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Published winter, spring, summer and fall by British Columbia Historical Federation RD. Box 5254, Station B Victoria, B.C.V8R 6N4 A Charitable Society recognized under the Income TaxAct. Institutional subscriptions $16 per year Individual (non-members) $12 per year Members of Member Societies $10 per year For addresses outside Canada, add $5 per year Back issues of the British Columbia Historical News are available in microformfrom Micromedia Limited,20 Victoria Street, Toronto, Ontario M5C 2N8, phone (416) 362-5211, fax (416) 362-6161, toll free 1-800-387-2689. This publication is indexed in the Canadian Index published by Micromedia. Indexed in the Canadian Periodical Index. Publications MailRegistration Number 4447.

Financially assisted by the Ministry of Small Business, Tourism and Culture through the British Columbia Heritage Trust Fund. Brithh Cohmakbia Historical News Journal of the B.C. Historical Federation Volume 29, No. 3-_ Spring 1996 EDITORIAL CONTENTS

BRITISH COLUMBIA FEATURES .11 Rex vs Davidoff 2 by Adam C. Waldie Twisting the Lion’s Tail: The 1858 Fort Victoria Riot 5 by Lindsay E. Smyth Nootka Sound’s Andy Morod: Trapper, Prospector Environmentalist. 11 by Eleanor Witton Hancock Hydro Electric Power in Gray Creek 16 by C. WM. Burge When It Was Easy To Go Teaching 19 by Bernard C. Gillie Spider Loom Ties 23 by WJ. Spat Liquor and the Indian: Post WWU 26 by Megan Schiase The Cache Creek Provincial Boarding School 1874-1890 30 by Wayne Norton A Bit of the Beaver 34 1. Telegraph Creek by TerryJulian 2. Wffliams Lake 3. Likely NEWS and NOTES 35 4. Cache Creek BOOKSHELF 5. Hutton Mifis Prince Ships of Northern B.C 36 6. Nootka Sound Review byDr. WKaye Lamb Operating on the Frontier 36 7. Campbell River Review by Dr Adam Waldie 8. Gray Creek Canada Dry: Temperance Crusades 37 Review by Phyllis Reeve 9. Castlegar Making Law, Order & Authority In British Columbia 182 1-1871 37 10. Whatcom Review byJohn S. Keenlyside Just East of Sundown: The Queen Charlotte Islands 37 Review by Paul Whitney COVER CREDIT Silver, Lead & He11 The Story of Sandon 38 Review by Ron Welwood Depicted is a view of the deck of the HMS Winifred Grey: Life in England and the Gulf Islands 38 Satellite. This vessel was an ultramodern Review by Naomi Miller screw and sailing corvette with 21 guns and a Scoundrels, Dreamers and Second complement of 325 men under Captain James Sons 38 Charles Prevost. Governor James Douglas Review by Kelsey McLeod despatched the Satellite to patrol the entrance The S.S. Moyie: Memories of the Oldest Sternwheeler 39 to the Fraser River to ensure that all prospec Review by EL. Affleck tors had cleared customs and purchased a The Sicamous & the Naramata: Steamboat Days in the Okanagan 39 miner’s licence in Victoria. This prevented Review by EL. Affleck Americans from “Twisting the Lion’s Tail:’ BCAR5 #A-00259

Manuscripts and correspondence to the editor are to be sent to P0. Box 105, Wasa, B.C. VOB 2K0. Correspondence regarding subscriptions is to be directed to the Subscription Secretary (see inside back cover).

Printed in Canada by Kootenay Kwik Print Ltd. Rex vs Davidoff1,2 The Last Hanging in B. C., 1951 by Adam C. Waldie Early one spring morning of side of the chest; this appeared 1951, Iwas working in the gar to be an entry site but no exit den of my little rented house wound could be seen.6 in Castlegar when a couple of As there were no pathologists Doukhobors drove up in a tiny in the Kootenays at that time, it Austin. The conversation went was obvious one of my col something like this: leagues in the C.S. Williams “Well, Dr. Waldie, we see Clinic at Trail would have to do you working, but we got some the autopsy. The body was sent work for you too.” twenty-five miles in to Trail and “What’s the matter?” I asked. that evening Dr. Jack Harrigan, “We want you come to who had been out of medical Camino Village3 and see one school a year longer than I had, ‘ young fellow. We tink he take did the post mortem in the back poison.” The body ofJoe Davidoff 19, in the bed where his cousin bad slept with the corpse room of Clark’s Funeral Home. “Is he dead?” I questioned in theprevious night. Note the Russian style quilt As he undertook the gruesome disbelief: Photo courtesy Adam Waldie task he found that the bullet had “We tinkso but we want you torn up the right lateral chest come and see. “ wall, the dome of the liver, the With that I phoned Constable Bill spoke to Joe. No answer. So he kicked Joe to base of the right lung, shattered the spinal Howarth ofthe Castlegar Detachment ofthe wake him, but found Joe was cold and stiff column, then passed through the back of the RCMP4’5, and Dr. Victor Goresky, the local He had indeed slept that night with a corpse. left lung. No exit wound was found and coroner. The three of us drove in the police I threw back the quilt and found the body Harrigan thought ofsending the body to the cruiser over the ferry to Robson, then three clad only in shorts and a green T-shirt. There hospital for x-rays to see if he could find the miles east to the suspension was a little dribble ofvomitus at the corner of slug. At the last moment he found it between bridge at Brilliant below the the fragments of the left poste power dam, and two miles back rior ribs and the skin itself: It along the south bank of the had been too spent to pierce the Kootenay River to Camino Vil skin (which is highly elastic). As lage on the height ofland at the we packed up to go, Jack Bush, confluence of the two rivers, the undertaker’s assistant, then across from the town of produced a bottle of rye which Castlegar and near the site of quickly disappeared between the present day Selkirk College. four or five of us present. We were led into a large Who had killed Joe Davidoff? room on the main floor of one At this point there wasn’t a clue, of the twin, two-storey brick not a hint. Constable Bill houses typical of the Howarth worked day and night Doukhobor village communi on the case, painstakingly inter ties. The body of 19 year old viewing everyone in the village. Joe Davidoff lay at one side of At the end of the third day, as a double bed in the centre of A picture taken by the author at the scene ofthe crime, May 1951. Note the bullet he was driving back to the scene the room. His cousin appeared bole on the right lower chest. after supper for still more inter Photo courtesy Adam Waldie at this point, and related how views, he came across the two he had been sharing the bed men who had summonsed me with Joe for a few days. He had come in late the mouth. Rigor mortis had set in and the the first morning, their little Austin over the night before, smelt a little vomit, and skin was dusky but there was still warmth in turned in the ditch. They were both inebri stayed well to his side of the bed thinking the groins and the armpits. On lifting the shirt ated but quite aware they had crossed the Joe had been drinking. In the morning he a bullet wound was evident on the lower right median and were at risk ofbeing charged with

2 B.C. Historical News - Spring 1996 driving to the common danger. In a patent geant William J. (Bill) McKay of the Trail penal Navy Polly Argatoff was one of the pioy for leniency the driver dropped a hint detachment of the RCMP (later “D” Divi first witnesses on the stand and testified that of what was to be the breakthrough. sion) had taken over the investigation and John Davidoff had indeed had dinner at her “I hear John Davidoff Joe’s father, had din authorized a diving barge to be located down home on the night in question. ner at Polly Argatoff’s house that night,” he stream from the bridge and a crew of divers “At what time?” she was asked by the pros with the old brass ecutor. She answered in Russian which the helmets, hand- interpreter translated as “Just after eight pumped compres o’clock.” There was a loud murmur from the sors and air hoses, audience and it was apparent there had been to search the river a mistake in translation. The Doukhobor bottom. After two people did not use the customary hours in days work they their keeping track of time and Polly’s an had found noth swer literally was “at the time of the second ing and were milking ofthe cow” meaning, in their idiom, about to abandon just before eight o’clock, not after. At the vig the search. orous objection of A.G. Cameron, defense Howarth, in the counsel, the judge dismissed the interpreter meantime, was on the spot and the hearing was set over a convinced there day. had to be a gun at When it was resumed the new interpreter the bottom of the was a clerk from the Land Registry Office in turbulent river be Nelson who had grown up in one of the low the power Doukhobor communities and was aware of dam, and set the many differences between the about to re-ques Doukhobor dialect and the classical Russian tion the witnesses. language.8 The accused was committed for “Are you sure trial in Assize Court in Nelson early in July. you saw Davidoff With two murder cases on the docket that coming off the year, and with the indifferent performance bridge with noth by local counsel in previous assizes, the Chief The Kootenay Columbia area; showing Gsmino Village, the site of the Davidoff ing under his Justice appointed a well known Vancouver murder in 1951. Since then Highway #3 with bridge has been built. Selkirk College arm?” Howarth trial lawyer, T.G. Norris (later Mr. Justice now lies between tbeAirport and Camino Village. The Hugh Keenlyside Dam and Celgar Pulp Millhave been built on the LowerAm,w Lake two miles west ofRobson. asked. Norris} to be Crown Prosecutor. Leo “Yes,” was the Gansner9 ofNelson was appointed Assistant. reply. Arthur Garfield Cameron of Trail, a former said. Constable Howarth did not charge the “Vhat side?” Howarth asked. Rhodes Scholar and mining law expert man with the driving offence but questioned “Right side” was the reply. turned successful criminal lawyer was re Polly Argatoffdirectly. Yes, John Davidoffdid “Your right side or my right side?” asked tained by Davidoff. At the time there was no have dinner at her home on the night in ques Howarth. such thing as legal aid but the appeal court tion, but left about eight o’clock, before any “Your right side,” (policeman’s), was the records quote from an affidavit by Cameron one else did. answer. and Gordon which swears that the firm took The next break came unexpectedly from Whether the witnesses were using the the case “gratis.”° Nelson. A life insurance agent, reading ofthe idiom oftheir own language, or whether they Having been summonsed as a medical wit murder, recalled that John Davidoff had were being deferential to the policeman will ness, I presented myself to Mr. Norris in the called to see him in his office the week be never be known. However, Howarth and library of the Nelson Court House. “Get a fore to ask ifJoe had a life insurance policy; McKay decided that it was worth moving the copy of Glaister’s Medical Jurisprudence,” and if he was the beneficiary Affirmative to barge upstream and searching the river bot he said. “Read the chapters on sudden death, both questions. The agent reported the inci tom on the upper side of the bridge. The rigor morris and gunshot wounds and know dent to the police and John, already suspect, divers, on their second try; found a rifle, the them thoroughly” The next day I had to pro was taken into custody and charged with the ballistic characteristics matching that of the test there was not a copy of that text in the murder of his son. slug recovered from the body. Kootenays, so he threw me the keys to his In the course of his many interviews Con The preliminary hearings were held in the room in the Hume Hotel and told me to read stable Howarth had found several young peo Legion Hall at Castlegar which had been his copy there. ple who said they had seen Davidoffwalking converted into a temporary courtroom. At the time of my original examination of down the long hill toward Brilliant Bridge Much of the testimony was given by the body, I had had little or no experience with a sack under his arm. Other people re Doukhobor people in their own dialect of with forensic medicine, but somehow came called seeing him at the other end of the Russian, but the court interpreter was a man up with the estimate that the body had been bridge with nothing under his arm. StaffSer who had been an officer in the Russian Im dead between eight and twelve hours. Dr.

3 B.C. Historical News - Spring 1996

4

B.C. News Historical 1996 Spring -

if which, true, would my confirm suspicions a word about what everyone was else talking

quoted above.

mours filtered up the from community wf’ policeman who was allowed not breathe to

to 14. According personal Jack Duggan, in communication

Following event this many ru stories and

and manuscrxt me telling

lot the sad

the of l3.VancouverSun, November27, 1975.

punishment) ...time did.”’ 3 op p.394. BCCA 12. cit Loraine Howarth ofNanaimofrr reviewing the

p.388. BCCA, 11.

op

cit,

make me my change

mind (about

capital recordc which appear have to been lost. Th

evidence

at

adduced

trial.”

as

reporter. a

“Witnessing

a did hanging not help in to trying run down said the the John original M. court by supported not Davidoff was the

they

verdict believe the and jury the the of conviction of

last hanging in B.C. he which had attended Archivist, B. CProvincialArchives,

Victoria,frr

as

counsel

the for

said to due Davidoff

fact gratis

the that

Vancouver the Sun recalling

the details

of

this

Appeal

1951.

Court

in Th Brian M?: Young, the firm said of Cameron are & Gordon act to prepared

12, 15 Pan. 14. interesting, is

and St. later bears Paul quotation: “that Pierre wrote dramatic a essay in citations and of photocopies the decisions

of the

defense giving counsel for seeking reasons appeal,) para.

springing

the

trap door. Twenty four years ish Columbia for providing

me

with

the legal

10. BCCA, op p.385, cit. ftom an (quoting by affidavit

Canada’s 9. official hangman, Deceased, 1994. Ellis,” “Mr. Gerald of Coultas Supreme the Brit of Court

years

afterwards.

Oakalla Jail on December

11, 1951, with

to My

thanks The Honourable Mr. Justice

government

interpreter

Doukhobor for

many for trials

Execution

by hanging took place in 8. to According man Duggan Jack this remained official

underwater search.

credible, and the appeal was denied. 12 lives.

(maximum short period

of hours)

to fbeilitate two the

appeal the that court

the

new was evidence

and

has

retired

Kelowna to he where now flood gates nearby on were the shut dam for a down

weapon the near their white a in rifle police on car second to dive. the The coast did not persuade son, Jr., was also Bill, a of member the force

as the bridge a marker, and the divers the located

murder

last

all

minute

night drive the of new witness

when died he prematurely 1974.

in

His other

into white, threw river the from it upstream the side of

had which been established the the in barge. trial. He relates A a McKay that RCMP had painted rifle detachment at North Battleford

the at Detachment

one time,

and

was of divers the

on

the lier in evening

than the time

often

o’clock

His

son older Fred was a member of the

7.

Jack Duggan, RCMP (ret) was member a the of Trail

town in ear sound of gunshot. any

downstream.

been fired close at range, thus muffling the

John Davidoff

BrilliantBridge

today

Dam the behind

thepillar it on right. Traffic now new crosses on a bridge - with 100 yards powder the burns,

had rifle indicating

to have seen

The 6. quilt, had bullet a significantly, hole

insignia who of claimed the force. former

were still wearing the uniforms and

Lampard,

the 1950 15, RCMP August the but men

young man, 5. The B.C. Police had been taken by over

Court decision 384. noted

above, page found

a

village County the Kootenay” of in Appeal

O

zero

ff

3, Referred 4 as to “the second Ostrow

389 BCCA the name of

Rex 2. Davidoff(No. vs

13CR 2)1951,

Castlegar by

383 BCCA

Rex 1. eller Davidoff(No. vs in 13CR 1)1951,

BCCA British Columbia

of Court Appeal -

jew A dence.

Footnotes:

new evi

history. in admission of

enough more to

become interested

request for

in Vancouver feels and old is be

involving a

retired a medical from practice

one second

Note: Waldie Bio

Dr. has

recently

was there a

be heard,

use the computer as a typewrite?:

appeal

could

has spent trying to me teach to

Before

this the Colonist,fôr hours he endless

peal

was

subsequently

allowed. 11 1987. His widow, Loraine, lives in Nanaimo. to son, my Dan, the aprinter at Victoria Times

had

there

been technical delays, the ap and Bill retired in Rossland, and B.C., died in submitted last the word And last, but least, not

lower

court

but the appeal that court ruled case to a successful prosecution. kept dribbling long in after thought I I had

death

At sentence. first by was denied this a gether they were responsible for the bringing of the versions ms. Corrections and additions

and Gordon

gave notice of appeal police of the investigators in the province,’ 4 and to calNews, for having to deal with many so final

There were two appeals. Firstly Cameron McKay was known to be one of the Ms. finest Naomi Mille, the of Editor B.C Histori

in

Burnaby. work in his role in the investigation. of copy Bill Paul the Pierre St. article me. Th frr

to

be hanged

October on Oakalla at 2 lection Prison that did he a superb of piece porter police for the Sun, Vancouver for obtaining a

guilty of and the murder judge him sentenced on Howarth the is case it my distinct op recol p.389). Wigoch To cit, Rebecca MedicalRe

7, On

1951 July the jury found Davidoff Having worked very closely with was entirely Bill circumstantialevidence, on BCCA,

but

death,

held we by original our evidence. nent disgust for capital punishment. a conviction. Court (The Appeal admitted this

and

to tried break our estimates of the time of whole left sordid affair a with me perma was only the case in which they were able to get

died

about eight p.m. Lawyer Cameron tried vinced that he had met his just reward, but murders in the Doukhobor community but this

guessed,

quite independently, that be had neglect of her was unpardonable. was I con ther saying he to with had deal several known

was known

to be six at p.m. Thus both we mother was who very felt ill, and that his in directing investigation. the He recalls hisfa

had

died

two hours after last meal, his which occasions when I had been treating his aged William McKay, frr recalling his role fatherc

the

stomach

contents, estimated had boy path. the had I seen him in the office on several Hil/ Ridge, Cobble of son the late Staff Sgt.

Harrigan, on the basis of the appearance of that John Davidoff a was dangerous psycho about.. And to David McKay, 1?Eng. Arbutus Twisting the Lionc Tail: The 1858 Fort Victoria Riot by Lindsay E. Smyth

Two Argonauts recently arrived slogan “Fifty-Four Forty or Fight.” from California—one an American, Obsessed with the belief that it was the other English—stood on the the “Manifest Destiny” of the young deck of a small vessel that had just Republic to expand its rule over the sailed out of Victoria enroute to the whole ofthe Continent, American ex “New Eldorado,” at the crest of the pansionists were demanding all ofthe 1858 Fraser River Gold Rush. “On Pacific Slope lying south of the Rus one side the mighty Olympian sian Possessions, and they were threat mountains reared their white peaks ening to go to war with Great Britain heavenward,” recalled Thomas to achieve that end. At the same time, Seward—the British-born member however, they were aspiring to annex of the pair—when he penned his Mexican Possessions in California reminiscences half a century later; and Texas. Consequently, when the “on the other the low but rugged and British responded by sending a squad picturesque hills ofVancouver Island ron ofwarships to “show the flag” on marked the western boundary of the the Northwest Coast, fearful that British Empire. Pointing towards their country might become simul Vancouver Island, my companion, taneously embroiled in wars with halfseriously, halfjocularly, remarked both Britain and Mexico, the Ameri that if the country proved as rich as cans in 1846 agreed to compromise reported, it would soon be under the on the 49th parallel as the final line. same flag as the Territory of Wash Nevertheless, in 1849 the Crown ington, just across the water. The re deemed it necessary to create the GovernorJames Douglas. mark nettled me, as I had always been BCARS #2653 Colony of Vancouver Island (under staunchly British, and I replied: management ofthe HBC) for the ex “Well, you’ll have to do some press purpose of forestalling Ameri damned hard fighting to get it.” As far as Governor James Douglas was con can penetration of their Possessions on the In a nutshell, the foregoing account illus cerned, the threat of annexation was all too Pacific Northwest—Chief Factor Douglas trates the most volatile bone of contention familiar. According to the terms of an 1818 having been installed as Governor of the same affecting the social relations of the two con Treaty between Great Britain and the United shortly thereafter. flicting camps of Anglo-American miners States the two nations had agreed to share In justifying their failure to annex the participating in the stampede which ulti what was then known as the Oregon Coun whole ofthe Oregon Country; it became fash mately gave birth to British Columbia, as try; stretching between present-day Califor ionable with the Americans to dismiss the 30,000 men of various ethnic origins made nia and Alaska—or in geographic terms, lands ceded to Britain as one of the most the pilgrimage up from California that same between 42° and 54° 40’ north latitude. worthless tracts on the planet, a barren spring and summer. “The invading army was Foreseeing the possibility that a future mountainous wasteland suited for naught but composed almost entirely of Americans,” boundary might be set at the 49th parallel, savages and wild beasts. And so the British Seward writes, “the majority ofwhom... were in 1843 the Hudson’s Bay Company (H BC) Frontier—now greatly reduced—was left to animated with no friendly feeling towards the had sent Douglas to establish Fort Victoria the peaceful pursuit of the fur trade for an British nation, of whose wealth and power on the southern tip ofVancouver Island, that other decade until that fateful day in 1858 they were jealous.” “After the great influx of it might serve as their new western headquar when news reached the outside world that men from California,” he further declares, ters in the event that they had to abandon rich gold deposits had been discovered on “it would have been an easy matter—at least Fort Vancouver on the Columbia River, and Fraser River, and once again the cry of “54- so it was thought by thousands ofAmerican substitute the Fraser as the main route to their 40 or Fight” was raised throughout the land. citizens—to have swamped the government” chain of trading posts in the Interior North A popular contemporary poem entitled and “completely Americanize” the sparsely west. “Fraser River,.” in which U.S. PresidentJames settled and largely unorganized territories that The move came at an appropriate time, Buchanan and Secretary of State Lewis Cass now comprise Canada’s westernmost prov for in the following year, 1844, James Polk are referred to as “Buck and Cass,” expresses ince. was elected to the presidency on the infamous the sentiment of many thousands ofAmen-

5 B.C. Historical News - Spring 1996 can emigrants who overran the British Pos to circumvent British revenue officers guard to return to Victoria to get their clearance to sessions during the gold excitement of 1858: ing the mouth of the Fraser. Exploiting the go up the river.”14 By June 30, the newly When news gets where Buck and Cass is, anti-British sentiment of the emigrants, the founded Victoria Gazette was in a position Johnny Bull can go where grass is, boosters and speculators who now sought to to boast: “But a short time since, two thirds He may rant and rave to foaming, make Bellingham Bay the “great Northern of the Fraser river immigration landed at It will never stop our coming. City of the Pacific”8 declared “every Ameri Bellingham Bay. Now four-fifths ofthe new Soon our banner will be streaming, can miner who has the least spark ofnational comers stop at Victoria.” Soon the eagle will be screaming, pride” should “avoid Victoria, and every thing The stampede reached its climax in early And the lion—see it cowers, that is British.”9 July, when on a single memorable day —July

Hurrah, boys, the river’s ours.2 Accordingly, as “the first feeling after the 8 — two California steamers disembarked Far from “going where grass is,” Johnny gold discoveries became known in Califor 2,800 newcomers, and the floating popula Bull—as represented by James Douglas—had nia, was to give the preference to ANY Ameri tion of the colonial backwater, which had other plans. At first, motivated by a concern can port.. so as to avoid the English one,”10 amounted to perhaps 500 souls in April, that immigrant miners would have “a han it initially appeared that Whatcom would soared to 10,000. “So far none but miners.. kering in their minds after annexation to the gain the ascendancy over Victoria. Describ .or men of small means had made their ap United States” and “never cordially submit ing the scene in early June, a correspondent pearance,” recalls one of the early arrivals, to British rule,”3 the Governor toyed with of the California press reports: “Bellingham “but merchants and people ofstanding, who the idea of barring their entrance altogether. Bay presents the appearance ofSan Francisco had so far hesitated, now began to arrive... “I should be glad to keep those parties out of in the memorable days of’49. It is constantly These ‘big bugs’ ‘were closely followed by the British Territory;” he writes to the Home covered with boats of every size and descrip another class, and Victoria was assailed by Authorities under date of March 22, 1858, tion. The shores are alive with the stir and an indescribable array of Polish Jews, Italian “and would undertake with a very moderate activity incident to such exciting times. “All fishermen, French cooks, jobbers, specula force to accomplish that object, as the av this prosperity was not to be without its dark tors of every kind, land agents, auctioneers, enues to the country are few, and might be side, however, for along with the basically hangers on at auctions, bummers, bankrupts, easily guarded.”4 By mid May, however, fol honest and industrious tide ofhumanity fin and brokers of every description. . . To the lowing the inconceivably sudden eruption of nelled through whichever port gained the above list may be added a fair seasoning of the stampede, he was forced to the sober re ascendancy came the gamblers, thieves and gamblers, swindlers, thieves, drunkards, and alization that “to prevent the entrance of swindlers inexorably drawn by the yellow root jail birds, let loose by the Governor of Cali those people... is, perhaps, altogether impos of evil; “those vultures who ever hover about fornia for the benefit ofmankind, besides the sible with any force that could be collected where there is a carcass to prey upon... Their halt, lame, blind and mad. In short, the within a reasonable time.”5 nefarious operations are performed as in offscourings of a population containing, like Making the best of a hazardous situation, California in ‘49, publicly and boldly. Faro that of California, the offscourings of the this bold British Lion next sought to “assert banks, monte banks, and their concomitants world...’5 the rights ofthe Crown, protect the interests are in fill blast.” “Whatcom is.. as near like Inevitably, as Victoria gained the ascend of the Hudson’s Bay Company, and.. .draw the City ofSodom ofold as ever a town could ancy over her American rival, the more un the whole trade of the Gold District”6 well become,” testifies another observer. ruly elements amongst this “motley through British channels. In order to accom “Vice and immorality of every description is inundation of immigrant diggers”6 de plish these ends he instituted a licensing sys practiced there at noon-day, which will re scended upon the town in overwhelming tem and despatched a gunboat, HMS quire the firm arm of a vigilance committee numbers. “The new-found mineral wealth Sateffite, to patrol the entrance to the river. to of British Columbia had attracted from Cali By at first making the requisite mining li By mid-June, as Douglas’s strategy began fornia some of the most reckless rascals that censes and customs clearances available only taking effect, the tide of emigration now gold has ever given birth to,” writes Lieuten at Victoria, Douglas reasoned, the British turned towards Victoria. On June 10, fol ant R.C. Mayne of HMS Plumper. “Stroll port “would thus become a depot and centre lowing the maiden voyage ofthe side-wheeler ing about the canvas streets ofVictoria might of trade for the gold district, and the natural Surprise direct from Victoria to the mining be seen men whose names were in the black consequence would be an immediate increase district with 500 men, a sojourner at “Bed book of the Vigilance Committeç of San in the wealth and population ofthe Colony;”7 lam Bay” reports: “The whole town of Francisco, and whose necks would not, ifthey As a final master stroke, he planned to im Whatcom is one set of speculators... to-day, ventured them in that city, have been worth plement regular steamship service between when the Surprise came back from Fort an hour’s purchase.”7 Victoria and the gold mines on the Lower Hope, and brought the news that she will go Foremost amongst the latter was the no Fraser, on condition that the American- from Victoria to Fort Hope hereafter, it torious Edward McGowan, who shortly af owned vessels he solicited for the job carry seemed as if they had all been knocked in ter would gain a place for himself in the no other merchandise but that of the British the head.”3 Writing from Esquimalt Har history books in consequence of the blood Monopoly. bour (adjacent to Victoria) on June 12, an less affair known as “Ned McGowan’s War,” Victoria’s main rival in the quest for com other newly arrived gold-seeker declares: at which time he and his fellow annexationists mercial supremacy soon developed to be the “The Bellingham Bay trail is a failure, they vainly conspired to create a disturbance on new boomtown ofWhatcom on Bellingham are unable to get through. . . Whatcom must Fraser River which would “bring on the fight Bay, where American entrepreneurs began necessarily ‘go in,’ as it is not to be supposed and put an end to the long agony and public constructing a trail to the mines in an effort that the crowd will land there and then pay... clamor.., that our boundary line must be

6 B.C. Historical News - Spring 1996 am, as well as our own inquisitive 10,000 Americans now on the way to Fraser ‘Yankees,’ not knowing what was river might become the conquerors of Van up. An English man-of-war was couver Island, and another bright star thereby lying offin the harbor, and no one be added to the American constellation. for a moment but imagined we Would not Americans throughout the length were bombarding the town or and breadth ofour continent thunder a wel bearding the lion in his den. It come to the new state of Vancouver?” was soon explained to the inhab The volatile nature of the situation which itants that it was the great Ameri arose at this time is further illustrated by the

can holiday. . .and that we had a words of William Bausman, a veteran Cali fashion of celebrating it and get fornia journalist who came up on the same ting jolly, no difference in what boat as McGowan to found the short-lived country or clime we were sojourn Northern Light at Whatcom on July 3. De ing.”18 nouncing those who preferred to locate at McGowan was undoubtedly Victoria as “mercenaries” in the first edition aware ofthe consternation that his ofhis paper under that date, he declares: “But unexpected salvo would create, as we have many of the right kind of Ameri the alarming news that a war be cans left. The first intelligence that is borne tween Great Britain and the to their ears of an actual encounter with the United States was imminent had British Lion, they will take the American only just reached Victoria, follow standard in their hands, and advance to the

ing publication of a fictitious re outer verge of 54 40 - and fight!” port in the Eastern and California It has been asserted that meanwhile, in press that “a British cruiser had Victoria, Ned McGowan “gathered a gang

fired into an American vessel and about him. . and announced that he was go that one man was killed.”19 The ing to hoist the Stars and Stripes over the facts, as later revealed, were that place.”2° Describing the scene, one contem the over-zealous captain of a Brit porary observes: “Frequently men might be ish man-of-war hunting for ille seen crying through the streets that they were gal slave-traders in the Gulf of ‘true Americans’ or singing and shouting Mexico had forced an American about the ‘Stars and Stripes’; American flags, merchant ship to lie to so as to too, were plentiful.”2’ If the star-spangled exercise the “right of search.” Be Lion-tamers thought that they were simply fore the matter was clarified, how going to waltz right on in and usurp Gover ever, the San Francisco Herald nor Douglas’s authority, however, they soon of June 9, 1858, had stated: “A realized that they were underestimating the collision with the British... seems mettle of their man. This fact is well illus to be inevitable... The most in trated by an anecdote told by Mayne, and Lieutenent Charles Wilson, Royal Engineeri served as Secretary tense excitement prevails through which almost certainly refers to an interview to the British Boundary Commission. He outfitted bimsef in out the whole ofthe Eastern States “ofbriefduration” which McGowan had with frontier garb to postfor thispicture c.1858. on the subject, and nothing but “his Excellency” about this time: 8CARS #3775 the most ample atonement on the A blustering Yankee went to the Governor part of Great Britain can prevent apparently with the notion of bullying him, ‘fifty-four forty or fight.” This “born insti a war. and began by asking permission for a number gator” arrived in Esquimalt Harbour aboard The alleged incident provided just the ex of citizens of the United States to settle on the steamer Pacific on the evening ofJuly 3, cuse that annexationists were looking for in some particular spots of land. They would having but recently escaped an attempt on order to open hostilities against the virtually be required, he was informed, to take the his life by several policemen who had sworn defenceless British Possessions on the North oaths of allegiance. to kill him, while passing through San Fran west Coast. Under heading of THE “Well,” said he, “but suppose we came cisco enroute to the Fraser. Taking advan FRAZER EXODUS AND ITS ULTIMATE there and squatted?” tage of the captain’s absence on shore next RESULTS, a letter appearing in the San “You would be turned off” day, McGowan manned the vessel’s two small Francisco Bulletin of June 21, 1858, de “But if several hundred came prepared to signal guns with a crew of filibusters direct clares: resist, what would you do?” from General Walker’s disastrous Nicaraguan “Americans and Englishmen cannot mix, “We should cut them to mince-meat, Mr. campaign, and proceeded to fire off a 100 and but little will be needed there on Frazer ; we should cut them to mince-meat.”22 gun salute in honour of the Fourth of July. river to provoke a crisis—a sort ofindepend Although McGowan, after stirring up a “As volley after volley peeled out,” McGowan ent California fight which will involve the great deal of trouble, was shortly requested recounts, “down on the beach came hundreds two nations... It is not altogether an idle by the Authorities to leave, departing Britan of Indians and others, subjects of Great Brit dream.. .to look forward to the day when the.. nia’s shores for Whatcom on July 19, the stage

7 B.C. Historical News - Spring 1996 had now been set for the dramatic events the far-famed Fraser River.”24 characterized the mining frontier south ofthe which followed. And although Governor Quite naturally, as Victoria had thus sud border—where all too often the six-gun was Douglas spoke and acted as if he had forces denly become the main gateway to the gold- law, and “Judge Lynch” the final arbitrator. to rival those of Xerxes at his instant com fields, the “City of Canvas” now experienced Commenting upon a new law to the effect mand, the only bulwark now standing be a crime wave the magnitude ofwhich the civil that, as of the following day, it would be ille tween the Lion and the aggressive American authorities were totally unprepared to deal gal to carry “Firearms or other dangerous Eagle was the slight handful of bluejackets with. “The number of burglaries and rob weapons.. in the streets of Victoria,”27 the and marines stationed aboard the warships beries of all descriptions committed in this American-owned Victoria Gazette of July Satellite and Plumper, and without whose town, is becoming very considerable,” la 28, 1858, remarks: “We are glad to see this presence at the advent of the stampede the ments the Victoria Gazette ofJuly 10, 1858. action on the part of the authorities, as the territorial claims of the British would have “Doubtless, many of the old San Francisco practice of each man carrying a six-shooter been unsupportable. Despite the fact that professional thieves have taken the ‘Fraser slung to his side in a peaceful community the purpose behind the attendance of the river fever’, and are now here, practising their like this is entirely unnecessary; and liable to Royal Navy at this time was to commence old tricks.” serious abuse.” work on the International Boundary Survey, Prior to the arrival of the stampeders the Under the same date, the local tabloid Douglas knew that he could call on their sup community had been policed by a single of observes: “There are very stringent laws here port to uphold the civil power in the event ficer—Sheriff Muir. Subsequently, immedi for the suppression and punishment ofgam of an emergency. A further accession of ately upon the advent ofthe rush in the spring bling, and we learn that Sheriff Muir is de strength was gained by the timely arrival of of 1858, Governor Douglas had attempted termined to enforce the statute in all cases. HMS Havannah on July 12, conveying a to seek out a number of loyal British sub A day or two ago, several persons were ar small detachment of Royal Engineers as jects from amongst the ranks of the immi rested accused with this offence, but were signed to survey the exact location ofthe 49th grants, with which to form a constabulary; discharged in consequence ofthe mixed char parallel—a matter which had gained sudden It appears that the best that he could do at acter of the evidence, and the fact that this prominence in consequence of the gold dis this time, however, was to swear in “a number was the first case. Hereafter there will be no coveries. (The Havannah itself did not re of special constables... to keep the peace,” for mercy shown the gentlemanly black-legs who main long in port, for fear that crewmembers as Thomas Seward recollects, “none of the have done so much to bring disgrace upon might desert to the goldfields.) miners wished to be appointed policemen.... some of the towns which have sprung into The diary of Lieutenant Charles Wilson, Our sole ambition was to prospect the Fraser existence within the last few months, but who Secretary to the newly arrived Boundary in the hope of.. making our fortunes and have, so far, given Victoria a pretty wide Commission, furnishes a picturesque descrip returning to California.”25 berth.” tion of this lively period in Victoria’s history; Consequently the Governor, who was him Again on July 30, under the heading when for a brief period the usual stringency self reputedly a mulatto, hit upon the novel GAMBLERS, PROSTITUTES HAD BET with which British Law ruled was “turned idea of forming a permanent constabulary TER ‘VAMOOSE,’ the Gazette reports: quite upside down,” as the quiet metropolis composed of “gentlemen of color” - British “Sheriff Muir is after the gamblers and loose of the fur trade was suddenly transformed subjects of Jamaican origin, who were part women, giving them little peace, and it is into “a regular San Francisco in ‘49.” “The of the recent immigration ofNegro colonists altogether probable that they will find Vic bowie knife and revolver which every man that had come from California “to enjoy that toria too hot a place for them. A whole house wears are in constant requisition,” Wilson liberty under the ‘British Lion’ denied be full of cyprians were arrested the other day records during his first few days in port. “You neath the pinions of the American Eagle.”26 and only set free upon condition to quit the are hardly safe without arms and even with Needless to say, Douglas’s action in this mat country immediately. Others have been qui them, when you have to walk along paths, ter was a slap in the face to the lawless spirits etly notified to leave, and are preparing to across which gentlemen with a brace of re ofCalifornia, virulent discrimination against take the first steamer back to San Francisco, volvers each, are settling their differences; the Blacks forming a prominent part of the cul behaving themselves in the meantime.” whiz of revolver bullets round you goes on tural baggage that the gold-seekers brought If as Mayne asserts, Governor Douglas had all day and if any one gets shot of course it’s with them to the English Colony. been looking for an opportunity to “make his own fault.”23 Equipped with blue coats, batons, high an exhibition of force. . .that should effectu “In all directions were canvas tents,” re hats and red sashes, the dozen or so stalwart ally tame the more unruly of the strange, counts ‘Wilson’s colleague, naturalist John young men recruited to form this pioneer heterogenous population that had placed Keast Lord, portraying the Capital City at police force soon began to assist SheriffMuir themselves under his rule,”28 one can imag this time. “The rattle of the dice-box, the in the challenging task of attempting to up ine that the annexationists and criminal ele droning invitation of the keepers of the hold the law presumably on or about July ments were equally eager to force a monte-tables, the discordant sounds ofbadly 17, the date on which the Gazette notes: “Mr. confrontation that might result in the over played instruments, angry words, oaths too Augustus Pemberton has been appointed throw of the government, before the further terrible to name, roystering songs with noisy Commissioner of Police.” accession of troops from the Home Coun refrains, were all signs significant of the Fortunately, the better element amongst try; The showdown came on the evening of golden talisman that met me on every side, the foreign population were quite willing to Friday, July 30, when an outrage occurred as I elbowed my way amidst the unkempt submit themselves to the British system of which the Gazette describes as “the first throng, that were waiting means of convey law and order, finding it a refreshing change major challenge to British law and order.”29 ance to take them to the auriferous bars of to the scenes of riot and bloodshed which The trouble began about 8 p.m., when the

8 B.C. Historical News - Spring 1996 police attempted to restrain in the opposite scale to hon a man named John Robinson, our and glory.”48 after being called to a house Arriving at the mouth of on Johnson Street where the Victoria Harbour shortly af American sailor “had become ter dark, the Plumper so intoxicated as to damage dropped anchor as her four the property ofthe owner.”30 ship’s boats were lowered over Robinson, resenting the in the sides “manned by some terference of”a nigger police fifty marines and forty blue man,”31 responded by jackets,”4’ armed and pre “knocking down” one of the pared for battle. Recalling coloured officers “for his in the trepidation with which solence,” an action which the rescue force approached “led to the arrest of the shore under a bright moon, sailor”32 by Sheriff Muir. Lieutenant Wilson states “if “The fellow resisted,” there had been any resistance notes the Gazette of the fol there would have been very lowing day, “and on the of few of us not knocked over. ficer’s attempting to drag him Luckily, however, we found along towards the fort, he that.., the mob had dis cried out to the crowd who HMS Satellite: 21 gun ultra-modern screw frigate, 1,462 tons, compliment of325 men, persed.”42 Evidently alarmed had by this time collected Captain James Charles Prevost. at the prospect of being BCARS #568 “cut round, to rescue him. A to mince-meat,” the unruly party of his friends came to his assistance, stripped off his uniform, and sent him to rabble had swiftly dispersed upon learning and by means ofpushing and shoving.., suc police headquarters in his drawers!”36 that a gunboat had been summoned from ceeded in taking him from the custody of Events took a much more serious turn Esquimalt to quell the riot. the officers... We understand that Sheriff when, in the excitement of the moment, the Having been informed of the whereabouts Muir was pretty roughly handled, being crowd “proposed to hoist the American flag of Robinson, Police Chief Pemberton to knocked down in the scuffle.” over the old Hudson Bay Company’s fort”37 gether with Sheriff Muir and three consta The Vancouver Island Gazette, a newly and take Victoria. “Discovering the volcanic bles now made their way to the sioop Wild founded government organ, reports that the embers by which the affair was beset,”38 at Pigeon aboard a hired vessel, escorted by a endeavours of the police to carry Robinson about 9 p.m. Governor Douglas despatched small military detachment in one of the to the Station House “were at first retarded a rider to the barracks at Esquimalt, with a Plumper’s boats, who stood by to assist “in by the outrageous conduct of a mob of per requisition to send an armed force to his as case any resistance was made to the civil au sons, composed of at least 2500 individu sistance. As the main body of Royal Engi thority.” In short order the schooner (of

als.”33 neers - some 50 men - prepared to march which Robinson was mate) was boarded, the “Forming in a procession four abreast and round by land, steam was with all haste got sleepy, drunken sailor dragged out of the about 1,000 strong,” recalls pioneer Victoria up aboard the survey ship Plumper. As luck hold, and recaptured “by the same officers resident Frank Sylvester, “they carried would have it, the small man-of-war (484 from whom he had been rescued,”43 together Robinson down through the town, put him tons) had but recently returned from Point with some other ringleaders in the affair. in a small boat, and sent him out to a sloop Roberts, whence she had been employed in After seeing that the prisoners were securely called the Wild Pigeon, to get him away from the service of the Boundary Commission. conveyed to the bastion, the British forces town, as they feared it would go hard with “The men were soon turned out and got on celebrated their bloodless victory with a col him. The wind was unfavorable and she was board,” Charles Wilson records in his diary. lation at the fort, hosted by the Governor. delayed near the mouth of the harbor “It was very exciting when we came in sight As for the Plumper, she was hauled up close Evidently about the same time, a lone con of the town and the order was given to load to the stockade and temporarily stationed stable had run into a difficulty with comic and the ship’s guns run out and cleared for there as a security measure against further overtones on the Johnson Street Bridge. Af action.”39 uprisings. ter noting that the miners “at once declared “Upon the quarter-deck,” recounts Lieu On the following day “the prisoners were war” on the coloured policemen, a pioneer tenant Mayne, “small arm companies were brought before... Police Commissioner historian states that they carried their enmity having ammunition served out to them; for Pemberton, who in appropriate language so far “as to threaten to throw one of the ward, the ship’s blacksmith was casting bul condemned the lawlessness of their acts, and objectionable officers into the harbor” when lets by the score; while our doctor was declared the determination of Her Majesty’s Police Chief Pemberton “entered between the spreading out his cold, shining instruments Officers to enforce obedience to the authori ranks of the rioters and by his quiet determi upon the ward-room table, and making ar ties at all risks, even if it were necessary to nation compelled them to release the pris rangements for the most painful surgical proclaim martial law. The government here oner.”35 Probably alluding to this same operations with that grave, business sang had the power and intention of maintaining incident, a contemporary writer says the row froid, which is no doubt caused by a benevo the supremacy of the law, and were deter dies “deprived the constable of his baton, lent desire to show the fighting men what is mined to visit all those with the strictest Se-

9 B.C. Historical News - Spring 1996 verity who endeavored to subvert the author dling a potentially volatile set of circum 9. Northern Light (Whatcom), Sept. 4, 1858. ity ofthe governing powers.”44 Paradoxically, stances, James Douglas was invited to for 10. Waddington, Alfred; The Fraser Mines the prisoners received remarkably lenient mally extend his authority over the new Vindicated, Victoria, 1858: 14. 11. San Francisco Bulletin, June 22, 1858. penalties - “Robinson was fined $10, his 2 Mainland Colony on condition that he sever friends $50 each plus costs.”45 his ties with the HBC, which was then un 12. Olympia Pioneer and Democrat, Aug. 13, 1858. Commenting upon the successful outcome der fire for perpetuating an archaic monopoly 13. San Francisco Bulletin, June 22, 1858. of the affair, the Vancouver Island Gazette that was thought to be retarding the devel 14. Ibid, June 19,1858. remarks: “It is to be hoped that this exhibi opment of the country; Although Douglas 15. Waddington; op. cit.: 17. tion of civil and naval forces will for the fu accepted the position without hesitation, he 16. Lord Lytton; quoted in Howay, LW, The Work of ture check all attempts at insubordination, expressed open disdain for those Members the Royal Engineers in British Columbia, Victoria, 1910:1. and create the wholesome impression in the of Parliamint “who ought to remember that 17. Mayne, R.C.; Four Years in British Columbia minds of the visitors that no infraction of England owes her possessions on the North and Vancouver Island, London, 1862: 52-53.. the laws, however slight, will be considered West Coast entirely to the enterprising exer 18. McGowan, Edward; “Reminiscences,” The or treated as a joke, when it is known that tions of the Hudson’s Bay Company, who Argonaut; May 18, 1878. this wanton irruption upon the good order wrested them from the grasp of foreign mer 19. Olympia Pioneer and Democrat, July 9, 1858. ofour Town might have plunged us into evils chants, and have held them ever since at their 20. Allard, Jason; “When Gold Was King,” ms., which all good men would most seriously own expense, a circumstance entirely over McKelvie Collection, PABC, E/D/M 19/Vol. 16. deplore.”46 looked by the gentlemen who appear so anx 21. Waddington; op. cit.: 20. One minor victory that the foreign popu ious to terminate the Company’s rule.”48 22. Mayne; op. cit.: 54-55. lation did gain in consequence of the inci Despite the tendency of certain historians 23. Wilson, Charles; Journal of Service with the British dent was that, in view oftheir dissatisfaction in recent years to belittle the role that Doug Boundary Commission, 1858-62, PABC. Entries for July 12, 13, 1858. with the hue of the constabulary; Douglas las himself played in these epic events, there 24. Lord, John Keast; The Naturalist in Vancouver abruptly decided to dispense with the serv can be but little doubt that Canada as we Island and British Columbia, London, 1866: 1:37. ices of the coloured police force, it would not exist were it and replace now know simply 25. Seward; op. cit., Chapter V. them with ‘White officers. not for the opportune guidance provided by 26. Gibbs, Muffin; Shadow and Light, Arno Press Shortly after, word reached the Colony that this strong-willed British Lion. “Wise and reprint, New York, 1968: 63. the English Government had formally apolo sagacious was the projector of British com 27. Vancouver Island Gazette, July 28, 1858. gized to the United States for the aggressive merce and supremacy in these seas,” said one 28. Mayne; op. cit.: 52. action of the British squadron in the Gulfof of his foremost opponents, the American 29. Victoria Gazette, July 31, 1858. Mexico, thus undermining the aspiration of annexationist Elwood Evans. 30. Vancouver Island Gazette, Aug. 4, 1858. some immigrants that an unprovoked assault “He merited the compliment he re 31. Higgins, D.W; The Passing of a Race, William upon “British Oregon” would meet with the ceived—the commission as first governor of Briggs, Toronto, 1905: 165. official sanction ofWashington. “By the last British Columbia, and the honors of knight 32. Olympia Pioneer and Democrat, Aug. 13, 1858. news from New York will you learn that John hood.” 33. Vancouver Island Gazette, Aug. 4,1858. Bull has backed down from the right of No two ways about it—Sir James Douglas 34. Sylvester, Frank; Reminiscences, ms., PABC, E/E/ search,” declares the California correspond had saved the day! Sy5A. ent of the Victoria Gazette in their August 35. Howay and Scholefield; British Columbia from the Earliest Times to the Present (Vol. IV), S.J. Clarke, 10, 1858, edition - “So you will have to ‘wait Bio Note: The author spends his summerspros a little longer’ before you can be annexed to pecting near Thiegraph Creek and winters re Vancouver, 1914: 97. Uncle Sam’s dominions.” searching in the archives in Victoria to prepare 36. Higgins; op. cit.: 165. Fortunately for the future Dominion of articles like this. 37. Macfie, Matthew; Vancouver Island and British Columbia, London, 1865: 71. Canada, at that very moment the Imperial Footnotes: References to a number of newspaper quotations, 38. Vancouver Island Gazette, Aug. 4, 1858. Government was instituting vigorous meas wherever the dates form an integral part of the story are ures to ensure that the new gold district self-evident within the text. Wherever the Gazette is 39. Wilson; op. cit.: Diary entry for July 31, 1858. cited without fl.srther clarification, the reference is to the 40. Mayne; op. cit.: 53. would remain under the British flag. Accord Victoria Gazette of 1858. 41. Victoria Gazette, Aug. 3, 1858. ingly, on August 2, 1858, Parliament en 1. Seward, Thomas; A Miner’s Experience on the dorsed an Act calling for the establishment Pacific Slope (Chapter IV), ms., PABC, E/B/Se8. 42. Wilson; op. cit.: Diary entry for July31, 1858. of British Columbia. In a Speech from the 2. Olympia Pioneer and Democrat, Nov. 5, 1858. 43. Victoria Gazette, Aug. 4, 1858. Throne delivered that same day, Queen Vic 3. Douglas to Smith, April 27, 1858; Douglas Letters 44. Vancouver Island Gazette, Aug. 4, 1858. to HBC on Vancouver Island Colony, PABC, AJCI2OI toria expressed her desire that the new Colony 45. Victoria Gazette, Aug. 3, 1858. VI3A. on the Pacific would be “but one step in the 46. Vancouver Island Gazette, Aug. 4, 1858. 4. Douglas to Smith, March 22, 1858; Ibid. career of steady progress by which Her Maj 47. San Francisco Bulletin, Sept. 16, 1858. 5. Douglas to Baynes, May 12, 1858; Papers Relative esty’s dominions in North America may ul to the AfLors of British Columbia (Part I) Parliament, 48. Douglas to Fraser, Oct. 5, 1858; Douglas Letters to timately be peopled in one unbroken chain, Great Britain, 1859. HBC on Vancouver Island Colony, op. cit. from the Atlantic to the Pacific, by a loyal 6. Douglas to Stanley, May 19, 1858; Ibid. 49. Evans, Elwood; History of the Pacific Northwest (Vol. 1), North Pacific History Company, Portland, and industrious population ofsubjects ofthe 7. Douglas to Labouchere, May 8, 1858; 1889: 517. British Crown.”47 Correspondence Relative to the Discovery of Gold In the Fraser’s River Great Britain, In recognition ofhis unique ability in han- District, Parliament, 1858. 8. San Francisco Bulletin, June 22, 1858.

10 B.C. Historical News - Spring 1996 Nootka Sound’c Andy Morod: Trappe Prospector, Environmentalist by Eleanor Witton Hancock

In 1932 a Swiss man arrived in There was no cabin at the fork Nootka Sound on the west coast of the Ucona River. Perhaps the of Vancouver Island. He was 31 map was wrong, suggested Andy. years old. The life he chose proved The cabin was probably at the sec demanding, the climate was harsh, ond fork, Heber Creek, another he suffered tremendous disap five miles. At Heber Creek, where pointment. Yet Andy Morod be the village of Gold River now came Nootka Sound’s greatest stands, they found a cabin built environmentalist. His mining of alder logs with a freshly shot claims at Zeballos eventually be deer hanging outside but no-one came his home. He died at was home. Soon, though, two Zeballos in 1983, age 82. native Indian men arrived who Andy Morod [pron. Mo-ROD] were also preparing for the trap was born in Switzerland in 1901 ping season. Andy and the trap and grew up, speaking French, on per overnighted with them on the farms in the Alps. He was small dirt floor of the cabin. and wiry, with dark brown hair During the night a storm blew and clear brown eyes. He served up and the Gold River rose rap his stint in the citizen army and, 1961 -Andy Morod on the Barnacle claims withRuggedMountain in background idly, flooding its banks. In the an excellent skier, won a medal for NW. ofZeballos. morning, worried about the ski patrol. He emigrated to gillnetter, Andy and the trapper Canada in 1922. The population left the Mauser with the Indians of Canada was then some nine million. “So we left Bamfield, and it was late in and started back in a hurry. It was another 10 years before he reached November, it was big sea, it was bad weather. It was impossible to make time. Creeks Nootka Sound. He had become a commer And it was only 29-foot boat, little gilinet they had crossed the previous day were in cial fisherman, but the Great Depression hit boat. flood and new ones had appeared. A ravine resource industries severely and in 1932 he “Anyway, he was green as grass, he didn’t they had crossed high on a log now revealed was employed by Nelson Bros. Fisheries Ltd. know any about the sea or boats, so I took a waterfall pounding the log; there was a drop as a deckhand aboard a fishpacker. Thirty him up. We went first to Refuge Cove, now of 30 feet to the boulder-strewn rushing seven per cent of the work force at Port they call it Hot Springs Cove, and we had a creek. Wearing not caulk boots but gum- Alberni was unemployed, 17 per cent in Van soak in that hot spring. boots, they crept across the log. Not surpris couver and 47 per cent in Fernie. There was “And, oh gosh, there was a big, big sea! ingly, when they reached the gravel bar the

no unemployment insurance. And then we pulled around Estevan Point - skiff was gone.

In November 1932 Andy Morod was set I call it The Horn - that’s a bad place, they’re They found an Indian’s canoe kept upriver tling in for the winter at the fishing village of great big seas. And then we got to Nootka for fishing. There were no paddles and Andy Bamfield on the southern west coast when a Cannery; to the store.”1 cut a pole. But the river was treacherous, there trapper offered him a job on a newly-acquired From Nootka, Andy Morod and the trap were new channels and exposed boulders. trapline at Muchalat Lake, near the present per headed to the mouth of the Gold River, Carried downriver in the canoe, the men were town of Gold River. The man’s partner had 26 miles away. Here, they anchored near the unable to clear a sidewall of water rushing quit on him. present day pulp mill, near an Indian Reserve over a boulder and they overturned. Hang Andy Morod, 1982: of several families. The trapper’s sktch map ing onto the canoe, they were swept along. “I was living in a shack in Bamfield and indicated a cabin three miles upriver at the Both wore heavy horsehair leather jackets. here come a guy with a boat loaded with junction of the Gold and Ucona rivers. They Morod could not swim. equipment, stranger to me, and he was look would make a reconnaissance trip. Taking the Carried into an eddy, canoe and men were ing for partner to go with him. He had that trapper’s Mauser rifle, they rowed up the sucked under, five feet, ten feet. When Morod big trapline in Muchalat Lake. Gold River one-quarter mile, as far as possi surfaced, still holding the canoe, the trap “So I wasn’t doing nothing, I didn’t know ble to row, hauled the skiff out on a gravel per was 50 feet ahead, on his back, unable to the guy but he had everything, all the traps bar and tied it to a log. A trail followed the speak. Abruptly the man went under and and food and boat, so I decided to hop in! Gold River. was not seen again.

11 B.C. Historical News - Spring 1996Ñ Morod was carried w felt that in this forlorn into the mouth of the country it would appear river, where he man strange ifhe were not so aged to right the canoe ciable; people might and climb in. Shaking think he had broken the with cold, he was pad law and was hiding out. dling, using his hands, Aboard the Pender across the tidal flats to men were preparing to the gilinetter when he leave to climb a 4845- was seen by an Indian foot mountain, Conuma who was hunting ducks Peak, to erect a flag vis from a rowboat. The ible to surveyors aboard man took him in tow. the William J. Stewart The man had found the at sea. But the peak trapper’s skifE looked formidable. The following day he The surveyors ques started back to Nootka tioned whether it could to wire the provincial be climbed. Unlike the police. He had never heavily-timbered tops of travelled in a boat Andy Morod left prepares to leave Muchalat Lake witbpelts at the end ofthe trapping seaton. Queen the neighbouring moun alone. The weather Charlotte Airlines. tains, Conuma has a proved deceiving; gusts conical, rocky peak. ofwind reached 70 m.p.h., whipping up the Maquinna from Victoria. Learning that Andy Morod had scaled seas. En route the gillnetter’s motor flooded At Nootka he made friends with Arthur peaks in the Alps, Commander Knight asked twice and stalled. It was dark when he reached Park, fisheries officer and owner of the ho his opinion. Andy assured the commander Nootka. When he returned eventually to tel. Park was a remittance man from Scot there was no mountain in British Columbia Bamfield, people told him he looked 10 years land. Andy Morod cruised with Arthur Park that could not be climbed. The commander older. for one month on fisheries patrol. Gradually then suggested he might like to act as guide. He assessed the chances of going it alone. he became familiar with Nootka Sound. He was challenged. He afterwards considered He lacked trapping skills and knew nothing The cannery on Nootka Island land was the climbing of Conuma one of the impor about survival in the rainforest. He had ar located near the native Indian village of tant accomplishments of his life. thritis in the left hip. But, challenged, he Yuquot at picturesque Friendly Cove. In An advance parry left to make camp at the applied for the Muchalat Lake trapline, ob 1778, near Friendly Cove, James Cook spent base of the Peak and Andy prepared to leave tained it and in the spring hitchhiked back nearly four weeks repairing his ships and with a surveyor and two seamen the next day. to Nootka. He purchased a dugout canoe. making observations. James Cook at Nootka During the preparations he noted that the Using oars in oarlocks, he rowed the 26 miles Sound was the first European to set foot on climb was going to be hard on the seamen to the mouth of the Gold River. He packed the northwest coast. Islands and inlets who would serve as packhorses; the seamen his gear in in relays, over the 20-mile game abounded with British and Spanish names. had no caulk boots and no packboards. The trail to Muchalat Lake. The area was known as British Columbia’s surveyor planned to get up and back in one The lake on a fine day was a jewel in the birthplace. day. forest, four and one-half miles long, a mile On August 13 Andy Morod took part in An aerial photo showed there were no trees at its widest and fed by numerous streams. the first government survey of Nootka on top of Conuma, there was only broken Today it is a popular recreation spot. Andy Sound. It began as a side trip. He was row rock. Trees would have to be flled and Morod would call Muchalat Lake home for ing along Muchalat Inlet when he encoun dragged up for the 20-foot mast. The mast the next 21 winters. tered the 100-foot Dominion hydrographic had to be braced and counter-braced to with The Indians, who preferred to have com survey scow, Pender, anchored at the mouth stand wind. Drinking water would have to pany in the bush, were surprised to see him of the Houston River. This year surveyors be packed up, there were no streams on the return alone: “And you camped in that cave?” were charting the waters of the Sound and peak. The next morning they left by launch, In the canyon of the Gold River was an old doing geodetic work under Commander J. H. towing Andy’s canoe, to join the others at Indian burial cave, a dry spot for camping Knight, RNR (Royal Navy Reserve) aboard Conuma River, 20 miles away. although there were bones. the scow, and M.D. Parizeau, ChiefSurveyor, Conuma River flows into Moutcha Bay in “Sure! White men aren’t superstitious! It’s Pacific Coast, on the survey ship William J. Tlupana Inlet, a bay named for the early In not the dead one I’m scared of, it’s the live Stewart at sea. dian village, Mooacha. Aboard the launch, one!” Planning to ignore the scow, Andy con the men were in fact re-tracing the route woman He spent the summer looking the country tinued rowing. But he was seen by a taken in 1794 by George Vancouver on his over, rowing along the inlets, prospecting. on deck and the woman waved her handker visit to Chief Clewpaneloo whose village was Apart from workers at seasonal fish plants, chief; inviting him aboard. She kept waving located at Conuma’s base, and after whom the population was small. The area was served until he turned the canoe. Tlupana Inlet is named. A comment on but tn-monthly by the CPR steamer Princess He was annoyed at the interruption Vancouver’s own trip is found in British Co

12 B.C. Historical News - Spring 1996 lumbia Coast Names, and mink and five or six 1592-1906 by Captain otter. Beaver were a pro John T Waibran. tected species but once “The newly arrived when the beaver popula governor of Nootka tion was high he ob (the successor of tained a special permit; Quadra), Brigadier in spring he proudly General Don Jose came out with 19 skins. Manuel Aiava, accom Marten sold for $20 dur panied Vancouver on ing the Depression and this visit, and as the eventually rose to $50. boats rowed up the in Otter fetched between hospitable looking in $20 and $25; otter, al lets with their though plentiful, were stupendous precipices difficult to trap. Encom and gloomy ravines, passing 160 square miles, against wind and the trapline was the larg stream, Alava fre est on Vancouver Island. quently expressed his His licence was re astonishment that such newed 1961 - Andy Morod right andJim Witton, 1efi at Morodc cabin on the Barnacle claims ? W of each year until he a country could ever Zeballos. relinquished the trapline have been an object of in 1955. Gamewarden contention between the respective sovereigns ing the rope they hauled themselves up Adam Monk had never seen animals better of Great Britain and Spain.” through the clefts and cracks of the great skinned nor a camp as clean. Morod burned Describing Conuma, Walbran says: peak. On the smooth, steep roofofConuma, his garbage, including tin cans. He buried “...the Indian name from time immemo Morod removed his boots and socks and fin the cans or sank them in the lake. No smell rial. A remarkable steepleshaped mountain, ished the climb in bare feet. From this won of food remained and although his cabin on and a most conspicuous feature in the scen derful vantage point he looked down on the Muchalat Lake was near the bears’ trail link ery of Nootka sound. In commander islands and inlets that formed the birthplace ing the Gold and Nimpicish rivers, bears were Galiano’s chart, 1792, the mountain is called of British Columbia, his new home. He had not a concern until logging started; other Pico de Tasis, evidently after Maquinna’s prin met the challenge and the job for which he people were not as careful with their garbage. cipal and neighbouring village ofthat name. came was an anticlimax. One fall after logging began, he arrived at In Galiano’s later and larger chart, 1795, the On the peak the men considered them Muchalat Lake to find a bear had torn a hole name is altered to Conuma, which, as ap selves seasoned mountaineers but, descend in the roofof the cabin. Once inside the ani pears from his journal in 1792, was its proper ing, they started down the wrong way. Then mal proceeded to feast on tinned food, punc Indian name. (Viage, p. 133.) In this jour the surveyor had his own ideas. It was im turing one tin after another. The bear nal he states in reference to Conuma, ‘the possible to reach base camp by nightfall. A unscrewed the top from a jar of raisins, ate corpses of the chiefs are borne up in pomp campfire was built on the mountain but there the raisins, and sampled some deer tallow by the common people, with continuous was no food or water. The men huddled candles. Fortunately for Mr. Bear, he did not lamentations to the slopes or brow of the very about the fire while Andy took a single blan touch the little metal box of blasting caps. high mountain of that name, and are ket from his pack, bedded down on boughs The droppings on the trail revealed that the wrapped up in splendid robes of sea otter, and slept soundly. candles did not agree with him. placed in wooden boxes in a sitting posture, Conuma Peak most certainly had never A wolverine once raided his traps, biting and hung up in the branches of trees... been climbed by a white man. He never again the animals off by the leg. To Andy’s relief, Andy Morod and the seamen began to as climbed Conuma although he built a pros the animal did not return; trappers had had cend Conuma. From the start the packers pector’s cabin nine miles up Conuma River. to abandon traplines for wolverines. Al were thrown off balance by the improvised Eventually he flew past the peak in an though he hated the animal he admired its backpacks. Tempers were not improved when airplane and took a photo; the little snap cunning. it began to rain. Below the summit the men shot was a treasure in his collection. The natural environment enthralled him, were confronted by a great expanse of soft The government survey resulted in the first the birds and the animals he trapped. Living snow which appeared impossible to traverse. chart of Nootka Sound, covering the area in pristine conditions sharpened his own Upon inspection, the snow proved hollow from Sydney Inlet to Tahsis Inlet. senses. He said thar he could smell cougar, underneath. Morod went ahead, demonstrat Conuma received the label “conspicuous”. for example, in the forest. ing how they could climb up beneath the Few changes have been made since 1933. In 1934 at the east end of Muchalat Lake snow. Today the road from Tahsis to Gold River he built a 10’ x 16’ cabin of fir and hemlock Near the summit, he took a 15-fathom line skirts the site of ChiefClewpaneloo’s village. logs, with a stone fireplace. But still a green from his pack, secured the line to a rock and Morod became a successful trapper. He horn, he forgot to check the high water mark threw the other end to the men below. Us- averaged 35 marten per season, some raccoon and built too close to the lake. The result

13 B.C. Historical News - Spring 1996 was devastating. He was flooded out several came known as B.C.’s “wonder” mine. courage him, but undaunted he made a gift times that winter. He then had to move the Zeballos was too rowdy for Morod who for her with gold from the Barnacle. cabin. did not drink liquor. Zeballos had three ho With a knife he scratched out a heart- Snow fell heavily that winter and he was tels, a bank, several stores and restaurants, shaped mold in a chunk ofcalcite. He melted unable to leave until late. His deer eaten, he two taxi companies and two airline offices. gold in a crucible in his forge and poured lived for the last few weeks on trout, boiled There was a sawmill, a Chinese laundry and the gold into the heart-mold. After the gold or smoked; he was nearly out of lard. At the bakery, a Catholic church, a steambath and cooled he removed it and filed and sanded end he was thoroughly sick of trout. numerous bootlegging establishments. A and rubbed it. The result was a little heart In spite of the difficulties, trapping was whorehouse operated by a French madam which Helen could wear as a necklace. good. He hiked out in spring with a pack of was located between the town and the mines. Pleased, he presented it to her. skins, travelling on snowshoes for a distance The rainfall at Zeballos was measured by “Now, remember, you’ll never get another and having to remove the snowshoes at every the manager of the Canadian Bank of Com one like this! Because the guy found the gold, creek. The trek to the beach took four days. merce. The 1939 precipitation amounted to he mine it, then he goldsmith it. There’s only Then the weather was unsettled and it took 223.74 inches. one pair of hands touch that gold!” two days to reach Nootka, rowing by night Andy Morod’s Barnacle claims were lo Helen and Doug Gordon separated dur when the inlets were calm. The police and cated some seven miles northwest of the vil ing the War and Andy wrote to her asking gamewarden had given him up for dead and lage, on the steep mountainside above the her to marry him. She refused. She confessed Arthur Park tried to conceal his concern as Zeballos River. Here, at the 2280-foot eleva she’d lost her necklace, left it in a hotel room. he greeted him. tion, on the west side of Lime Creek, he built When she returned for it, it was gone. “Humph! I thought for sure you were a cabin in the timber. He was very proud of Selling the Barnacle claims proved impos dead” his spectacular view of the multiple peaks of sible. Gold was pegged at $35 per ounce af “We don’t die as easy as that!” Rugged Mountain. ter the War. The Barnacle was small and “One of these days there’s going to be a He discovered several gold quartz veins on inaccessible. Andy continued to mine but search party for you!” the Barnacle and in 1938 prepared a ship made no further shipments. There were other “I don’t want no search party If I don’t ment for the Tacoma Smelter. The terrain was disappointments. The Lucky Strike, located come back, forget about me!” so steep that he tied himself to a tree to be up Lime Creek, did not live up to its name. There had been an astonishing three feet gin stripping. When one and one-half tons Pioneer Gold Mines Ltd. optioned the prop of snow at Friendly Cove and six feet at Port of ore was ready, he hired a fellow prospector erty, undertook surface work and dropped Alberni. to help pack it out. the option. Andy Morod, like a number of solitary He had met Jack Crosson, a seaman and He was inexperienced in optioning claims trappers and prospectors, contemplated the sounder aboard the hydrographic survey scow and dealing with lawyers and more than once meaning of life. First he was a Christian Sci Pender, in 1933, while preparing to climb came out second best.The biggest disap entist. But Christian Scientists believed in Conuma Peak; the men became lifelong pointment of his life involved not gold but self-healing, and after he injured his back friends. Morod and Jack Crosson iron. Bodies ofmagnetite, among the world’s packing a deer carcass for several miles, and backpacked the ore down Lime Creek to a most pure, lay exposed on the Barnacle and after his back continued troublesome in spite packhorse trail which led to the Zeballos surrounding area. Anyox Metals Ltd. wished of six months of chiropractic treatment, he River. Horses then carried the ore across a to purchase the claims. Two claim-holding turned to Swedenborg. Swedenborg was a suspension bridge to the road which followed groups were involved: Morod and partners prestigious 18th century Swedish scientist the river five miles to Zeballos. The men car and Alan Ford and partners. Alan Ford of who undertook the study oftheology Morod ried the ore in 90-pound packs for a distance Parksville was a construction contractor at began a lifelong study of the writings of ofabout one and three-quarter miles, climb Zeballos. Swedenborg. ing down a ladder at one point. There was While Morod was trapping at Muchalat He formed partnerships with other pros no trail, it was raining, yet each man made Lake in 1938, his two partners signed an pectors, learning from old-timers. He ob two trips per day; Andy suggested a third but agreement with Anyox Metals Ltd. When tained textbooks on geology and subscribed Jack refused. he returned to Zeballos they urged him to to mining magazines; he planned one day to The shipment averaged 3.13 ounces of sign. Unrepresented by a lawyer, he signed. strike it rich. Alternately trapping in winter gold per ton. A happy Andy resumed work The enormity of the mistake was not real and prospecting in summer, his mining ca and attempted to sell the claims. B u t ized until later. Alan Ford’s lawyer earned reer was eventually devoted to the Barnacle the Second World War was advancing; there his client a small fortune while Andy received claims near Zeballos which he staked in 1938 were no buyers. Disappointed, he continued less than $5000. The magnetite claims be during the Zeballos gold boom. He never lost to hand-drill adits and to prospect. came a full-fledged mine in the 1 960s. faith in the Barnacle, working the claims until During the gold boom he became friendly It was enough to take a trip to Europe and he was 75 and could no longer hike up the with a couple, Doug and Helen Gordon at South America, though, and to bring back trail. Zeballos. The Gordons had a photography gifts for his friends; this was his only trip During the gold boom 1200 people lived business and Doug was also employed as a home to Switzerland. While in Italy he took in the Zeballos area. Four mines operated miner. The Gordon marriage was coming to mud bath treatments for arthritis. with mills, others shipped ore to the smelter an end and Andy fell in love with Helen. His friends worried about his health. Four at Tacoma, Washington. The Privateer be- Helen had other admirers and did not en- times he trekked into the rugged backbone

14 B.C. Historical News - Spring 1996 accompanied the pilot to col a specified elevation, an elevation from which lect him and his skins, airlines the Barnacle could be seen forever. agent Dorothy Sutton and Lars Omenas, a logger. After 21 Bio Note: Eleanor Witton Hancock grew up at seasons it was a momentous Zebaios where her parents owned a general occasion. One might say it store. She is a substitute teacher and a writer called for a drink. Although in Kamloops, also editor ofthe Kamloops Mu seum newsl.ette, Andy Morod did not drink al cohol, he had a bottle of Aus Sources: Interview with Andy Morod, 1982. tralian rum under his bunk. Zeballos Miner Newspapers, 1940. Waibran, Captain John T. British Columbia Coast

After several years there was Names 1592 - 1906 Their Origin & Histor still an ounce or two. J.J. Douglas Ltd., Vancouver, 1971. “I would mix it with peanut butter,” he explained to the pilot. ‘And then I would smear Conference the tree, and that scent drawed the animal to my trap, because 1996 a strange scent.” The pilot laughed heartily, then he and Pack your saddlebags and head up the Gold- rush Trails to Caesar’s 1nn in Williams Lake 1961 -fim Witton, left. pulverizes a chunk ofgold-bearing mineral Lars Omenas polished off the for the BC Historical Federation’s annual con with mortar e!rpestle while Andy Morod waits to pan it out. At the rum. ference April 25-28,1996. Highlights of this Barnacle claims NW ofZebaios. As the years passed, he northern adventure include a bus trip to Likely and historic Quesnelle Forks, a unique adopted by mail a Korean or Cariboo program featuring a slide show about of Vancouver Island, divulging neither his phan, sending money to Korea. He began Barkerville and the Cariboo by noted author destination nor his date of return. On one wintering on the drier east coast of the Is Bronwen Patenaude and a lecture on the his tory ofranching from rancher Tim Bayliffand trek he was away for two weeks without a land. In 1970 logging roads linked Zeballos much, much more. tent or sleeping bag. On cold nights he dug to the outside and he bought pickup truck. a The festivities begin on Thursday, April 25 a coffin-sized trench in a gravel bar and built When away from home, though, he could with a steak dinner at the Seniors’ Activity a fire in the trench. When the fire burned hardly drink the water. Centre. Tickets for this dinner, that includes down, he removed the coals and placed a layer After Helen Gordon turned him down he a sirloin steak, baked potato, salad, vegeta bles and dessert are $10 00. An evening re of boughs in the bottom. He crawled in and always professed to be a woman-hater. Ironi ception at the nearby Museum of the slept, chest and throat covered with his jacket. cally, some of his greatest friends were Cariboo-Chilcotin beginning at 7:00 pm will A damp bed and not recommended for one women. We listened as he railed against gov offer delegates the opportunity to sample more Cariboo history and hospitality. Several au with arthritis. Unfortunately he had an “im ernment policies, decried the rape of natural thors of local histories will be in attendance age” to maintain. He scorned men who resources and warned of the decline ofcivili to sign books and discuss their works. would not venture out without a tent and zation. By age 75 he was so incensed with The following day, Friday, is a busy one with heavy packs. ‘When he suffered an accident government that he refused to vote. the workshops on acquisition and processing artifacts as well as researching, writing and he treated himself, not trusting doctors. Towards the end, he reflected on his life. publishing local histories. Both workshops will Mining stopped during the Second World There were incidents he would have preferred be led by noted professionals in their field. War and Zeballos faded. The Privateer re to miss, there were unfortunate mistakes. But Information about these workshops may be obtained by contacting Melva Dwyer at (604) opened in 1945 for three years. Logging on the whole he was content. In Nootka 535-3041 fax or phone. For those wanting an began and Nootka Sound hummed to the Sound he was an authority on wilderness optional activity on Friday, a walking tour of tune of the chain saw; some miners returned survival; his trapping and prospecting meth downtown Williams Lake and the Station House Art Gallery will be offered. and became loggers. As Andy Morod’s repu ods were followed by others. Most impor tation spread, strangers on the street would tant, the need to protect the environment was Saturday’s agenda includes the unique Cariboo program mentioned above, the An greet him as a friend. The shy man talked recognized and he, Andy Morod, had fur nual General Meeting and an Awards Ban easily with youngsters; eventually most chil thered this recognition in Nootka Sound. He quet. We will be entertained by Richard dren at Zeballos considered him a friend. said that he cherished his experiences. He Wright as well as the Patenaude Family Sing ers. It was a rare treat to be invited to visit Andy was proud to have been “different”. Morod at the Barnacle and to overnight with He became immobilized by arthritis. He Sunday will begin bright and early with the bus tour to Likely and Quesnelle Forks that him. Gradually, his influence on a new gen began to suffer dizzy spells and feared a stroke will return to Williams Lake by 4:30 pm. It eration was evident: one boy became a ge was imminent. On November 22, 1983, age promises to be an exciting and busy three days. ologist, another a part-time trapper. Most 82, he ended his life, shooting himselfcleanly Bring your camera, warm clothing and walk ing shoes. Conference packages will be mailed began to use Morod’s habits when camping with his rifle at his cabin below the Barnacle. out by March 1. and hiking. We, his friends, were not surprised. All history buffs are welcome. For more in After the War Morod used air transporta In his will he left exquisite gold samples to formation, Contact Lori Hudson-Fish at (604) tion, chartering in and out ofMuchalat Lake the Royal British Columbia Museum. At his 398-5825 or write to 589 Ninth Ave., Williams Lake, BC V2G 2K5. until he relinquished the trapline in 1955. request he was cremated and his ashes scat That final spring, two friends from Zeballos tered by airplane along Rugged Mountain at

15 B.C. Historical News - Spring 1996

16

B.C. News Spring Historical 1996 -

elevation, the to of out the lip ravine where The pelton wheel was on shaft a mounted the faltering 1929 economy, a was patent

allow the water to with flow loss very little of mounted the on a pelton perimeter of some wheel. mining that had venture fallen idle in

great difficulty a ditch was constructed to water a through aimed nozzle cups at dynamo. a The obtained also dynamo, from

to supply the head pipe the for With line. converted into by useful power forcing wheel to the the pulley the mounted shaft on of

A dam built was at a elevation high enough pounds square per inch static of pressure, pulley mounted was the on the pelton shaft of

flowed deep a in its ravine in higher reaches. under approximately hundred one and ten way by transferred was of a driven by belt a

out. The water source, Croasdaile Creek, product, a relatively small volume water of race, ter, the away. tail to flow Rotating power

project dro-electric already had been carried At business the end this of pipeline, the box open allow to underneath wa the spent

Much the preparatory of work the hy for mind. pelton The a was wheel wooden framed in

by our team horses, of Donald and Mab. etched in memory the my six year of old spectacular!

forth to by wharf the made

bob drawn sleigh dures

were dramatic to become enough pin watery centrifugal wheel of was water it -

“Caribou

Ranch” was the trips of back and the of the contour ground. fit These proce of the pelton wheel spinning to make a it

of the arrival winter pipe at of the our home With sufficient heat the pipe to would sag pipe was opened the hit the and cups water

to the Gray My Creek wharf first memory built the at position of the required bend. valve positioned in section the the of two inch

the C.RR. sternwheeler Moyie delivery for pipe crossed dip a a in ground the fire one was istered and hundred pounds. ten The

The pipe was on the stowed

main deck the of In a ground. way similar fit where had the been line the filled gauge pressure reg -

to mine a located Ainsworth near Kaslo.

or the heated ing

malleable to section to had bend

been directed the intake the into pipe -

which had probably been used supply to air was put on projected of the pipe the end to down forc desired the of size nozzle. The water

to three thousand six of feet pipe inch steel bend. to When heated a cherry red, the weight pipe large evenly an tapered reduction

partner, Roy to obtain MacGregor, some at under the two pipe the the of required point properly a to designed reduces nozzle which

ing equipment Father idle. with a teamed up projected the over a brow of lit hill a fire was pipes reducing an improvised was alternative

panic, leaving a miscellany copious of min sation was the only Where solution. the pipe ning cups of pelton the wheel. This series of

Lake shut had the down in of face financial cated bending equipment at hand, improvi just which and was cleared, the at aimed spin

the on mines north the shore Kootenay of contours the of ground. With sophisti no one long some that inch the formed nozzle

assisted my quest, father his in since many of feet. The to pipe had to bent be follow the and a then down to three quarter inch pipe

1929 stock The market have crash may of drop two some and twenty hundred five inch diameter two pipe some for four feet

locally up to bring about electrification. to hundred seven eight with a feet The vertical inch pipe had six been reduced first a to

to looked about see what might be picked started journey its under some pressure down the of occasion of up the start pelton wheel.

engineering supply catalogue, but rather end of pipe the line. This where is water the The wheel. family was whole present for the

hydro-electric did power, he not consult at an barrel, the ofwhich base fitted top the was the tate construction a box of over the pelton

to ameliorate living conditions installing by entered improvised an wood a tank, it stave mountings of the to bearings and also facili

cordingly, when he decided were shaped to receive

the

the Photo courtesy author

mother Ac invention. of Burge borne on family The Caribou Creek Ranch 1930. c. at Gray for installation. the The logs

school necessity of the being to a foundation form secure

he grounded well in was the firmly the placed in ground

growing business. By 1929 eighteen inches diameter, in

a out wrest living the of fruit cedar on logs approximately

as my father to struggled ings in turn were mounted

prosperity remained elusive turned. these Each of bear

however, and tranquillity within the which shaft

the Throughout 1920’s, ration became the bearing

tlement of Gray Creek. gether and some prepa after

remote Kootenay Lake set two halves were brought to

oped property in orchard the with molten babbitt. These

ily up partially a to devel half shells was then filled

city life moved fam the and inches long. Each these of

ity 1920 he when forsook in iron five shell or some six

war and tranquillity prosper shaft in the within an turn

McKay post Burge sought by made placing each of half

my World father War, James also bearings were hand

South the and African First wheel These with bearings.

A of both veteran the on side fitted each the of

by WM. C. Burge

Hydro Electric Power in Gray Creek antique, even by the standards of the 1930s. hung in the centre of the dining room re tric current from our system, the new radio, The word dynamo is short for “dynamo-elec mained in place. The kerosene wick lamps, by way of transformers and converters re tric-machine”, a machine designed to con chimneys polished, wicks trimmed, were kept sulted in significant savings for our house vert rotating mechanical filled. The beginning ofhydro electric power hold. power into electric energy. Water power also ena Ours stood some two feet bled us to deal more effi high and was outstanding for ciently with the cutting of its two coils wound with in fire wood, the fuel required sulated copper wire around to feed the insatiable cook the two arms of its soft iron ing and heating stoves in core, the base of which was our house. formed to create a tunnel. Prior to the installation These two coils created the of the pipeline, the sawing magnetic field in the tunnel of wood was done by a where the armature, itself crosscut saw mounted on consisting of further coils of an “A” frame. The “A” copper wire, rotated to cre frame was designed to ate an electric current by forc swing from the top of the ing the copper coils across the “A” similar to the action of magnetic field. The electric a pendulum. The length of current was drawn off from the pendulum was the di the armature by way of the ameter of the circle of commutator. The commuta which the teeth of the saw, tor allowed the electricity to the arc, formed the seg be transferred from the rotat ment. As the “A” frame ing armature on to static car swung back and forth the bon brushes connected to the saw could be lowered so wires that carried the con The Pelton W1iee1 usedfor creating electricilyfor the Burge home during the 193O that the teeth of the saw stant flow of direct current. Photo courtesy the author maintained a steady cutting Power lines were then built action on the log being to carry the electricity to the house and to brought many outages. On occasions the sawed. This device was originally driven by a the barn. The copper wire used was ofa gauge light bulbs would slowly dim and finally go gas engine with one horizontal cylinder that large enough to supply a small town. right out. We recognized the cause: there was was encased in a water jacket designed to cool It, like the pipe, had been obtained at dis no water in the pipeline. When I was a little the engine. The gas engine would operate at tress prices; the fact that it was very much older this became my problem. Flashlight in about one hundred revolutions per minute oversize was of a minor consideration. The hand I would climb the pipeline trail to the which were reduced by a system of pulleys wire was safely strung on poles twenty feet intake, the cause usually being debris that had and a belt to drive a crank shaft that pro above the ground. The house was wired in completely choked the screen at the entrance vided some fifty strokes a minute for the saw. the standard of the time- called “knob and to the wood stave tank. This was easily cleared The engine was replaced by a pelton wheel tube” - parallel holes were drilled through and the lights would be burning by the time which gave a quiet satisfactory power to the studs and joists and a porcelain tube inserted I returned to the house. When the system saw. My job was to operate the valve that

- the positive wire through one tube and the first went into service the ditch carrying the supplied the water to the pelton wheel. As negative wire through the adjacent tube. water along the bank of the ravine had not the saw was lowered into the cut I opened Within the house there were two unshaded stabilized, so the occasional washout would the valve to full flow as the cut was in light bulbs on drop cords in the living room occur, allowing all ofthe water to escape back progress. It took two or three minutes, de and two in the kitchen. There were no to Croasdaile Creek. These washouts involved pending on the size of the log, to finish the switches, once the dynamo was started and major repair jobs and a protracted return to cut. Occasionally my mind would wander the water flow increased until the voltage the gas mantle lamp. and as the saw finished cutting I’d forget to meter reached one hundred and ten volts, Our system was versatile. It had the capa close the valve. As with the dynamo without there was light throughout the house. The bility of charging six-volt lead storage bat the load of the light bulbs, the saw would load was constant. 1f however, one light teries, thus enabling us to change the way run wild, nearly shaking itself to pieces as burned out, the dynamo increased speed with our radios were powered. The early radios my father shouted his instructions to SHUT the lightened load and the voltage climbed. were powered by three dry type “C” batter DOWN. In the event the voltage went up high enough ies each of forty-five volts output. When po After my father’s death in a motor vehicle the remaining lights would burn out and the sitioned in series they powered the grids of accident in 1934, my mother’s youngest dynamo would race at hectic speed, causing the vacuum tubes at one hundred and thirty- brother, Charles Jones came from England a mad dash to the plant to shut down the five volts. The filaments were powered with to help manage the fruit ranch. Uncle Charlie flow of water to the pelton wheel. Needless a six-volt dry “A” battery. Powered by a sin was a tool maker, and he brought with him to say the old naphtha filled gas light that gle lead storage battery; charged by an elec many innovative ideas. The first was to bal

17 B.C. Historical News - Spring 1996 ance the number of kilowatts to light the gle. The trimmer saw operated at high speed Kimberley. The power was also extended home with the kilowatt capacity of a heating with only its teeth above the table created an south to complete electrification ofthe whole element for the hot water tank. Hot water invisible danger. My brotherJim was the first east shore of Kootenay Lake. Our dynamo was then available in the summer time with and only victim when he carelessly put his was retired in favour of the standard alter out the sweltering heat of the fire in the hand on the table and looked down to see nating current that operates most appliances. kitchen range. In the evening when the lights the top joint ofhis little finger disappear. This We decided nevertheless to proceed with our were required the hot water element was power source was later used to operate a lum plans to construct a walk-in deep freeze re switched off and the lights switched on. My ber mill, but the power was not sufficient to frigerator. I now had a hand in helping to troubling job of coordinating the water flow carry the saw cut through the length of a saw build this useful convenience. A wood frame for cutting wood was eliminated by a remote log. The cut proceeded through the log in building was constructed some fourteen feet control device to enable the saw operator to starts and stops. Nevertheless a good quan square and ten feet high with a shake roof turn on the water as he lowered the saw into tity of lumber was sawn, as speed ofproduc (the shingle mill had long since departed). the log and to stop it when the cut was fin tion did not become a factor until after World The inside walls of this building were made ished. War II when an industrial gasoline powered vapour proof by applying several layers of The next innovation was carried out while engine was coupled to a more sophisticated waterproofpaper glued in place with tar. In I was away during the war. The pipeline was saw mill capable of producing six or seven side this building a box was constructed some extended to give greater water pressure and thousand board feet in a day. The same crew six feet square and six and one half feet high therefore more power. The objective was to logged the trees and operated the saw mill; to the end that there was an eighteen inch install a shingle mill. A larger diameter pelton the venture never became an integrated op space all around this box. This space was filled wheel was required. Uncle Charlie’s tool eration. There was an aversion to building with wood shavings from a planer mill mixed making experience gave him the experience up a work force when the market was still with some lime to discourage any unwanted to come up with a plan and then to execute precarious. growth. A passage and double doors were it. The old circular saw used to cut fire wood Our hydro-electric plant might have constructed to insulate the inside from any had a fly wheel about twenty-four inches in worked on forever, but in the l950s with the outside heat. Cooling coils installed and a diameter. This flywheel was to be converted need for more power at Cominco’s Sullivan compressor coupled to a small pelton wheel into a pelton wheel. The cups of the pelton Mine at Kimberley, a mighty hydro-electric compressed and thus heated the refrigerant wheel were fabricated by splitting two-inch power grid was built connecting the gener gas which was then cooled in the tail race of lengths of an inch and one half galvanized ating plants on the lower Kootenay River to the pelton wheel. The cooled compressed gas water pipe in halE These were joined to form the East Kootenay power system at Kimber was fed into coils in the freezer where it ex a double cap with angle iron closing the ends. ley. The power line ran north along the west panded and reduced the temperature well The cups were attached to the fly wheel by shore of Kootenay Lake to a point immedi below zero Fahrenheit. We had a working two pieces of angle iron and each braced ately north of Coffee Creek, with a span deep freezer which may well be in use today. against the impact of the water by two thin across the main lake to supply power to the strips of steel cut from barrel hoops. The in Bluebell Mine at Riondel. The line then trav Bio Note: ‘Bill” Burge grew up in Gray Creek, ertial energy of the fly wheel in tangent with elled south along the east shore of the lake served inthe RCAFin WWlLstudiedatLLof Alberta and UBC. Hepracticedlaw untilrecendy the power of the water jet carried the saw and up the valley of Gray Creek to the di and now enjoys retirement in North Vancouvei through a cut necessary to produce a shin- vide and down Redding Creek and so to

FRED ROO the well known Genera) Merchant IS pleased to make •THE announcement that be carrien all kinds of Merchandise and just received the BIGGEST swck of fishing tackle, the new kind with affinity adjustment—bound to bite—can’t drop of. Borne zealous competitor might call him a LIAR but Pred Roo is happy IN knowing that be ha. a reputt1oa in ELKO for veracity which is worth more to him than untold gold

An example ofearly advertising with a humorous twist. This ad appeared in the Cranbrook and Southeast Directory of1911.

18 B.C. Historical News - Spring 1996 When It Was Easy To Go Teaching by Bernard C. Gillie

June 1926 was a “banner year” I found erased my fears of fail work as a teacher and for me - I had completed my ure. If my “teacher training” at Victoria principal for half a century has Normal School during that year made any contribution to my and also one year at Victoria Col profession, then Mr. Watson lege toward my degree. My wings should be thanked! He told me were ready to start the long jour that there was a school at Hutton ney toward retirement in about Mills which needed a teacher. 50 years. Armed with a first class That if I would send them my teaching certificate and an 58th application, he would put “Honors Standing” from Normal in a word for me. I did and lo! School, how could I miss! Ifyou’ll back came an offer of the job. stay with me for ten or twenty The whole world took on a rosy pages I’ll tell you how easy it was! glow - my feet were on the bot Let’s go back a bit first. I was tom rung. a farm boy born and brought up Needless to say there were dif on a dairy farm outside Victoria. ficulties to overcome but for My good luck was that I had a some reason they didn’t seem very mother and father who sup important. One of the first was ported and encouraged me from the fact that Hutton Mills was a a one roomed school - Strawberry long way from Victoria and I had

Vale - to June 1926 as noted no money at all and I couldn’t above. They were angels to me possibly ask Mother and Dad for because they were always there help since I knew they had even when I wanted to quit which I less. Dad reminded me that he threatened occasionally. From hauled wood for a neighbour Dad’s Scottish background they who was in the business of sup really believed an education made plying firewood for our men - or women - as the case nity “Perhaps”, Dad said, “you might be. I had a brother who could get a job splitting fresh cut graduated as an Engineer from fir for this chap.” Off I went to UBC and a sister who completed the wood lot, talked to the “chap” a business programme. My sis and was delighted to get the job Route taken to myfirst schooL ter was my favourite person and of splitting the wood that he cut my brother was my tireless exam from a fine stand of fir. After a ple or maybe “tiresome”. After four years to the “Buildings” and asked if I could talk long period on a farm, I was on excellent overseas in the First World War and now a to Mr. Watson, the Teacher’s Registrar. His terms with an axe and the techniques ofsplit Master’s Degree in Engineering “he” stood opening words were a wonder to my ears, ting firewood. At least I thought I was. I for everything I felt I could do without. All “Good morning, Mr. Gillie, I’ve been wait reported for work the next day along with that on top of my Dad’s blindness, and his ing to see you! I notice that you have an my axe. “\‘Vhat’s that for?” says the Boss. terrible struggle to keep us fed and clothed, “Honors Standing” from the Normal School. “Nobody with any sense uses one for split was rather daunting, for a farm boy who Have you found a job yet?” Those words and ting freshly cut fir - What you need is a split didn’t know where he was going. At least I the manner that went with them turned me ting ‘maul’. Here’s one you can use!” In case

had some superb examples of what a young into a teacher on the spot. For better or worse, you are as ignorant ofsuch matters as I was - man should be. I vowed then and there to become a “real” a splitting maul is like a sledge hammer ex So, to begin, I decided to apply for a teach teacher no matter what. Looking back now cept one side is sharpened like an axe. There ing position in BC. Fifty-seven applications after a lifetime in Education I realize that I the similarity ends. It weighs 8-10 lbs. and later, without even one reply didn’t provide simply couldn’t ever fail Mr. Watson. All I splitting large blocks is really quite easy after much encouragement. Someone suggested can say is that I never stopped trying because the first couple of days. He showed me the I pay a visit to Mr. Watson at the Depart here was a man who believed in me, almost technique and, believe me, it i, that easy. I ment of Education who seemed to be wor without knowing me. was surrounded by a large stack of fresh cut

shipped by every teacher I knew. Off I went We talked - man to man - something that fir, that was to be split into large sections that

19 B.C. Historical News - Spring 1996 ______

but what is there at Hutton Mills? About 900 growing up - nothing will ever be quite the

people - a large lumber mill owned and op same again. Fortunately Mother and Dad erated by the United Grain Growers and six were not the “panicky” types. They under feet of snow in January You’re wondering stood, I guess, what I was going through, and why the Grain Growers had a lumber mill treated the whole affair as natural as breath about 1,000 miles from the grain fields of ing, or I’m sure I’d never have boarded the the Prairies. Join the club! So did I; and even Vancouver boat. The trip over was such a new a year later I wasn’t at all sure. As a farm boy, experience. I forgot to be lonely and arrived even I knew, that wheat didn’t need a saw with things under control. “Take a taxi to mill to harvest it. Something to do with sup the C.N. Station” they said. Sure enough, plying the farmers of Saskatchewan with there was a taxi at the door of the C.PR. dock lumber to build elevators, sounded reason so I walked over to it; the driver opened the able. door, and off we went. “Where to, Sir”, he My wood splitting wages covered the cost asked and I managed to remember “The of trains, meals and one night’s sleep. I’m sure C,N. Station, please.” I’d never been in a city the C.N. travel agent went to bed chuckling as large as Vancouver so that everything I saw that night; I was so green, I’m sure he felt was a new experience. When we got to the

that they could use me in a lumber mill - station, I even remembered to ask the driver green lumber! “how much” and to include an extra 25 for Mother, bless her heart, made a list ofwhat a tip. Dad had managed to get it into my Bernard C Gillie, 192& Hutton MiILc staffbouse Alt photos courtesy the author I’d need for the coming year, even including head that such was essential. a large leather trunk. Time proved her about The railway station looked enormous, and had to be split into smaller pieces for the 100% right. She wanted to know, what I in a state of total confusion. Somehow I stoves in most houses. I was glad I knew how would wear to school, where I would sleep, found a ticket counter, showed my slip only to handle the maul after a few experiments how would I get my meals, who would do to be told that I’d have to wait three hours and found it really was before the train left. At last a chance to sit quite easy. Incidentally, I down and watch the real world go by and to was to be paid $1.10 per figure out where I’d find a train by following cord stacked as I worked. It the crowd to the platform. I had a ticket for was really a very pleasant an upper berth so a porter showed me the experience and that kind of right car and the right berth. My wits were money was really pretty beginning to settle down so I sat and watched generous. One day, I split what everyone else did. Finally “All aboard” and stacked six cords, pock was announced and I could really join the eted my $6.60 and arrived world going by. home feeling like the lucki Going to bed in an upper berth on a train est worker in the place. I has to be experienced to be believed. I could just feel the $250 I crawled up the little ladder and found my needed to get to Hutton. a’..... self in a space adequate for a small dog but Red PassJunction Hotel, where I bad breakfast. After about six weeks I had not a 6’ 19 year old. Taking off your clothes my money and felt strong while sitting on them presents certain diffi enough to lick my weight in wildcats. Fur my washing, and what would I do in the eve culties I won’t go into here - I even found the ther to that, Mother and Dad were proud of nings. She drew a blank on the answers, so little net for my clothes! Who was in the me and said so! we tried using our imaginations and com berth below me, I knew not - except that he So where was Hutton Mills and how could mon sense in that order. I get there? A little geographical research pro Frankly, I was terrified and vided an answer to both questions. The Ca lay awake a few nights in a nadian National Railway office found it on total panic. Time went by their northern BC line from Jasper to Prince as it has a habit of doing Rupert, about half way between Jasper and and when the last day at Prince George. To get there I should take the home came I was past wor C.N. train from Vancouver to Red Pass Junc rying. When the last day at tion in Jasper National Park, transfer there “home” came, it finally to the train from Edmonton to Prince dawned on me that life as Rupert. That way I could get off at Hutton I’d known it for 19 years Mills about 75 miles east of Prince George. was at an end. Everything I —--s — There was a train once a day and I would knew so well on the farm have to wait at Red Pass for several hours for suddenly had a value that Hutton Mills CN Station. the Rupert train to pick me up. So far so good was unfamiliar. So this is

20 B.C. Historical News - Spring 1996 massive sur whistle in the distance and along with a few roundings; other passengers I climbed aboard. Luck was trying to real with me, for there was an empty seat along ize that here I side an attractive young lady who looked as was a young lost as I was. We soon got into conversation farm lad, all and it turned out that the lady was also a

alone and try teacher - a beginner - going to a place called ing to make Aieza Lake which turned out to be two sta myself realize tions past Hutton. She, too, was from Victo this had really ria so we had much in common and time happened. flew by as the train headed west along the There in front Upper Fraser River. Aleza Lake was another of me a mag lumber town only larger than Hutton and I Hutton MilI.c School - myfirst “Beginners” cLass. nificent lake made several visits there during the winter. snored till I fell asleep and probably much with a background of snow, ice, peaks and No - no romance - just a very pleasant friend longer. forests such as I had never seen before. Sud in a land where friends for me were rare. Somewhere along the way I woke up to denly I remembered one of our teachers at The trip along the Upper Fraser River was find there was enough daylight to see the Normal School telling about that very lake - really pleasant - beautiful country-side some

never snowcapped - - mountains. I’d seen real its name - Moose Lake. There must be doz animal life moose and deer and a few hu mountains so close before, and mans at each station that for once I was amazed at their looked like normal samples beauty. Pictures I’d seen didn’t that would be easy to like. As exaggerate a bit so I lay there we got close to Hutton I gath and marvelled at the magnifi ered my things together, said cence. Soon who should give good-bye to my companion me a shake but the porter who and stood at the coach door told me in no uncertain tones waiting for the first glimpse of that I had twenty minutes to Hutton. get dressed and prepare to leave To be quite honest, I was the train. I’ll leave you to im feeling weak in the knees as the agine what I went through try train ground to a halt. Off I ing to find what I needed and got to find an almost deserted the rest in my valise. He stuff platform - a large building - who snored mumbled few Hutton Mills - myfirst schooL a obviously the “mill” - and one “pleasantries” about people of the largest lumber yards I’d who made such a disturbance at 5:30 am. I ens of them with that name across Canada ever seen. There was a station agent waiting know now how he felt! but it stuck in my mind that this was one of to get a look at the new teacher and the com Somehow, I got things together, only to the sources of the Fraser System. I’ve seen it pany storekeeper whose job it was to take me feel the brakes begin to scrape and finally many times since but it never fails to make to the “Staff House”. They were both very bring things to a stop. As I made my way to the prickles stand up on my neck. It makes pleasant and seemed anxious to make me wel the exit, the porter - bless his soul - pulled me proud of being a Canadian. Sounds silly come. I was delighted to see my teacher trunk my arm and said, “This is Red Pass Junc I guess but there it is! I walked down the rail standing nearby and was told it had come tion. The hotel won’t open till 7:00 so you’ll road track for half a mile or so - caught a the day before. The storekeeper picked up have to amuse yourself for an hour or so be glimpse of Mt. Robson and stood in won my bag and said he’d show me my room. fore breakfast.” I stepped off and found der. If this is going teaching in B.C. - I’ll Now that made me feel greatly relieved. I was

myself alone - all alone - on the station plat withdraw my thought of trying plumbing. a member of the “staff” and my room was form. The office was closed so all I could do I found the hotel close to the station and already assigned! We walked along the track was watch the last car disappear around a read the notice saying that breakfast was about 100 yards to a building which had curve. For the first time I realized what be served at 7:00 am. Come 7:00 and there I never seen a paint brush - let alone paint. In ing alone was really like and I decided right was on the doorstep trying the door which fact as I walked along I noticed that not one there that ifthis was teaching school in B.C., opened to a neat and inviting dining room. building in the whole place had ever been I’d try plumbing next year. Someone showed me to a table and there I painted. I decided that the United Grain As I stood on the Red Pass Station plat was the sole occupant. I enjoyed a good Growers didn’t believe in wasting money on form and watched my train disappear, I sud breakfast with one eye on my watch since fancy frills like paint. The mill was running denly realized I was surrounded by some of the train for Prince Rupert was due shortly. and there seemed to be plenty of activity - the finest mountain scenery on the continent. Made my way back to the station complete even to workmen running around on the logs I’d seen pictures of it, of course, but do what with valise and still wondering if my trunk floating in the mill pond. I asked about the we will with cameras, they somehow fail to which I had shipped from Victoria would huge piles of lumber and found that the saw move you like the real thing. I could fi the actually find its way to Hutton Mills. A train mill had burned down a year ago and only

21 B.C. Historical News - Spring 1996 the planer mill was still operating. My com The only thing to do was to force my way I had a good home and a family to look after panion told me that they had cut almost all between the two bodies in the space. Lo and me. their timber limits so were busy running the behold - they shifted a bit and I was able to That night - my first in the staff house - cut lumber about 15 million board feet - find room to sit down. I realized there was a kept me in a “stew” expecting to be bitten by through the planer and when that was done buzz of conversation, but not in English. I you know what! Spent a restful time once I the whole place would be closed. Obviously tried that and all I got was a smile and an was sure the “creepy crawlies” didn’t attack my teaching job was not going to last very empty plate. I expected someone to put me. In the morning - a Sunday before La long. I just hoped it would keep the place something on the plate, but it didn’t hap bour Day and two days to get ready for the busy for another ten months. The storeman pen. I realized that all the food was on a raised first day in my first school. assured me it would, so at least I’d get a year shelf down the middle of the table. If you Some young lads, about age 12 or so, came of teaching and salary before they folded. wanted something and had a long reach, you looking for me - they’d heard the new teacher

The “staffhouse” was anything but impres were lucky. So I waded in, found some meat had arrived - and offered to show me the sive but I kept my mouth shut. Inside it dish that looked really good and loaded my school. Like everything else in Hutton Mills, turned out to be two storeys and while far plate. Presto! It was good and I decided that it wasn’t far away. There it was - weather from fancy was very clean and tidy. We my luck was improving. I found that no one stained, no paint - and door unlocked. In walked down a corridor on the ground floor, - but no one - passed anything. If you we went, and this time, I was sure I’d made a came to a closed door and my guide opened couldn’t reach it you went without. But eve horrible mistake. The boys explained that it saying, “This is your room.” Furnishings rything looked excellent even in the dim light the school was also the village hall - there were sparse - one cot, one small table and and I soon found my appetite. had been a dance on Friday night and the one chair. Bed neat and clean, three hooks I tried making conversation but all 1 got janitor hadn’t got around to it yet. If you on the wall, period. This was to be home for was a blank stare and I realized that no one know what a dance was like in a saw mill at least 10 months. within hearing understood English. In fact town in the B.C. Bush, I don’t need to ex As a parting shot, the chap who was show no one was even talking, so I kept my mouth plain it. If you don’t you wouldn’t believe it ing me around said, “By the way, some of shut except to load in the food and wonder and I really can’t describe it. I knew it was a the fellows who sleep in this staffhouse, claim how I’d feel after 10 months of this three school because there were some desks among there are bed-bugs at large!” I’d often heard times a day. the chaos. At this point my young friends about such things but hadn’t given it much However, my guardian angel was waiting won my heart - even they were a bit dismayed thought. What does a bed bug look like? Do at the door as I left - ifmen are ever angels! A - but not daunted. they bite? Are they poisonous? What do you young man well dressed and, I discovered, “We’ll help you clean up, Mr. Gillie” they use to get rid of them? etc, etc. I could never well spoken, was waiting. He introduced said; and with the courage ofdesperation we tell my mother of this development. She himself- said his name was “Smitty” - worked set to. About 30 hours later - 3:00 o’clock on would order me home at once, and take the in the Company office. I detected an Eng Labour Day to be exact - we had turned the whole matter up with the Minister of Edu lish (old country) accent and couldn’t help place into a classroom with desks, books, cation - and presto - guess who would be out but warm to his smile. He asked how I liked supplies and a heavy deposit ofdust to make of a job? Discretion was better than valour, I the cookhouse meal, and I said the food was it look real. Without going into the depress was sure, and my escort had only said that excellent but the company was short on com ing details, somehow on Tuesday morning “Some people say there are bed-bugs in the munication. He laughed and said he knew I at 9:00 am, I rang the hand bell and 28 Staff House.” Maybe it was just gossip! I’ll was the teacher and was probably feeling lost. youngsters crowded through the doors and I see what happens when I go to bed. Maybe He said that three of the office staffhad their was able to start my first school. As was al they don’t like people from Victoria and will meals in a private home and wondered if I ways the case, every classroom in B.C. had a leave me alone. might like to join them - the cost was the teacher - every teacher asked the youngsters

It was getting on toward supper time and same as the “cook house” and the home sur to stand - and we all recited the Lord’s Prayer. here comes my escort. He tells me that I’m roundings were very pleasant. It took me He must have heard us, for from that mo to get all my meals in the Company Cook about 5 seconds to say I’d like the idea. So ment on, I was a “teacher” - something I re House, with the rest of the workmen; that Smitty invited me to go with him to meet ally didn’t believe was possible. And further the meals are excellent and it will cost me the family - a husband and wife and two small more, I’ve never regretted it over all these thirty-five dollars a month. Maybe this is just children - and if they were agreeable, I could years. another rumour like you know what. As we start with breakfast next morning. I was de PS. Yes there were many “bugs” referred talked someone came out ofthe Cook House lighted. The family name was Grogan, the to above, but never once did I find one in and started to beat a big heavy triangle with husband a lineman for the telegraph com my room - which says something - though a steel bar. “That’s the call for supper”, I’m pany and their home was in Pittsburg. From I’m not sure what! told, “I’ll take you over and introduce you to there on life took on a different appearance Bio Note: Bernard Gillie taught in several the cook and tell him you are the new teacher and I spent the next 10 months as a boarder schools, then returned to university was vely for the school.” Offwe went to the open door at “The Grogans”. The house was about 30 active in teachers organizations becomingPresi dent ofthe B.C. Thachers Federation in 1944- that said, “Cook House”. On looking in I yards from the school and they had a gramo 45. From 1962 to ‘72 he worked in the with fine collection of Red Seal Re could see very little, except two or three very phone a Northwest Territories first as a Superintend dim light bulbs and a sea of bodies at every cordings which I came to admire. As someone ent ofscbools then Director ofEducation. He is long table. My friend pointed to a very small said long ago - “You can’t lose them all”. I now happily retired in Victoria.. space and said, “That’s where you are to sit.” knew my Mother would be relieved to know

22 B.C. Historical News - Spring 1996 Spider Loom Ties by Wj Spat

No history ofthe neck ish Consulate. He set up tie in Canada would be our books, and organized complete without men the sales. So it was like a tion ofSpider Loom Ties. three department busi Once the standard of ness, with me doing the necktie elegance for all of cloth manufacturing and Western Canada, Spider finishing, Dorothy and Loomswas begun in 1935 her girls doing the tie pro by Edgar Bollerup, a Dan duction, and Sid doing ish immigrant who spun the books and sales.” a part-time passion for “The yarn came from weaving into successful Newland Harding of manufacturing business. Guelph, Ontario. We Having finished his would sign a contract for schooling at a Copenha say 3000 Ibs, and they gen agricultural college, would just make up a Bollerup emigrated to bunch of 232 yarn at 16 Canada at the age of 22. twist and leave it undyed. He first worked at Mon We would phone in an or treal General Hospital, Spider Looms workshop on Kingsway in Vancouver 1937 1952. der of so many pounds of - All pictures courtesy the Bollerup family. studying on his days off whatever colours we with the well-known wanted, depending what Montreal hand weaver Karen Bulöw. At that Ties were born. was in fashion at that time. They would dye time, Bulöw was weaving curtains for the With the success of the Birks contract, it, and three weeks later, we would have the fledgling airline companyTrans Canada Air Edgar Bollerup was not only able to take yarn. It was up to whoever was on the loom lines (later to become Air Canada). Bollerup Dorothy out, he had enough money to move to make up the pattern. The finished cloth learned what he could from Bulow, then re into new premises at 3618 Kingsway. The was then washed in hot water, shrunk in cold, turned to Denmark to take a few supplemen long-standing Kingsway structure had been and put on stretchers to dry;” explains Ed tary courses in hand weaving at Copenhagen. home to many businesses before Spider Bollerup. In 1935, equipped with a pair of hand Looms, but it was best known as 30-30 from “Cutting the cloth into ties was a finicky looms given to him by his parents, Ed the days when it served as a road house to thing because if you didn’t get the cloth ex Bollerup came back to set up his looms in travellers making the two-day journey be actly on the bias, the ties wouldn’t hang prop rented premises at Stamford and Kingsway, tween Vancouver and New Westminster. erly. And ifyou didn’t cut straight, there was on Vancouver’s eastern fringe. For the next 30-30 proved to be the perfect location for hell to pay from the girls in the sewing room,” two years, under the name ‘Spider Looms,’ Spider Loom Ties, with the sides ofthe build recalls Clive Bollerup, son of Spider Loom Edgar Bollerup wove scarves, curtains, place ing being painted in enormous spider’s webs founder Edgar Bollerup. mats, table cloths, and anything else he could visible to all travellers up and down Kingsway The finished ties were distributed to mens get an order for. In the window, a sizable cloth spider hung wear shops all over British Columbia, and to Soon the webs of Spider Looms became upside down in its web. The Bollerups lived the Eaton’s, Hudson’s Bay, Simpson’s, and well enough known that Birks Jewellers above the shop on the second floor. Woodward’s department-store chains which placed an order for twelve knotted table “It was a busy place,” recalls Dorothy sold the ties across the country; “Consump cloths. “Now I had to get those table cloths Bollerup. “Each of the girls we had sewing tion was not as sophisticated then as it is to pressed and embroidered with numerals once the ties had to take a 2 week apprenticeship day,” observes Dorothy Bollerup. “People they were woven,” explains Edgar Bollerup. in the front room with me. It got so that when bought what was there in the stores - supply “For that, I went around the corner to a Edgar and I had children, the babies wouldn’t was short.” Advertising was mostly by word Joyce Road dressmaking shop to see if they sleep unless the sewing machines were run of mouth, with the occasional in-store dis could help me with the work. They could, ning. People even wanted us to make spider play. they did, and that’s how I met my wife.” pin-cushions, like the big spider in the win “I remember a demonstration that we had Dressmaker Dorothy Tuplin not only em dow.” in the Hudson’s Bay Company in 1939,” broidered and pressed the Birks table cloths, “Skjold ‘Sid’ Andersen really got the tie continues Dorothy Bollerup. “Ed was in the she cut and sewed a sample of cloth that sales going,” recalls Edgar Bollerup. “Sid was store weaving, and they had one of my fa

Edgar wove into eight neckties. Spider Loom an accountant and the Secretary at the Dan- ther’s ties - which was one ofthe original eight

23 B.C. Historical News - Spring 1996 World War, Spider Looms bought its first eration (CCF) convention.

power loom - a British-made Compton & A special green, scarlet, and yellow totem- Knowles. “When the new loom came, we had pole pattern was printed on silk taffeta for to get rid of our first label,” remembers Harry ‘Totem’ Duker, the colourful Vancou Dorothy Bollerup. “One ofthe girls who was ver philanthropist. “Any important person quite religious refused to sew the original who visited Vancouver would get a custom ‘Hand woven by Spider Looms’ labels onto Spider Loom Tie from Harry,” explained Ed cloth woven with a power loom. Technically, Bollerup. “The phone would ring, and I’d she was right, I suppose, but it shows you answer ‘Spider Looms.’ A voice at the other how times have changed.” end would say: ‘Harry Duker. Five Dozen,’ The new machinery allowed Spider Looms and then the line would go dead. That’s how to double its business in two successive years. he ordered his supply.” Thanks to Totem “We even did some advertising,” recollects Duker, Spider Loom Ties made their way into Ed Bollerup. “One Sunday in 1942 we set the collections of such figures as American up four signs on the Petersen Hill approach President Harry Truman and Prince Philip. EdgarBollerup carefully cutting2O layers ofdoth to make ties. The cloth was woven with 31 threads ing the Pattullo Bridge: ‘Said the boy to the With the improving overall business cli per inch warp and3l threadsper inch weft The girl...’ ‘What catches your eye?’ ‘Said the girl mate, there came to be more than enough cut must be on the bias (45’) so that thefinished to the boy...’ ‘It’s your Spider Loom Tie.’ We work between Spider Looms and the lino tie would not curL The cutter was new in 1942. didn’t ask anybody’s permission. We just went leum business. Sid Andersen took over the Prior to that the cutting was done with scissors - six layers at one time. ahead and put the signs up. In those days lino, and Ed Bollerup concentrated on Spi you could do that sort of thing.” der Looms. Salesmen were brought in, and

- on display to show how Spider Loom Ties Two further power looms were bought in through the 1950’s Spider Looms saw strong could be worn day in day out, and washed in 1942, but the wartime rationing of yarn cut growth in the necktie business. between. Well, it turned out “In those days, nearly all the that while Ed wasn’t looking, men wore ties, from the high they even sold that tie - the one schools to the penitentiaries. In my father had worn for years the high schools, the boys as motorman number thirty- wanted the narrowest of black nine on the streetcars. My fa ties. In the penitentiaries, the ther was so annoyed!” guards wanted the clip-ons, so Compared to today, a good that the inmates couldn’t get tie was inexpensive - Spider hold of them by grabbing their Loom ties sold for $1.50 apiece ties through the bars,” remi in 1939. And Edgar Bollerup nisces Clive Bollerup, who took insisted that the ties always sold the business over from his fa for the same price across town, ther in 1967. “We were mak to the point that he once ing ties for the teachers, the bought out the stock ofa mens liquor control board, the for wear store that was periodically estry service, the police, the pri selling the ties for two bits less The ‘irls” at the sewing machines in the upstairs workroom of3618 Kingway. vate schools, the post office, the

than everyone else. He never bridge authority - even the pa sold Spider Loom ties to that store again. Spider Looms back to a quarter of its previ tients at the Essondale Mental Hospital.” “The only way you could get a Spider ous consumption. It was necessary to diver Edgar Bollerup kept the Vancouver sales Loom tie for less than the going rate was to sify in order to keep the business afloat. With area just to stay in touch with the merchants. come into 30-30 and say the words rødgrod Sid Andersen, the Bollerups bought a “Relations were very friendly, and people co med flode. If you could pronounce that, it Granville Street carpet and linoleum business. operated. I would buy all my clothing from showed that you were Danish, and you could For three years, until the end of the war, the storekeepers, and at Christmas-time they get a tie at the wholesale price. Otherwise, Edgar Bollerup put aside his shuttle and laid would return the favour with hootch and everyone bought their Spider Loom ties for linoleum, devoting only a fraction ofhis time candy. We even had a lot of help with our the same amount,” recounts Edgar Bollerup. to weaving what wool could be had. Ivy League designs from one of the depart

For the longest time, the Hudson’s Bay With the end of the war came the end of ment-store buyers - a fellow with Eaton’s by Company kept asking ‘Mr Bollerup, we’re rationing, and a resumption of necktie busi the name of Norm Vesak. Norm was a very who started the first music selling so many of your ties - why don’t you ness as usual. Styles were changing, and Spi talented fellow give us a discount?’ So we talked it over. I der Loom began block printing silk taffeta and dance academy in West Van. He later think that we finally ended up giving all the with gaudy designs in addition to producing became a ballet choreographer working in Francisco.” department stores - those that made the big their regular line of woven ties. The hand- Winnipeg and San “Times were like that then,” adds Clive orders - a 2% discount if they paid us within printed silk ties were supplied to the Restau 10 days.” rant Association, the Rotary Club, and even Bollerup. “People were less hurried, and Shortly after the outbreak of the Second the 1951 Co-operative Commonwealth Fed- weren’t always so concerned about the bot

24 B.C. Historical News - Spring 1996 pleated skirts out of it. It was a verance when times are tough in order to be complicated pattern, one that around when things pick up. What really put would have the effect ofchang us under were the changes in zoning. By that ing colours from white to grey time we had moved down the hill to 5560 as the woman wearing the skirt Lincoln Street. There the City kept chang walked. Well, after weaving ing the zoning: from industrial to light in some cloth for them, I told dustrial to single family dwelling. Finally, we them that they would have to could only sell to another weaving business. have somebody else look after No one wanted to be in that area.” the regular production, since In 1972, the company was wound down. my looms were too busy mak Except for the two hand looms brought from ing cloth for ties. So they sent Denmark thirty-seven years before, all of a sample to their Scottish mills. Spider Loom’s weaving, warping, and wind The Scots took a day and a half ing equipment was sold off, either for scrap, to understand the design, and or to West Coast Woolen Mills. “Every im another day and a half to make provement to those looms was blood and Two Spider Loom workers are sbou’n here inserting a frame inside the warp. They wrote back that sweat,” says Edgar Bollerup with sadness. each tie. Then twelve ties ata time were laid in the big steampress at it was one of the most compli Local hand-weavers bought up the remain left rear, for thefinishing touch. cated and difficult designs that ing yarn. they had seen for many years. “Its hard to talk about the end,” sighs torn line. If you could do something, then An extraordinary type of design to come Dorothy Bollerup. “We had so many good you counted for something. It wasn’t so im— from America,’ they wrote. I was very proud years. Even today, Edgar won’t kill a spider. portant to ask how much you made or what of that.” He picks them up, and puts them outside in you owned.” The tie business was not always boom, our garden.” “Spider Loom Ties got to be well enough however. February and July were the slow known that people came to us” remembers months, and then there were the fashion Dr. Spat is a near-native Vancouverite who Ed Bollerup. “There was a sea captain who downturns. “When Trudeau started wearing holds degrees in philosophyfrom the Universi came into port, and had us make bow ties turtlenecks, dropped offovernight,” re ties ofEdinburgh and British Columbia. Cur for his entire crew. And then there was sales members Clive Bollerup. rently be is president of loto International Suzanne Sportswear on West Fourth, which Corporation. He wears Spider Loom 7es when “But then small business is like that,” ex wanted us to weave some cloth that looked ever the occasion permits. plains Ed Bollerup. have have perse like our Rainbow ties so that they could make “You to

Gz4fIslands Branch B. C. Historical Federation The members of this branch of our federa David and Andrea Burchell, owners of the 1965. She kept an inland portion of the farm tion have the timing of their meeting dictated lovely Bellhouse Inn on Galiano Island, hosted where she had a new home built, a home she by ferry schedules. Attendance at events proves the December meeting. This building has an occupies today. that programs are appealing and enthusiasm re interesting history The land on which the inn From 1965 to 1995 the inn was a private mains high. Several GulfIslanders attended the stands was first owned and cleared by Gastown’s home, first occupied by Reg and Nan Day and Fraser River History Conference in Yale in Oc “Portugese Joe” Silva, who sold it to the Grubb then by Dr. John Hales and &mily In the spring tober. (See News & Notes.) Galiano Island writer family before the turn of the century It was the of 1995 the Burchells began the building’s con Ralph Brine attended and was lauded for his Grubbs who built and then established a farm version back to its former use, this time as a bed book Canadas Forgotten Highway. (It is also on the property About 1908 they moved to Vic and breakfast establishment. Its superb position reported that fellow delegates purchased copies toria, selling their Galiano holding to the beside the beach in Bellhouse Bay (next to of this new book.) Bellhouse family, English immigrants who had Sturdies Bay), surrounded by sweeping lawns, Mayne Island, which used to be the centre of resided in Winnipeg for a time before coming creates a perfect setting for the old building with the outer islands, hosted the November meet west. its spacious rooms and handsome appointments. ing. Visitors gathered in St. Mary Magdalene Mr. & Mrs. Bellhouse continued to farm the It is worthy of heritage designation. church where they admired the carved wooden land as their family grew up. Following the ces The January 1996 meeting of Gulf Islands’ frirniture, the font and beautiftil interior. This sation of war in 1918 they turned the now Historical group was held in the Payne Resi church was built in 1897 on land donated by greatly enlarged farmhouse into an inn where dence, the oldest house on Saturna Island. Warburton Pike (whose home was on Saturna visitors came from the mainland or Vancouver Farmer-politician Jim Campbell regaled the visi Island.) The font is a chunk of natural sand Island to holiday. In 1925 the building burned tors with his memories of life on Saturna. stone found on Saturna, whose indentations to the ground and was rebuilt by the oldest son, The former president is Charles Ilsley of hold the water perfectly for baptism. Some of Thorny Bellhouse, and his wife Jessie. The cou Pender Island. We thank the new president, the carving was done by Galiano’s William Cain. ple ran the inn successfully for many years. Af Andrew Loveridge of Galiano Island for shar The exterior is sheathed with wooden shingles. ter Thorny’s death, Jessie sold the property in ing these reports with us.

25 B.C. Historical News - Spring 1996 Liquor and the Indian Post WW11 by Megan Schiase

The two decades following World War II retary of State for the Provinces. The first lation until July 2, 1962. have generally been regarded as a period of Indian Act, passed in 1876, consolidated and transition in Native-White relations in revised all previous legislation dealing with Impetus to Change Canada. Attitudes of paternalism and poli Indians in all existing provinces and territo In 1946 thousands ofNative veterans were cies aimed at wardship and assimilation for ries.1 The original sections of the Act con returning home after serving in the armed Native Canadians were widely challenged by cerning intoxicants listed a remarkable array forces overseas and a growing number of an emerging social conscience reflected in the ofoffences ranging from supplying liquor to Whites were acknowledging the flagrant in discourse of equality, democracy; and social natives; manufacturing, possessing, bartering consistencies between the aspirations offree justice. British Columbia was no exception and consuming intoxicants; to being found dom and democracy and the manner in to this trend. Calls for legislative amendments in a state ofintoxication. It was also illegal to which Canada was treating its own Native to address the inequities prevalent in the sta fail to provide authorities with the names of peoples. In a contemporary novel depicting tus quo were voiced conspicuously by Na suppliers or other details regarding transac Native life in the Skeena Valley, author tives and whites alike in B.C. during these tions involving alcohol. Penalties for offenses Hubert Evans in Mist ofthe River describes years. However, while legislative amendments were also defined. The Act was amended at the liberalizing attitudes of the times: were enacted in many policy areas, policy frequent intervals, becoming increasingly Lo, the poor Indian. Normandy, Holland, changes often did not keep pace with the more detailed with each revision. Penalties all the way. Good comrades, good soldiers. evolving social consciousness of either Na were likewise adjusted frequently. By the time Fine body of men. Best in the world The tives or main-stream society. Many such re of the Great Depression of the 1930’s, fed tumult and the shouting dies. What hap visions were either too little or too late to eral legislation regulating and interfering in pens? The captains and the kings depart, capitalize on the changing climate of opin the affairs of Native peoples in Canada had anybody knows that. But to hell with them. ion. reached its pinnacle. The Indian Act was Myfriend and my brothe herec what hap Through an investigation into the prevail again consolidated in 1927 and major pens. They give their precious blood for ing social attitudes during the post-war pe changes were not made again until after Canada, the last full measure ofdevotion riod and changes to one specific area of World War 11.2 At this point the Department andall that crap. In Flandersjleidc thepop

Indian legislation - that dealing with liquor of Indian Affairs changed the direction of its piesgorge upon their blood Heroes andgen distribution in B.C. - this paper will argue policies; assimilation as a goal was discarded tlemen, every one. ... What does it get them? that the policy changes enacted during this in favor of directives that sought to help Does a grateful nation stop treating their period did much to quell, or at least mini Natives retain and develop their Native char sorrowing mothers andfathers like second- mize, the spirit ofoptimism for Native-White acteristics while simultaneously taking on the class citizens? It does not.5 relations that prevailed in the first few years full rights of Canadian citizens.3 Liberal white folks, however, were not following the war. The paper will begin by The Indian Act as amended in 1951 al alone in recognizing such inherent inequi presenting a brief outline of the history of lowed Natives, for the first time since the ex ties. Native political organization in British legislation regarding liquor distribution istence of the Act, to consume alcohol in Columbia had developed to a mature and amongst Natives in B.C. It will then identify public drinking establishments but did not forceful stage by this time; the native Broth a number of factors that contributed to the allow for any other purchase, sale, possession, erhood of B.C., founded in 1930, began increasing liberalization of attitudes in gen or consumption of intoxicants either on or publishing the first ever Native-run newspa eral, and liquor laws for Natives in particu off reserves. The act was amended again in per, The Native Voice, in 1946. In its first lar, and will move on to consider the effects 1956 to allow provinces to implement full edition, the Native perspective clearly reveals of the laws for those to whom they applied. drinking rights to Natives, providing that the level of dissatisfaction with the status quo: The discussion will proceed to identify and each band first hold a referendum to deter W suffer as a minority race and as wards-, assess the issues around which the debate over mine whether the majority of residents on a or minors without a voice in regard to our alcohol and the Indian revolved, including reserve were in favor of allowing for posses own wefzre. W’ are prisoners ofa control both Native and White perceptions of the sion and consumption of alcohol on the re ling power in our own country - a country issues. serve.4 As will be discussed later, this policy which has stood up under the chaos oftwo proved unworkable, since it was impossible world wars, beneath the guise ofdemocracy History ofLiquor Legislation for authorities to distinguish members ofone andfreed.om, yet keeping enslaved a Native The prohibition of alcohol for Native peo band from another, and the provincial gov people in their own home land.. ples has had a long history in Canada. At ernment consequently stopped prosecuting ...our Dominion is notin aposition to point confederation, control of Indian matters, in cases involving alcohol on reserves in 1956. afinger ofscorn at the treatment meted out cluding the distribution ofalcohol, was given However, full rights to buy and possess alco by the countries toward their people, until to the federal government and responsibility hol outside of reserve boundaries were not she liberates her own orzginal and subjected was delegated to the Department of the Sec granted to British Columbia’s Native popu race.6

26 B.C. Historical News - Spring 1996 More specifically, the protests of return leggers were generally available in most areas do so. Fot paradoxically the wild and se ing Indian veterans underscored the duplic to supply Natives who wished to drink, and cretive drinking is safr becauseprecautions ity of the liquor laws as they pertained to home brew was produced through a variety are taken, and there is a certain anonymity Natives. In her reminiscences oflife spent on of methods on many reserves. While prohi in a crowd. Moderate drinking at home is Stoney Creek Reserve in North Central Brit bition did not eliminate the use of alcohol not ony illegaL but in this context it ap ish Columbia, Mary John relates the change amongst Natives, it did have significant so pears senseless - the danger ofarrest increases in perceptions: cial consequences. The most obvious, per as time draws out, thepossibility ofinform The big change came after the Second World haps, is that it turned otherwise law-abiding ing increases because acquaintances are ex Wai So many menfrom Stoney Creek and individuals into criminals. The Indian Act cluded, and anxiety over possible reserves all across Canada had served over prescribed penalties of fines, jail terms, or a interruption and arrest isfrlt more keenly

seas in the armedforces, in EnglaneI Scot combination of both, for natives convicted because the drinkers are more sober - and land, France, Italy, and Germany. They of liquor offenses which did not represent who would risk arrest anywayfor just one drank in canteens, as they called the beer infractions for whites. or two glasses ofbeer? Once again, the law parlors, just like white soldiers. When those The 1951 amendment to the Indian Act has contributed directly to immoderate who survived the war returned to Canada, allowing Natives to drink in beer parlors and drinking.’6 the Native ex-servicemenfrund that under licensed establishments serving meals was in The concentration of Native alcohol con the Indian Act they were stillfurbidden to part an attempt to address the inequality and sumption within beer parlors also meant that drink alcohol anywhere in their own coun discrimination so obvious within total pro Natives who drank tended to be much more try.. People say that it was the returnedsol hibition. But, as Hawthorne pointed out in in the public eye than those who did not. diers who brought about a change in the his report, such arguments “were not carried When combined with the consequent pat Indian Act.] to their logical conclusion”’2 tern of intensified drinking in bars, the re Expressions of the need for reform were Fo, ifIndians were permitted to drink in sults could have detrimental effects upon the reinforced in part by the growing civil rights the open, their drinking was, in law, con public’s perception ofthe Native population. movement in the United States, and the gen centrated in a small number of beer par Hawthorne reported his findings on these eral climate advocating change was enhanced lours oflimitedfacilities with limited hours consequences as follows: by the increasing influence of television me of access; and Indians were still discrimi One result ofpresent drinking patterns is dia upon society8 Popular magazines in print nated against, for they were not permitted the way in which a stereotype ofIndian be in Canada published increasing numbers of to drink anywhere else orpurchase liquor in haviour receives supporting evidence. W articles during the post-war period, often the liquor stores or take liquor on the re have heard of Whites visiting certain rural calling for “a New Deal” for the Native, while serves.’3 beer parlours for no other reason than to generally acknowledging that they had had In studying the effects of the legislation watch the antics ofintoxicated Indians. if an unfair one in the past.9 on Indian drinking behavior, Hawthorne this were the only harmful eff’ct ofIndian The government of Canada responded in noted some disturbing trends. drinking patterns, it would be a sufficient 1946 by undertaking a federal Joint Com Since they cannot drink legally anywhere but argumentfor remedial measures;frr no ad mission of the Senate and House of Com in the beer parloui their object is to con equate programme of cultural adjustment mons to investigate the state of Indian affairs sume as much as possible in the time avail can take place without a greater possibility in Canada. The amended Indian Act of 1951 able to them; in this sense the limitations of ofmutual respect than this allows.’7 represented the outcome of the study. The the law are a direct support ofimmoderate From the Native perspective, the discrimi Native Brotherhood of B.C. had played an drinking.’4 nation embodied in the law served to rein important and effective role in establishing Mary John’s recollections of alcohol con force a collective political grudge, which was the special concerns of Natives in British sumption amongst Natives at Stoney Creek often exacerbated by the effects of alcohol Columbia. It was largely the role that the Reserve reinforce Hawthorne’s observations: consumption. In 1954 Edwin M. Lemert of NBBC played in the Joint Commission that How often I watched the results ofthispolicy! the University ofCalifornia reported his find resulted in a federal government decision to People would drink as much as they could ings of a study of alcohol use among British sponsor an indepth study into the status of before closing time, because they knew that Columbia’s Northwest Coast Indians: Native people in Under the direction once they left the beerparloui the onlyplace Drinking thefirbid4en liquor thus became of Dr. H.B. Hawthorne, professor ofAnthro they could drink was in some back alley or for the Indian an act ofaggression against pology at the University of British Colum beside the railway tracks!-5 white authority andat the same time a pro bia, the study, when completed in 1956 While the law encouraged immoderate testagainstimputations ofinferiority explicit endorsed, among other things, equal liquor public drinking and illicit secretive drinking, in the Indian Act and implicit in daily so rights for B.C.’s Natives.” it also discouraged a more socially control cial interaction between whites and mdi led pattern of alcohol use. Hawthorne de ans.18 Effects ofLiquor Distribution Legislation scribed this phenomenon in his report: Lemert emphasized the tendency for Na Natives have had access to alcohol since The other patterns ofWhite drinking - the tives to lash out in verbal anti-white aggres first contact with whites. Official prohibition occasionalglass ofbeer with a mealat home, sion when intoxicated: did not stop Indians from acquiring and con or the social occasion where the guests take Many taxi drivers whofrequently transport suming liquor, although it did make it some liquor as a refreshment - are observed by a drunken Indians hack to their reservesfrom what more difficult or inconvenient for them very small minority ofindians, and, even if near-by towns comment upon the ever to obtain it. White and mixed-blood boot- they wish to copy them they cannot afford to present tendency oftheirpassengers to break

27 B.C. Historical News - Spring 1996 into bitter condemnation and even cursing printed in the Vancouver Sun in July, 1962, bates; in general the tone of the arguments ofthe white man. An individual example under the headline “Experts Say Indian Can seems genuinely humanitarian or utilitarian ofthis kind ofbehaviour is that ofa Salish Hold Liquor as Well as White Man.”24 In as opposed to paternalistic, although there Indian who, when sobe is a very quiet, shj the story; several experts concurred with the are, of course, some exceptions. and even timid person. Yet when he gets findings expressed by Dr. James M. Mather, A protracted debate resulted from the In drunk heflexes his muscles and shouts at his assistant dean ofthe University of B.C.’s Fac dian Act amendments in 1956, allowing pro employer, a clam buyer: “Look at me! Jam ulty of Medicine: vincial governments to initiate full liquor

strong - as good as you are!”19 There is absolutely no evidence ofphysiologi rights to Natives within provincial jurisdic cal dirence between the Indian or mem tions. The amendment stipulated that pro The Prominent Issues bers ofany other race, whether white, yellow vincial governments could authorize, through A number of recurring themes regarding or black. It is equally true that there is no order-in-council, the application of provin the issue of Natives and alcohol can be iden justification for the belief held by many cial laws to Natives on a band-by-band ba tified in the contemporary sources. Many of whitepeople, that the Indian is morephysi sis, providing that a majority of members these themes can reveal insights into the dy cally susceptible to the effects ofalcohoL 25 from each band voted for the change in a namics ofNative-White relations during this Thus, while the debate encompassed a referendum. The provincial government period. Among those commonly discussed, wide range of opinions and emphases over proved reluctant to implement the plan, cit the issue of the Indian’s perceived ability to the years, it seems quite clear that the issue ing the confusion that would result in trying “handle” liquor is quite instructive. This is of Native consumption of alcohol was a go to determine which Natives were purchas sue was addressed often by both Natives and ing concern. As Hawthorne noted, “...there ing liquor legally and which were not. Thus, Whites. Speaking at a Native Brotherhood is probably no issue affecting Indians which while enforcement of the law was loosened, convention in Hazelton in April 1953, 74 is so much in the public eye.”26 it remained technically illegal for Natives to year old ChiefArthur McDame’s address was A second theme that recurs fairly consist drink anywhere but in beer parlors. Both the reported as follows in the Vancouver Sun: ently in the public debate involves the insti B.C. Government and Natives sought an “When white men first came they gave us tution ofbootlegging. Here, however, it could amendment to the Indian Act to clarify the beans and we boiled them all day and still be argued quite easily that opinion repre situation. In 1959, after three years of fed couldni eat them, “he said “Later wefound sented a consensus in its censure of the prac eral-provincial bureaucratic jostling, the prov out they were coffte beans. Today I notice tice. In advocating equal liquor laws for B.C.’s ince was still holding out for changes to the when white men go into beerparlours, they Natives, Hawthorne described the effect such Act that would allow for the application of don come outfalling over the ground Itc a measure would have in this regard: changes on a province-wide basis “without the same as the coffee bean story, “he toldhis It would remove at one blow the specialhold all the ifs and buts that are in the Act now.”31 people. “You dont know how to handle it ofthe bootlegger on the Indian. Insofar as it By May 1962 about one-third of the bands yet. ‘‘° did this it would reduce the associations of in B.C. had voted for liquor, following an At the same meeting in Hazelton, a sec Indians with criminals in the Whitepopu active campaign by Skeena New Democratic ond Native spokesperson addressed the is lation and minimize the temptationfor In Party MP Frank Howard. Faced with the im sue two days later: dians to engage in crime to obtain liquoi27 practicality ofenforcing the laws as indicated W will not be able to accustom ourselves to An editorial in the VictoriaTimes in 1958 above, the province responded by lifting the liquor which ispart ofthe white man civi condemned the practice in the following ban on liquor for all B.C.’s Natives in July, lization, unless we can obtain it in a more terms: 1962. normal manne,2’ .a citizenc right to liquo were it extended The move was widely hailed in very posi Hawthorne explained that the public per to Natives, would help to eliminate one tive terms in the province’s major newspa ception of Natives’ inability to handle alco tering sore in our society.. Thefistering sore pers. Among comments published in the hol was partly the result of Natives’ different is the bootlegger who victimizes the Indian. papers, those of Attorney-General Bonner association with the state of drunkenness: Any Native with a will to drink and the and Magistrate Roderick Haig-Brown were intoxication in itse’fis a deliberate objec money to pay black-marketprices can, and what most widely quoted. Bonner explained tive. Littleprestige is associated with “hold does, acquire liquor Laws do not stop that the province’s reasons for not implementing ing liquor’ more is associated with getting traffic.28 the policy sooner and outlined the govern drunk.2’ In 1962, when Natives in B.C. were fi ments attempts to have the federal Act An editorial in the Victoria Daily Times nally granted equal liquor rights, Attorney amended. He emphasized that the govern in December 1958 addressed the issue in General Bonner was quoted in the Victoria ment was in no way averse to having Natives quite different terms: Daily Times professing that... enjoy the same rights as other citizens.32 The anomaly lies in the attitude our legal The only people injured by this will be that Magistrate Haig-Brown delivered a scathing institutions take when the Indian is enfran shadowy band ofpeople who over the years denunciation of the discriminatory liquor chised Unenfranchised, the Indianc access have been supplying liquor to Indians laws, repeating a statement to the press that to spirits is restricted Once he becomes en clandestinely29 he had made on the issue in 1958: franchised, exactly the same individual may Natives, understandably, favored liquor law Many Indians appear in my court everyyea;: buy anddrink liquor like any adult citizen. changes because they would “reduce the They are rarely charged with anything more How does enfranchisement enable him to present patronage of bootleggers by Indi serious than having bought or drunk liq handle it better?23 ans.”30 Many other references of a similar uo;: But an Indian case is never triviaL In A more liberal airing of the question was nature can be found in the contemporary de dians come to court on these charges with a

28 B.C. Historical News - Spring 1996 sense ofinjustice and discrimination. They Policy Div., Dept. of Indian and Northern Affairs Canada, 2nd Ed. 1981. are right... It is not simply a question ofliq 3. Frideres, pp 29-30. uo but offreedom and human dznixy that 4. Contemporary Indian Legislation 1951-1978, Treaties and Historical Research Centre, Corporate Policy Div., Dept. belongs withfteedom. Jam ashamed every of Indian and Northern Affairs, 1981. time it is the duty of my court to punish 5. Hubert Evans, Mist on the River, McClelland and Stewart Indians for something that is a crime only Limited, Toronto, 1954, p.66. 6. “The Native VoiceS, Vancouver, December 1946, p.1, as The for them.33 cited in Forrest E. La Violette, The Strugglefrr Survival, A dissenting view expressed by Magistrate Toronto, University ofToronto Press, 1961. 7. Bridget Moran, Sconey Creek Vff’man, Vancouver, Tillicum British Beevor-Potts, that “99% of trouble with In Library, 1988, P. 106-107. dians was attributable to liquor, and less, not 8. James Wilson, Canada Indians, Minority Rights Group, Columbia 1974, p.23. more, should be made available to them,”34 9. Ronald Graham Haycock, The Image ofthe Indian, received conspicuously less attention in the Waterloo, Waterloo Lutheran University, 1971, p.44-55. Historical of reports. John Albany of the 10. La Violetre, P. 176. majority 11. Hawthorne, Elshaw, Jamieson, The Indians ofB. C A Songhees band commented that “The old law Study ofContemporary SscialAdjustmenr, Toronto, News keeping liquor away from Indians did more University ofToronto Press, 1958, 378-383. 12. Hawthorne et al, p. 378. is available in harm than good. It created ill feelings be 13. Ibid. tween Indians and whites.”35 Guy Williams, 14. Ibid, p.379. microform 15. Moran, p.1O7. president ofthe Native Brotherhood of B.C., 16. Hawthorne, p.380-381. told reporters that his organization had been 17. Ibid. p.381. trying for twenty-five years to get equal rights 18. Edwin M. Lemert, Alcohol and the Northwest Coast Back volumes Indian, University of California, 1954, p.248. for Indians and remarked that they were “first 19. Ibid. p.249. olthis publication class citizens now.”36 20. The Vancouver Sun, April 28, 1953. 21. Ibid. April 30, 1953. are available in 22. Hawthorne, p.379. Conclusion 23. Victoria Daily limes, December 9, 1958. microform 24. Vancouver Sun, July 4, 1962. It could well be argued that the significance 25. Ibid. (film or fiche,). ofthe liquor distribution question in under 26. Hawthorne, p. 378. standing Native-White relations at mid-cen 27. Ibid., p.383. 28. Victoria Daily Times, December 9, 1958. tury was that it symbolized an obvious gap 29. Ibid. July 3, 1962. between the prevalent, post-war liberal ide 30. Vancouver Sun, April 30, 1953. 31. Vancouver Province, January 14, 1959. ology and social reality as it was expressed by 32. The Daily Colonist, July 1, 1962. public policy. Whether or not an earlier ap 33. Ibid. For further 34. Ibid. plication of equal drinking rights would have 35. Victoria Daily Times, July 3, 1962. information, substantially reduced ill feelings between 36. Ibid. con tact Natives and ‘Whites is speculative. What is Bibliography clear is that the post-war climate of opinion Barman, Jean, The West Beyond the West, University ofToronto seemed ready for changes in the liquor laws Press, 1991. Contemporary Indian Legislation, 1951-1978, Treaties and that were not forthcoming until 1962. In the Historical Research Centre, Corporate Policy, Department of meantime, the laws encouraged the develop Indian Affairs, 1981. ment of abhorrent drinking patterns amongst Discussion Notes on the Indian Act, Dept. Of Indian Affairs and Northern Development, 1971. IA natives or required them to pay more for Evans, Hubert, Mist on the River, Copp, Clark, Ltd., Toronto, black market booze. The white population’s 1954. Frideres, James S. Native People in Canada, Prentice Hall, Micromedia preoccupation with the Native’s ability to Scarborough, 1983. “handle” alcohol reflected a perception that Hawthorne, Beishaw, Jamieson, The Indians ofBritish Limited Columbia - A Study ofContemporary SocialAdjustment, was related to the development of abhorrent University ofToronto Press, 1958. Canada ‘s Information drinking patterns. And lastly, the blatant dis Haycock, Ronald Graham, The Image ofthe Indian, Waterloo People Lutheran Press, 1971. crimination inherent in the liquor laws em Indian Acts and Amendments; 1868-1950, Treaties and bittered many Natives towards Whites, a Historical Research Centre, Research Branch, Corporate 20 Victoria Street, process that was merely enhanced by the Policy, Dept. of Indian and Northern Affairs Canada, 2nd Ed. 1981. Toronto, Ontario M5C2N8 drinking habits the law encouraged. La Violette, Forrest, The Strugglefir Survival, University of (416) 362-5211 Toronto Press, 1961. Lemert, Edwin M. Alcohol and the Northwest Coast Indians, 1-800-387-2689 Bio Note: Megan Schiase, a Vancouver mother University of California, 1954. ofthree, hasjust completed her BA. in History Moran, Bridget, Stoney Creek Woman, Tillicum Library, 1988. at the University ofBritish Columbia. She is Wilson, James, Canadac Indians, Minority Rights Group, now working towards a Masters in Archival 1974. The Vancouver Sun Studies. The Prince George Citizen The Prince Rupert Daily News Footnotes: The Vancouver Province 1. James S. Frideres. Native People in Canada. Toronto, The Victoria Daily Times Prentice Hall, 1983, pp.23-32. The Daily Colonist 2. Indian Acts and Amendments 1868-1950, Treaties and Historical Research Centre, Research Branch, Corporate

29 B.C. Historical News - Spring 1996 The Cache Creek Provincial Boarding School 1874 1890 by Wayne Norton

John Jessop, British Columbia’s first su to Dan Adams of Victoria and David perintendent ofeducation, was proud of his Withrow of New Westminster at an antici extensive tour of the interior of the province pated cost of$5,500. The site ofthe school in the fall of 1872. He had travelled hun was to be at the point where Cache Creek dreds of kilometres over difficult trails in at meets the Bonaparte River, on eight hectares tempting to assess the educational needs of donated specifically for school purposes by children living outside the more settled re two ofSemlin’s previous business associates. gions of Vancouver Island and the lower Phillip Parke and Semlin had jointly oper mainland. The report he subsequently sub ated the Bonaparte House Hotel at Cache mitted to the newly-appointed Provincial Creek from 1866 until 1868, when Semlin Board of Education stated that nearly three traded his interest in the hotel to James hundred children of school age were scat Campbell for the Dominion Ranch. The tered throughout the interior without access fact that Parke and Campbell were willing to schooling. Another hundred children un to donate land for school purposes would der five years of age were also living well be certainly have provided Semlin with a con yond the reach of the province’s few existing siderable advantage in his attempt to con schools. To remedy the situation, he pro vince the government to locate the boarding posed the creation of nine additional day school at Cache Creek. It is perhaps not sur schools throughout the province and the es prising that, in addition to Senator C.E tablishment of “a large central educational Cornwall, the government appointed C.A. establishment where pupils (could) be lodged Semlin, Phillip Parke and James Campbell and boarded, as well as educated.” as the first trustees of the Cache Creek The Board of Education welcomed the Boarding School. (Cornwall’s appointment report and gave serious consideration to appears to have been purely an honorary building two boarding schools, one near Eleanor andArchibald Irwin, matron and teacher at one. He played no role in the administra Soda Creek and the other in the vicinity of the Provincial Boarding School 1876-7Z tion of the school, and his nominal trustee Courtesy Brian Bonenfant Kamloops. It was decided, however, that only ship lasted for only one year.) one such experimental school should be ini Work on the school building and the dor tially constructed, and both the board and Creek “must have been more strong than mitory proceeded rapidly in the late spring the superintendent “unhesitatingly indicated good” and declared that there was “an of 1874, and the first students arrived in May. Kamloops as presenting the proper site.”2 sightly skeleton covered up somewhere in this Superintendent Jessop travelled to Cache Premier de Cosmos stated in the legislature question.”5 Creek, and officially opened the school on 2 that Kamloops was the preferred location, There was in fact, no skeleton and little June 1874 with eighteen students on the reg and on 20 February 1873, the government evidence of a cover-up. Charles Augustus ister. By July, the number of students had unofficially advised the Board of Education Semlin, elected as one of the MLAs for the risen to thirty-six, which Jessop declared to “that the erection of a boarding school at Yale district in 1871 and a Cache Creek resi be “about as many as the building can ac Kamloops has already been decided upon.”3 dent, had simply been lobbying members of commodate.” In his annual report, he went By mid April, the residents ofKamloops were the rather unstable government of Premier on to say: a little impatient that no official announce Amor de Cosmos. Whether or not he made “The success of the Boarding School ex ment had been made, but had no doubts at his continued support conditional on the periment is now placed beyond a doubt. It is all that the school would be located there location of the boarding school at Cache the settled conviction of almost every per soon.4 Creek is unknown. However, it was Semlin son in the upper country who has given the It came as a considerable shock when, just who formally introduced the Act Respecting subject any consideration, that there is no two weeks later, the announcement was made the Management of Public Boarding Schools, other feasible method ofbringing educational that the province was to locate its experimen and who successfully guided the bill through facilities within reach ofthe widely scattered tal boarding school at Cache Creek. The Vic the legislature in January 1874.6 families in the interior;.., boarding school toria British Colonist a vocal critic of the With the passage of the Act, the way was (students) have the advantage over day pu de Cosmos government, later insisted that clear to begin the construction ofthe school. pils in enjoying greater facilities for study, and the reason for locating the school at Cache The building contract was awarded jointly are, moreover, under constant surveillance as

30 B.C. Historical News - Spring 1996 to their conduct and demeanour.”8 enlarged. At a cost of $5,000, Withrow of a combination of administrative duty and The first teacher to be employed at the New Westminster was constructing a new “private business” to be able to devote suffi school was Joseph Jones, who previously had schoolroom with a boy’s dormitory on the cient time to fulfil his teaching obligations. taught in Victoria. Jones was an English im second floor. The old schoolroom was to be In a special report on the situation to the migrant and, as such, was typical ofthe prov converted to serve as the dining room, and provincial secretary in July, Jessop admitted ince’s teachers in the 1 870s. Of the thirty-two the girls were to occupy all of the original the obvious: the reputation ofthe school was teachers employed by the Provincial Board building’s dormitory space.’2 The separation nearly ruined, while at the same time, it was ofEducation in 1874, twenty-two were from of the sexes was a serious concern, both for on the verge of bankruptcy He urged the Great Britain. At a salary of $75 per month, parents and for education authorities. In government to appoint a deputy superintend Jones was required to teach the basic provin January 1876, the government was advised ent of schools to be resident at Cache Creek cial curriculum: Reading, Arithmetic, Writ by the Select Committee investigating the until the school had been placed on a satis ing and Dictation, Grammar, Geography, province’s public schools that it was not “ad factory footing. He requested an immediate and History. His responsibilities also included visable” to educate boys and girls in the same advance of at least $2,000 to avert legal ac general supervision and, based on fees of $8 establishment. Completely separate facilities tions by creditors. He asked that furniture per month per student, he was to provide were recommended)3 be provided immediately to replace the losses room and board for the students. To assist in Relations between the Board ofEducation of the previous two years. Finally, he sug this, with particular regard to the female stu and Jones deteriorated rapidly. As the months gested that an acre of land “be enclosed as a dents and to supervise the cooking and laun went by with financial reports still not sub tight board fence as a playground for the girls dry, Jones’ wife was employed as matron at a mitted, rumours of other improprieties to which the boys would have no access what salary of $50 per month. reached the office of Superintendent Jessop. soever.” This, he argued, would remove what If the provincial government hoped that Abruptly, in April 1876, Jones resigned his was evidently one of the greatest causes of the political controversies would fade once position, thus avoiding an expected investi complaint about the school by enabling the the school became operational, it was soon gation by the education authorities. He teacher and matron to keep the sexes sepa disappointed. As an experiment in education, moved to Grande Prairie (modern day rate at all times, except of course during class the boarding school found itself under steady Westwold) and promptly sued the Board of time)6 public scrutiny, and critics of the school Education for $308.14. a sum which he The new teacher, hired in May 1876, in found a ready forum in the pages ofthe Brit claimed was due to him but which the board herited an extremely difficult situation. ish Colonist. An anonymous parent wrote refused to pay until his accounts had been Archibald Irwin had earned his teaching cer to the Colonist in August, stating that some submitted and verified. 14 At the same time, tificate at Perth in Ontario, and taught at the ofthe trustees had not yet found time to visit James Campbell, who had resigned as trus Lower Nicola school prior to taking up his the school and claiming that “the culpable tee a year earlier, was reported to be claiming duties at Cache Creek. In early July, he re indifference of the trustees (was) a matter of ownership ofthe land upon which the board turned to the Nicola Valley to marry Eleanor serious complaint with the public.” He reit ing school stood. The Colonist did not miss Woodward. His new bride returned with him erated his views in another letter a month the opportunity to lambast the former gov to Cache Creek to assume the role of ma later.9 An anonymous (and perhaps unem ernment for failing to establish clear title tron at the boarding school. Each would have ployed) teacher noted that, though Jones had before proceeding to build the school.15 been well aware that the school trustees only a temporary certificate, the Cache Creek On his tour ofthe interior schools in May, (Semlin, Parke, WH. Sandford, J.C. Barnes establishment was the “best paid school in Jessop was appalled at what he found at and W. Walker) could be expected to watch the province.”0 Cache Creek. Neither Jessop nor the school their performance closely to avoid further Superintendent Jessop, however, spoke trustees could persuade Jones to submit fi criticism by John Jessop. very highly of the school after he adminis nancial statements. The accounts were in a By late October, all the recommendations tered the first examinations there on 31 May chaotic condition, and several of the school’s made by Jessop had been acted upon with 1875. He found the exam results “eminently suppliers were threatening legal action iftheir the exception of the segregated playground, satisfactory” and advised the Colonist that accounts were not quickly settled. At the same which at an estimated cost of $400 was sim “the proficiency of the pupils in the several time, many of the boarders’ parents were ply too expensive given the school’s financial branches taught reflects the greatest credit on months behind in their payment of fees. The circumstances. Creditors had been paid from the teacher, while the pleasant and tidy ap building, just two years old, had a “dilapi the $ 1,800 advanced by the government, pearance of the pupih speaks equally to the dated and neglected appearance” due to bro new furniture had arrived, and Deputy Su credit of the matron.’1 ken doors and smashed window panes. There perintendent of Schools Robert Midgeley Just four months later, in his annual re was little kitchen or dining room furniture Clemitson had taken up residence at the port, Jessop was much less satisfied with the remaining, much breakage of crockery and boarding school to supervise the rehabilita performance of the teacher. Jones had failed lamps, and both large cooking stoves were tion of the institution’s tarnished reputation. to submit a required financial statement, sim “much damaged.” Most seriously, the attend Clemitson was instructed to act as secretary- ply advising Jessop that “harvest and politics ance which had stood at forty-four in June treasurer to the trustees, to assume responsi must be held answerable for the delay,” a ref 1875 had fallen to just fifteen students by bility for all financial arrangements at the erence no doubt to the unsuccessful re-elec May 1876. school, and to promote the school amongst tion campaign of C.A. Semlin. The Jessop attributed the sorry state of affairs parents in the interior. He was also to inspect superintendent was much happier to to inattentive trustees, a negligent secretary- a number of interior schools, thus relieving note that the school was being substantially treasurer, and a teacher too pre-occupied with the superintendent of the necessity of a

31 B.C. Historical News - Spring 1996 month’s travel annually. children “corrupted, debased, (and) de Despite having to pay for repairs caused praved, perhaps for life.”19 This was too by a small fire, Clemitson was able to report strong even for the Colonist. The newspa less than a year after his arrival that the school per did, however, urge that this “petted and was operating at a small profit. The average pampered institution” should be permanently monthly attendance had risen to twenty-five closed.20 by Christmas, precisely the number believed The school was not closed, nor was it con to be necessary to enable the school to be verted to become entirely either a boys’ school self-supporting. Though he suggested further or a girls’ school as some critics were sug costcutting measures (such as firing the Chi gesting. The powers ofthe trustees were sub nese cook and requiring the matron to in stantially reduced in April by the provincial struct female students in culinary skills), government, and as late as August trustees Clemitson was optimistic that the success of were yet to be appointed under the new the school was assured at last. terms. Reluctantly, the government granted By the middle of March, however, he $400 to build a segregated playground. It found himself embroiled in a scandal far proved impossible to find a married couple greater than any the school had yet experi able to take up residence at Cache Creek at enced. In attempting to mediate a quarrel such short notice. As a result, it was decided amongst some of the girls, matron Eleanor to retain more formally the services as ma Irwin was shocked to learn that a number of tron of Catherine Schubert (“the old lady” the older girls were leaving their dormitory as Semlin referred to her) at the established during the night, unlocking the dining-room rate of $50 per month, and to hire an un door downstairs, and either entering the boys’ Robert Clemitson, teacher 1883-8Z married man as teacher. Courtesy Kamloops Museum & Arch ices dormitory or permitting the boys access to Forty-three-year-old Thomas LeDuc pos their own. She advised her husband who dis sessed a first class “B” teaching certificate pensed punishment and prepared to inform of negligence. He accused the trustees ofact from Toronto, and had been teaching for the the trustees at their scheduled meeting two ing from mere expediency, stating that they previous eighteen months at the small day days later. Unfortunately, the trustees failed lacked “sufficient independence ofthought... school at Lillooet. He was highly regarded to meet as planned. Instead they heard ru to discharge successfully the duties of their by Superintendent Jessop, and began his new mours of the improprieties and summoned position.” He insisted that he was at least as job on 1 May 1877. Having to replace the a number of the students and Mr. Irwin to responsible as Irwin because his bedroom, personally popular Archibald Irwin and, at account for their actions. too, was located between the dormitories, and the same time, inheriting the school’s unfor Perhaps because they were still smarting offered his resignation. He noted with obvi tunate reputation cannot have been easy for from Jessop’s criticisms of the previous year ous regret, that the number of students had LeDuc. Just a few weeks later, however, Jessop or because they were determined never again fallen sharply from twenty-six, when the news paid a formal visit and was much impressed to be accused of lack ofcontrol, the majority started to become known, to just fifteen once with the order and tone of the school.2’ The of trustees made a quick and irrevocable de more. His resignation was not accepted. On curriculum offered remained the same, ex cision. They insisted that the girls should have 21 March he wrote once more to Jessop, this cept for a course in Anatomy, Physiology and been locked in their dormitory each night, time at the instruction of the trustees, advis Hygiene taken by two students, how will that Irwin should have known this without ing that he would assume the duties ofteacher ingly one can only wonder. Assistant Super having to be so advised, and that his consid himself until a replacement could be found, intendent Clemitson, too, quickly formed a eration oftheir safety in the event of fire pro and stating that Catherine Schubert, a favourable impression of LeDuc. In July, he vided no excuse for leaving the door Lillooet resident, had agreed temporarily to wrote to Jessop: unlocked. Though Parke and Walker strongly move to Cache Creek at once to act as ma “Since Mr. LeDuc’s arrival the school has disagreed and stated their intention to resign. tron at a rate of $30 per month.’8 Mrs. certainly been well managed. That gentleman Trustees Semlin, Sandford and Barnes de Schubert began her work on the first ofApril. is a thoroughly capable and painstaking manded and received the immediate resig The initial three years of its existence had teacher, and the children have advanced rap nations of Archibald and Eleanor Irwin. been disastrous for the Cache Creek Board idly under his tuition, Out of the school Secretary-Treasurer Semlin was particularly ing School, and the proponents of the board room his management is excellent; he takes critical, advising Jessop that the Irwins and ing school system cannot have been a hearty interest in the welfare of the schol Clemitson had been “sleeping all winter se optimistic as the search began for a new ars, and, while enforcing the regulations of renely oblivious to the scandalous conduct teacher. The school’s reputation was so tar the school with a firm hand, has secured the on the part of the larger pupils.” He further nished that the Catholic Bishop of Victoria affectionate regard of the pupils.”22 alleged that the three had attempted to con used it as the basis for a wide-ranging attack Though he considered Mrs. Schubert not ceal the facts from the trustees. 17 on public secular education in April 1877. to possess “all the qualifications desirable in Clemitson was furious with the trustees for Arguing that “mixed schools are an unmixed a person holding her position,” he praised taking this course of action. He wrote an evil,” Bishop Segher referred to the Cache her for the “greatest interest” she showed in impassioned and lengthy letter to Jessop on Creek school as “a house of ill-fame,” from her duties and in the children, and expressed 20 March defending Irwin against all charges which some parents would receive back their the hope that her personal local popularity

32 B.C. Historical News - Spring 1996 would have a favourable effect on the attend doing and is doing good work.” Perhaps grant to the school, and on 30 September ance figures. mindful of past circumstances, he noted the 1890, the Cache Creek school was closed. For the next six years, LeDuc and Mrs. instruction of “social and moral virtues is not British Columbia’s boarding school experi Schubert brought a stability that enabled the neglected.”24 ment was over. school to remove itself completely from the The provincial election of 1886 generated ‘Within less than two years, the small rural political quarrels and scandals that had substantial interest in the vicinity of Cache school district of Cache Creek was created. plagued its early years. The Colonist moved Creek as former boarding school teacher By 1893, beginning long tenures as trustees on to other issues, and the provincial annual Archibald Irwin challenged Semlin for one for the new school district, were Charles reports on the public schools contained lit of the seats in the Yale constituency; Semlin Augustus Semlin, James Campbell, and tle detail about either the school itself or the had been returned to the legislature in 1882, Phillip Parke. people involved with it. One student later and though he topped the poll in 1886, he Bio Note: Wayne Norton is a Kamloops teacher recalled that their pleasures were simple and could have been denied his seat due to an with a growing interest in local history. This their activities tightly structured. She noted irregularity in his nomination. However, articleflrst appeared in Reflections: Thompson Valley Histories, Plateau Press, 1994 and is that they had “regular hours for everything- Irwin declined to press the point, stating that printed here courtesy ofthe publisbei music, study, getting up, meals and going to ifhe could not claim a seat as a result ofelec Footnotes: Information and assistance provided by Brian bed.” Each evening they sang in the dining tion he would not do so on a point of law.25 Bonenfant, Trevor Schubert, Helen Forster at the room, every Saturday they went climb Semlin would represent the constituency Ashcroft Museum, and the staff at the Kamloops and Museum were much appreciated. ing in the hills.23 until the turn of the century; serving briefly 1. British Colonist, loJanuaty 1873, p.2. Two trustees were finally appointed in as premier from 1898 to 1900. 2. British Colonist, 29 April 1873, p.2. 3. British Colonist, 16 January 1874, p.2. 1878: C.A. Semlin and Charles Pennie would Examination day was traditionally held in 4. British Colonist, 20 April 1873, p.3. retain their positions, alone but without con earlyJune, and 1887 provided no exception. 5. British Colonist, 10 January 1874, p.2. 6. Mary Ba1l “Cache Creek School,” Kamioops troversy; for the next nine years. John Jessop Observed by the two trustees and many of Museum and Archives article #96. retired as Superintendent of Schools in 1878, the residents ofCache Creek, Clemitson con 7. M.S. Wade, “Blazing a Trail,” Vancouver Daily and Clemitson left Cache Creek late in the ducted the classes and the exams. Between Province, 29 January 1921; British Colonist, 15 January 1874, p.3. same year to ranch at Grande Prairie. Also in the exercises, vocal performances were accom 8. British Columbia, Journals ofrhe Legislative 1 878, three girls were the first Cache Creek panied by Mrs. Clemitson on the organ, and Assembly (38 Vic) Third Annual Report on the Public Schools of British Columbia 1873-74, pp. 22-3. students to sit High School entrance exams, some poetry selections were recited. When 9. British Colonist, 18 August 1874, p. 2 and 30 two ofthem successfully. One of the success the exercises were completed, trustee Semlin September 1874, p. 3. ful candidates was Mrs. Schubert’s daughter rose slowly to give the closing address. He 10. British Colonist, 19 February 1875, p.3. 11. British Colonist, 8 June 1875, p.3. Rose. Less than a year later, in a move that noted that during the four years since the 12. British Columbia, Sessional Papers (39 Vic). Fourth may have raised some local eyebrows, arrival ofthe Clemitsons, not one unfavour Annual Report on the Public Schools of British Columbia 1874-75, pp. 97-8. Thomas LeDuc married his star pupil at able criticism of the school had been heard. 13. British Colonist, 26 January 1876, p.3. Cache Creek. Not quite seventeen years of How it must have pleased him to be able to 14. The civil suit was settled in County Court the following year with Jones receiving $276.65. age, Mrs. Rose LeDuc was not considered say that. But this was to be Clemitson’s last 15. British Colonist, 12 April 1876, p. 3. for the position of matron. examination day. Due to ill health, he had 16. British Columbia, Sessional Papers (40 Vic). Fifth In the early summer of 1883, Mrs. submitted his resignation. Semlin expressed Annual Report on the Public Schools of British Columbia 1875-76, pp. 95-99. Schubert made the decision to join her hus his regret about the approaching departure, 17. CA. Semlin to John Jessop, 17 March 1877. See band at Round Prairie (just north of mod and many in the audience were moved to the British Colonist 15 April 1877, p.3. 18. R.M. Clemitson to John Jessop, 20 and 21 March ern-day Armstrong) where he had been tears.26 1877. See the British Colonist, 15 April 1877, p. 3. ranching since 1879, and resigned as matron The days were clearly numbered for the Catherine Schubert had been the only woman to accompany the well-known Overlander party from in June. Thomas and Rose LeDuc also de Cache Creek Boarding school. Though the Manitoba. She gave birth to her daughter Rose, the first cided to leave. At Grande Prairie, Clemitson monthly attendance had reached a respect child of European descent to be born in the interior of (who, incidentally, had married the daugh able average of twenty-five students British Columbia, soon after the party arrived at during Kamloops in late October 1862. Rose Schubert and her ter of the boarding school’s first teacher, 1883-86, the numbers declined steadily sister, Catherine Hernora, moved from Lillooet with Joseph Jones, in May 1879) was persuaded thereafter, partly due to the opening of day their mother to take up residence and become students at the Cache Creek Boarding School in April 1877. to renew his teaching certificate and to re schools in the neighbouring communities of 19. British Colonist, 25 April 1877, p. 2, and 26 April turn to Cache Creek. Robert and Lucy Ashcroft and Kamloops. The building itself 1877, p.2. 20. British Clemitson began their duties as teacher and was in need of repairs which the government Colonist, 15 April 1877, p.2. and 17 April 1877, p.2. matron at the boarding school in August. If seemed reluctant to sanction. Ironically, the 21. British Columbia. Sessional Papers (41 Vic). Sixth there was any awkwardness or bitterness re teacher hired to oversee the final years of the Annual Report on the Public Schools of British Columbia 1876-77, p. 24. maining between Clemitson and Semlin over school was the younger brother ofArchibald 22. R.M. Ciemitson to John Jessop, 24 July 1877. their quarrel about Irwin’s dismissal, evidence Irwin. Joseph Irwin had also earned his first Sessional Papers (41 Vic). Sixth Annual Report on Public Schools of British Columbia 1876-77, p. 65. of it has not survived. teaching certificate at Perth and brought with 23. Mrs. HA. Fraser (net Catherine Hernora The four years during which R.M. him, as his wife, the younger sister of Eleanor Schubert), “Reminiscences of the Old Days,” Okanagan HistoricalJournal 1950, p. 131. Clemitson presided over the school were, like Irwin. The number oftrustees was expanded 24. British Columbia. Sessional Papers (50 Vic). those ofhis immediate predecessor, quiet and to five, Vocal Music and Temperance were Fifteenth Annual Report on the Public Schools of British uneventful. When the Superintendent of added as areas of study, but the decline in Columbia 1885-86, p. 160. 25. Inland Sentinel, 15 July 1886, p.2. Schools arrived on a tour of inspection in numbers of students was irreversible. In 26. Inl.and SentineL 2 July 1887, p.3. 1886, he reported that the “school has been 1889, the government reduced its operating See extra pictures on page ).

33 B.C. Historical News - Spring 1996 A Bit ofthe Beaver by TerryJulian

While reading the late Derek Pethick’s rocks near Prospect Point. It remained there made repeated trips to the wreck ofthe Bea comprehensive book entitled, S.S. Beaver: for four years until the steamer Yosemite ver to remove pieces of copper. In 1894 he The Ship That Saved TheWest, published a slim book on the I came to realize just how impor Beaver in which he describes tant that vessel was in B.C.’s early how the medals were made. history To prove authenticity each This famous paddle-wheel was numbered sequentially. steamer arrived here in 1836 My caller had mentioned from England. It was the first of ‘I that he had to visit a friend in its type to be seen in the Pacific Vancouver and that he would north of San Francisco and it had bring the souvenir to my a clear navigational advantage house. over sailing vessels. In addition, When he arrived I exam according to the then Governor ined the cufflink carefully. It of the Hudson’s Bay Company, had an inscription on one George Simpson, the Beaver ex side: “This copper was taken erted, “an almost superstitious in from the wreck of H.B. Co’s fluence over the savages.., she was S.S. Beaver, the first steamer The steamer Beaver in Victoria harbour in 1870 after eight the terror, whether present or years under Admirahy cbarter Her superstructure was greatly enlarged for this spell of survey and on the Pacific.” The other side absent, of every tribe on the hydrographic work. contained a picture of the coast.” Courtesy Vancouver Public Library #4208 shipwreck with, “Built 1835” That British Columbia joined underneath and “Wreck ofthe Canada and not the United States is due in passed by at high tide, dislodged the Beaver, H.B.Co’s S.S. Beaver, Vancouver, B.C.,” part to the Beaver. By assisting the Hudson’s and the latter went to the bottom ofthe nar around the outside. On the edge was a Bay Company to triumph over American rows. stamped number “840.” competition, this vessel helped to sustain Pethick’s book shows pictures of parts of I asked how he had obtained it. The story Britain’s political control. the Beaver, which were removed before the was that his wife had been to a flea market The Beaver was also involved in a number hulk sunk or were brought up by divers later. in Gibsons and purchased a tin full of but of historic events: As I perused these photographs, I wondered tons for fifty cents. Among the buttons was In 1837 James Douglas landed from the if any pieces were around today, other than the Beaver cufflink. steamboat at Clover Point near the site of in museums. Subsequently, I placed four-day What are you asking for it? I queried. Victoria to explore the area as a possible trad classified ads in the Vancouver Sun and “I haven’t the foggiest notion,” he replied. ing post. Douglas returned in the Beaver to Province under the “Antiques” category. “But as I am from Saskatchewan I am not build Fort Victoria in 1843. They read, “Wanted to purchase, any item very interested in it.” The proclamation by Governor Douglas from the historic S.S. Beaver. Please phone Hesitatingly I ventured. “Is twenty-five on November 19, 1858, at Fort Langley, cre 521-0378.” dollars ok?” ating the colony of British Columbia in A lady phoned to say she had the bell of “Fine,” he answered and the purchase was volved the Beaver as Douglas arrived and left the Beaver which I knew to be suspect. The made. on that ship. dining room bell hangs in the Merchants’ And that is how I came to be the proud In 1863 the historic vessel was converted Exchange in Vancouver. The engine room possessor of, “a bit of the Beaver.” to a survey boat and new charts of parts of bell is in the Provincial Archives and the the Pacific Coast were created. Seymour In wheelhouse bell was stolen and never recov Bio Note: TerryJulian is a historian living in let was explored and named after Governor ered. New Westminster. His book, A CAPITAL Frederick Seymour. The ads terminated and I was resigned to CONTROVERS} is an amusing account of Coal was discovered by men from the Bea failure. why the capital was movedfrom New West minster to Victoria. ver at Beaver Harbour located at the north About a week later a man phoned from References: end of Vancouver Island. Pender Island was Gibsons and stated he had a cuff link made Julian Terry. A Capital Controversy: The Story OfWhy named after Captain Pender of the Beaver. of metal from the Beaver. Remembering a The Capital Of British Columbia Was Moved From New Westminster To Victoria. Signature Publishing, This survey work lasted until 1870 when the photograph ofone ofthese in Pethick’s book, New Westminster, B.C., 1994. ship was sold and became a tow-boat and I said I was very interested. These small ob McCain, Charles W. History of the S.S. Beaver. Evans and Hastings, Vancouver, B.C., 1894. cargo vessel. jects or medals were made by Charles Pethick, Derrick. S.S. Beaven The Ship That Saved The In 1888 the S.S. Beaver was wrecked on McCain, a Vancouver book-seller, who had West. Mitchell Press Limited, Vancouver, B.C., 1970.

34 B.C. Historical News - Spring 1996 NEWS & NOTES

Fraser River History John Woodworth Honored Canadian Museum of Flight A retired architect from Kelowna received the Conference - October 1995 Gabrielle Leger Award from Heritage Canada Relocated Registration and a wine and cheese social took Not exactly phoenix nonetheless at the Annual Conference in St. Boniface, a but place at the Yale Museum on October 13. figuratively reborn is the Canadian Museum of Manitoba, on October 14, 1995. John Lectures were given in the historic St. John the Flight which was evicted by Surrey Council Divine church in downtown Yale. John Adams Woodworth has served as Chairman of the from its Crescent Road site. (See the plaintive of the Heritage Branch opened with an Nature Conservancy of Canada, and is in his story in the B.C. Historical News 27:4 Fall 1994 “Overview of Yale History.’ John Green of twenty-third year as a Founding Director of the p. 15). Agassiz related mind-boggling “Sasquatch Nature Trust of British Columbia. He also The enormous job of relocation was success Stories of the Fraser Canyon:’ Ken Favrholt of helped found the Okanagan Similkameen fully achieved by the devoted efforts of a small Kamloops, who is currently doing his Masters Parks Society, and promoted the creation of at UBC on Fur Brigade Routes, spoke on “The number of volunteer members. The museum Cathedral Park, Okanagan Mountain Park and Fur Trade and the Fraser Canyon.” After an has now reopened at its new home, Hangar 3 outdoor luncheon Richard Mackie of Courtenay Kalamalka Lake Park. He is most recently at Langley Airport. This building is easily seen spoke on “The HBCo in Transition” followed by profiled as the driving force to have the from the Fraser Highway; it is at 5333- 216th his colleague Dan Marshall of Cobble Hill who Alexander Mackenzie Voyageur Route (old Street, Langley. presented “The 1858 Fraser River Gold Rush:’ Quebec City to the Pacific, 8600 km) declared Now firmly established after ten years of Cemeteries specialist John Adams conducted a National Legacy by the federal government. uncertainty members are seeking ongoing a tour of the Pioneer Cemetery. An excellent He has been the executive secretary and sponsorships to help ensure a flourishing banquet included entertainment by musicians newsletter editor for the Alexander Mackenzie future. Most of the museum’s historic aircraft and a talk by T.W. Paterson. The delegates Trail Association. (Read his article in the B.C. are on display. Ten of the more precious ones drove to Spuzzum Band Conference Hall on Historical News Vol. 26:2, 1993.) Woodworth are safely under cover. This includes the Sunday morning to learn the history of the Lysander which has not been seen since Expo Spuzzum Band, and hear archaeologist Robin kept us posted on the canoe trek of Lakehead University students tracing Mackenzie’s ‘86. Those indoors are displayed with more Hooper present information on “The Early supporting artifacts than before, plus there is a explorations to Bella Coola where the 200th Chinese in Yale:’ Kathryn Bridge told of “Sarah gift shop with more room and variety of 1993. Crease’s 1880 trip up the Fraser River:’ There Anniversary was celebrated on July 22, souvenirs. This museum is open every day was a guided walk through downtown Yale then Woodworth earned recognition for his lifetime from 10 am to 4 pm. We invite our old friends to many of the participants geared up for an dedication to these local and national heritage examine our new home and urge all to exciting ride on one of three river rafts. They projects, first with the Order of Canada in 1990 encourage new visitors.l stopped at Hill’s Bar and Emory Bar, tried and now with the medal inspired by Mme panning for gold and disembarked at Hope. Submitted by Jack Meadows cii White Rock. Leger, wife of a Governor-General. The first The conference was subscribed to the limit by Gabrielle Leger Award went to former British history buffs from far and wide; every motel a room in Yale, Spuzzum and even some motels Columbian, Pierre Burton. Cranbrook’s Citizen of the in Hope were taken for this weekend. Organiz We add our congratulations to Mr. Woodworth ers are contemplating offering a similar event in for “his genuine and lifelong commitment to Year the future. heritage.., as a dedicated volunteer:’ Marvin “Skip” Fennessy may be remembered as head of the East Kootenay Historical Associations’s team which hosted the 1981 BCHF Conference. Fennessy has been involved in the collection and preservation of local history for many years PLUS being a Elsie Grant Turnbull 1903- Scouter, a volunteer ambulance driver, a coach and I or referee for hockey and baseball, and 1996 sitting at the telephone in the Cancer Society’s Elsie Turnbull passed away on January 7, 1996 office. “Skip” is currently the president of the at Crofton Manor, Vancouver, a few days after East Kootenay Historical Association. A history her 92nd birthday. Elsie was a founder of the book of Cranbrook is being readied for Trail Historical Society and served on the publication. Council of the B.C. Historical Asociation / Fennessy was honored at the Chamber of Federation for many years serving as President Commerce luncheon on January 24, 1996. In in 1955-56. She wrote many books and articles his acceptance speech he urged those in the on B.C. history, almost all describing the West audience to take care of what will be history Kootenay area. Her files of research for these tomorrow; “Always write names, date and place presentations are now housed in the library at on the back of your pictures and store them in college Selkirk in Castlegar. She lived most of a safe place:’ GOOD ADVICE! her married life in Trail, B.C. where her husband worked as a senior engineer for Cominco, and sat as an MLA in Victoria from 1949-1952. Both Mr. & Mrs. Turnbull became Thord “Slim” Fougberg active in the Victoria Historical Society from the Mr. Fougberg was active in heritage preserva John Woodwortb receiving Gabrielle time they moved to Victoria until Doug’s death Leger tion in Pemberton and more recently with the Award from Chairman Sheldon in 1993. Her last book, Ghost Towns and Godfrey at Bowen Island Historians. He passed away on Drowned Towns of West Kootenay, Heritage Heritage Canadds 1995 AGM St. Boaface November 27, 1995. House 1988 is still a best seller. College, Winnipeg (SL Bonface).

35 B.C. Historicai News - Spring 1996 BOOKSHELF Books for review and book reviews should be sent directly to the Book Review Editor: Anne Yandle, 3450 West 20th Avenue, Vancouver, B.C. V6S 1 E4

Prince Ships ofNorthern B.C. Ships of the Sold by the C.N., she entered upon a second rested because his seaman’s papers, (the Grand Trunk Pacflc and Canadian National 20-year career that included a variety of odd equivalent of a passport for a sailor) stated in Railways. By Norman Hacking, Surrey, Her jobs up and down the coast Her last years were correctly that he was a resident of Vancouver, itage House Publishing, 1995. 72 p., illus., in spent tied up at Britannia Beach, where she Washington. On the return voyage he was dex. $11.95 was about to serve as a floating restaurant and placed in the ship’s brig, but on arrival back in This short but important book fills a gap in the hotel. There, as recently as October 1995, she New York he unexpectedly found his cell un history of B.C. coastal shipping. The part played was swept by fire (the enemy of both Prince locked, so he just walked out and made his in it by G.TP and C.N. ships has been strangely Georges) and the history of top-line Canadian way up to Toronto where a place was waiting overlooked. National coastal ships came to an end. for him in the medical school.

Itis in great part a tale of two presidents - Charles The book also deals with the lesser units of the The University of Toronto medical school at Melville Hayes, the driving force behind the fleet, notably the Prince John and the yacht- this time had suddenly been propelled onto the construction of the Grand Trunk, and Sir Henry like Prince Charles, which served the Queen world scene by the discovery and development Thornton, who rejuvenated the Canadian Na Charlottes for twenty years. Fifty illustrations of insulin by Banting, Best, McLeod and Collip. tional in the nineteen-twenties. Both were anx add to the book’s attractiveness, and the preci Hart House had been built as a male bastion ious to take the measure of the C.PR., and the sion with which developments are dated makes of culture by the Massey family in memory of weapons they chose included ships and ho it an invaluable work of reference. their brother who had died in World War I, and tels. Hayes hoped to see Prince Rupert a city W. Kaye Lamb Connaught Laboratories were under way as of 50,000 in short order and he envisaged its Dr. Lamb, an ex-Dominion Archivist and the world leader in the production not only of fine harbour filled with ships, both ocean and Librarian, is former Honorary President of insulin, but of sera and antisera for various com coastal. the B.C. Historical Federation. municable diseases. The Sick Children’s Hos The C.PR. had its Princess fleet; he would have pital had been built and become the a rival fleet of Princes. For his first top-line ships Operating on the Frontier; Memoirs of a fountainhead for much of the scientific paedi

- Prince Rupert and Prince George - he went Pioneer Neurosurgeon. Frank A. Tumbull. Ma atrics in Canada. to the Newcastle yard that had built the C.PR. ‘s deira Park, Capilano Publishing, 1995. 307., Dr. Tumbull graduated from the University famous Princess Victoria. One innovative fea illus. $29.95 cloth; $18.95 paper. (Box 219, of Toronto in 1928, and went to England for a

ture set them apart - they were the first passen Madeira Park, B.C. VON 2H0). year in neurology, an interest fostered by his ger ships of any size to have cruiser sterns. Good medical biographies are rare; autobi physician father in Vancouver with whom he Entering service in 1910, they would sail the ographies even more so. But the memoirs of had spent a couple of summers as an assistant coast with notable success for a generation and Dr. Frank Tumbull will go a long way to modi On return to Toronto for further studies he be more. fying the stereotyped opinion that they are dull. came caught in the crossfire between the medi Hayes was a victim of the Titanic disaster in The title itself is a mild pun, for his career in cal neurologists, and the neurosurgeons. He 1912, but ten years and a war later Thornton neurosurgery began not long after that of was taken on as the first resident in neurosur became president of the Canadian National, Harvey Cushing and of Wilder Penfield, and gery by Professor K.G. McKenzie (1893-1964), which had absorbed the Grand Trunk. Like extended right up till he was 80 years of age. Canada’s first neurosurgeon, completing his Hayes, he was prepared to challenge the C.PR. Coming to Vancouver with his family from training in 1931.

on the two key services - the Vancouver - Vic Bruce County, Ontario, at the age of four, Frank On attempting to set up a specialist neuro

toria - Seattle triangle route, and the northern Tumbull grew up in the Mount Pleasant area surgical service in Vancouver Dr. Tumbull was run to Prince Rupert and Alaska. Three new of Vancouver where his father was a hard work stonewalled by the surgical establishment in the top-line Princes were built (but royalty was for ing and respected medical practitioner. He Vancouver General Hospital, for fear the bet

gotten - the Prince Henry was named after writes of his embarrassment at having to wear ter trained man would take over their “head Thornton himself and the Prince David and home-made clothes during the depression of cases” in the hospital, (not necessarily an act Prince Robert honoured two C.N.R. vice-presi 1911-12, of going to North Vancouver with his of professional jealousy, for these were depres dents). Unfortunately they were the wrong ships brother to get the family Christmas tree, and sion days, and a number of Vancouver doctors at the wrong time. Clumsy in appearance, ex bringing it home via the old North Van Ferry were on social welfare). pensive to run, and hard to handle in narrow and B.C. Electric street car, and at the age of Prior to World War II Dr. Turnbull had joined waters, their chief attraction was luxurious ac fourteen of chauffeuring his father on house the militia, and on the outbreak of hostilities he commodation. They entered service in 1929, calls during the Spanish Flu pandemic in 1918. was mobilized but detained in Vancouver for a just in time to be caught in the depression and He attended UBC when it was still located couple of years until another neurosurgeon the Second World War added to their difficul in the Fairview shacks at the site of the Van arrived, when he was posted to the Canadian ties. They were soon stripped of their fine fit couver General Hospital. For the first two sum army neurosurgical hospital in Basingstoke. tings and reconstructed as armed merchant mers as a university student he was employed However, his wartime career, while technically cruisers for the Canadian Navy. None of them by the Hydrographic Survey near Bella Bella, that of a consultant, is related more in terms of returned to C.N. ownership. and soon made himself indispensable by mas an observer on the battlefields of Europe, the All this time the elderly Prince Rupert and tering the technique of drying out the tempera non-medical aspects of which constitute an in Prince George had carried on, but in 1945 mental magnetos of the primitive outboard teresting story in itself. the Prince George was destroyed by fire. The motors. In his spare time he did a little explor On return to civilian life, Dr. Tumbull became Prince Rupert was withdrawn at age 40 in ing on his own, and discovered a hitherto un an important arbiter in sorting out some of the 1950, but she still managed to cross the Pacific charted inlet now named after him, at the many problems in organized medicine at the to a Japanese shipbreaker under her own northwest corner of Calvert Island, off the time. His lifelong interest in books led him to steam. Meanwhile, in 1942, she had been re mouth of Rivers Inlet become a member of the Vancouver Library placed by a new Prince George, built at Following graduation he literally stowed away Board for several years, and its chairman for of Esquimalt - an attractive ship that sailed suc on a tramp steamer in Vancouver harbour, and two. As one of the more articulate members cessfully until 1975, when some fire damage signed on as a crewman after the ship reached the civic Save our Parklands Association, he to her accommodation forced her retirement U.S. waters. On arrival in the U.K. he was ar was directly involved in preventing many of our

36 B.C. Historical News - Spring 1996 BOOKSH ELF green spaces from falling prey to developers. titled “Mothers of the Millennium”, is Mrs. preme Court of Civil Justice before the colo Dr. Tumbull has accomplished far more in Forbes of Russelltown, Lower Canada, whose nies of British Columbia and Vancouver Island his lifetime than the average professional per energy and achievements are extolled in a let were joined in 1866. son would dream of. We are fortunate indeed ter written by a Presbyterian missionary in A dramatic chapter of the book is devoted that he has left a very readable record of more 1822: “Soon would the millennium come, were to the significant Cranford vs. Wright lawsuit than narrow medical interest each Christian in his place as efficient as this over an unpaid debt in 1862. In this contro Adam C. Waldie, M.D. devoted female.” versial case and in the ensuing appeal, Judge Adam Waldie is a member of the Vancou The impact of the temperance movement Matthew Baillie Begbie is seen as a stubborn ver Historical Society and a retired medical was weak in western garrison towns and fron autocrat who considered his judgment supe practitioner. tier areas such as early Winnipeg and Victoria, rior to the law, ignoring evidence and refusing with their “overwhelmingly male populations to accept the majority verdict of the jury. This Canada Dry: Temperance Crusades before and rudimentary institutional development” unfairness was widely discussed, and public Confederation. By Jan Noel. Toronto: Univer But western historians will find much of inter opinion in the end reinforced reliance upon sity of Toronto Press, 1995. 310 pp. illus., in est in the chapters “The Bottle and the Hud written law and upon lawyers to decipher it. In dex, bibliography. $50.00 cloth; $19.95 paper. son’s Bay Company” and “Red River the author’s words it “revealed that the ethical My mother used to warn me that someday a Crusades”. Bibliography, notes and index are basis on which British Columbians measured Sunday School teacher would urge me to sign excellent the legitimacy of the law’s authority was one a temperance pledge. I should not sign it, she Phyllis Reeve constructed by laissez faire liberalism and rein insisted, because I would almost certainly not Phyllis Reeve is the great-great-great niece forced by the economic and social realities of keep it I did have several opportunities to take of Mrs. Forbes of Russelltown, Lower life in a new colony”. the pledge, but under pressure much less se Canada. By 1866, Judge Begbie had not changed his vere than she experienced in her youth. As far personal interpretation of justice, reversing his as my children were concerned, I do not recall Loo, Tina., Making Law, Order & Authority earlier decision made in the Grouse Creek War, the question ever coming up. So the temper in British Columbia 1821.1871. Toronto, Uni before his appointment to the Chancery Court. ance pledge is history, and surprisingly fasci versity of Toronto Press, 1994. 239 p. $45.00 Great indignation at his arbitrary rulings showed nating history at that cloth, $18.95 paper. that community sentiment could not be ig Early nineteenth century society was unim This well-researched book presents the the nored, however, as British Columbians now aginably soggy. Workers, from fishermen to sis that the discourse of liberalism was central demanded equality of treatment before the law. housebuilders were routinely paid in raw rum, to the development of law, order and author In her last chapter, Ms. Loo argues that this and drinking on the job was common, even ity in nineteenth century British Columbia. In liberal notion of law was central to the thinking encouraged. Families, including small children, seven chapters, Ms. Loo gives the reader the of British Columbian settlers. This was demon drank spirits at every meal, and used them to details important in the maturation of British strated in the “Bute Island Massacre” of 1864. treat every ailment Because of its time frame, Columbia’s legal structure. Each is a story com A road from Bute Inlet near Bella Bella to the Jan Noel’s book says little about British Co plete in itself, but transitions are made easily Cariboo gold mines was being built by an en lumbia, but makes readers with an interest in and her accounts of individual incidents merge trepreneur named Waddington. Eighteen white forestry cringe at the picture of New Brunswick smoothly into a unified whole. workmen were murdered by members of the lumbermen felling trees after a liquid breakfast Ms. Loo commences her book with a long Chilcotin tribe, who had been packing supplies Noel focuses less on the reformed than on and somewhat pedantic introduction which for them. There is much ambiguity about the the reformers: lower Canadian farm folk and may prove intimidating to some readers. Once circumstances of the Chilcotins’ surrender and born-again businessmen, American-born Pres past that, however, her work gains color and subsequent execution by hanging. One news byterian merchants influenced by millennialist vitality, and she proves a fine historian whose paper, the British Columbian, stated that the theology; middle-class reformers and radical research is immaculate and whose choice of affair “has afforded the Government an excel mechanics embracing a self-help philosophy. quotations from varied contemporary sources lent opportunity of most forcibly illustrating to The movement was both class-based and reli is both apt and enlightening. the Indians the great superiority of English law.” gious; the “conjunction of a vigorous evangeli In the beginning, a rudimentary system of Ms. Loo points out that this illustration, leading cal movement with the growth of a class whose laws was created by fur traders. The “Club to a clash between two different conceptions prospects were threatened by widespread Law” of the Hudson’s Bay Company sup of justice in liberal societies, has yet to be re drunkenness.” At mid-century the centre of the pressed any activities threatening to the com solved in British Columbia. movement shifted from Montreal, where the pany’s welfare. In this hierarchical system, the In the book’s concluding sentences, Ms. Loo Temperance Society’s uncompromising evan company’s chief officers had complete author says we must “come to understand how change gelism was alienating even some Methodist ity over the territory. After Vancouver Island’s comes about and the terms under which it is clergy, to Toronto, which would soon become promotion to colony in 1845, independent possible, but also keep historical agents - peo

“the Good”, with an emphasis on community immigrants refused to submit to the laws pro ple - in the foreground of making it”. In her progress rather than religion. In French Canada posed by these private interests. Petitions for book, the author has done precisely that the movement became an important part of a the revocation of many of these laws were sent John S. Keenlyside Catholic revival: “The triumph of temperance to the British Colonial Office, and years of legal John Keenlyside is a Vancouver Invest was not expected (as some Protestants be wrangling ensued. ment Counsellor; interested in the legal lieved) to usher in the end of the world but, The 1858 gold rush diverted the attention of history of B.C. rather, the birth of a mighty Catholic nation.” the colonial government as newcomers poured In the light of current events in Quebec, it is into the Fraser Valley seeking their fortunes. A Just East of Sundown; the Queen Char. important to be reminded that the leaders in series of inferior courts were set up, conducted lotte Islands. Charles Lillard. Victoria, the 1830s were radical reformist politicians; that by resident stipendiary magistrates who were Horsdal & Schubart, 1995. 180 p., illus. only in the next decade did the compelling in often totally without legal training. Ms. Loo map. $14.95 fluence move to the ultramontane clergy. traces the development of these courts (which In the 1989 anthology of writings on the This is a lively book, foil of characters and dealt with a multitude of civil suits over land Queen Charlotte Islands, The Ghostland camp meetings, glimpses of a society on the ownership and mining claims), and the even People, editor Charles Lillard noted the move. My favourite character, in a chapter en- tual creation of small debts courts and of a Su absence of a short, readable history of the

37 B.C. Historical News - Spring 1996 BOO KSH ELF

Islands. Six years later he had ably filled this thematic chapters which deal with such topics This book has very readable footnotes. An gap with Just East of Sundown. as businesses (including 28 hotels), sports, example: “Private schools were a secondary To write about the history of the Queen Char schools, churches, medical services, mines, industry on the south coast of England after lottes is to write about the Haida, and Lillard’s miners (strike to establish the eight hour work 1850. Directories for the 1880s and 1890s listed book appropriately devotes significant space to day), mills, transportation (horses, railways and 125 private schools at Brighton, 70 at Hast their origins and pre-European settlement his tramways), hydro-electric power, Japanese in ings, 67 at Eastbourne, and 50 at Bourne tory. It is not until page 101 of the 158 pages ternment (1942-44). The fire of 1900, recon mouth. See The English Seaside Resort. of text that the 1863 smallpox epidemic is dis struction and the difficulties with the main street p.97” cussed. The book concludes appropriately with flume for Carpenter and Sandon Creeks are Winifred’s brother and a young uncle came the declaration of the South Moresby/Gwaii well described. Historic photographs and vari to Pender Island to establish homes. Leonard’s

Haanas National Park and the return of the sea ous illustrations appear on almost every page - wife followed as soon as a log cabin was ready otter to Island waters. they arewell selected and complement the text. to receive her. An invitation, accompanied by Lillard notes that as the sea otter is return The 21.5 x 28cm. (8.5 xli in.) format, use of sketches and photographs, enticed Winifred ing, so Island development is following a circu off-white paper and reproduction of the pho and her sister Mabel to the Gulf Islands in 1896. lar path. Non-Haida settlement has always been tos in sepia tone are additional ingredients that What these young ladies experienced during tenuous on the Islands and this is still very much make this a superb publication. that visit inspired them to tidy up affairs in Eng the case with shrinking employment opportu Veronika Pellowski, a native of Glasgow, land and return as immigrants in 1897. nities due to less logging, the reduced military Scotland, and a lawyer by profession, after liv Descriptions of life on the Gulf Islands from presence, and declining salmon stocks jeopard ing in a variety of countries, eventually found a 1897-1920 introduce the reader to other pio izing the sports fisher. The potential damage to less stressful way of life in Sandon. It is obvious neers. Among those described are three who the fragile ecosystem, combined with the Is from this book that she has become a dedi have been profiled in Peter Murray’s recent lands’ remoteness, ensures that tourism is un cated Sandon resident and a keen promoter book Home from the Hill; Warburton Pike, likely to ever maintain, let alone increase of its future tourist potential. In fact, her enthu Clive Phillips Wolley, and Martin Grainger. population levels. The Haida remain and “soon siasm is evidenced in her frequent use of the There are episodes telling of travel by a small some Island areas will be as wild as they were exclamation mark (this reviewer tallied at least boat in fair weather and foul, caring for a cow 100 years ago.” 115!). and chickens, social gatherings, church begin Just East of Sundown is a readable and A series of current photographs (1992) and nings, and a friendly look at life in those early useful primer, including a seven page bibliog descriptions of these Sandon landmarks, a years. Elliott’s book does not drop you where raphy, a listing of selected place names, and “Chronological History in a Nutshell” and an Winifred’s original writing ceases; she has a 24 small black and white photographs. index are useful additions to the main story. short postscript which summarizes what hap I read Just East of Sundown while visiting However, the bibliography is a bit weak and pened to the principal figures later. All in all, the Islands. A well-read Islander described the lacks complete imprint information (place of this book is certainly a Good Read. book to me as “written in a library, but none publication, publisher and date) which could Naomi Miller the worse for it.” We should be thankful that be frustrating for someone wishing to do fur Charles Lillard logged all those library hours. ther reading. Nevertheless, this book is very Scoundrels, Dreamers and Second Sons. Paul Whitney good value for the money and it is recom Mark Zuehlke. Victoria, Whitecap Books, 1994. Paul Whitney is Director of the Bumaby mended to those who are interested in the his 211 p., illus. $14.95 Public Library tory of one of the province’s more colourful What a welcome change this book is from mining communities. the oft dreary tales of hardship and inconse Silver, Lead & Hell: the story of Sandon. Ron Welwood quential details that clog the pages of “history Veronika Pellovski, Sandon, B.C., Prospectors’ Ron Welwood, a resident of Nelson, is books”. Pick Publishing, 1992. 144 p., illus. $16.95 First Vice-President of the B.C. Historical For the title, “Scoundrels, Dreamers and (Available from publisher, Box 369, New Federation. Second Sons” tells all. This informative and Denver, B.C. VOG iSO) entertaining book of the British remittance men In September 1891, Eli Carpenter and Jack Winifred Grey: A Gentlewoman’s in the Canadian West is a first, but could well Seaton accidentally discovered an outcrop of Remembrances of Life in England and the not be the last, for most Canadians past forty high grade galena ore high in the mountains Gulf Islands of British Columbia 1871-1910. or fifty are curious about them, a curiosity above the future site of Sandon. Within a short Edited by Marie Elliott, Gulf Islands Press, brought about by personal memories or by sto time it seemed that almost the entire region was Friesen Printers, 216 p., $14.95. ries told by older relatives. staked with mineral claims and land settlements This book is based on a handwritten manu The book begins with a revealing explana in what became known as the Silvery Slocan. script prepared by Winifred (Higgs) Grey for tion of what led to the coming of these indi Before the beginning of the twentieth century, the benefit of her own family. Marie Elliott has viduals: Up to the Crimean War there was an Sandon had become its unofficial capital with conducted extensive research to ascertain the iron-clad acceptance of the ‘aristocratic mo a population of around 5,000 inhabitants. details pertaining to the schools, businesses, nopoly of power and place in both the military The title of this book is extracted from a quo church and homes of the Spalding and Higgs and civil service’ in class-conscious Britain. The tation by the colourful and prolific newspaper families in England. She steeped herself in stud wealthy were able to purchase commissions in man, “Colonel” Robert Thornton Lowery ies of etiquette and dress in the Victorian era to the military for sons, regardless of qualifications (“Silver, lead and hell are raised in the Slocan be able to interpret Winifred’s notes where or ability, but this doorway was closed formally and unless you can take a hand in producing necessary. Winifred’s daughter on South in 1871. Similarly, by the early 1870’s, “...most these articles your services are not required.”) Pender Island has been a close family friend to civil-service openings were filled by open com In fact, Lowery’s Paystreak along with the editor/author and several of her cousins petition The other acceptable careers for Sandon’s three other newspapers, The Min shared their memories and family archives. upper-crust men, church, law, and medicine, ing Review, The Mining Standard and The The story of a girl growing up in England in were similarly cut off, as the schools were for Standard were great sources of information for the 1880s and ‘90s is well told, recording sev the first time being made available to anyone the author. eral moves by her family and of education given who had ability and the financial resources. Silver, Lead and Hell is an excellent social in fits and starts in private schools which were Why did the ‘upper class’ not adapt to these history of Sandon. It is divided into twenty-two struggling to become established. changing conditions? - The ingrained class sys

38 B.C. Historical News - Spring 1996 BOOKSHELF

tem meant that this possibility was not consid state representative of that which obtained in The Sicamous & the Naramata - Steam ered. Young men who were products of the 1929, midway in her long and varied career. boat Days in the Okanagan. Robert D. public school system, taught from birth they A reception centre has been built adjacent Turner. Victoria, Sono Nis Press, 1995. 72 p., were superior beings, were unable or unwilling to the beached Moyle and laudable attempts illus. $13.95. to accept that change had come. And those are made through lectures and video presen In 1984, Victoria’s Sono Nis press published public schools taught little or nothing that was tations to provide visitors with an interpreta Robert Turner’s Sternwheelers and Steam of practical value. tion of steamboating days before they proceed Tugs, a profusely illustrated account of the The two things all of these men appear to to tour the boat. Robert Turner’s The S.S. major steamboat fleets which plied the Colum have had in common, other than privileged Moyie is prominently featured among the lit bia River Waterways in B.C. ‘s Okanagan and birth, was a consummate belief in their own erature for sale at the reception centre and one West Kootenay Districts. Over the ensuing dec superiority, a belief that remained unshaken presumes that the primary purpose of the book ade, heritage efforts to restore and preserve even after almost unbelievable episodes show is to reinforce the impressions gained by visi existing remnants of those fleets have prompted ing their inadequacy, and their ability to pur tors to the vessel. Turner to publish smaller scale works focusing sue a life of constant enjoyment Because of The author of a brief interpretative book of on specific vessels undergoing restoration and the public school training they had an obses this nature has to exert considerable discrimi preservation. sion with games, and drinking, hunting, and nation in selecting his material. Sufficient back Increasing awareness of heritage values other leisure pursuits were a lifestyle. Cricket, ground on the working life of the vessel has to spurred the formation in 1988 of the S.S. polo, tennis, and the other sports played in be provided without embroiling the reader in a Sicamous Restoration Society, centred in Britain were played here with boundless en full-fledged treatise on the history of steam trans Penticton, B.C. The retired C.PR. Okanagan thusiasm. portation in the Kootenay District Sufficient Lake stemwheeler Sicamous had been a fea Perhaps one of the greatest accomplishments detail on the design of the hull and machinery ture of Penticton’s waterfront since 1951, but of these men was the amount of hilarity they has to be provided for steamboat enthusiasts had in retirement been subjected to consider caused wherever they went For the lives of without immersing the more casual reader in a able dismantling and alteration to suit various many of the lesser mortals the remittance men bath of technical jargon. Within the confines of retirement uses and abuses. Notwithstanding regarded as ‘Colonials’ were much enriched this type of book Turner examines the different her steel hull, she was in a sad state of deterio and made more bearable by the oft-repeated roles played by the versatile Moyie over nearly ration by 1988. Since that time a combination stories, the many laughs, brought about by ‘re six decades of service life. She served as a pas of local initiative and government funding has mittance’ antics. Small wonder, for they arrived senger/express steamer, an excursion boat, a resulted not only in steps being taken to re complete with monocles, tweeds, breeches, tramp freighter and a tug barging railway cars store the Sicamous to her trim 1937 condi tennis rackets, polo mallets, straw hats, and highway vehicles. The book is liberally il tion but also to bring the retired C.PR. tug tuxedoes... Who could not laugh at stories of lustrated and the vessel is shown at work in her Naramata, rusting away at her berth in men buying farms, planting orchards, living on various capacities throughout her career. Okanagan Landing, down to Penticton to join ranches, when they had neither the knowledge Should a second edition of this book be con the Sicamous as part of a Penticton waterfront to run them, nor the desire to do so? templated, I would urge the author to jettison museum complex. Restoration continues on The book ranges over Western Canada, with some of the copious pictures of excursion both vessels, so that renewed visits to observe accounts of Cannington Manor in Saskatch crowds and to make the following use of the developments are warranted from time to time. ewan, Walhachin here in B.C., ranches in Al space thereby provided: Robert Turner’s The Sicamous & The berta, and many others. In our own Okanagan, (a) include a photograph of the Arrow Lakes Naramata appears to have been written pri the communities founded and peopled by re stemwheeler Lytton taken in the early days of marily to assist with the interpretation of the mittance types often resulted in lasting towns; Kootenay steamboating. The prow of the museum’s exhibits, but the work also deals in in other cases, as that of Cannington Manor Lytton is nosed up on the shore amid a welter lucid fashion with eight decades of Canadian nothing survived and all ended up as a farm of cordwood, sacked ore and pack horses. Such Pacific Railway steamboating on Okanagan er’s wheatfield. an illustration goes far in telling the story of how Lake in sufficient detail to satisfy all but the most Any Canadian (or ‘Colonial’ in the remittance dependent the burgeoning mining economy of fanatic steamboat enthusiast Services on the men’s view) who has ever wondered about the Kootenay District was on the sternwheeler Lake embraced passenger and express, mixed these men should read this book The answers in the days before railways, highways and in passenger and way freight, and barging of rail- to the many questions these “Scoundrels, ternal combustion vehicles were part of the pic car barges to and from railway transfer points. Dreamers and Second Sons” raised are all ture. Those unable to visit the Penticton exhibits will here. (b) include accounts of the two narrow es find considerable solace in perusing Turner’s Kelsey McLeod capes from foundering experienced by the amply illustrated book The passages dealing Kelsey McLeod is a member of the Moyie. The first occurred early in her career with the indignities visited upon the Sicamous Vancouver Historical Society. when she wandered off course in the heavy over her years of retirement are particularly en wind and sleet of a November night and grossing as they illuminate shifting attitudes to The S.S. Moyie - Me.nories of the Oldest grounded on the remote, unfriendly southwest wards B.C. ‘s heritage. Turner, as ever, is Sternwheeler. Robert D. Turner, Victoria, shore of Kootenay Lake. The second occurred assiduous in providing the steamboat lovers Sono Nis Press, 1991. 60 p., illus. $11.95. late in her career when she broke her with technical details on the hull construction The Kootenay Lake settlement of Kaslo en stemwheel shaft and wallowed helplessly in a and propulsive equipment of the Naramata joys one of the most spectacular settings in the storm with no other suitable vessel nearby to and the Sicamous. whole of beautiful British Columbia. The come to her rescue. It seems ironic that a ves The Canadian Pacific Railway seems to have stemwheel steamboat Moyie, which worked sel which had come so often to the assistance been relatively niggardly in providing steam diligently on Kootenay Lake for the Canadian of other members of the Kootenay Lake fleet boat service on Okanagan Lake at the turn of Pacific Railway from 1898 to 1957, has since in distress should be left in the lurch in this fash the century. The 1898 collapse of the project her retirement been beached as a museum on ion. Such accounts would provide a missing to build a railway from the head of navigation Kaslo’s enticing waterfront. Local initiative and flavour of the hazards of steamboating on on the Stikine River through the Cassiar to the government funding have combined in recent Kootenay Lake’s treacherous waters. Teslin headwaters of the Yukon waterway left years to preserve the vessel from the ravages EL. Affleck the C.P.R. with a staggering dozen of time. She is gradually being restored to a sternwheelers in various stages of construction

39 B.C. Historical News - Spring 1996 BOOKSHELF for service on the Stikine. Frames for two of these vessels were diverted to the Kootenay District for assembly. Burgeoning traffic at this time on the wagon roads out of Penticton to the mining camps in South Okanagan and Similkameen would seem to have merited ship ping frames from another of these vessels to Okanagan Landing to ease the burden on the company’s stemwheeler Aberdeen, which was then the major carrier between the railhead at Okanagan Landing and Penticton, but no such steps were undertaken. On the other hand the C.PR. continued to provide first class passen ger and express service on Okanagan Lake throughout the early years of the Great Depres sion long after highway development had dras tically reduced demand for it The barging of railway cars to railhead at Kelowna and Penticton, particularly during the fruit season, remained active in post World War II years, long after one would have suspected that the truck ing industry would have brought it to a halt. These are but a few of many conundrums in 20th century railway and steamboat transpor tation policy in Southern British Columbia which await scholarly rumination. In the mean time we shall be grateful for the generous Cache Creek Boarding SchooL Thefirst section was built in 1873/74 and enlarged in 1875. The school closed amount of information which Turner has pro September30, 1890. vided us in The Sicamous & The Naramata. Courtesy Kamloops Museum & Archives #2547a A gift of the book to anyone who has left a part of his heart in the Okanagan Valley is bound to evoke nostalgia from the recipient EL. Affleck Affleck is author of Stemwheelers, Sandbars and Switchbacks (1973) and other shorter works involving pioneer vessels plying B.C. waterways.

Also Noted: The Valencia Tragedy. Michael C. Neitzel. Surrey, Heritage House, 1995. 112 p., illus., map. $11.95. “On Vancouver Island’s west coast in 1906 unfolded a story of cowardice and betrayal that remains the ‘most shameful incident in Canadian Maritime History”. Okanagan Irrigation: the early years. Wayne Wilson. Kelowna, Kelowna Centennial Museum Assodation, 470 Queensway Avenue, Kelowna BC V1Y 657. Kelowna Museum Se ries 1. 13 p., illus. $2.95. British Columbia Crate Labels. Wayne Wilson. Kelowna, Kelowna Centennial Mu seum Association. Kelowna Museum Series 2. 14 p., illus. $2.95. Carl E Gould; a life in architecture and the arts. I William Booth and William H. Wilson. Seattle, Univ. of Washington Press, 1995. 227 p., illus. $40. (Gould was one of the major shapers of modern Seattle.) The New Loyalist Index. Vol. II. Paul J. Bunnell. Collection of over 2000 names of colo nists who sided with the British during the War for Independence. $20. Heritage Books, Inc. 1540-E Pointer Ridge P1., Ste 301, Bowie, MD 20716. Catherine Schuberi matron ofthe Cache Creek Provincial Boarding Schoolfrom 1877 to 1883. Courtesy Kamloops Museum and Archives

40 B.C. Historical News - Spring 1996 THE BRITISH COLUMBIA HISTORICAL FEDERATION

HONORARY PATRON

His Honour, the Honorable Garde B. Gardom Q.C.

HONORARY PRESIDENT

OFFICERS

President Alice Glanville Box 746, Grand Forks, B.C. VOH1HO 442-3865

First Vice President Ron Weiwood RR #1, S22 Cl, Nelson, B.C. Vi L 5P4 825-4743

Second Vice President Marjorie Leffler 516 WillowSt, Parksville, B.C. V9P 1A4 248-3431

Secretary T. Don Sale 262 Juniper St, Nanaimo, B.C. V9S 1X4 753-2067

Recording Secretary R. George Thomson 249 Goodyear Rd., Qualicum Beach, B.C.V9K 2A3 757-2093

Treasurer Doris J. May 2943 Shelbourne St, Victoria, B.C. V8R 4M7 595-0236

Members at Large Wayne Desrochers 8811 — 152nd St, Surrey, B.C. V3R 4E5 581-0286 Melva Dwyer 2976 McBride St, Surrey, B.C. V4A 3G6 535-3041

Past President Myrtle Haslam Box 10, Cowichan Bay, B.C. VOR 1NO 748-8397

COMMITTEE OFFICERS

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BC HISTORICAL FEDERATION WRITING COMPETITION

The British Columbia Historical Federation invites submissions of books for the fourteenth annual Com petition for Writers of B.C. History. Any book presenting any facet of B.C. history, published in 1996, is eligible. This may be a community history, biography, record of a project or an organization, or personal recollections giving a glimpse of the past. Names, dates and places, with relevant maps or pictures, turn a story into “history.” The judges are looking for quality presentations, especially if fresh material is included, with appropriate illustrations, careful proofreading, an adequate index, table of contents and bibliography, from first-time writ ers as well as established authors. NOTE: Reprints or revisions of books are not eligible. The Lieutenant Governor’s Medal for Historical Writing will be awarded to an individual writer whose book contributes significantly to the orded history of British Columbia. Other awards will be made as recoimnended by the judges to valuable books prepared by groups or individuals. All entries receive considerable publicity. Winners will receive a Certificate of Merit, a monetary award and an invitation to the BCHF annual conference to be held in Nelson in June 1997. SUBMISSION REQUIREMENTS: All books must have been published in 1996 and should be submit ted as soon as possible after publication. Two copiesof each book should be submitted. Books entered be come property of the B.C. Historical Federation. Please state name, address and telephone number of sender, the selling price of all editions of the book, and the address from which it may be purchased, if the reader has to shop by mail. If by mail, please include shipping and handling costs if applicable. SEND TO: B.C. Historical Writing Competition do R McGeachie 7953 Rosewood Street, Bumaby, B.C. V5E 2H4 DEADLINE: December 31, 1996.

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There is also an award for the Best Article published each year in the B. C.Historical News magazine. This is directed to amateur historians or students. Articles should be no more than 3,000 words, typed double spaced, accompanied by photographs if available, and substantiated with footnotes where applicable. (Pho tographs should be accompanied with information re: the source, permission to publish, archival number if applicable, and a brief caption. Photos will be returned to the writer.) Word-processed manuscripts may also be submitted on 3.5” disk (DOS or Macintosh) but please include a hard copy as well. Please send articles directly to: The Editor, B.C. Historical News, P.O. Box 105,Wasa, B.C. VOB2K0