who founded a retirement home for elderly Danes and a Scandinavian Businessmen's club. Karl Jessen received training to become an Electrical Contractor in Denmark, and owned and operated an Electrical Contracting business there from 1952 to 1957. In Canada he worked as an electrician for several different Contractors the first years and for over 11 years in a Pulp and Paper Mill in Squamish BC. From 1973 until his retirement at 65 he was an Electrical Inspector for the Province mainly in Squamish and Whistler. For 5 years after mandatory retirement from this position in 1993 he was Electrical Inspector part-time for the District of North Vancouver. He came to Canada in 1957 and enjoyed the priviledge of getting to know his uncle the last few years of his life. Laurids Jessen was born in Spangsbjerggaard, near Esbjerg, Denmark, on February 12, 1890. He was the fourth of seven children born to Karen and Morten Jessen, and his oldest brother was my dad. He later added Lewis to his name becoming Laurids Lewis Jessen; as he said, nobody could pronounce Laurids in Canada, so here he called himself Lewis. Some of his Danish friends called him Laurids, but on correspondence he wrote L.L. Jessen. Jessen grew up with little formal education, but he did inherit a high level of natural intelligence. His home environment, and the simple farmers' way of life, taught him to be conservative and tight-fisted with his money. It also taught him the value of hard work. His mother was widowed in 1902 when Jessen was 12, and she hired a friend to manage the farm. Life became very bitter for Jessen the following years because of his open dislike for this manager, and in 1906 at the age of 16 he decided to emigrate. He and a brother of his childhood sweetheart left together. They went by boat from Esbjerg to England. This was the first time he had been away from home. On the boat he overheard some people talking and decided that English would be an easy language to learn. He discovered later that he had overheard Swedish, not English, and Danish and Swedish languages are closely related. They eventually landed at Ellis Island, New York, and by chance found their way to a farm somewhere in eastern USA where they worked for a couple of years. Much later he described those two years as the hardest time of his life because of very inhumane treatment he received. Next they went by train and worked here and there until they finally arrived in California where they also worked odd jobs for a while. The two decided to travel north and found lumberjacking jobs in Oregon. About that time they chose different paths and Laurids somehow ended up in Canada. His endeavors in his early years in Vancouver are unknown but he did visit and consider joining the Danish settlement located at Cape Scott near the northern point of Vancouver Island. Jessen drifted on from there and later got a job surveying in the area around Telegraph Creek. He worked as a packer carrying supplies on his back to remote camps. He also worked at another job cutting survey lines through the bush for miners. He explained that one summer he was only dry for three days. All the other days that year it rained or the trees were wet, so he was drenched when he slashed underbrush with his machete. The telegraph line through that area was originally constructed to become a link to Europe, but when a submarine cable was installed across the Atlantic in 1895 the telegraph line had reached Quesnel and a few years later there was a big rush to complete it to the Klondike and beyond. During winters his job was to maintain a portion of this telegraph line. That job entailed hiking on snowshoes for miles and miles to locate a break when connection became lost. Along the line he could overnight in small huts built for the purpose. In 1913, in- between other jobs, he built the 'Jessen' Ranch on the upper Nass River. In his spare time he learned English from books and developed an excellent command of that language. Later in life he took great pride in his ability to speak English and Danish without any trace of a foreign accent in either language. Very few people can do that. The moment war was declared in 1914 he joined the stream of young men who enlisted, and soon after training started he was picked at random to help instruct the new recruits that were sent to the trenches in France. He stayed in Vancouver for the next three years to help train new enlistments. I heard him say more than once that this change saved his life, because the losses in the unit he first belonged to were very great, and none of the noncommissioned officers survived. 20 BRITISH COLUMBIA HISTORY | Winter 2013 | Vol. 46 No. 4 Near the end of the war, the Government decided to send troops to Vladivostok to assist the White Armies of the Counter Revolution in Russia. He held the rank of sergeant by then, but he never did see war time combat. After 13 years of a very hard and lonely life, he was homesick and wanted to return through Russia to Denmark. The Russian revolution made that impossible and he had to return to Vancouver where he was discharged from the Army. Later as a civilian he found employment with Boyles Bros. Ltd., an exploration and diamond drilling company. Since he had been an army officer, promotion became easier and he worked his way up the ladder. When he worked as foreman of a crew in an isolated area, he would, at normal bedtime, go into the beer parlors and round up his workers, either chase them to bed or put them to bed, so they would be ready for work in the morning. He used to say that it took a strong man to do that, but they had made certain promises before they got the jobs. His company was doing a contract job for the Panama Canal. His chance came when they suddenly needed a new manager on this project and Jessen was asked to take charge. He managed that project until the contract was completed, and returned to Vancouver and to Boyles Bros. Jessen had become an important person with the company. Most of the firm's business was controlled by brothers, Charles and Fred Lindhe, and Jessen. With his mechanical aptitude he deplored the performance of the diamond drills they were using. As he now was in a position to make changes, Boyles Bros, began manufacturing its own drills.1 Jessen redesigned the diamond drilling machines and invented new designs for much more efficient drilling performance. These inventions were patented by Boyles Bros. Once while browsing in an old bookstore I purchased a used textbook on diamond drilling machines and procedures. The book was filled with illustrations of many different types of drilling equipment, and under many of these illustrations was printed "by permission of Boyles Brothers" or other manufactures. He showed me several pictures of machines he had made and used and he pointed out innovations that he was responsible for. The owner of Boyles Bros, died in 1928 and after some time Fred Lindhe and Jessen purchased the company from Elmore Boyles' widow. The partnership dissolved shortly after when Jessen bought out Jjj Lindhe and became the sole owner. Diamond drilling machinery was not very common back then and Jessen continued to obtain contracts in all JH parts of the world to do surveys and drilling mainly for mining firms who §■ needed that service. In old family albums in Denmark they have dated photos and post cards received fror him when he was in South Africa ™ in 1928 and 1929 and again in 1937, ■ in Newfoundland also in 1929, in 9 Australia in 1933, in the Philippines in w 1934, in Honolulo and in Japan in 1935, ■ in Ceylon and in Singapore in 1936. " In British Columbia he did diamond drilling work for the biggest mining companies such as Anaconda at Britannia Beach and Pioneer Mines at Bralorne. He was also involved in many other mining projects right across Canada. Here in Vancouver he surveyed and drilled the foundation at the south end for the Lions Gate Bridge when it was first built. All Boyles Bros, equipment was produced and repaired at the company machine shop on Clark Drive in Vancouver. While on business travels, he detoured twice to visit family in Denmark. His first visit was while on his way to Africa in 1929 after having been away 23 years and his second visit was in 1937. He showed his strength one more time when he carried his mother in his arms up and down three flights of stairs. His mother had become too feeble to walk the stairs for a visit with her daughter, who lived up high in an apartment building, and I remember my grandmother as a heavy woman. For the family this was a most memorable visit by the farm boy who had made it good in America. In May 1935 he married his childhood sweetheart Agnes, who also had found her way to Vancouver. Agnes was always ready with good food and hospitality for the many visitors, whether they were invited guests or people dropping in. She was a very proficient 48|f§|§§ftf|ji;r Laurids Lewis Jessen circa 1 935. BRITISH COLUMBIA HISTORY | Winter 2013 | Vol. 46 No. 4 21 Laurids Lewis Jessen circa 1945 to 1955. housekeeper, and their home was open to many. On September 23, 1931 Jessen was appointed by the Danish Government as an unpaid Consul in Vancouver for British Columbia and the Yukon Territory. He held that honorary position until March 9, 1939. He remained as acting Consul until January 9, 1946, when the Vancouver representative for the East Asiatic Company was appointed. As Consul he helped many Danish immigrants over obstacles in their new country. This was particularly so during the years of the great depression. Through his connections he found jobs for many unemployed Danes. For his services he was honored in 1947 with the King Christian X. Liberty Medal. In 1937, Jessen was instrumental in getting the first Danish Lutheran Church built in Vancouver. He guaranteed a bank loan for $1000, so construction could start.2 The church council was hoping that the promised help from Jessen would be in form of a big cheque. His friend loved to tell that his way of helping was to show up dressed as a laborer and as such he put in as much effort as anybody. Jessen was a very diligent and hard worker. The church was completed and it remained a place of worship for Danes until 1984. It was sold after a new church was built in Burnaby near Dania Home. While in the tropics in the 1920s he became sick with malaria, and in later years there was a resurgence of the effects of that illness. For health reasons he sold his company to four of his employees in 1938. During the war, however, he carried on as a consultant and emissary for the Company. Wartime spoiled all his travel plans so he bought a farm located on one section of land south of Cloverdale and operated it for about two years. It soon became very difficult to obtain help so he sold this farm and bought a smaller farm in the Surrey town centre. He also had a house on Cedar Crescent in Vancouver and they made their home alternately in both of those places. His mother had passed away in 1937 shortly after his visit in Denmark and about that time he purchased his childhood home Spangsbjerggaard, which he owned during the war, but it burned to the ground during that time. In 1946 Agnes and Jessen considered moving to Denmark. They purchased and moved into a big house in Esbjerg near the pastures he knew so well. In 1948 they traded all holdings in Esbjerg for a big farm named G0rdinglund located about 25 km. east of Esbjerg, and they lived on this magnificent estate a few years. During that time they also made lengthy visits to Vancouver each year and each visit became longer and longer because they both had deep roots in Canada, and soon they resided permanently in an apartment building they had purchased on Davie Street. They sold G0rdinglund to Agnes's brother in the late 1950s. In 1937 he had noticed how retirement homes were provided for the elderly in Denmark. He decided to bring this concept to 22 BRITISH COLUMBIA HISTORY | Winter 2013 | Vol. 46 No. 4 Canada where he knew the need was great. He talked this over with Danish friends in Vancouver and after some years of planning, they agreed to proceed. An association was formed, and a Board of Directors with Jessen as President was elected in 1941. Later they purchased a big house and farm buildings on 4.3 acres of land in Burnaby where Dania Home is now located and they had it incorporated on February 12,1942. A start was made when a few elderly Danes, in need of shelter, moved into the farmhouse where they initially did housekeeping for themselves. Later as more residents arrived a caretaker was hired to clean and cook for these people, and later again a new wing was added to the original building. An association named the Ladies Auxiliary was incorporated to oversee operation of the home and to help make the living rooms look presentable, and they also helped in the never- ending effort to raise money for the project. The Ladies Auxiliary is still active at Dania Home today and has always been a big reason why the occupancy rate never was less than 100%. Jessen in his duties as Consul knew a lot of Danes all over British Columbia and Western Canada. He solicited those who had done well and asked them to testament funds for Dania Home. It made his friends smile when they talked about this after his death, because he did not leave anything for Dania Home in his own will. Other people obliged, and today the best known of all donors is Carl Mortensen, who now has a manor named after him. His bequest to the association, later named Dania Home, was used in the original purchase of the 4.3 acre farm and buildings. The biggest philanthropist was Karl Andersen, a Danish friend known as the founder of the city of Prince George. He left by far the largest monetary gift of all the donors and Jessen told me they were lucky to get that monetary gift before others received it. This gift enabled them to add a new dining hall and Kitchen as well as a complete wing to the building during the early nineteen fifties. Growth following this addition brought economic balance to Dania Home. Up to that time the society was not able to operate without financial assistance from members and donors. In those early years there was a very strong interest in Dania Home mainly because it was a private enterprise without any Government support or influence. All members were, with good reason, very proud of what had been accomplished, and it was said to be one of the first homes for Seniors started by an Association anywhere in Canada. Many volunteers donated plants and materials and the necessary time and effort to upkeep the grounds and buildings. Jessen was the leader in those efforts, and when in Vancouver he was always doing something for the Home. He and his wife had vivacious personalities and liked to meet people and they held yearly promotion parties usually at their farm or at the Hotel Georgia in Vancouver. Many of his close friends who were the first Directors and others told me that without his initiative Dania Home would never have been started at that time. The Scandinavian Businessmen's Club is an active organization in Vancouver today. In a 1989 membership newsletter it is stated that the seed to start this Club was sown by the Danish Consul Mr. Jessen in 1946. On April 3, 1947, Jessen was initiated as member #221 of Vancouver Lodge #328 of the Danish Brotherhood in America. At a meeting of the Lodge on February 3, 1953, he raised a suggestion that the Lodge should contact the other Lodges in British Columbia. There were then three lodges: Prince George, Port Alberni and Vancouver with a view to obtaining their opinion of forming an organization in Canada comparable to the American dominated Danish Brotherhood in America. That dream was fulfilled in 1985 as the Federation of Danish Associations in Canada was formed. Jessen was never very active in the Lodge. His main interest in terms of service was Dania Home after it got started. He was doing something for Dania Home almost every day for the rest of his life when he was in Vancouver. Laurids Jessen died in his favourite chair shortly after he came home from shopping on February 4, 1960, eight days before his 70th birthday. His funeral was held at the church he helped to build, and he is buried at Forest Lawn Cemetery in Burnaby. • Endnotes 1. "Christensen Boyles Corporation History," FundingUniverse.com, www.fundinguniverse. com/company-histories/ christensen-boyles- corporation-history/. 2. $1000 CDN in 1937 converts to approximately $15,990 CDN in 2013 money; "Inflation Calculator," Bank of Canada, accessed October 3, 2013, http:// www.bankofcanada.ca/ rates/related/inflation- calculator/. BRITISH COLUMBIA HISTORY | Winter 2013 | Vol. 46 No. 4 23 Emory Creek: Enviromental Legacy Revisited by G. B. Leech Environmental history is a relatively new discipline; however, a more inter-disciplinary approach can result in a more in-depth understanding of the past. Geoffrey Bosdin Leech, PhD was a field geologist at the Geological Survey of Canada. He spent his entire career at 'The Survey' (currently within the federal Dept of Natural Resources), initially mapping and studying the geology of large areas of southeastern British Columbia. His scientific research focused on the Purcell Mountains southwest of Kimberley, the Rocky Mountain Trench to Canal Flats, and the areas around Fernie and Kananaskis Lakes. He was proud to have discovered deposits of gypsum while mapping in the Canal Flats area, and magnesite while mapping in Kananaskis Lakes area. Dr. Geoffrey B. Leech died while walking in the woods near Ottawa on April 17, 2012. Jmory<tree'£r Below Hell's Gate..'. In 2006, Mr. Alan Long published an article in British Columbia History entitled "Emory Creek: The Environmental Legacy of Gold Mining on the Fraser River".1 His article, which explored the environmental history of the lower Fraser River gold rush, asserted that placer mining (mining for gold in the gravels) in the Emory Creek area resulted in great, in fact lasting, damage to both the Sto:16 people and their descendants, and to the local and migratory fish populations. Placer gold mining in the Fraser River area began in 1858, continued intermittently into the twentieth century and was reactivated during the 1930s. Emory Bar was one of the most successful locations, as the fast-flowing Emory Creek provided a clean water supply to wash the gravel, leaving the (heavier) gold behind. Mr. Long stated that: It can readily be concluded that the result of so much water being taken from Emory Creek has undoubtedly devastated it as a viable fish habitat, devastation that was repeated at several creeks and streams emptying into the Fraser. The loss of water was not the only environmental problem arising from mining. Beginning in 1895, floating dredges operated extensively on the Fraser River around Emory Bar and Hill's Bar. These dredges scarred the bottom of the river; processing approximately 3500 hundreds (sic) of yards of river gravel every twenty-four hours. This greatly affected fish habitat and caused untold amounts of damage to the world's most prolific salmon run.2 Dredging The BC Department of Mines' Annual Reports contain a number of notes on trial efforts to dredge for gold in the Fraser River. However, nowhere, in any publication of the Department, is a successful dredge operation noted: all of the BC gold dredges were failures. In 1895 the "British Columbia Gold Dredging Co. has constructed a steam dredge at Vancouver for working on the river in the vicinity of Yale. The machinery has a capacity of 3500 cubic yards every 24 hours and will require a crew of 18 men."3 While this dredge was constructed there is no further evidence that the dredge was used on the Fraser River around Emory Bar and Hill's Bar. The report in 1898 seems to indicate that the dredge mentioned in the 1895 report was inadequate. "The Fraser River Consolidated Gold Company Limited has engaged since January last in making extensively and costly additions to its plant (purchased from the B.C. Gold Dredging Company) which lies at Ruby Creek."4 Ruby Creek is about 25 km below Emory Bar. In fact the 1899 report states "The Fraser River Consolidated Gold 24 BRITISH COLUMBIA HISTORY | Winter 2013 | Vol. 46 No. 4 Co. has operated on the bars of the Fraser River between Ruby Creek and Hope with a powerful dredge on the suction cup principle, which, so far, has not been successful. Alterations will shortly be made by the substitution of buckets for the present system."5 There is no mention that the dredge was used near Emory Creek and there are no further references to this dredge in the Index to the Annual Reports of the Minister of Mines.6 No mentions of dredging operations appear in the reports again until 1906 when the "Yale Syndicate composed of New Zealand capitalists, has completed its dredging plant and is ready to make a practical test of the Fraser River at Hill's Bar, as soon as weather permits."7 However, their enterprise also ended in failure. "I regret to state that the operations of the Yale Dredging Syndicate, below Yale, have been a failure, and the proprietors are making arrangements for disposal of their dredge, which was of the New Zealand type, and operated by men of experience in that country." The report also states that they operated "in the bed of the Fraser River at Hill's Bar and Sawmill Riffle in April, September and October, the returns for the half-year ending 31 October being $2,000."8 In 1908 the "operations of the Virginia Dredging Co., holding leases on the Fraser River extending from Union Bar to the entrance of the canyon, came to a lamentable end through the complete wreck of the dredge on the night of 7th November 1908 the dredge disappeared during the night and was found above American bar, miles distant, next day. It was upside down and most of the machinery was gone. This dredge had been imported from New Zealand The amount of gold saved prior to the wreck ....was returned at $4,000."9 There is no other reference to this company in the Index to the Annual Reports of the Minister of Mines.10 It was not until 1911 that an "application for a dredging lease covering the five miles of the Fraser River from the tunnel about a mile above Yale down to the lower end of Emory bar has been made by D. A. Macdonald on behalf of Vancouver and Victoria parties and Above: Map of Emory Creek area. Opposite page: Information sign at Emory Creek. BRITISH COLUMBIA HISTORY | Winter 2013 | Vol. 46 No. 4 25 Top: The creek emptying in to the Fraser. September 2012 and low water. Right: Upstream from the Highway 1 bridge. I am informed that they intend (subject to the granting of their lease) to do some prospecting and preparatory work during the present state of low water."11 There are no further references to D. A. Macdonald or to Emory Bar in the Index to Annual Reports of the Minister of Mines suggesting that the proposed prospecting did not take place. The final reference to dredge near Emory Creek states that: "The combination shovel and dipper dredge built for gold-dredging purposes is now lying just below Hope on the Fraser It is a type hitherto untried on the Fraser."12 There is no further reference to this dredge in the Index to the Annual Reports of the Minister of Mines. These references indicate that while there was dredging in the area there is no evidence of long-lasting successful dredging operations and in fact no definite evidence that dredges operated at Emory Bar. " i d ■££tr*>* S *f%&**?~: s rSSfSH UJ £ g 0_ 26 BRITISH COLUMBIA HISTORY | Winter 2013 | Vol. 46 No. 4 Mercury In his article, Mr. Long noted the use of extremely large amounts of mercury on dredges and in sluices, using as his reference the BC Department of Mines Bulletin 15 Hydraulic Mining Methods compiled by Stuart S. Holland.13 Mr. Long stated that A third environmental problem arising from gold mining was the use of mercury, a toxic agent. Both small and large scale mining operations used mercury in progressively larger amounts to amalgamate fine gold. While only a few ounces were used in a gold pan, placer miners used hundreds of pounds in their sluice boxes, dredge tables covering up to ten thousand square feet could be charged with as much as 3,000 pounds of mercury. Each operation that used mercury potentially lost increasing amounts of it, up to twenty five percent on old and leaky large sluices. The mercury in the gravel bars, benches and mud of the Fraser River and in nearby creeks will not go away any time in the foreseeable future. The millions of tons of soil and gravel washed from the gravel bars and benches of the Fraser through sluice boxes are gone forever. Salmon and sturgeon populations have been irrevocably damaged by mining practices, particularly dredges, which greatly disturbed fish pathways and potentially left behind thousands of pounds of mercury.14 A note on the cover of Holland's Hydraulic Mining Methods states "This Bulletin is in large part a reprint from the Unites States Bureau of Mines Information Circular 6787". Dr. Holland stated on page 4 that "material in quotation marks is reported from Information Circular 6787". Mr. Long's statistics on mercury (use of 3,000 pounds, loss of up to 25%) are from paragraphs within quotation marks on pages 60 and 61 of the Bulletin and thus cannot be extrapolated to the Fraser River. In addition, there are no reports that any of the dredges referenced by the BC Department of Mines were equipped to use mercury. The major placer mining epoch at Emory Bar and Hill's Bar was short. Most of the miners in the first rush came from California and many were familiar with the use of locally produced mercury in placer mining in California. However, in BC, with no local source, mercury was harder to get and more expensive, and was not used in "Californian" quantities. The early miners believed that gold flakes would be increasingly coarse up-river and might even lead to a mother lode, and so they readily moved farther up the Fraser after any local setback. The first exodus was during the summer of 1858, when normal high water covered the bars. Many returned to California, while others worked on the Harrison Lake to Lillooet trail. The major rewards at Hill's Bar were reaped in the autumn of 1858 by the few who remained. The lure of the Cariboo left the lower Fraser River almost abandoned by mid-1860. The date at which Emory Bar was abandoned by 'gold rush' miners is undocumented. Chinese hand-miners soon moved onto abandoned bars. Other Chinese miners worked Emory Bar after completion of the Canadian Pacific Railway set them adrift in the mid-1880's. Rock piles are monuments to their meticulous work. They are not known to have used mercury but, if they did, it was almost certainly used conservatively. Chinese were the last miners of the gold rush, as is indicated in reports from Yale in Annual Reports of the Minister of Mines: • "Placer hand-mining, even on the part of the Chinese, may be said to be extinct." (1908, pg. 134); • "Placer-mining, as formerly conducted hereabouts may be said to be non-existent. As far as I am aware, the output of placer gold may be said to be nil." (1910, pg. 130) • "Owing to the very low water .... The Chinamen have been very industrious on the various bars of the Fraser." (1915, pg. 253) • "Owing to the high rate of wages prevailing elsewhere, the Chinamen practically abandoned the bars on the Fraser." (1916, pg. 264) BRITISH COLUMBIA HISTORY | Winter 2013 | Vol. 46 No. 4 27 Entrance to the Dominion- Provincial mining training camp at Emory Creek; J. T. Gawthrop, D.M. Mackenzie and Humphry Mitchell. Unfortunately, none of the above refers specifically to Emory Bar. In 1933, the price of gold was suddenly and markedly increased. Old placer grounds, worked out and abandoned at the former price of gold, now had potential value. During the Depression, many desperate men, some women and even whole families traveled to the old placer sites. The BC Department of Mines rallied to their support and issued various publications on where and how to look for gold and how to mine it. The following excerpts are from one such unnumbered publication in the present writer's possession, Notes on Placer- Mining in British Columbia for the Information of the Individual Miner by Officers of the Department. On its pg. 21, under the heading "Clean-up" is: As mercury costs ....and as it is very heavy and escapes easily, great care must be observed when using it to prevent loss. The proper method for separating the gold from the mercury after amalgamation is by means of a metal retort. This can be procured from any chemical supply company. A gentle heat will volatilize the mercury, and it passes up through the sealed cap of the retort and down the tube into a bucket of water. Care must be used to prevent the escape of the mercury through the junction of the cap and the retort; otherwise the user may be salivated [poisoned by mercury vapour]. The early miners used a large halved, partly hollowed potato bound tightly with wire, in which the amalgam was placed. The potato was put standing upright in the ashes of afire or oven. The mercury was absorbed by the baked inside of the potato and the gold separated in this way. By rubbing and washing the residue in a pan some of the mercury was recovered. The remains of the potato are poisonous. 1TRATIWIC fPRUJECTi 28 BRITISH COLUMBIA HISTORY | Winter 2013 | Vol. 46 No. 4 The first sentence in Holland's own text in Bulletin 15 Hydraulic Mining Methods is: "In British Columbia the universal practice is not to use mercury in sluice boxes but only for amalgamating the concentrates from the cleanups." Although Holland wrote long after the gold rush and the 1930s Depression (Bulletin 15 was published in 1942), he had extensive experience with placer mining and his words are authoritative. It is unlikely that these mining practices could have provided the significant "mercury footprint" reported to be still in Emory gravels today. In response to the economic depression of the 1930s, the provincial government Department of Labour created placer-mining training camps in 1935. Each camp lasted about six weeks and trained about 25 men. Upon completion the men were equipped and sent prospecting. The camp at Emory Creek was of a longer duration due to the need for construction to bring water for sluicing.15 The present writer attended the placer mining training camp at Emory Bar. He and his colleagues did not restore and shore up old ditches but dug into considerable amounts of gravel both above and below water level, and, to the best of his knowledge, did not find any mercury. Mr. Long stated that "several individuals in the Emory Creek area report that at low water one need only dig down three to four feet in the gravel of many of the abandoned gold mining bars on the Fraser to find mercury".16 The present writer finds this statement irregular and disturbing as there is no scientific data to support these statements by the local residents. Hydraulic Mining Hydraulic mining involves a jet of water issuing under high pressure from a nozzle directed towards a gravel bank to excavate the gravel and wash it into a sluice. The pressure results from water flowing in a pipe whose intake is many feet or tens of feet above the nozzle. Ordinary sluicing involves merely water entering the head of the sluice into which gravel is shoveled. This too is hydraulic in the sense that it involves moving water, but it is not "hydraulic" in mining parlance. Housing at the Dominion- Provincial Mining Training Camp at Emory Creek, circa 1935. BRITISH COLUMBIA HISTORY | Winter 2013 | Vol. 46 No. 4 29 Mr. Long stated: In 1893 a hydraulic mine operated briefly on Prince Albert Flat, just north of Emory Creek. Hydraulic mining requires a much greater supply of water and for this the north ditch was expanded. The company spent $8,000 on the ditch, steel pipes and a flume that was over one mile long, three feet deep and capable of moving 3500 inches of water, or eighty-eight cubic feet of water per second. The water was concentrated into a narrow nozzle and entire hillsides and benches were washed down hill into one giant sluice box.17 The 1893 Annual Report of the Minister of Mines states that the flume is capable of carrying 3,500 inches of water, however, it also indicates that the miners are awaiting the season opening to put the flume into use. The report does not mention the use of a hydraulic nozzle, making the present writer puzzled as to the basis of Mr. Long's categorical statement that "the water was concentrated into a narrow nozzle". Whatever the Prince Albert Flat Hydraulic Gold Mining Company's original intention may have been, in its brief 1894 operation the water was supplied without hydraulic pressure. It came from Emory Creek by gravity flow through open flume and ditch for about 2 km northward along the base of the west side of the Fraser River Valley. It was delivered at the base of the gravel hills and benches that overlook the Flat. To attribute major environmental damage to the Prince Albert Flat affair is inaccurate. Stoilo Nation Mr. Long suggested that the challenges faced by the Sto:16 Nation to make a living on their "limited land base which is often located far from the strategic locations selected by their ancestors" can be at least partly attributed to early mining practices, which "greatly disturbed fish pathways and potentially left behind thousands of pounds of mercury.", and that a lack of understanding of this loss has helped "fuel the division and tension present between Sfo:16 and non-Native fishers."18 The actual damage is minimal in comparison to damage by other causes - e.g. the marine salmon fishing industry that commenced before the attempts to dredge for gold in the Fraser and the railway construction that prevented salmon from passing Hell's Gate early in the twentieth century. Rightly or wrongly, some Sto:16 were, in fact, actively involved in the early gold mining initiatives. In May 1858, 80 Sto:16 and 30 white men were working on Hill's Bar. Other Sto:16, however, were alarmed by the gold being taken from their land. In late May 1858, James Douglas, soon to become Governor of British Columbia, walked from Hope to Yale. He reported: On the arrival of our party at "Hill's Bar", the white miners were in a state of great alarm on account of a serious affray which had just occurred with the native Indians, who mustered under arms in a tumultuous manner, and threatened to make a clean sweep of the whole body of miners assembled there. The quarrel arose out of a series of provocations on both sides, and from the jealousy of the savages, who naturally feel annoyed at the large quantities of gold taken from their country by the white miners. I lectured them soundly about their conduct on that occasion, and took the leader in the affray, an Indian highly connected in their way, and of great influence, resolution and energy of character into the Government service, and found him exceedingly useful in settling other Indian difficulties. I also spoke with great plainness of speech to the white miners, who were nearly all foreigners, representing almost every nation in Europe. I refused to grant them any rights of occupation to the soil, and told them distinctly that Her Majesty's Government ignored their very existence in this part of the 30 BRITISH COLUMBIA HISTORY | Winter 2013 | Vol. 46 No. 4 country, which was not open for the purposes of settlement, and that they were permitted to remain there merely on sufferance; that no abuses would be tolerated, and that the laws would protect the rights of the Indian, no less than the white man.19 In conclusion, the present writer disagrees with Mr. Long's assertions regarding the environmental legacy of gold mining at Emory Bar. There is no conclusive evidence of long-lasting successful dredging in the area, no evidence of anything but conservative use of mercury in the sluicing process, and no evidence of true hydraulic mining. The present writer's personal knowledge and experience, together with an in-depth review of Mr. Long's references, clearly indicate that while the Sfo:16 face many challenges, these cannot be entirely and directly attributed to placer gold mining on Emory Bar and nearby Fraser River.* Editor's Note While we were in discussions about publishing this paper, Dr. Geoffrey B. Leech passed away. I am grateful to his daughter, Joan Cardiff, who was willing to work with me to prepare his piece for publication. Joan Cardiff's Note Although I learned a lot about geology from my father over the years, I would have been unable to revise his paper after his death without the tremendous and valued assistance of Dr. William Poole, who provided clarity and corrections to ensure that the geological and geographic terminology is correct. 5. Annual Report of the Minister of Mines (Victoria: BC Minister of Mines, 1899), 743. 6. H.T. Nation, Complier, Index to Annual Reports of the Minister of Mines of the Province of British Columbia for the years 1874 to 1936, inclusive Victoria: The King's Printer, 1938. 7. Annual Report of the Minister of Mines (Victoria: BC Minister of Mines, 1906), 206. 8. Annual Report of the Minister of Mines (Victoria: BC Minister of Mines, 1907), 130,143. 9. Annual Report of the Minister of Mines (Victoria: BC Minister of Mines, 1908), 134. H. T. Nation, Compiler, Index to Annual Reports of the Minister of Mines of the Province of British Columbia for the years 1874 to 1936, inclusive Victoria: The King's Printer, 1938. 10. H.T. Nation, Complier, Index to Annual Reports of the Minister of Mines of the Province of British Columbia for the years 1874 to 1936, inclusive Victoria: The King's Printer, 1938. 11. Annual Report of the Minister of Mines (Victoria: BC Minister of Mines, 1911), 183. 12. Annual Report of the Minister of Mines (Victoria: BC Minister of Mines, 1914), 219 13. Stuart S. Holland, compiler, Hydraulic Mining Methods. BC Department of Mines Bulletin No. 15. Victoria: The King's Printer, 1942. 14. Long, 9. 15. Annual Report of the Minister of Mines (Victoria: BC Minister of Mines, 1935), A31-A32. 16. Long, 9. 17. Long, 8. 18. Long, 9-10. 19. Walter S. Sage, Sir James Douglas and British Columbia. The University of Toronto Press, 1930, 221, 225. Endnotes 1. Alan Long, "Emory Creek: The Environmental Legacy of Gold Mining on the Fraser River", British Columbia History, 2006, Vol. 39, No. 3, 8 -10. 2. Ibid, 9. 3. Annual Report of the Minister of Mines (Victoria: BC Minister of Mines, 1895), 699. 4. Annual Report of the Minister of Mines (Victoria: BC Minister of Mines, 1898), 1108. BRITISH COLUMBIA HISTORY | Winter 2013 | Vol. 46 No. 4 31 Sailing without Radar; the Fate of the Vanlene by Vern Giesbrecht This is the story of how a 10,500-ton freighter sailed across the Pacific without radar, eventually crashing near Barkley Sound on the west coast of Vancouver Island. Vern Giesbrecht is a retired college instructor who spent seven years as a journalist before becoming a teacher. He has published articles in a variety of newspapers and magazines. Vern and his wife Marilyn have lived in Gibsons, BC for more than 30 years. As night approached on March 14, 1972, heavy fog enveloped the freighter Vanlene off the British Columbia coast and Captain Lo Chung Hung was worried. The young captain of the 473 foot (144 m) Panamanian freighter, only 29 years old, had somehow sailed across the Pacific Ocean from Japan without radar, but now, searching for the entrance to Juan de Fuca Strait between the coast of Washington and Vancouver Island, he wasn't quite sure where he was. Suddenly, at 9 pm, breakers were sighted dead ahead, and the 10,500-ton freighter crashed into a cluster of rocks just off Austin Island in the Broken Islands Group, near the entrance to Barkley Sound between Bamfield and Ucluelet. The Vanlene's bow was lifted completely out of the water, the stern was awash, bunker oil spilled from a massive gash in the hull and more than half of the ship's primary cargo, 300 new Dodge Colts bound for Vancouver, was under water. Published accounts of the grounding are contradictory. The Shipwreck Times claimed "...the vessel ground to a halt so gently that the chief engineer did not realize they had wrecked until the engines were shut down." John Rawlings (The Wreck of the Vanlene) maintained, however, that the collision occurred with "a colossal lurch and the sickening shriek of tearing metal." Although the Vanlene was listing about 28 degrees to starboard, the engine room was filling with water to a depth of 15 to 18 feet (4.5 to 5.56 m), and a storm was approaching, it took 30 minutes for a distress signal to be sent. Ucluelet Broken Islands Group Pacific Ocean 50 j i i kilometres Washington State 32 BRITISH COLUMBIA HISTORY | Winter 2013 | Vol. 46 No. 4 Even then, the SOS was faulty, stating that the ship was aground on a reef "somewhere off the coast of Washington." The US Coast Guard responded promptly but, failing to spot the stricken ship, feared it had sunk. Canadian rescue efforts were initially futile as well because of the erroneous distress call, but eventually the Canadian Forces' vessel Laymore and the tugboat Neva Straits located the Vanlene in Barkley Sound. It had veered about 60 miles (96 km) off course. In a rescue operation lasting about 4 Vi hours, the Vanlene's Chinese crew members were taken aboard the tug and the HMCS Laymore and then transported by bus to the Somass Hotel in Port Alberni. The Canadian Coast Guard Bamfield Lifeboat Station and British, Liberian and Russian ships also assisted in the rescue, which took until 2:30 am. Capt. Hung told reporters he had asked the ship's owners to fix the radar and other malfunctioning equipment before the Vanlene left Nagoya, Japan on Feb. 24, but this was not done. He said he had crossed the ocean using only compasses for guidance. "It was a bad trip across the ocean," he said. "We ran into 20 or 30 gale-force blows and then the dense fog..." Regarding the grounding, he remarked, "We had reduced our speed to a crawl but got pulled up by the strong current at the mouth. I wasn't really sure where we were. That's why the confusion about our position." The ship's owners later tried to refute the young captain's claims of faulty or missing navigational equipment by saying he "did not speak English well" and that his comments might have been misunderstood. Above: Aerial view of the Vanlene after storms severely damaged the stricken ship. The rocks on the left gashed a hole in the ship's hull when it went aground in March, 1972. Over left: Map of lower Vancouver Island. BRITISH COLUMBIA HISTORY | Winter 2013 | Vol. 46 No. 4 33 Vanlene's bow was ripped from the rest of the ship by two fierce storms in January, 1973. However, Alberni Valley Times' editor Rollie Rose reviewed his tape-recorded interview with Capt. Hung and confirmed that the captain spoke English well and there was no mistaking his comments. A preliminary inquiry ordered by Transport Canada found that two magnetic compasses, a gyro compass and a course recorder were in good order, but that the following devices were missing or malfunctioning: • Radar • Radio direction finder • Deep-sea log • Mechanical log • Taffrail log The inquiry concluded the shipwreck was due to "navigational errors...and could have been avoided had the navigational aids been working properly." With the ship's crew safely in Port Alberni (they went to Vancouver the day after the wreck and were soon flown back to China) attention turned to containing the oil spill that threatened herring spawning grounds and the pristine beaches of nearby Pacific Rim National Park. 2,700 feet (823 m) of log booms, a 600-foot (183 m) deep-sea boom, 300 bales of peat moss, an oil barge and a device called a "slick-licker" were among the resources used to contain the 300 to 330 tons of bunker fuel that had escaped from the wrecked freighter, and to remove the oil still remaining in the ship's hold. Published reports claimed the oil spilled had fouled 20 miles (32 km) of beaches, but wind, torrential rain and one of the highest tides of the year just days after the grounding proved more effective than human and mechanical efforts to disperse much of the 34 BRITISH COLUMBIA HISTORY | Winter 2013 | Vol. 46 No. 4 spilled oil, according to observers from various government agencies. Ministry of transport official Larry Slaght claimed no wildlife had been killed by the oil and that heavy rain and high tides had limited the damage to beaches. "I would say the heaviest concentration I saw was about two inches in depth," he told the Alberni Valley Times. "This was in the immediate area of the ship, in the water between the ship and the reef it is hung up on. The oil was barely deep enough for the slick- licker to be operational." While the ship was deemed too badly- damaged to be salvages, helicopters were able to lift off 118 of the 300 new automobiles on board. Unfortunately, the doomed ship was "raped and plundered by scavengers" for many nights, according to Jan Peterson in Vancouver Island Playground (1997). "The ship's wheel was the first to go; even the telephones in the engine room were taken. Scavengers carted away engines, seats and wheels (from the cars) leaving only dented bodies and smashed windows." In supporting Peterson's claim, the Underwater Archeological Society of BC remarked, "Hardly a resident of Bamfield or Ucluelet does not display or utilize something from the Vanlene." Two fierce storms in January, 1973 ripped the Vanlene's hull in two, and eventually the freighter sank to the bottom of Barkley Sound, where it remains a popular attraction for divers, despite its remote location. In a 2009 article, John Rawlings described the amazing variety of sea life he and diving partner "Sparky" Campbell encountered when they swam down to the Vanlene: scallops, colonial tube worms, anemones, thousands of spider crabs, ling cod, striped sea perch, acorn barnacles, "sea stars of every size and colour" and dozens of other plans and sea creatures. "The area of the ship originally astern of the deckhouse back toward the stern itself remains intact and lies on its starboard side," he wrote. "All of the deck structure including the massive loading derricks and deck fixtures are poised as if ready for use." • Bibliography Alberni Valley Times Alberni District Historical Society The Daily Colonist Underwater Archeological Society of BC http://john-rawlings.newsvine. com/news/2009/01/01/2264990- the-wreck-of-the-vanlene John M. MacFarlane (2011) The Wreck of the Freighter Vanlene. Nauticapedia.calOll. http://nauticapedia.ca/ Ar tides ?Vanlene.php http://www.mysteries ofcanada.com/BC/wreck_of_ the_vanlene.htm Vancouver Island Playground (1979) Shipwreck Times # 41 Years Ago ie June 1972 issue of British umbia Historical News there report of the BC Historical ociation convention held in Port Alberni that includes a sage about their field trip to the Vanlene. Read other past es online at: http://bchistory. library.ubc.ca/?db=bchf. clammy morn that promised e hot, we were all aboard by eight see the sights of the Alberni :anal, and if possible the Vanlene's fate. water was calm as the ropes re cast off, as we headed for Barkley Sound, an ever enchanting vista, as i bend in the canal we came round. s we cruised in to look at onan, we got a look at a big black bear bably out for a morning's ng, seeing nobody else was there. t was pleasant indeed to wander and, and everyone got well acquainted; e seemed so remote from s domain and the air was no longer tainted. then it was we had reached ound, and started riding the Ocean swell soon we saw lying straight d the wreck of the freighter Vanlene; was partly submerged tight the rock, miles from where she should have been. ^ BRITISH COLUMBIA HISTORY | Winter 2013 | Vol. 46 No. 4 35 Finding Juan de Fuca in Kefalonia by Alan Twigg Alan Twigg is the author of seventeen books, including a series on the literary history of the province that includes First Invaders, Aboriginally, Thompson's Highway & The Essentials. Most recently he has edited and co- written Undaunted: The Best of BC BookWorld (Ronsdale $19.95). What Alan Twigg did on his summer vacation: Become the British Columbian to see the first statue erected to honour the first European who likely reached BC waters. In 2004, I made a solo pilgrimage to the provincial Mecca of Yuquot—a.k.a. Friendly Cove—where Chief Maquinna hosted the fur traders, as well as Captains Vancouver and Bodega y Quadra, on the east coast of Vancouver Island near Tahsis. That trip by seaplane was the catalyst for imagining a more difficult pilgrimage nine years later, in Europe, in search of Juan de Fuca's birthplace. It's a peculiar thrill to look for a lost explorer and Juan de Fuca has certainly been lost for centuries. Millions of British Columbians don't know him beyond a body of water that has wind warnings. A Franklin Expedition, Only Warmer It happened like this... At a book launch for Barry Gough's Juan de Fuca's Strait: Voyages in the Waterway of Forgotten Dreams (Harbour, 2012), Barry Gough and I were talking with a man named Vangelis Catevatis, president of the Kefalonia Society of British Columbia. I didn't even know there was a place called Kefalonia. Catevatis said there was new evidence that the Greek mariner Ionnias Apostolos Focas- Valerianos, better known by his Spanish name Juan de Fuca, had been married in California. Offhandedly, he mentioned a new statue had been erected to commemorate Juan de Fuca on the Ionian Island of Kefalonia (between Italy and Greece). I wish I could write, "Gough scoffed," because it sounds funny, but, in fact, he was mostly just distracted by the need to give a public talk. If Barry Gough, the expert on BC maritime history, was disinterested, I felt I had some license, by default, to query Catevatis further. So I got his email address. Catevatis would not respond to my repeated emails requesting more details about the statute. I ran their photograph together in B.C. BookWorld. Big. In colour. I mailed it to him. Still no answer. Sometimes there is nothing like a brick wall for motivation. I found a big, fat, Greek NOTHING on the internet about a statue of Juan de Fuca on Kefalonia, a.k.a. Cephalonia. Nothing in English. This meant I was obliged, strictly in the service of BC history, of course, to buy a plane ticket to the largest island on the west coast of Greece and undertake a search. Tourists don't flock there. Even though Myrtos Beach on Kefalonia is often included in top ten lists for idyllic beaches, the architecture of Kefalonia is hum-drum, anti-romantic, after a major earthquake struck in the 50s. I found the island's only unspoiled village, with a tiny, perfect beach, in an enclave called Assos. There was a 16th century castle nearby, built by the Venetians, but the tour buses could not navigate the treacherous road down to the isthmus. I don't speak more than ten words of Greek. After a three hour-drive southwards on winding roads, I was unable to find the town of Valeriano where Juan de Fuca was born. It was on the map but there was no road sign for it. After another hour of time-wasting, eventually I found some children in a churchyard who spoke English. Yes, there's a park just beside the highway, they said. Is Eureka a Greek word? It sounds like it could be. Sure enough, adjoining some new, brightly coloured, plastic playground equipment, I found an otherwise empty park. I had a passerby take some photos. There I am, looking far too serious, alongside the bust that provides a fanciful image of the man who should be hailed as the European discoverer of BC — it British Columbia History can abide some old-fashioned parlance. At the bottom of the bust there is some tiny writing crediting the name of the sculptor, in Greek only, and its date of completion, August 5, 2012. According to a plaque etched with civic pride, Juan de Fuca "dared the impossible: He entered the Arctic Circle, explored the sea passage to the 48th parallel and became the first 36 BRITISH COLUMBIA HISTORY | Winter 2013 | Vol. 46 No. 4 'mi K.att HENAV^M STOLOS FOCAS v THE I IOANNIS APOSTOLOS P^ J-VALERIANOS, ONE OF THE COUNTLESS AND TIMELESS SYMBOLS OF GREECE, ROVED THE SEAS IN THE 16th C. AND DISCOVERED THE STRAITS SOUTH OF VANCOUVER WHICH HAVE BEEN MAPPED EVER SINCE AS THE STRAITS OF JUAN DE FUCA, HIS SPANISH NAME. HE SERVED IN THE SPANISH NAVY AT THE TIME OF PHILIP II AND IN 1592 DARED THE IMPOSSIBLE: HE ENTERED THE ARTIC CIRCLE, EXPLORED THE SEA PASSAGE TO THE 48" PARALLEL AND BECAME THE FIRST EUROPEAN WHO SET FOOT • ON THE N W CANADIAN COAST. . Top left:Juan de Fuca park, Valeriano, province of Kefalonia, Greece. Top right: English text on plaque at Juan de Fuca Park: "In 1592 dared the impossible: He entered the Arctic Circle, explored the sea passage to the 48th parallel and became the first European who set foot on the NW Canadian coast. Bottom left: What I Did On My Summer Vacation: B.C. BookWorld publisher Alan Twigg made a new friend in Greece when he made an August 2013 pilgrimage to find the first statue to honour the Greek explorer known by his Spanish name, Juan de Fuca. Bottom right: Juan de Fuca, a fanciful likeness. BRITISH COLUMBIA HISTORY | Winter 2013 | Vol. 46 No. 4 37 European who set foot on the NW Canadian coast." In fact, there is no record that Juan de Fuca disembarked and came ashore, or that he reached as far north as the Arctic Circle. There is, however, considerable evidence to support the claim that Apostolos Valerianos, sailing for Spain under the name of Juan de Fuca, arrived in BC waters prior to any other European.1 Juan de Fuca In Juan de Fuca's Strait, Gough carefully relates how Juan de Fuca was an old man when he met an English dealer in fine fabrics, Michael Lok, in Venice, in 1596. Lok was acutely aware that major seafaring nations were hoping to discover a "northwest passage" to the riches of the Orient. Lok was therefore fascinated by Juan de Fuca's account of a voyage made "up the backside" of North America, in 1592. Juan de Fuca provided Lok with a detailed verbal summary of a voyage as far north as the 48th parallel, at which point he entered a waterway (that now bears his name) that he called the Strait of Nova Spain. Lok, as an English consul, excitedly sent this news to England. The Greek/Spanish mariner was offering his services to the Queen of England for 100 pounds to help England discover the Northwest Passage. Specifically, Juan de Fuca agreed to serve as a pilot if England provided a ship of forty tons. A pilot in a Spanish vessel, as Gough explains, corresponded to a first mate on English and American ships, second in command. But Juan de Fuca also wanted the English to provide compensation for goods stolen from him by Captain Cavendish in 1587 when, on a return voyage from the Philippines and China on the 700-ton Manila galleon Santa Anna, Juan de Fuca was overtaken by Cavendish who stole his cargo valued at some 60,000 ducats, near Cabo San Lucas, where Juan de Fuca was put ashore with food and handguns. Unfortunately for the English, Juan de Fuca's request for restitution could not be resolved quickly. Juan de Fuca returned to Kefalonia but continued to communicate with Lok, using his native Greek. When Lok wrote to Juan de Fuca in Kefalonia in 1602 and no reply was received, the Englishman presumed, perhaps correctly, that Juan de Fuca must have died. The written evidence that Juan de Fuca was the first European to discover the strait between Vancouver Island and Washington State that bears his name is provided in a remarkable compilation of travel literature called Hakluytus Posthumus or Purchas His Pilgrimes Contayning a History of the World in Sea Voyages and Lande Travells by Englishmen and others in 1625. Maritime historian Samuel Purchas based his entry about Juan de Fuca on letters written by Michael Lok, who had written to the Lord Treasurer, to Sir Walter Raleigh and to Master Richard Hakluyt, asking them to send 100 pounds to bring Juan de Fuca to England. As recorded by Samuel Purchas, the Viceroy of Mexico had sent Juan de Fuca "with a small Caravela and a Pinnace, armed with Mariners only" along the coast of New Spain and California in 1592. He sailed "until he came to the Latitude of 47 degrees and there finding that the land trended North and North- East, with a broad Inlet of Sea, between 47 and 48 degrees of Latitude, he entered there into, sayling therein more than twentie days, and found that land trending still sometime North- West and North, and also East and South- Westward, and very much broader sea than was at the said entrance, and that he passed by divers Illands in that Sayling. And that at the entrance of this said Strait, there is on the North-West coast thereof, a great Hedland or Hand, with an exceedingly high Pinacle, or spired Rocke, like a piller thereupon. Also he said, that he went on the land in divers places, and that he saw some people of Land, clad in Beasts' skins; and that the Land is very fruitful and rich of Gold, Silver, Pearle, and other things, like Nova Spania. And also he said, that being entered thus farre into the said Strait, and being come into the North Sea already, and finding the Sea wide enough everywhere and to be about thirtie or fortie leagues wide in the mouth of the Straits, where he entered he thought he had now well discharged his office and done the things he was sent to do." It is important to note that Juan de Fuca claimed the entranceway to the great inlet between 47Q and 48Q was marked by "an 38 BRITISH COLUMBIA HISTORY | Winter 2013 | Vol. 46 No. 4 exceedingly high pinnacle or spired rock, like a pillar, thereupon." The coastal historian Captain John T. Walbran later corroborated this report in his British Columbia Coast Names. He wrote, "This is substantially correct; the island is Tatooche, and the spired rock, now known as De Fuca's pillar, 150 feet high, stands in solitary grandeur, a little off shore, about two miles southwards of Tatooche Island." The first English mariner to recognize Juan de Fuca's strait was Captain Charles Barkley on the Imperial Eagle in 1787—almost two centuries after Juan de Fuca's voyage. He consequently named Juan de Fuca Strait because it lay above the 47th parallel, where Lok's report of Juan de Fuca's exploration had designated it to be. Frances Barkley's diary of her husband's 1787 voyage recorded the following perceptions: "The entrance appeared to be about four leagues in width, and remained about that width as far as the eye can see. Capt. Barkley at once recognized it as the long lost strait of Juan de Fuca, which Captain Cook had so emphatically stated did not exist." In 1847, American historian Robert Greenhow published a history of Oregon and California in which he supplied a summary of Juan de Fuca's life based upon the English and Spanish translations of the correspondence between de Fuca and Lok. In 1854, another American historian named Alexander S. Taylor took up the narrative by asking the American consul in the Ionian Islands, A.S. York, to gather any and all material concerning Juan de Fuca and his family. York provided information gleaned from The Lives of Glorious Men of Cephalonia written and published in Venice in October 1843 by Rev. Anthimos Mazarakis, a Kefalonian. The book had been translated into Italian by Tomazeo. Taylor published two articles in the September and October 1859 issues otHutchings' California Magazine that recounted what he had gleaned about Juan de Fuca's life. According to Taylor's research, the ancestors of John Phokas (Fucas) fled Constantinople in 1453 and found refuge in the Ionian Islands. One brother named Andronikos Phokas remained as the head of Phokas family. Another brother Emmanuel Phokas was born in Constantinople in 1435 and departed in 1470 for Kefalonia. Juan de Fuca was one of four sons born to Emmanuel Phokas, also known as Phokas Valerianos to distinguish him from the Phokas family in Argostoli. Emmanuel Phokas settled in a valley in southwestern Kefalonia, at Elios. In that valley was situated the village of Valeriano. Most of the island's buildings were destroyed by an earthquake in the early 1950s, but new buildings have arisen in the area where Valeriano had been for hundreds of years. While the neighboring Greek island of Ithaki is the legendary home of Odysseus; Kefalonia now boasts Apostolos Valerianos (Juan de Fuca) with a small park. In an ideal world British Columbia might see fit to provide a landmark on par with the reverence for history exhibited by the Kefalonians and Ithaki ans. But there's no rush. Juan de Fuca only got here more than four centuries ago. Meanwhile, if there's an obituary that begins by saying, "In the summer of 2013, Alan Twigg became the first British Columbian to see the world's only statue to honour the first European to enter British Columbia waters," I'll be fine with that.* Endnotes 1. The first European mariner to have reached B.C. waters according to written eyewitness accounts was the Spaniard Juan Perez in 1774, off Langara Island, some four years before Captain James Cook famously set foot at Nootka Sound in 1778, accompanied by British crewman that included George Vancouver and William Bligh. BRITISH COLUMBIA HISTORY | Winter 2013 | Vol. 46 No. 4 39 Archives & Archivists by Laura Gloor; edited by Sylvia Stopforth Sylvia Stopforth is a Librarian and Archivist at Norma Marion Alloway Library at Trinity Western University. Laura Gloor, Museum Coordinator. Peace River Museum, Archives and Mackenzie Centre has been an accredited archives with the Archives Society of Alberta since 2008. The Museum and Archives, as an institution, has been gathering the stories and objects of Peace Country people since 1967. The photographs and words of Charles McLaughlin, an avid outdoorsman, come together with excerpts of his account of a 1912 trip through the Peace River country. Paddling to the Peace At the turn of the twentieth century, boosterism promoting the agricultural and investment potential of the Peace Country spurred many to travel into northern Alberta and British Columbia. No one was more dedicated to this promotion than "Peace River" Jim Cornwall. In 1912, after failing to receive support from the Edmonton Chamber of Commerce, he financed a trip for reporters, adventure writers, agriculturalists and geologists that would allow them to experience firsthand the lure of the Peace. Charles McLaughlin, a twenty-one year-old avid outdoorsman "itching" for adventure, was attracted by one such venture. The trip was organized by Douglas Cadenhead, himself a mere twenty-five years of age. The following are excerpts from an article originally published in the Alberta Historical Review (1963) and written by McLaughlin, who accompanied the Cadenhead party on a journey of the McLeod, Pembina, and Slave rivers and an overland trip to the Peace River. McLaughlin had been hired-on to paddle ahead in a canoe and to "read" the water for the party. On May 12, 1912, at Wolf Creek, the Cadenhead party untied their two fifty-foot scows and started down the McLeod River. Their ultimate destination was Halfway River Flats on the Peace River in British Columbia. The object of their projected trip was supposed to be, primarily, to take up land in what was reported to be potentially rich farming country, but actually the urge to explore, to trade with the Indians, to pioneer in many ways, was what excited the imagination of the leader and organizer Douglas Cadenhead age about twenty-five; and it was his enthusiasm that sparked the whole enterprise. Charles McLaughlin's canoe on the Peace River 40 BRITISH COLUMBIA HISTORY | Winter 2013 | Vol. 46 No.4 At Wolf Creek, preparations went along carefully, but fast. Spruce lumber for the scows and a year's provisions of food had been ordered from Edmonton and soon the Cadenheads had constructed two fifty-foot scows -strong, capacious, but sharp-nosed - somewhat like York boats as used by the Hudson's Bay Company for tracking up more or less unknown rivers. At an early stage of the journey, the scows were leaking and had to be reinforced to carry 'the great bundles of farm machinery, a year's supply of food (such as canned goods, and flour, etc.) and a fifty-gallon barrel of coal-oil - about ten tons in all'. This repair caused a week's delay. While we were repairing the boats, a survey party, also in two scows, and a large raft with three men and a team of horses aboard went smoothly by. The parties hailed each other; only the horses, looking contented and thoughtful, paid no attention. On June 20th, the fourth day in more open prairie country, the trail (Grouard to Peace River Trail) improved and near evening, at last, my first never- to-be-forgotten view of the great Peace. Upstream where it is joined by the Big Smoky, we paused for a few minutes by a historical site, the final resting place of Twelve Foot Davis. The river party waited at Peace River Landing for the arrival of the S.S.Grenfell, a steamboat operated by the Diamond P. Company. The party boarded this steamboat and concluded their journey at Hudson Hope. On July 2nd, with a whistle blast that sent echoes bouncing from hill to hill and started natives running to the landing, the steamboat arrived. In the early afternoon of July 7th we rounded a bend, and, at last, Halfway River Flats lay before us. Four hours of hard work saw us unloaded and packed up the bank. The cows, calves and fowl were obviously glad to be on land again. For more information, please visit us online at http://peaceriver.ca/visitors/museum/ • This collection of original photographs by Charles McLaughlin was acquired by the Peace River Museum, Archives and Mackenzie Centre in 1981. Top: Raised cache at the Cadenhead Camp between Taylor and Hudson's Hope, B.C. Bottom: Charles McLaughlin at the journey's end BRITISH COLUMBIA HISTORY | Winter 2013 | Vol. 46 No. 4 41 From the Book Review Editor's Desk K. Jane Watt Ordinary Folk, Not Much Different from Ourselves w spent a few days in Victoria this summer and one afternoon joined the happy cadre of tourists who explore the city by Vespa. On a cool afternoon, we took some time to stroll Ross Bay Cemetery, along the way receiving some sage advice about living and letting go — encapsulated in the few words that can be etched on a headstone, some wry and forward looking, some conveying palpable heart break, carried across the space of time by the thrust of a stonemason's chisel. The wisdom of the headstones put me in mind of some of the memorable lines from the books that have passed my desk recently, for example the 35th anniversary edition of Now You're Logging (Madeira Park: Harbour, 2013). In his opener to what is now considered British Columbia's first graphic novel, Bus Griffiths reflects on the community of loggers: "True, they were a hard-living, hard-driving bunch — and sure they were quite crude at times — But even among the crudest, meanest, and the toughest, there was a gentler side, and a great love of nature and the outdoors — These were the loggers, men of team and gas donkeys, high-lead logging, and the big timber of the rain forests, of the fog-shrouded Pacific Coast — men who took a pride in their work and skills, and who were artists in their own right." He celebrates their chronic distrust of management in an image from page 73 in which loggers attempt to divine the prevailing mood as they peer across the expanse of a river at a couple of bosses in problem-solving mode: "I don't give a damn what they're sayin'! They're both grinnin' from ear to ear.... An' anytime you see 'the Brains' smiling, everything has got to be alright! / DON'T GIVE A DAtlN CJHAT THEYTtE s/^yv/y'/they're both GRINNIN' FROn EAR TO EAR•■•-AN' ANY TIME YOU SEE *THE 8RAIN5 SHI LING, EVERYTHING /*95 GOT TO BE ALRIGHT/ THE gff/VA5~OtONERS, BOSSES, etc. And on the other side of the desk is One Family's Journey: Canfor and the Transformation of BC's Forest Industry by Peter Bentley as told to Robin Fowler (Vancouver: Douglas & Mclntyre, 2012) $35. It opens, "All my life I have been steeped in British Columbia's Forest culture. I was raised in it and loved every aspect of it — the forests, the manufacturing, the relationships with customers and suppliers, and the business economics." Canfor was founded more than 70 years ago by Bentley's father, Poldi Bentley, and his uncle, John Prentice, after the family's flight from pre-war Vienna. A business memoir, a scan through memory and a lifetime of connection, this book recalls challenges and successes, both personal and corporate, as it notes the ongoing reinvention of the company in response to regional and economic change. The Brain is smiling as he brings his story to the present where reinvention and flexibility are the operative words. He notes by way of closing, "To survive in the forest industry for more than sixty years, it helps to be an optimist. Rather than seeing it as a sunset industry, I see a bright future. I am proud of what the industry has offered to our society and am confident it will continue to make meaningful contributions." 42 BRITISH COLUMBIA HISTORY | Winter 2013 | Vol. 46 No. 4 Book Reviews Books for review should be sent to: K. Jane Watt, Book Review Editor, British Columbia History Box 1053, Fort Langley BC V1M 2S4 Daughters in the City: Mennonite Maids in Vancouver, 1931-61. By Ruth Derksen i Siemens. (Vancouver: Fernwood, 2013) $24 Along with Sandra Borger, Ruth Derksen Siemens has captured the difficulty and promise of women's work in Daughters in the City: Mennonite Maids in Vancouver, 1931-61. This elegant little edition tells the story of Mennonite maids who came from all over Canada to work as domestics and nannies for Vancouver's elite. Often they were the leading edge of their family's migration to the West Coast from the Prairies; frequently they were the primary earners in far-flung families, as Derksen writes, Mennonites' primary motivation for sending their daughters to the city was the "dire straits " created by the travel debt (ReiseschuldJ to the Canadian Pacific Railway. Credit from the CPR had financed the trip for these refugees from Russia via ship and rail. This financing arrangement was in the best interest of the Canadian government as immigration to Canada had decreased in the 1920s and most of the land along the railway remained to be settled. As they worked for the benefit of their families and communities, the young ladies formed new — sometimes temporary — communities living in the Bethel Home and the Mary Martha Home. Here they formed a bond of sisterhood that is unparalleled," Derksen writes, and with this strong support system, most of these women rose above the dehumanization and low status of domestic work. They perceived their work as providing assistance to their families, as helping the Mennonite community and, as cited by the matrons, as being their 'service to God.' The women created a place of refuge, a gathering place, an employment agency, and a place for spiritual nurture. Rebel Life: The Life and Times of Robert Gosden — Revolutionary, Mystic, Labour Spy. By Mark Leier (Vancouver: New Star, 2013) $21. Coinridentally, new information about a "migrant labourer turned radical activist turned RCMP informer" a man who called for the assassination of Premier McBride in 1913 is provided by Mark Leier in his Rebel Life: The Life and Times of Robert Gosden — Revolutionary, Mystic, Labour Spy. This second edition has been extensively revised since first publication in 1999. One of the most fascinating parts of this new edition is Leier's meditation on historiography in his conclusion, his reminder of the deeply creative endeavour that is history. Young Mimi Rempel in the kitchen of the Mary Martha home. Born on the long trek of refugees who travelled from Russia through Poland and into Germany between 1943 and 1945, she never met her father, who was killed by the Soviets. Since her mother needed full-time live-in work, Mimi became the "love child" in the home. BRITISH COLUMBIA HISTORY | Winter 2013 | Vol. 46 No. 4 43 Pioneer Stories, 1890-1950: Matsqui, Sumas, Abbotsford. The Life and Art of Edythe Hembroff-Schleicher. Voyage Through the Past Century: A Memoir. Edited by ^Philip Sherwood (Abbotsford: MSA Museum Society, '2013)$50. This compilation of community stories and voices remembering their unique place in Fraser Valley history opens with a Norwegian proverb: "It is the duty of the present to convey the voices of the past to the ears of the future." Its multi-generational mission is framed in the introduction by Ernie Poignant, who notes of people in history: For the most part, these were 'men (and women) of like passions,' as the Good Book says — ordinary folks, not much different from people today. They simply wanted a better life for themselves and those they loved and were willing to work hard to get it. Their stories are full of almost every experience and emotion possible — hardship, tragedy, monotony, and setbacks mixed with joy, success, lightheartedness, kindness, and sacrifice. As you read you'll laugh a little, cry a little, and sometimes stand in awe of what many of them endured. By Christina Uohnson-Dean. (Saltspring Island: Mother Tongue publishing, 2013) $36.95. Known broadly for her work as the sometimes irascible early chronicler of Emily Carr's life and champion of her art as well as a fervent champion of the art of British Columbia, Victoria- based Edythe Hembroff-Schleicher was also an artist in her own right. In the latest book in Mother Tongue's "unheralded artists of BC" series, writer Johnson-Dean weaves the tale of Hembroff-Schleicher's life as student and then friend of Carr, as world traveller, as translator, as commercial artist and illustrator. Much more than a footnote to the life of Emily Carr, Hembroff-Schleicher's richly coloured and sensuous paintings provide another lens on the milieu that was the Victoria art scene. "Edythe was the epitome of a twentieth-century creative woman and a barometer of the phenomenal changes that occurred during her lifetime," Johnson-Dean writes. "She was so often on the cutting edge, whether that meant championing a modern visual style, discussing a creative idea, or finding a new way to make a living. She was an engaged artist, an outspoken and passionate writer, an evolving feminist, a conscientious researcher, and a devoted friend of Emily Carr." By Rolf Knight (Vancouver: New Star, 2013) $24. Prolific chronicler of British Columbia's working-class history, Rolf Knight has completed his, Voyage Through the Past Century: A Memoir. "I never found writing to be the lonely endeavour which others have," he notes. "When I wrote I was often surrounded with voices and image at least as alive as everyday life. There was also the feeling of having saved something of value which otherwise would have been lost..." They Called Me Number One: Secrets and Survival in an Indian Residential School. By Bev Sellars (Talonbooks: Vancouver, 2013) $19.95 In an interview with the Vancouver Sun Xat'sull chief Bev Sellars says of her book, They Called Me Number One: Secrets and Survival in an Indian Residential School, "My main message is just that I want First Nations people to understand how they got to the place they did. It's the same message for non-aboriginal 44 BRITISH COLUMBIA HISTORY | Winter 2013 | Vol. 46 No. 4 people. People are too quick to condemn aboriginal people without understanding where they've been." The third generation of women in her family to attend St. Joseph's Mission in Williams Lake, Sellars recalls, "Soon after arrival at residential school, we were assigned a number that would become our identity. I became Number 1 on the girls' side. Ninety years after she left St. Joseph's Mission, my grandmother still remembered she was Number 27. My mom remembers her number was 71. Thankfully, our numbers were not tattooed on our skin." A Trail of Two Telegraphs: And Other Historic Tales of the Bulkley Valley and Beyond. By Jane ^Stevenson Halfmoon Bay: Caitlin, 2013) $26.95. This compendium of historic sketches and pioneering tales of the area between Prince George and Prince Rupert is written by Jane Stevenson who speaks eloquently about something she calls memory places — the conflation of time and place and circumstance that links strong memories to specific sites. "Historians," she writes, tend to view their surroundings from the perspective of not just what is here and now and what might be here in the future, but also what was once there: an abandoned village site, a forgotten town, a manned lighthouse. Those of us who study local history have 'memory places' that date back far beyond our short lifetimes. I absorb historical details that people share with me and it changes the way I look at the passing landscapes..." Stevenson issues a challenge to neighbours to engage with the making of history: "Share these with each other and change the way we view our Northwest," she urges. House Calls by Float Plane: Stories of a West Coast Doctor. By Alan Swan ^(Madeira Park: Harbour, 2013) $24.95. In this memoir published posthumously, House Calls by Float Plane: Stories of a West Coast Doctor, Alan Swan recalls his career as a doctor that began at Pender Harbour's thirteen-bed mission hospital in 1954. He practiced there and in Sechelt BC for over two decades before life took him north on the coast to Kincolith, Kitkatla, and Hartley Bay and then inland to Iskut and Telegraph Creek before he retired to Duncan. The author's proceeds from this book will go to St. Mary's Hospital Foundation. Cariboo Trail: A Chronicle of the Gold-Fields of British Columbia. By Agnes C. Laut, ^foreword by Diana French (Vancouver: TouchWood, 2013) $12.95. Father August Brabant: Saviour or Scourge. By Jim McDowell ^(Ronsdale Press, 2012) $24.95 This biography of the creator of Vancouver Island's first large residential school captures the life and work of a man "convinced he had a mission to save the indigenous people from being themselves." Boundless Optimism: Richard McBride's British Columbia. By Patricia E. Roy (Vancouver: UBC ^Press, 2013) $32.95. Patricia E. Roy's Boundless Optimism: Richard McBride's British Columbia has been released in softcover. McBride was premier of British Columbia for a dozen years after 1903 — during a brief window of unparalleled opportunity with respect to provincial resources and barely emergent government policy. He lost his sight and died in London a relatively young man at age 47 from nephritis, or Bright's Disease after a powerful career in BC politics. Biographer Roy was honoured this year with the 2013 Lifetime Achievement Award from the Canadian Historical Association. UBC Press provides this overview of her latest work: BRITISH COLUMBIA HISTORY | Winter 2013 | Vol. 46 No. 4 45 The first decade and a half of the twentieth century was mostly a time of unprecedented prosperity and growth in British Columbia. Although its colonial history was still etched in the public psyche, BC was coming into its own as a province of Canada and starting to realize the untapped economic potential of its natural resources. Born just months before British Columbia ceased to be a British colony, Richard McBride juggled his imperial, national, and provincial identities while developing one of the most important political careers the province has ever seen. McBride built a reputation as a charismatic and optimistic leader who was dedicated to a vision of a modern, industrialized, wealthy province. A product of his time, McBride firmly opposed Asian immigration and often promoted industrial development at the expense of First Nations interests. But he also had great forward vision: he introduced party lines to stabilize the BC legislature; he vigorously supported provincial causes in Ottawa; and, above all, he encouraged the building of railways in many regions of the province. Boundless Optimism puts McBride's political career into historical context, chronicling his passions, his many accomplishments, the downsides of his optimism, and his role in making British Columbia the province it is today. Railway Rock Gang: A collection of stories about working on BC Rail Rock Gangs in British Columbia from 1978-1987. By Gary Sim l (Vancouver: i Sim Publishing, 12013)$80. \ Available online at 'Blurb. "Where to begin?" writes Gary Sim in the opening lines to his recent memoir about his work on railway rock gangs almost thirty years ago. "Working on a gang," he recalls, "seemed somewhat epic at times, although most days were spent doing rather tedious tasks: drilling and scaling, loading explosives, working in clouds of smoke, dirt, rock dust, diesel fumes, chainsaw exhaust and wood chips, black flies, and mosquitos." Full colour photographs and drawings accompany his engaging reminiscences about working the rails. A real strength of Rock Gang, and a legacy for history, is its fulsome glossary of what Sim describes as "terminology and slang used on the Rock Gangs, related to drilling, scaling, blasting, rigging, heavy salvage, falling, track work, and railway terms in general." It includes idiom that enriches our collective memory of lives and livelihoods in the hidden corners of BC: "blind siding", "car knocker", "comealong", flying meet", "piss-can", "running in the slack", "tie plate", "white flag," and "zinger." Sim is well known to Federation members for his digital bibliography and online finding aid of British Columbia artists from the 1700s to the present called British Columbia Artists. Now working in a safe job away from the rails, he muses on value of his individual work on rock gangs. "What made it all worthwhile," he writes, "was being one of the team of people who kept the track open. The railway is of immense importance to the interior of BC. It the trains are rolling, a huge swath of the interior ... is 'business as usual.' Any stoppage of rail traffic has immediate consequences affecting thousands of people that will increase in severity with the length of the stoppage." Marjorie: Too Afraid to Cry — A Home Child Experience. By Patricia L Skidmore (Toronto: Dundurn, 2013) l$30. Patricia Skidmore struggled to understand why her mother, Marjorie, had no stories of her childhood. This frustration led to research that first yielded brief details within the Fairbridge School archives and later to a consideration of the overall Fairbridge program and a comparison with similar charities. When Skidmore had assembled much of this information, wonderful news arrived. The British Government apologized for its Child Emigration programs! Prime Minister Gordon Brown made a declaration to all and then apologized to a few survivors personally. Marjorie was invited to London to represent Fairbridgians at a reception on 24 February 2010. Skidmore weaves three 46 BRITISH COLUMBIA HISTORY | Winter 2013 | Vol. 46 No. 4 stories together — her own research, her mother's story of life as a home child, and the modern extension of that experience. She was able to find exact records of the years her mum had been ward of the Fairbridge Society. Her story of this middle child in a family of nine begins in 1937 in England when Marjorie was only ten years old. The details about English village schools, countryside, beaches and trains are beautifully described. As a book reviewer, I connected with this story: I suddenly realized that I was a ten-year old girl when I visited England in 1937.1 saw a few local school children there, but my older cousins were at boarding school. I, too, travelled across the Atlantic aboard a CPR Duchess. My little brother and I rode the crosscountry trains Skidmore describes. But Marjorie was moved from pillar to post under temporary supervisors in a group of children suddenly removed from their families to Fairbridge Farm School near Duncan. It appeared to be a pleasant setting for youngsters to live and attend school, but living in a cottage with eleven or more fellow students had its horrible moments when the house mother was mean or cranky or someone chose to bully younger ones. Skidmore did a great job of envisioning the changes Marjorie went through; however, her guess about the Grandma she never met is darned dramatic and not convincing. She was able to find happy conclusion to the quest for information that began her research journey when her mum, Marjorie, liked her writing — and even declared she was no longer British — she was Canadian! This three-part book is thought provoking and tells us about a program in BC that cared for almost 400 English children aiming to turn them into farmers or farm wives. Our modern line of thought condemns this program as it does the history of Indian Residential Schools. Read this book and evaluate the well-intentioned plans of benefactors for children who had been living in poverty. Former editor of British Columbia History, East Kootenay historian and author Naomi Miller is also active in the BC History of Nursing Society. Raymond Collishaw and the Black Flight. By Roger Gunn [(Toronto: ^Dundurn, 2012) $26.99 Raymond Collishaw was born in Nanaimo in 1893. He joined the Fisheries Protection Service in Esquimalt in 1908, and obtained his Mate's Certificate in 1911. When WW I broke out, his small vessel was assigned mine sweeping and patrol duties. In August 1915 he applied to join the Royal Navy Air Services and paid for his own flight training. This is a story to delight fans of military history. It is helpful in that Gunn introduces each type of plane by horsepower, exact size, maximum speed, wing length, and gun mounted. Gunn found the logs of Collishaw's unit from 1916 to the end of the WWI and includes exciting episodes tucked between repetitious reporting of daily junkets, reconnaissance sorties, changed locale or officers or affiliations. The early featherweight planes could use almost any level grassy field for takeoff and landing, so they set up close to the front where the Royal Naval Air Services group might be partnered with French or English units. Each sub group chose a colour for their planes. Collishaw happened to opt for black markings and delighted in tangling with the Red Baron, Manfred von Richthofen. One could use Gunn's explanation of Collishaw's experience in war as a geography lesson on the German/Belgian/French frontier, an explanation that takes 200 pages. From there on, the possible geography lesson becomes more intense. Collishaw volunteered for a British force sent to Russia to fight Communism. The RAF group he commanded was active in Russia from spring 1919 to March 1920 before being sent to Persia (later divided into Iran and Iraq) until 1923. Finally, Collishaw was able to marry his Canadian sweetheart. He stayed with the RAF, mainly in England until 1929 when he became senior officer aboard an aircraft carrier off Malta. Next he was sent to a base near Cairo in Egypt, a posting where his wife and daughters enjoyed his company and the locale. When conflict with Italian Air forces became imminent, the family was sent back to England. Promoted to Air Commodore, Collishaw fought the brief conflict in north Africa, was assigned to Scotland, then retired from the armed services in 1943. He came back to Canada where he became a businessman involved with Craigmont Mines. He died in 1976. Roger Gunn treats readers to an exact record of his idol's air force career as a fighter pilot (with the third highest number of enemy kills in WW I) and as a skilled administrator into WWII. Former editor of British Columbia History, East Kootenay historian and author Naomi Miller is also active in the BC History of Nursing Society. BRITISH COLUMBIA HISTORY | Winter 2013 | Vol. 46 No. 4 47 Cabinets of Curiosities by Naomi Miller Former editor Naomi Miller has three items in her family cabinet that date back to the 1800s and harken back to days of black powder and snuff. These items date back to the 1800s. Two are powder horns used in the era of muzzle loaders and flintlock rifles. Currently only a tiny number of "black powder shooters" ever handle this sort of dispenser. The small bronze counterpart (3 Vi inches or 8 cm), however, is an heirloom with a very different purpose. I have been told that it was carried by my mother's uncle, Arthur Pateman, on his voyages between England and India in the 1890's. Uncle Arthur was a captain of a sailing ship that carried goods from Britain and returned with loads of tea. This was his snuff box! Snuff is tobacco dried then ground into fine granules. Tobacco, grown and used in ceremonial rituals by Native Americans, was introduced in Europe about 1518. In 1578 Sir Walter Raleigh took home to England a mild tobacco "Taback" which initially was smoked in pipes with soothing or even medicinal effects. The taste and quality of the smoke varied with the species, growing conditions and harvesting of a crop. For many years tobacco was accessible only to the wealthy. In eastern USA tobacco growers expanded their fields to produce a profitable crop sold both at home and overseas. Even workers learned to use it. Workers tried chewing it and soon became addicted. Chewing tobacco came in a sticky "plug" which required good teeth to shred off a "quid" which was held in the mouth quietly for long periods. Snuff could be snorted into the nose for speedy 'Pleasure" or dipped by finger to sit in the front of the mouth. Users generally learned to direct their spittle to spittoons indoors or onto chance targets outdoors. Spittoons were commonplace in pubs, bars, hotels, stores, homes and even some churches. Smokeless tobacco preceded cigarettes. Cigarette making machines were invented after the American Civil War. This history need not expand on the recent rise and fall of the cigarette which has been "improved by the addition of hundreds of chemicals". Snuff was a particular favorite of Swedish loggers and miners. It is sold in flat round containers of Copenhagen or other brands. It became approved for use in NO SMOKING areas where fire prevention was uppermost. Many a teen aged lad would be induced to take pinch with, "You've done a man's job today. Be a man!" The fellow workers would then be delighted at the retching, coughing and struggling reaction of the novice. Maybe my Uncle Arthur shared snuff from this neat container with newly recruited sailors.* Every object has a story. Do you have an object of curiosity in your cabinet? Send me 300 to 400 words together, with a high-resolution image of the object, telling me the story of the object. Email your story to: bcheditor@bchistory.ca, or mail it to: Editor, British Columbia History, PO Box 21187, Maple Ridge BC, V2X 1P7. 48 BRITISH COLUMBIA HISTORY | Winter 2013 | Vol. 46 No. 4 Awards and Scholarship Information for complete details go to http://bchistory.ca/awards/index.html W. KAYE LAMB Essay Scholarships Deadline: May 15 The British Columbia Historical Federation awards two scholarships annually for essays written by students at BC colleges or universities, on a topic relating to British Columbia history. One scholarship ($750) is for an essay written by a student in a first or second year course; the other ($1000) is for an essay written by a student in a third or fourth year course. To apply for the scholarship all candidates must submit (1) a letter of application and (2) a letter of recommendation from the professor for whom the essay was written. First and second year course essays should be 1,500-3,000 words; third and fourth year,l,500 to 5,000 words. By entering the scholarship competition the student gives the editor of British Columbia History the right to edit and publish the essay if it is deemed appropriate for the magazine. Applications with 3 printed copies of the essay should be submitted to: Marie Elliott, Chair BC Historical Federation Scholarship Committee, PO Box 5254, Station B, Victoria, BC V8R 6N4 Anne 6t Philip Yandle Best Article Award Deadline: To be eligible, the article must have appeared in the BCHF journal British Columbia History for that year. A Certificate of merit and $250 will be awarded annually to the author of the article, published in British Columbia History, that best enhances knowledge of BC's history and provides reading enjoyment. Judging will be based on subject development, writing skill, freshness of material, and appeal to a general readership interested in all aspects of BC history. BC History Web Site Prize Deadline: December 31 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 December 31st each year. Web site creators and authors may nominate their own sites. Prize rules and the online nomination form can be found on the British Columbia Historical Federation Web site: http://bchistory.ca/ awards/website/index.html Best Newsletter Award Deadline: March 1 Newsletters published by member societies are eligible to compete for an annual prize of $250. They will be judged for presentation and content that is interesting, newsy and informative. - Only member societies of the BCHF are eligible - Only one issue of a society's newsletter will be evaluated - Submit three printed copies of this best issue from the previous calendar year - BCHF reserves the right not to award a prize in a given year should applications not be of sufficient quality Submit three printed copies of a single newsletter issue to: BCHF Recognition Committee, PO Box 5254, Station B, Victoria, BC, Canada, V8R 6N4 Certificate of Merit Deadline: March 1 Group or individual who has made a significant contribution to the study, project, or promotion of British Columbia's history. Certificate of Recognition Deadline: March 1 Given to individual members or groups of members of BCHF Member Societies who have given exceptional service to their Organization or Community. Certificate of Appreciation Deadline: March 1 Individuals who have undertaken ongoing positions, tasks, or projects for BCHF. Nominations Any member of BCHF may nominate candidates for Certificates of Appreciation, Certificates of Merit or Certificates of Recognition. Nominations, supported by a letter explaining why the nominee is deserving of a certificate, should be submitted to the Chair of the Recognition Committee by March 1 of each year. The Lieutenant-Governor's Medal for Historical Writing Deadline: December 31 Each year, the British Columbia Historical Federation invites submissions for its Annual Historical Writing Competition to authors of BC history; and the winning author is awarded the Lieutenant- Governor's Medal for Historical Writing. Eligibility - To be eligible, a book must be about BC history and be published within the competition year - Non-fiction books representing any aspect of BC history are eligible. - Reprints or revisions of books are not eligible - Books may be submitted by authors or publishers - Deadline for submission is December 31 of the year in which the book was published Submission Requirements - Those wishing to enter books MUST obtain a copy of the entry rules from the entries chair at writing@bchistory.ca - Authors/Publishers are required to submit three copies of their book - Books are to be accompanied by a letter containing the following: 1. Title of the book submitted 2. Author's name and contact information 3. Publisher's name and contact information 4. Selling price - Books entered become property of BCHF - Judges' decisions are final and confidential - By submitting books for this competition, the authors agree that the BCHF may use their name(s) in press releases and in its publications William R. Morrison: Email: writing® bchistory.ca Judging Criteria Judges are looking for quality presentations and fresh material. Submissions will be evaluated in the following areas: - Scholarship: quality of research and documentation, comprehensiveness, objectivity and accuracy - Presentation: organization, clarity, illustrations and graphics - Accessibility: readability and audience appeal Publicity All winners will receive publicity and an invitation to the Award's Banquet at the Federation's annual conference in May following the year of publication. Lieutenant-Governor's Medal and Other Awards The BC Lieutenant-Governor's Medal for Historical Writing will be awarded together with $1000 to the author whose book makes the most significant contribution to the history of British Columbia. The 2nd and 3rd place winners will receive $500 and $250 respectively. Certificates of Honourable Mention may be awarded to other books as recommended by the judges. Johnson Inc. Scholarship Deadline: September 15 Canadian residents completing high school and who are beginning post-secondary education. 100 scholarships of $1500 each for Canada, http://wwwl.johnson.ca/about- us/scholarships Return Undeliverable Canadian Addresses to Circulation Department. British Columbia History BCHF c/o Magazine Association of BC 201 -318 Homer Street, Vancouver, BC V6B 2V2 Canadian Publications Mail Product Sales Agreement No. 40025793 Publications Mail registration No. 09835 L Vanlene Top: Wreck of the Vanlene, Austin Island, Broken Group Islands, Barkley Sound, September 1996. Image courtesy of photographer Carole Valkenier www.pbase. com/emeraldseaimages Left: Aerial photo of the wreck of the Vanlene, 1973. Image courtesy John MacFarlane
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