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MEMBER Lewis, Society, Mrs. subscribers 155, P.O. Box addresses Box Box Box Box Mrs. 111, Box show 405, Susan P.O. 6349 Society, c/o Society, Steele, Box Society, Zane P.O. Archives P.O. 1984-85 Museum c/o P.O. P.O. Box Historical Society, Museum c/o Box Society, P.O. whose secretaries c/o & Government Society, Historical member Fort & Society, c/o P.O. Historical should Association, year P.O. its Society, P.O. Society, Cultural 207 their 31 Museum editor Society, Society, Branch, Park, Museum Society, Society, for Pioneer Museum the 4. Society, Society, Historical and & and Historical Saanich the Branch, Mining, Historical Museum Historical and for Horizons Historical Society, Society, Historical Island of Rock page and Historical October Historical District Valley North Heritage 2TO Historical 2E9 Historical Historical at Historical New District Beach dues & Island Groups Historical Society, Centennial societies Historical Victoria Gulf society Historical story Historical Historical District as & 69 White and Slocal V7L VOR Shore — — Historical Vancouver Museum Steele Historical of Hallmark Society, Kootenay treasurer their B.C. B.C. Cover Report Member the Member for societies: Nanaimo Fort B.C. City Affiliated The BCHF District Alberni Atlin BCHF Ladysmith East Burnaby Chemainus Nanooa Cowichan Golden Lantzville Nanaimo North Princeton Galiano Qualicum Saltspring Vancouver Sidney Silvery West Trail Valemount BRITISH COLUMBIA Volume 19 No. 3 1986 HISTORICAL NEWS

Features of Man was Captain Vancouver What Manner 5 by W. Kaye Lamb of Captain Vancouver” “The Landing 7 Leonard C. McCann by 9 Writing Competition Town Our 10 Compiled by Esther Birney from the Lower Valley—A Personal View Vancouver 13 by Morag Maclachian Indian Settlement in the Vancouver Area Early Squamish 14 by Helen Akrigg Gran ville Street “Aristocratic” 15 by Robert A.J. McDonald That Saved Vancouver The Ship 17 David Wynne Griffiths by 19 B.C. Studies Conference lmredy—Vancouver Sculptor Elek 20 by Esther Birney Fahrn i—The Making of a Pacifist Mildred 21 by Irene Howard His Opera House, and Other Frontier Ventures Frank Hart, 24 By Doug McCallum Notes News and 30 History and the Japanese Canadian Citizen National Historic Park 30 Fort Langley 30 Sooke Story on Screen

Bookshelf 31 in Print Vancouver 32 Short Stories, ed. Carole Carson; review by Brenda McGillveray Vancouver 32 Maclure, Architect, by Janet Bingham; review by Susan Pookey Samuel 33 Entries in the 1985 B.C. Historical Writing Competition New 34 Vancouver Centennial Bibliography

Second-class mail registration number 4447. Published fall, winter, spring, and summer by the British Columbia Historical Federation P 0 Box 35326 S Vancouver, B.C. V6M 4G5. Our Charitable Donations number is 0404681-52-27. Printed by Dynaprint, Victoria,

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News Historical B.C. the of issue the next for Deadline

ISSUE NEXT

best.

my I the did the reader, and forgive errors omissions.

you, to To my those who thanks; grateful responded

task.

a formidable is theirs others; to motivate undertook

who editors all appreciate to I learned have Finally,

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Archives.

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reader, drectIy spoke

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(1878-1970)

editor

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in which

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of the 1950, 18, Jack’s

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in

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ever first write one does How with Matthews J.S. Major a relaxed cover Our portrays

Cover Story Editorial journal: “The English commandant was no less humane toward the Indians than the Spanish had W. Kaye Lamb been. Both left an example of goodness among them. ‘Cococoa [like] Quadra,’ they say, ‘Cococoa Vancouver,’ when they want to praise the good treatment of any of the captains who command the other ships.” What Manner of Away from Nootka, Vancouver was much less inclined to trust the Indians, and with good reason. He Man was Captain was much disturbed by the fact that almost everywhere they had secured guns from trading ships, and they offered a constant threat to the ships’ boats Vancouver? (the largest of which was no more than twenty-four feet in length) which did most of the detailed examination of the innumerable inlets along the coast. Indeed, Vancouver was convinced that his Very few of the half million words comprising Captain survey was being carried out just in time — even one Vancouver’s published journal are devoted to year later he thought the dangers might have become anything of a personal nature, but in spite of this it tells too great. Even as it was, he was often worried about us a good deal about the man himself. To begin with, the safety of boats. It so happened that those that both the journal and his letters show a literary carried out the last survey were much overdue in competence that is remarkable in a man who went to returning to the ships, and as the days slipped by sea at the age of fourteen and had no opportunity for Vancouver’s anxiety for their safety became acute. He any formal education thereafter. The journal is much feared that he “had at length hazarded our little boats, more than the “plain unvarnished relation” that with the small force they were able to take for their Vancouver warned his readers to expect; it is a highly defence, once too often.” competent narrative, as detailed and conscientious as This would tend to contradict the charges that the survey it chronicles. Vancouver was brutal, tyrranical, bad tempered and Now and then quirks and fancies appear briefly. In given to violent language. There is some evidence to his tastes for scenery Vancouver was a man of his time; support the charges, but it is only fair to remember he preferred his landscapes trim and tidy. Thus when two circumstances. First, his health was failing; his he climbed to the top of Protection Island he was irritability can be ascribed to the myxoedema from delighted to find a landscape “almost as enchantingly which he was suffering to an ever increasing degree, beautiful as the most elegantly finished pleasure and which would cause his death only two and a half grounds of Europe.” But the rugged sceneryalong the years after he returned to England. Secondly, he was Northwest Coast, which now attracts tourists by the experiencing for the first time what has been well tens of thousands, had no appeal. As his great survey described as the loneliness of command: he was far was ending he informed the Admiralty that his journal from any superior authority to whom he could appeal for the season was “mostly a repetition of describing for support in case of need. Discipline was of crucial the dreary and inhospitable countries, similar to what importance. True, floggings in the Discovery were has already been noticed in my journal of our relatively severe and frequent, but it is also true that excursion during the summer of last year.” the crew included a hard core of offenders who were It is more difficult to judge whether Vancouver punished time after time. And punishments in the subscribed to the concept of the “noble savage” that tender Chatham, commanded by Peter Puget, were was current in his day. Prudence dictated that he equally severe. should try and establish good relations with native There is no doubt that Vancouver indulged in the chiefs, but in some instances, notably in the case of baiting of midshipmen, which was then common in Pomurrey in Tahiti, Kamekameha in Hawaii, and the Navy. Possibly it was regarded as a way to toughen Maquinna at Nootka, warm personal friendships up the youngsters. We are told that none of the dozen developed. One of Vancouver’s biographers com middies in the Discovery would dine with Vancouver ments upon his “uncanny ability for sifting out the except one who was the son of the agent in London various ranks and relative importance of the native who looked after his affairs in his absence. One chiefs, and treating each with the deference due to his common punishment was to send a midshipman to rank and position.” Nootka was the only place on the the masthead and neglect to order him down for a British Columbia coast where Vancouver tarried for lengthy period. Restrictions on shore leave, and on any length of time, and he was fortunate there to be visiting between the ships, even after a long spell at able to build upon the good relations that Quadra, his sea, were naturally resented. But there is another side Spanish counterpart, had established with Chief to this coin. Not all the midshipmen were models of Maquinna and the Indians. Mozino, the Spanish good behaviour. Those in the Discovery included botanist who was at Nootka in 1792, commented in his Thomas Pitt, who in the course of the voyage

British Columbia Historical News Page 5 succeeded to the title of Baron Camelford, a likeable Menzies to bring back rare plants for the Royal but undisciplined youth who irritated Vancouver Botanic Gardens at Kew. Bad luck and bad weather almost beyond endurance. In the end Vancouver cost Menzies many specimens, but the most seized an opportunity in Hawaii to discharge him and exasperating loss came when the Discovery was within send him back to England. Later young Pitt was to six weeks of the end of her very long voyage. Without make much of this, but it is seldom noticed that Puget warning Menzies, Vancouver removed the seaman suffered from a like affliction in the Chatham in the who was supposed to guard the greenhouse, it was person of midshipman Augustus Boyd Grant, a most left uncovered, a heavy downpour of rain happened unsavoury youth. Puget was happy to send him along, and most of the delicate specimens in it were packing, along with Thomas Pitt. ruined. Understandably upset, Menzies complained The most critical comments about Vancouver were to Vancouver, who promptly accused him of having made by another midshipman, Thomas Manby. treated him with “great contempt and disrespect” and Writing to a personal friend from Monterey in January placed him under arrest. The matter was settled 1793, he charged that the Captain had “grown amicably after Vancouver and Menzies reached Haughty, Proud, Mean and Insolent” which had “kept London, and in spite of this and other lesser incidents, himself and Officers in a continual state of wrangling Menzies recognized Vancouver’s remarkable during the whole of the Voyage.” This was certainly an qualities as a marine surveyor. In his old age, recalling exaggeration and was probably prompted by an the voyage, he paid a tribute to Vancouver that ended unfortunate incident when Manby was temporarily in with the words: “He was a great captain.” command of the launch that accompanied Vancouver Contrary to appearances, there was a softer side to in the cutter when he explored Jervis Inlet. Darkness Vancouver’s nature. Though he saw them seldom, he fell and this prevented Manby from seeing that was much attached to his family. He named Mary Vancouver had changed course. Left without compass Point and Sarah Point, on opposite sides of the or food, Manby and his crew had a quite desperate channel between Cortes Island and the Malaspina experience finding their way back to Discovery at Peninsula after his sisters, and the Lynn Canal, Berners Birch Bay. Vancouver, probably torn by anxiety about Bay and Point Couverden recall King’s Lynn, where he the fate of the launch, returned in a fury. “His was born, his mother’s maiden name and the ancestral salutation,” Manby recorded, “I can never forget,and home of the Vancouver family in Holland. He had a his language I shall never forgive, unless he withdraws special affection for his brother John, who was to his words by a satisfactory apology.” But Vancouver complete the text of his journal for publication after did not hold a grudge; he appointed Manby Master of Vancouver’s death. One personal letter to John the Chatham only two months after the Jervis Inlet survives. It was written at Nootka in September 1794, mishap, and he made him 3rd Lieutenant of the just after Vancouver had completed his great coastal Discovery before the voyage ended. survey. Its closing salutation reads: “I am My Dearest Neither Manby nor any of the other midshipmen Van Unalterably your ever affectionate & Sincere had any cause for complaint about Vancouver’s friend and Brother”. Crew members had been strictly concern for their future after the expedition returned forbidden to give any indication in their letters as to to England. They had all served more than sufficient where the Discovery had been, and Vancouver held time to entitle them to sit for the examinations for strictly to the rule himself, even in this personal letter lieutenant (Manby’s appointement during the voyage to his brother. “You must therefore,” he wrote, “be ranked only as acting rank), and Vancouver took pains content in being informed of my welfare so far...” to see that they were promoted without delay. It is Just a week before the Discovery reached Shannon, interesting to learn that his recommendations carried her cutter was accidentally “stove intirely to pieces” so much weight that they were promoted without when being hoisted on board. Vancouver’s reaction being questioned, as Robert Barrie related to his was noteworthy: “The cutter was the boat I had mother: “When we appear’d before the great men to constantly used; in her I had travelled many miles; in pass out examinations, they tould us they thought it her I had repeatedly escaped from danger; she had would be presumption in them to ask any questions so always brought me safely home; and, although she they pass’d us bye wishing us all a speedy promotion.” was but an inanimate conveniency...yet I felt myself Of the several personal and unofficial journals of under such an obligation to her services, that when the expedition, the most valuable is that of Archibald she was dashed to pieces before my eyes, an Menzies, who had served in the Navy as a surgeon but involuntary emotion suddenly seized my breast, and I sailed with Vancouver as botanist and naturalist. was compelled to turn away to hide a weakness...I Strictly speaking, he was thus not accountable to should have thought improper to have publicly Vancouver, but in the course of the voyage the manifested.” Discovery’s surgeon became incapacitated, and Sentiment was a not unimportant element in Vancouver insisted that Menzies take over. Vancouver’s makeup. Vancouver was indifferent to the claims of botany, Kaye Lamb is former Provincial Librarian & Archivist and in particular to those of the midget greenhouse (Victoria), and former Dominion Archivist & Nat’ that had been built on the quarter deck to enable ional Librarian.

Page 6 British Columbia Historical News Leonard G. McCann

“The Landing of Captain Vancouver”

From Pier B.C. to the Maritime Museum

An innocuous-sounding title for a commission to an Steamship Service, entitled The Princess and her already established artist from whom, having been Families on January 21, 1986. (Prior to that time it had given appropriate historical data, one could expect a made an initial brief appearance in the Vancouver depiction that would fully satisfy all requirements. Museum’s Lost Vancouver show but without any of

Indeed! But then — does the painting of “The the following information.) Landing of Captain Vancouver” by Marion Powers The puzzlements with the painting start right with Kirkpatrick really meet all the requirements of its its inception; who commissioned it? But let’s go even commission? further back and start with the artist, Marion Powers. There the questions are even thicker. We do not This rather large mural was recently reintroduced know, at this time, when she was born. We do know to its Vancouver public on the occasion of the that it was in London, England, of American parents. opening of the Vancouver Maritime Museum’s She apparently studied at the prestigious Slade School exhibition on the C.P.R.’s British Columbia Coast and also under a teacher, Garrido, in Paris. This took

British Columbia Historical News Page 7

News Historical 8 Columbia Page British

city of Vancouver stands.

merited a move

elsewhere

Vancouver though and

it this must surrender have the where now site is —

newspaper accounts cost 4. The $6,000) name of the certainly would island have changed is of to later that

operations of the bar so the in origin. painting by (which local

prohibition in 1917 presumably ground. The closed blonde down baby the be can Spanish certainly

So, where was it really destined woman, Indian for? The to advent the nude in waist of the mid-

Minstrel Gallery of the Main Indians Dining Room watching the in from ‘30s. and background an the

showing it in both the back-of-the-bar buccaneers and site Indians in —which and includes Alaskan the

at some eight feet above the military attire. floor. On There a are the photos is right group soldiers, of

destination was the Hotel 3. The Vancouver’s surrender (?) Main party Room appropriate on in the left is

the on painting’s completion prepared in 1915 for indicates the celebration that occasion. of its the

However, some of the publicity deal. A love released feast in with Boston of the fruits is being soil

sombre effect.” Island a and friendly handshake the to about seal is

colour that prevents 2. what The Spaniards might are otherwise delighted be back to a hand the

Bran

gwyn and gives the necessary glowing

note

the of British

or they go would to war!

—

Boston,

is comparable with the work Frank of give back the Island that Spaniards the took from

back

bar, painted by Marion Powers Kirkpatrick of Commander Spanish Island, of must the he that

decorative

picture in the central lunette over at the Nootka Sound to Captain inform Quadra, the

“A

beautifully composed and richly coloured 1. Captain Vancouver has landed Discovery the from

on

it in the following terms: columns turn up the following statements: intriguing

Architect

for

August 1916 (vol. XII, no. 2),commented supplied to the artist. A synthesis of three critics’

the whole

structure who, in a major article in The indicate htsome that unusual rather was information

it was

from

S. Francis Swales, the ultimate architect of interpretation as provided to the would critics

Hotel

Vancouver

(a bit unlikely, though); more likely

information or

consisted what However, it the of.

—

Rattenbury,

the architect of the first the of wing new There is no extant clue to as supplied the who

commissioned

It it. could have come from Francis historical information forwarded to the artist.

placement(s).

As stated, we do not know how or who comment was made correct was that based it on

To

return to the commissioning and the painting’s colour execution and vigorous Emphatic work. brush

the

artist.

local critics gave it very praise high concept, for

in

the ‘historical information’ that was forwarded to studio in Court, Fenway on Boston, the 24, June 1915,

have

a

sort of feeling that something was awry slightly When the painting first was exhibited artist’s at the

the artist could best answer. Maybe the critics did presently be located.

qualities

of the servitors, is an interpretation that only

in any art

directory any nor can information other

—

great

elegance”,

let alone the somewhat distracting Boston. But, 1939, after appeared name her no longer

barrel

tops

and clay jugs passing as “...served with 1919, she exhibited in the Richards & Doll in Gallery

provisions’

at Nootka in August in 1792, along with

Hotel

Vancouver

1949.) one In demolished the in

—

fruits

translate

into a ‘superfluity of the best Vancouver, Vancouver, B.C. second was (This the

However,

how bananas, grapes, melons and other Vancouver for installation Hotel new in the

engaged.”

painter, that of Captain depicting of Landing The

service

in which the Discovery and Chatham were she was awarded her a commission first mural as

salute a

of seventeen guns to the success of the in various exhibitions around 1915, continent. In the

health

to the sovereigns of England and Spain, and

illustrations

in

periodicals awards besides winning

—

elegance; a

royal salute was fired on drinking reputation for portrait especially, painting and, for

the

best

provisions,

was served great with From thereon. Marion a Powers

Kirkpatrick gained

dinner

of five

courses,

consisting of a superfluity of painter. They set up

separate identities.

professional

most

distant

idea

place. meeting

of

A at this with Arber Brown Kirkpatrick

a London, himself of

had

lately

been

had accustomed

little

the to,

or has been Cassatt.) Mary

In

1908

married

Walter she

Quadra, Senor and

a gratified we repast with were

Prize.

(The other only

to woman do so

ever painter

spared the from

dined vessels

with myself with

exhibited

Philadelphia, in

Lippincot

the

winning

harmony

and festivity.

As

be as officers many could

maintained a residence

state. in

she 1907 that

In

ceremonious

much offices

of

civility,

with

year, she

moved

to Maine

thereon

and

from

departure: and

afterwards the was spent day

in

Royal Academy exhibition

same of

that

In year.

the

and saluted were

with

arrival on guns thirteen their

1906, two had paintings

accepted

at the hung and

on the

29th, Wednesday

breakfasted, they where

exhibited at

the

Gallery Walker

Liverpool and,

in

in

several his

officers of Discovery, came

the board

on

installation

in the

Luxembourg

she

1905 In Palace.

“Agreeably to his

Quadra engagement, Senor

with

Tresors, was

Government bought

the by

French for

provided to Mrs.

Kirkpatrick.

exhibited

at

Salon the

at

her and in Paris 1904 entry,

as served the

information for basis the

historical main

ance we can that

a notable was trace

she one;

Discovery....” following possibly the paragraph

place

sometime

appear public 1890s.

the Her

in first

George From Vancouver’s “A Voyage of been a rather awkward item to slide around as its measurements are approximately 16’ by 8’ and it weighs in at around 200 lbs. Its final C.P.R. years were passed in an area where Writing Competition probably hundreds of thousands of Vancouverites and others gazed on it without registering much more than its existence. That was in the lobby of Pier B.C., the C.P.R.’s base for the fleet of the B.C. Coast

Steamship Service after 1938 — and prior to that, the home of the trans-Pacific White Empresses. The painting was installed, and again we do not know when, over the double doors in the lobby that lead to the walkway along the roof over the sheds of the Pier. There it hung until 1980 when, a few days before the building was demolished, it was presented to the Vancouver Maritime Museum by the demolition contractors and by the Pier B.C. Corporation. I am most indebted to Miss Evelyn McMann for joyously aiding and abetting in the tracking down of The British Columbia Historical Federation invites the elusive Marion Powers Kirkpatrick who, however, submission of books or articles for the fourth annual still firmly remains in some partial shadows. But her competition for writers of British Columbia History. chef-d’oeuvre is very much a part of Vancouver City’s Any book with historical content published in 1985 visual record. With luck, its travails and travels have is eligible. Whether the work was prepared as a thesis now ceased and it will become a better-known object or a community project, for an industry or an of the city’s artistic patrimony. But there are still some organization, or just for the pleasure of sharing unanswered a questions! pioneer’s reminiscences, it is considered history Leonard as C. McCann is Curator of the Vancouver long as names, dates and locations are included. Maritime Museum. Stories told in the vernacular are acceptable when indicated as quotations of a story teller. Writers are advised that judges are looking for fresh presentation of historical information with relevant maps and/or pictures. A Table of Contents and an adequate Index are a must for the book to be of value as a historical reference. A Bibliography is also desirable. Proof reading should be thorough to eliminate typographi cal and spelling errors. Book contest deadline is January 31, 1987.

There will also be a prize for the writer of the best hisorical article published in the British Columbia Historical News quarterly magazine. Written length should be no more than 2,500 words, substantiated with footnotes if possible, and accompanied by photographs if available. Deadlines for the quarterly issues are September 1, December 1, March 1, and June 1. Submit your book or article with your name, address, and telephone number to: British Columbia Historical Federation c/o Mrs. Naomi Miller Don’t Forget! Box 105 Wasa, B.C. VOB 2K0 Subscribe now if you’re not Please include the selling price of the book and an receiving the News regularly. address from where it may be purchased. Winners will be invited to the British Columbia Historical Federation Convention in Mission in May, 1987.

British Columbia Historical News Page 9 Vancouver, the Liverpool of the Pacific, is one of the municipal wonders of the 20th century. Every man and woman of intelligence has nothing but Compiled by Esther Birney words of praise for Vancouver and her surroundings. The visitor, the commercial traveller, the soldier general, the foreign diplomat, the poet who bursts into spontaneous song as he views the wonderful possibilities of

our glorious city — all are in unison...people in Our Town search of homes dropped anchor and pitched their tents for all time in the city of Vancouver. A feature contributing very materially to the brilliant effects witnessed on the streets is the large number of effective “electric” signs seen on the business houses. These beautiful signs not Vancouver was then only a little town, but it was only work at night while the owners of business growing hard. Almost every day you saw more of establishments are asleep and are a source of her forest being pushed back, half-cleared, profit to the proprietors, but are also a source of waiting to be drained and built upon — mile delight and comfort to the throngs of upon mile of charred stumps and boggy skunk- pedestrians on the City’s thoroughfares. cabbage swamp, root-holes filled with brown Sign in the window of E.W. Maclean [real estate stagnant water, reflecting blue sky by day, rasping broker]: with frogs’ croaks by night; fireweed rank of “$100 will buy 50 foot lot in North Vancouver. growth, springing from dour soil to burst into Terms are easy, 1/4 cash — balance in 6-12-18 loose-hung, lush pink blossoms, dangling from months. red stalks, their clusters of loveliness trying to From: Greater Vancouver Illustrated hide the hideous transition from wild to tamed Published by Dominion Illustrating Co. land. I took my classes into the woods and along Vancouver (c. 1910) Vancouver’s waterfront to sketch. We sat on beaches over which great docks and stations are “There is a second way that lies between now built, we clambered up and down wooded Vancouver and New Westminster. It is called the banks solid now with Vancouver’s commercial river road. The river is the Fraser River ... On the buildings. Stanley Park at that time was seven just high north side of the road there is still some forest, three quarters surrounded miles of virgin forest or large bush, and there is the agreeable by sea. illusion ... that the road will keep its intricate From: Growing Pains by Emily Carr quality of appearing to be far removed from a city. But over a ridge that descends to the road the Chin had arrived in Fourteen-year-old Canada city of Vancouver is crawling on. Bulldozers are student avoid registered as a to the head tax. levelling the small trees and laying bare a pale and sweating in his uncle’s laundry Soon he was and stony soil. The landscape is being despoiled as it attending night classes. The class seethed with must be on behalf of ... all the amenities of rebellion. Why learn English when no white living, learning, playing, and dying.” Canadian would speak to a Chinaman? The more From the Swamp Angel by Ethel Wilson you learned the better you understood their insults. You didn’t need English working in laundries or canneries. The young rowdies “Rachel wrote to her cousin Elise...”lt is so lovely, attended classes only to keep their immigration Elise, that I feel I’ve wasted my life in not living records clean. here before...You will hardly believe it but Stephen drove us, carriage and all, into a hollow From: “Mr. Chin and Mr. Goh” — An unpublished short story by Paul Yee, author of tree where we sat in the carriage and had our Lilian Hoo (1986) pictures taken....”

Page 10 British Columbia Historical News “If you arrive in Vancouver on a fine day and go light...the horror of these boats reminds one of up into a high place...you will come under the the wretched fate of the men, the fishermen who immediate spell of the mountains...and of the spent their lives in them.

dark coniferous forests. You will see high From: Gemini by Michel Fournier — headlands sloping westwards into the Pacific translated by Anne Carter, Methuen 1981 Ocean, and islands beyond. And then you will turn again and look across the blue inlet at the In May of 1887 the Canadian Pacific Railway had mountains which in their turn look down upon come to town and, with it, the world...Vancouver the grace and strength of the Lion’s Gate Bridge, was the Terminal City of the greatest transporta upon the powerful flow of the Narrows, upon tion system the world had yet seen...the first easy English Bay, upon the harbour, and upon the round-the-world tours were made possible, and large city of Vancouver.” the “jet set” of contemporary society passed “In the days of tents and shacks by the water through the C.P.R. station...So did Rudyard edge, and of Gassy Jack Deighton’s saloon, the Kipling who thought “a great sleepiness lies on settlement had been called Gastown. Then with Vancouver as compared with an American a rush of self-consciousness it became Granville. town”. But he liked it, and commented on the And then came the perfect name of meaning “Absence of bustle”, the unused spittoons, the and destiny — Vancouver.” free baths in the hotels, the good streets and the From The Innocent Traveller by Ethel Wilson many Englishmen “who speak the English tongue correctly.” The young city was “not a FIRE! FIRE! very gorgeous place as yet, but (he added) you June 13, 1886: “The roar of the fire and the flames can be shot directly from the window of the train and the smoke going over us was like the into the liner that will take you in fourteen days pictures of the bottomless pit that our first from Vancouver to Yokohama.” Kipling bought Presbyterian Minister used to cheer us with property in Fairview, some real estate, a town lot when we were children.” he described as “some four hundred well- Oct. 13, 1886: “The first loan obtained by ;the developed pines and a few thousand tons of city was for the sum of for the purchase granite scattered in blocks at the roots of the $6,900 of pines, a fire engine, hose reel and other equipment.” and a sprinkling of earth.” “I have never felt so distinctly the sense of From: Vancouver Observed — The First Ten approaching a country back to front. Vancouver Years; by Gordon Elliot — Vancouver is the natural terminus of the long east-west Historical Society — Newsletter, Vol. 16, No. 4, migration that starts from Europe and crosses the p. 5 — Jan. 1977 Atlantic Ocean and the North American continent...when [the Europeans] reached this Our souls have their own geographical loyaltie, shore with the stagnant waters shaded by pines quite distinct from such tastes as we ourselves and maples, the long westward march was over. may have cultivated... There was nothing more for them to do but sit Give me...the Desert or the Mediterranean or, down and admire the sunset...The tall wet trees better still for a long stay, our exquisitely in Stanley Park are shaking themselves in the temperate southern England. But this is not what wind, like dogs after a swim, and their woody my soul says. It is when we cross latitude 55 and smell clashes with the reek of mud and seaweed reach the North that my soul, quite without any rising from the beach. Nowhere else have I prompting from me, cries out in delight. I encountered this strange marriage of sea and remember such a cry when we had been forest. travelling as far south as Tahiti and had seen all The Royal Yacht Club and its next door that is lushest on this earth...and then had flown neighbor, the Burrard Yacht Club are a brilliant north, to find ourselves in British Columbia. And shopwindow of dainty yachts, of every possible at the sight of the cold peaks there, the slopes of design and rig, all streaming with lights. But as pine and fir, the streams that looked as if they you draw nearer the docks the lights grow came from springs of creme de menthe ... the sparser and the boats more workmanlike, until at infinitely hopeful green of the valleys, the pale last the black, tormented shapes of the old hollow of the sky, it was not I, who have no trawlers, still rotting away here after they have particular taste or fancy for these things, but the fished their last, loom up in a sinister half- soul within me that sent up a shout of delight. As

British Columbia Historical News Page 11

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why, — But home. it brought had I last at if During the 1920s, the decade of my childhood, farmers in the lower Fraser Valley were organizing a Morag Madachian valley wide co-operative based on earlier joint ventures. The Lower Mainland Milk and Cream Shippers’ Association was formed to enable dairy farmers in Langley, Pitt Meadows and on the deltas of the Fraser to negotiate with retail dealers in Vancouver whom they believed took advantage of Vancouver from the them. They joined with members of the Chilliwack Creamery to form the Fraser Valley Milk Producers’ Lower Valley Association. Through this co-operative, valley farmers A built a milk plant at Sardis, a condensary at Abbotsford, and established a retail outlet in Personal View Vancouver. In this way they controlled the surplus milk by directing it into manufactured products and thus maintained stable prices in the most lucrative market, Vancouver, where the demand for fresh milk increased with the rapid population growth. A few years ago I was shopping in downtown Nowhere in North America were dairy farmers, as far Vancouver one Friday evening and overheard two from a large urban centre as the Chilliwack producers saleswomen discussing the Canada Day celebrations were from theirs, able to gain a share of that market. planned for the following Monday. Although the dairy farmers’ co-operative, the “I was born in Canada,” declared one. Fraser Valley Milk Producers’ Association, fought “So was I,” said the other. “I was born right here in bitterly with independents, it was a successful venture B.C. — in Salmon Arm.” which allowed producers to farm independently “Then I’m more Canadian than you,” triumphed while marketing co-operatively. Through the FVMPA the first. “I was born in Vancouver!” dairy farmers had a powerful mechanism for political Salmon Arm said nothing. I did not find this very lobbying, for controlling their market and for fighting funny, but neither did it make me unduly resentful. I opposition. The political and economic alienation thought of typical — the hinterland response the which led to the growth of farm politics elsewhere in Canada-wide “hate Toronto” syndrome; the distrust Canada, did not exist in the valley. in the Okanagan, the Kootenays, the Cariboo and The co-operative movements among Prairie other diverse regions of the economic dominance of farmers were highly successful but farmers went into Vancouver. I thought of past bitterness, still traceable, politics because of their grievances against freight and in Victoria and New Westminster, both established tariff policies developed in central Canada. Ontario before the upstart city that mushroomed with the farmers elected a farmers’ party in 1919 because the coming of the railroad. rapid industrialization in Ontario created problems. But I grew up in Chilliwack, which, in my youth was The growth of Toronto and other manufacturing the business centre for a flourishing dairy industry. centres obliterated small farm centres and gobbled Although my family lived in the town, I knew that the up agricultural land, creating despair over the farmers in the surrounding municipality had always disappearance of a way of lifethatfarmers idealized as had access to markets. The grandparents of the Kipps, wholesome and good. The proliferation of farm the Chadseys, the Reeces that I went to school with literature stressing these values and picturing city life had come from Upper Canada with an understanding as evil and debilitating had no equal in the lower of the conditions of frontier farming. In the Chilli Fraser Valley. Valley farmers could distinguish wack Valley they found areas which required little between those in the city who opposed their interest clearing and provided crops of “prairie hay” that and the customers on whom they depended. No one brought instant cash returns. The demand for hay, from Chilliwack, where everyone depended on vegetables, butter and tobacco in the gold fields, and dairying, could be resentful of Vancouver, even when the availability of a labour force of Indians exper a Vancouverite exhibited smugness. ienced because of the agricultural operations of the As a child, I frequently visited the city with my Hudson’s Bay Company, meant that these pioneers, family, travelling the long road over the newly far from enduring a long period of subsistence drained Sumas Prairie, through the Green Timbers, agriculture, were engaged in agricultural industry which shut out the summer sun, and along Kingsway immediately. They were on an industrial frontier with to the appropriate turnoff. But we rarely felt like markets, first in the gold fields, then in mining, country cousins. One of my uncles lived at 57th and logging and construction camps, and, with the Oak and his children had more bush to play in than Vancouver, growth of they had access to a large we did, and my aunt was more “bushed” than metropolitan my market. mother. From their place a trip downtown seemed

British Columbia Historical News Page 13 interminable as we rattled on the Street car through provided excellent salmon fishing — in tact, the miles of wilderness until we came to Shaughnessy meaning of the Squamish Indian word from which Hospital. Another uncle had an acreage and twenty- Cheakamus is derived is ‘salmon weir place’. five cows at 54th near Elliot. When we stayed at the It appears that in pre-contact times the Squamish “ranch” we played in the hay and waited our turn for Indians utilized the Burrard Inlet primarily on a meals while four hired men ate heartily, we came to seasonal basis for resource exploitation — clams in the city to experience country living. Now I realize February, herring spawn in March, eulachon run in that Vancouver had expanded into the wilderness, April and so on. Another good source of food were much of its growth was controlled by the real estate the large herds of elk which lived around False Creek, policies of the CPR. There was no cause for the bitter Jericho and Point Grey. The Squamish would travel nostalgia over a disappearing way of life so evident in down Howe Sound in their larger, deeper saltwater the farm literature of Ontario. canoes which were about 20 feet long; they had So the saleslady’s suggestion that those born in smaller, flat-bottom canoes for river use. A favourite Vancouver are more Canadian than the rest of us left camping spot was Horseshoe Bay (cha-high, meaning me contemplative but unperturbed. I can never be an unknown). old timer in Vancouver but that is nothing new. My For certain periods in pre-contact times there had family arrived in Chilliwack in 1924 and went to been permanent villages around Burrard Inlet, but school with children whose grandparents had come smallpox epidemics in the late 1700s and raids by the with the gold rush. Down at the end of Wellington feared Lekwiltok Indians had decreased the Indian Avenue on the Indian Reserve were children whose population and they had withdrawn to the greater people had been on the land much longer. My family safety of the Squamish valley. However, with the members were newcomers in Chilliwack all their coming of the first white settlers to Burrard Inlet, lives, and though I love Vancouver and have lived and more and more Squamish Indians moved perma worked here for more than fifteen years, I cheerfully nently to Burrard Inlet. accept the fact that I am a newcomer. That is, after aTl, The main Squamish Indian village sites in the one of the most common ways of being Canadian. Vancouver area are: Morag Maclach Jan, MA., M.Ed., is a former sen akw (meaning possibly ‘inside at the head’) is on instructor, History Department, Vancouver False Creek and is now known as Kitsilano I.R. #6. The Community College, Langara Campus. Indian houses extended from the Maritime Museum to the new Pen nylarthing development in South False Creek. schilhus (‘high bank’) is at the end of Pipeline Road in Stanley Park, where the waterline crosses from Capilano. August Jack’s grandfather, xats’lanexw (anglicized as Kitsilano), settled here around 1860. xwayxway (‘place of sxwayxwi mask’) was a very Helen Akrigg important village at a place we know as Lumberman’s Arch. temtemixwtn (‘place of lots of land’) is at Belcarra. Village was abandoned in the 1830s-1840s. Early Squamish xwmelch’stn (likely a Squamish pronunciation of a Musqueam term derived from word referring to fish Indian Settlement in ‘finning’ or ‘rolling’ on the water surface). Located at original mouth of the Capilano River, east of Lions Gate Bridge. The word Capilano is the anglicization of the Vancouver Area the name of a famous Squamish Indian, ku-yap-LAN ough. siha an (‘against the edge of the bay’) is at mouth of Mosquito Creek. This Mission I.R. #lis only a recent Although the Musqueam Indians (who had their village, coming into existence after the Roman permanent villages around the north arm of the Catholic Church established a mission about 100 years Fraser River), like the Squamish Indians, also utilized ago. the resources of the Burrard Inlet on a seasonal basis, the Squamish were the dominant group and the I should like to acknowledge the great help of following discussion is restricted to them. Randy Bouchard and Dorothy Kennedy, of the B.C. Language Project in Victoria, in giving me the The Squamish Indians, a group of the Coast Salish Indian information in this article. Many thanks. Indians who speak the Squamish language, had their detailed permanent villages on both sides of the Squamish and Helen Akrigg is past president of the B.C. Historical Cheakamus Rivers, and in the Howe Sound area. Federation, and with her husband, Philip Akrigg, is Salmon was the mainstay of their diet, and this area the author of British Columbia Place Names.

Page 14 British Columbia Historical News accept a bank site on Granville Street.4 CPR officials in Montreal and Vancouver, as well as company friends in Britain, were encouraged to invest along Granville, and by 1889 eastern executives Sir Donald Smith and Robert A.J. McDonald William Van Home had completed the city’s two largest privately owned structures. At the height of land on Granville the CPR erected a $200,000 hotel, for many years Vancouver’s “principal building”. Next “ . . , door it placed an expensive opera house, costing, at $100,000, double the community’s finest brick and Aristocratic’ masonry commercial block of the period. The opera house was “far ahead of the actual requirements of GranviHe Street the town” and like the hotel served primarily to advertise the company’s site.6 Both by their presence expressed the unlimited faith that CPR vice-president (to 1888, then president) William Van Home held in Vancouver’s future. Time has obscured from historical memory the A nasty sectional fight between the CPR and unique origins of north Granville Street, one of eastside businessmen over where to locate the city’s Vancouver’s most important thoroughfares. Laid out post office revealed the corporation’s determination by L.A. Hamilton, the Canadian Pacific Railway to promote Granville Street. Company documents Company’s first land commissioner in Vancouver, the show that the federal government’s decision to locate street acquired a distinctive personality in the late the public facility on Granville did not ensue from a 1880s through the CPR’s enthusiastic pursuit of real careful assessment of the relative merits of competing estate profits in the coast city. The company’s practice locations. Rather, it resulted from the rail company’s of developing townsite lands was not unique to behind-the-scenes lobbying. In the spring of 1886 Vancouver — urban land sales across the west offered “CPR’ member of Parliament” A.W. Ross convinced the CPR an important source of income. But Vancou the federal government to locate a temporary office ver provided an unusual opportunity to maximize real on railroad land, west of existing settlement. To quote estate returns, for here the provincial government in the Manitoba M.P., “I made the arrangements to 1884 had granted the company a magnificent land move the P.O. up on the company’s property after the bonus of 6,458 acres — “some ten square miles”.l fire, and had to use all my influence at Ottawa to keep Whereas the CPR, through an agreement with a it there against the wishes of the citizens.”8 A storm of separate company, received only one-half the net controversy accompanied the post office decision, proceeds from land sales in Prairie towns, in prompting petitions from both eastside critics and Vancouver, where the railroad administered land westside supporters.9 Opponents presented a solid directly, profits accrued entirely to the corporation. case; they argued that the new Hastings Street site was Vancouver furnished the CPR’s “most spectacular” relatively inaccessible to most residents. But the logic and most “profitable” venture in townsite promotion. of numbers in Vancouver proved insufficient to So rapid was Vancouver’s growth that by 1889 the counter corporate pressure in Ottawa. As discussion proceeds from property sales exceeded land- turned to a permanent site, the CPR gained a tactical generated revenue “in all other company towns advantage by offering seven choice lots at Granville combined.”2 Granville Street centred the 480-acre and Pender. It did so for a nominal fee, foregoing block between Burrard Inlet and False Creek that large real estate profits.1° Once more both sides provided the bulk of these early returns. organized massive petitions and large public The company spared no expense of money and meetings, generating in the city an intensely fractious energy to pull commercial development westward political climate.11 Considering a permanent post towards its townsite and away from Gastown, the office on Granville to be “of very great importance to former business centre that remained, along with the CPR,”12 Van Home spared no effort to win a newly opened lands to the east, the city’s residential favourable hearing. To silence local opponents he and commercial core. To encourage construction, the instructed Vancouver CPR superintendent Harry CPR adopted a policy of offering generous discounts Abbott to intervene directly, and uncharacteristically, of 20 to 30 percent “on condition of building”. Upon in civic politics. At one point Abbott organized Vancouver’s incorporation in April 1886, the westside forces to capture a potentially hostile public corporation quickly assu med governmental functions meeting and have those present pass the company’s in the westside area. It spent $235,000 in nine months “own resolutions.”13 But ultimately Van Home’s clearing, grading, and constructing streets. Aided by intervention with federal officials, rather than west interlocking corporate directorships, the rail coast pressure, swayed Ottawa’s judgement in the company “influenced” the Bank of Montreal to CPR’s favour.1 In May 1890 the Postmaster-General

British Columbia Historical News Page 15 announced that a large and expensive structure having failed to prove a very long Pedigree and would be built on Granville Street, in the heart of the being only a Canadian without a title, they put up company’s townsite. For “patriotic” reasons, Board of the price of (the) lots... 21 Trade president R.H. Alexander reluctantly accepted When the CPR announced in 1894 that it would the government’s decision. So did Mayor David close its Vancouver land office, fire its local land Oppenheimer, the leading eastside promoter. But not commissioner, and shut the opera house as the result everyone met defeat so graciously. According to Dr. of a severely depressed real estate market and the Stevenson, the post office decision could have no diminishing amount of downtown land that remained other object than “to please the CPR.” “Clearly,” he for the company to sell, a distinctive phase in the continued, “the Dominion government was history of Granville Street came to an end. Market ‘corrupt’.”15 forces and city planners, rather than an eastern However, it was not the quest for profit which alone railroad corporation, would guide Granville’s future. determined the rail company’s land policy, for an additional set of assumptions served to give Granville Robert McDonald is an Assistant Professor, Dept. of Street and the surrounding area a distinctive social History, University of British Columbia. character. Primarily responsible for this social bias was William Van Home, who saw Granville as a high status Notes commercial centre surrounded by an elite residential 1. Norbert MacDonald, “The Canadian Pacific Railway neighbourhood. To achieve this goal company and Vancouver’s Development to 1900,” B.C. Studies, officials carefully monitored architectural plans to 35, Autumn 1977, pp. 7-14. ensure that buildings in the CPR block appeared 2. James B. Hedges, Building the Canadian West: The stylish and sophisticated. Subsidized land prices for Land and Colonization of the Canadian Pacific Railway and social institutions provided an opening (New York 1971 (1939)), pp. 86-87. charitable Pacific Archives, which Van 3. Canadian Railway Montreal (CPRA), for company influence, Home exercised RG1, W.C. Van Home Papers (WCVHP), File 13087, H. personally with such organizations as the Vancouver Abbott to W.C. Van Home, 2 June 1886. Club, the Young Men’s Christian Association, and 4. Robert A.J. McDonald, “City-Building in the Canadian Whetham College. When Vancouver Club members West: A Case Study of Economic Growth in Early objected to the dormer windows that his Montreal- Vancouver, 1886-1893,” BC Studies, 43, Autumn 1979, p. based architect had proposed, Van Home reluctantly 11; CPRA, RG1, WCVHP, File 13240, L.A. Hamilton to conceded the requested changes; although in his W.C. Van Home 19 May 1886 (telegram); and Public opinion the alternative was “a very commonplace Archives of Canada (PAC), Microfilm M2274, Canadian objectionable looking building.”16 Particularly Pacific Railway Collection (CPRC), Letterbook 36, W.C. distressed by the building plans for a new YMCA, for Van Home to J.M. Browning, 17 Dec. 1890. 5. Mrs. Algernon St. Maur, Impressions of a Tenderfoot which the company had given a 50 percent land During a Journey in the Far West (London 1890), p. 35. subsidy, Van Home urged the CPR’s land commis 6. CPRA, RG1, WCVHP, File 23329, J.M. Browning to W.C. sioner, J.M. Browning, to insist on a “better looking Van Home, 7 Feb. 1889 and File 77949, H. Abbott to front”; the first design had a “cheap and nasty look W.C. Van Home, 17 Sept. 1894 (enclosed memo from resulting from over-ornamentation”, giving it the O.G. Evan Thomas). appearance of a “pretentious building in a small 7. Vancouver City Archives (VCA), Major J.S. Matthews, country town.”17 Van Home also closely examined “Early Vancouver: Narrative of Pioneers in Vancouver, design details of the company’s opera house, which B.C.,” typescript, II, p. 235. he was anxious to make “as perfect as possible.”18 8. CPRA, RG1, WCVHP, File 13087, A.W. Ross to W.C. Van Home, 30 Aug. 1886. Granville Street received more than architectural 9. PAC, RG3, Post Office Department Records, Series 6, attention. After land had been sold and buildings British Columbia Inspectors’ Reports VIII, Files 418,585, constructed, Browning maintained company control 596, and 597, petitions concerning the post office site; by managing most of the street’s major rental and Vancouver News, 16 October 1886, p. 1. properties. Careful to let space only to a good class of 10. PAC, Micro. M2266, CPRC, Letterbook 25, W.C. Van tenant who carried first class stock, Browning Home to H. Abbott, 22 March 1888; CPRA, RG1, prevented any two north Granville stores from selling WCVHP, File 19918, A.W. Ross to W.C. Van Home, 21 similar merchandise.19 Capitalists with links to the March 1888; H. Abbott to W.C. Van Home, 29 March upper levels of the class system in Britain and Canada 1888; and Daily News-Advertiser (hereafter N-A), 7 were encouraged to invest on Granville. Indicating March 1890, p. 4. success, December 1888 survey of major 11. Ibid., 10 Sept. 1887, p. 1; 23 Oct. 1888, p.1; and 8 Nov. the policy’s a 1888, Street buildings listed p. 8. privately-held Granville as 12. PAC, Micro. M2266, CPRC, Letterbook 25, W.C. Van owners two knights of the realm, two English lords, Home to H. Abbott, 22 March 1888. and two professors.2° As one disgruntled investor 13. CPRA, RG1, WCVHP, File 27608, H. Abbott to W.C. Van complained after being thwarted in her attempt to Home, 28 Feb. 1890; and H. Abbott to W.C. Van Home, buy Granville Street land: 19 March 1890. You may have heard that I have dared to think of 14. PAC, Micro. M2271, CPRC, Letterbook 32, W.C. Van creating a block on aristocratic Granville Street, but Home to J.M. Browning, 11 Oct. 1889; Letterbook 32,

British Columbia Historical News Pagel6 W.C. Van Home to J.M. Browning, 8 Nov. 1889; and CPRA, RG1, WCVHP, File 27608, F.S. Barnard to W.C. David Wynne Griffiths Van Home, 6 March 1890. 15. N-A, 19 March 1890, P. 8. 16. CPRA, RG1, WCVHP, File 60081, H. Abbott to W.C. Van Home, 25 July 1891; and PAC, Micro. 2276, CPRC, Letterbook 38, W.C. Van Home to H. Abbott, 20 Aug. 1891. 17. PAC, Micro. 2268, CPRC, letterbook 29, W.C. Van That Saved Home to J.M. Browning, 8 Feb. 1889. For Whetham The Ship College see PAC, Micro 2280, CPRC, Letterbook 42, W.C. Van Home to J.M. Browning, 15 January 1893. Vancouver 18. PAC, Micro. M2271, CPRC, Letterbook 32, W.C. Van Home to j.M. Browning, 11 October 1889. 19. CPRA, RG1, WCVHP, File 22851,J.M. Browningto W.C. Van Home, 22 Dec. 1888. 20. Loc. cit. 21. Ibid., File 23709, H. Abbott to W.C. Van Home, 2 April 1889, and A.(?) Abbott to W.C. Van Home, 18 April (1891).

Don’t let your subscription expire. Check your address label for äate of renewal. The Robert Kerr in Vancouver Harbour

On the morning of June 13, 1886, just to the west of the infant city of Vancouver, a number of small fires were set in order to burn off some brush. This was a regular occurrence in and around a community that had just been wrested from the coastal rain forest and had been officially incorporated only two months of Publishing? before. As the fires caught, a freak squall from the east Thinking fanned the flames toward and amongst the collection of summer-dry wooden buildings. In short order

Vancouver was afire — in the words of one A seminar on publishing local history, given by eyewitness, “The city didn’t burn, it exploded!” Akrigg, may be arranged for your Helen Pursued by a raging wall of flame, terrified historical society. Please contact Leonard G. Vancouverites had but one route of escape — the McCann, #2, 1430 Maple Street, Vancouver, waters of Burrard Inlet. As the frantic throng began to V6J 3R9. arrive on the shore, the flames were already blackening and scorching the pilings and docks along the waterfront. Boats, barges, canoes, indeed, anything that would float was being used to escape the advancing inferno. At the city wharf desperate townspeople were pulling the very dock itself to pieces and throwing themselves into the water; others milled hopelessly about on the beach.

British Columbia Historical News Page 17 Aboard the ship Robert Kerr, at anchor in the Thankfully not all of the Robert Kerr’s crew were harbour, the watchman, Captain Dyer, feverishly rogues as is evidenced by able seaman Seraphim ‘Joe’ lowered a boat and pulled toward shore. Within an Fortes, who, upon arriving in Vancouver, became the hour more than 200 survivors crowded the decks of legendary ‘lifeguard of English Bay’, until his death ii the Robert Kerr, staring forlornly toward the the early 1920s. smouldering ruins of their homes and businesses — For the Kerr the shores of English Bay were still a there was simply nothing left to burn. thousand miles of sorrow and hardship away. On With typical pioneer spirit and literally before the August 10, 1885, first mate Richardson made the smoke had cleared, Vancouverites began the task of following log entry: reconstruction. A new and vibrant city emerged from At 9.15 am. the Captain died...Everything that the charred waste and the Robert Kerr secured a could be done has been done according to his place in the hearts of the survivors of the ‘Great Fire’ wishes... The Captain was conscious to the last and as ‘the ship that saved Vancouver’. speaking 5 or 6 minutes before he died, he asked Built as the Buffalo at Quebec in 1866 by N. Rosa me for a drink of water. To the best of my belief and Sons, for Robert Kerr and Sons of Liverpool, she his complaint was dropsy and inflammation of the took the name of the company’s principal before she kidneys.’ slipped down the ways. The Robert Kerr was The destiny of the Robert Kerr might never have originally registered as a barque, measuring 191 feet become entwined with that of the young city of in length and weighing 1120 tons. During the 1860s Vancouver had it not been for one further mishap on the Robert Kerr traded between Britain and India an already luckless voyage. While sailing through the where the Kerr family had business interests. In 1876 San Juan Islands the vessel ran aground, sustaining the vessel was sold to Kerr’s brother-in-law David enough damage to have to be towed to Vancouver Fernie. Fernie refitted her as a schooner in 1879. The for inspection and repairs. On September 7, 1885, vessel’s final British owner was H.K. Waddell, also of Robert Kerr dropped anchor in Burrard Inlet, 11 Liverpool, who once more re-fitted and re-registered months out of Liverpool. her as a ship in 1881. Under the command of Captain The underwriters for the Kerr’s owners decided Edward Edwards the Robert Kerr entered the against repairing the vessel and early in 1886 Captain northwest trade between Britain and the Americas. It William Soule, superintendent of loading at the was under Edwards that the Robert Kerr commenced Hastings Mill, purchased her and set her to anchor her seventh and final voyage around the Horn from with Captain Dyer aboard as watchman. Liverpool on the morning ot October 2, 16t4. On April 6, 1886, flying her signals and ringing her The journey proved to be one fraught with bell the Robert Kerr took a prominent part in the misfortune for commander, ship and crew. Battered celebrations of Vancouver’s official incorporation — by storms and becalmed in the equatorial heat, the two months later the vessel would witness the city die ship finally anchored at Panama on February 28, 1885, and see a new one rise in its place. after a five month voyage. During the fire Captain Soule lost his residence The crew fought amongst themselves and with ashore and while another one was being built, he and their officers. The ship’s log, now held by the his family took up residence aboard the Robert Kerr. Vancouver City Archives, testifies to the persistent Mrs. Soule seems to have carried on a fairly normal strife and violence of that last voyage: Victorian lifestyle; she was seen rowing to the shops

‘November 12, 1884 — at 4 am whilst talking to and markets and often held afternoon teas for her Eleazer Riley for muttering whenever he got an friends in the captain’s cabin. When the Soule family order William Anderson A.B. called out to Riley moved into their new residence at Dunlevy and to hit me on the head with something. I reported Powell they decided to hold a raffle for the ship. it to the Captain.’ Eighty tickets at $100 apiece were sold but the draw

‘February 19, 1885 — William Anderson was never held as the Canadian Pacific Railroad threatened to hit me on the head with a capstan apparently made Soule a better offer and purchased bar. I reported it to the Captain.’ the vessel to use as a coaling tender for their growing

‘May 20, 1885 — Seraphim Fortes came aft and fleet of steamers. reported that William Anderson had stuck a In 1888 a stripped and re-fitted Robert Kerr entered cotton hook in his cheek.’ the service of the CPR. For twenty years her coal- Crew member Anderson certainly seems to have blackened form was towed unceremoniously by a been a most unsavoury character; however, it succession of straining tugs from the coal ports of appears that the writer of the log, first mate John Vancouver Island to Burrard Inlet in order to service Richardson, had his subtle revenge. A later entry the great trans-Pacific liners of the day such as the describes him as making a gift of a jar of pickles to Empress of India, Empress of Japan, Abysinnia, Parthia Anderson who shortly afterwards was confined to sick and Batavia. During this period many a coastal seaman bay suffering from some mysterious stomach or towboatman learned his trade aboard the Robert complaint! Kerr. In countless turn of the century photographs

News Page 18 British Columbia Historical the sad drudge that she had become can be seen forlorn at anchor or alongside some wharf amidst the thriving city that had once owed her so much. On March 4, 1911 came the final indignity. The Robert Kerr, under tow by the steam tug Coulti and loaded with 1800 tons of coal, strayed off course and B.C. Studies piled heavily onto a reef at the north end of Thetis Island between Ladysmith and Nanaimo. The fully The Fourth Biannual B.C. Studies Conference will be laden vessel quickly filled and sank stern-first to a hosted by the University of Victoria, November 7 - 8, sloping sandy bottom, her bow splintered on the reef. 1986. The primary purpose is to bring together those Veteran diver James Moore inspected the hulk with a common interest in the study of British some days later and declared it a total loss. The Columbia. This year the Conference will highlight Vancouver Dredge and Salvage Company (a British Columbia’s political economy, its past, present forerunner of Rivtow Straits) bought the wreck for and future. salvage but after an unsuccessful attempt at retrieving For further information please contact Dr. Peter the bulk of the cargo abandoned it to the elements Baskerville, Department of History, University of and the curious. For many years the Robert Kerr’s Victoria, Victoria, B.C. V9W 2Y2. Phone 721-7381. bow clung precariously above water, and in company with the nearby skeleton of the freighter Miami, it served as a stark reminder to passing mariners. Though much of the ship’s upper structure was removed during the original salvage operations or has been broken up by storms since, a great deal remains to testify to her sturdy construction. Her holds are filled with sand and coal, the bow is smashed and spread across the shallow, sun-lit reef-top. Beneath the massive, coppered keel lingcod and rockfish hide while snowy white plumose anenomes soften the angular decking knees that mark the way along the Expo ‘86 to be starboard side toward the stern. A heavy capstan lies on the sand; the massive iron masts seem still on Four suspended and point off into the emerald gloom. The Featured portside hull amidships forms a cave-like corridor against a wall of rock at which point one can swim Stamps beneath the heavy timbers of the hull itself and emerge 40 feet away on the starboard side. Designs depicting the communications and The Robert Kerr now lies in 20 to 60 feet of water transportation theme of EXPO ‘86, to be held in mid-way between Miami Islet and Ragged Island off Vancouver May 2 to Oct. 13, will be featured on four Pilkey Point, Thetis Island. During periods of good stamps being issued to mark the world exposition. visibility in late winter and early spring one can see One of the stamps will feature the Canada Pavilion, portions of the wreck from the surface, It is at this time the flagship of EXPO ‘86, inside which visitors from of year that divers may also be treated to breath around the world will witness the giant strides taking displays by numbers of northern sea lions. Canadians have made in transportation, communica These massive creatures haul out on nearby Miami the arts and entertainment. Islet during their northerly migration and are very tions, The Canada Pavilion will be featured on a 34-cent curious about divers. A diver absorbed with the wreck stamp to be issued March 7 along with a 39-cent or a photographer intent on a subject may look up to stamp, the rate for first-class mail to the United States, find six pairs of sea lion eyes observing with mildest depicting the communications aspect of the interest while others glide and somersault with exposition’s theme “World in Motion — World in consummate grace about the bones of the old Robert Kerr. Touch.” Two more stamps will be issued April 28 featuring On an April morning in 1886 the Robert Kerr, the Expo Centre and the transportation aspect of the draped in flags and streamers, heralded the birth of a EXPO ‘86 theme. Additional details on these stamps new city. Now, regaled in the living decorations of the available at a later date. undersea world the ship that saved Vancouver in will be lies American Bank Note Inc., of Ottawa, will silence with her memories. British print 15 million of each ofthefourstampsdesigned by David W. Criffiths is President of the Underwater Debbie Adams. Archeology Society of B.C.

British Columbia Historical News Page 19 Esther Birney lElek lmredy Vancouver Sculptor

Here’s one artist who has not had to gain recognition outside Vancouver before being acclaimed a master within his own territory. Elek Imredy came here from Hungary in 1957; he was forty-five and had been a professional sculptor all his working life. Practically from the day of his arrival lmredy has been fulfilling commissions for private individuals,for institutions and for different levels of government. He is equally at home in bronze, concrete, wood or fibreglass. If it can be cut, chiselled or moulded lmredy will create with it. And his subjects will be equally varied: thoughtful madonnas, portrait busts and statues, animals (a life-size moose and cougar at the Vancouver Parks Board), abstractions given form, as in the twelve foot bronze Lady of Justice for the New Westminster Court House (where lmredy’s statue of Judge Begbie can also be seen), and in designs for medals and coats of arms. In 1972 his lovely Girl in a Wetsuit was placed off shore in Stanley Park and became an instant landmark and tourist attraction. The portrait in bronze of Major Matthews in the entrance to the Vancouver Public Archives smiles benignly at all who come to use the documents stored there. Although the Major was said to be somewhat stubborn where his archives were concerned, Elek Imredy has created a portrait that radiates the intelligence and strength of purpose that Major J.S. Matthews is claimed for Matthews by all who knew him. On Parliament Hill, in Ottawa, Imredy’s seated figure of Louis Saint Laurent is one of that city’s most admired statues. In Guelph a bronze torso, in Saskatoon nine pieces in bronze and wood, in Winnipeg a polyester statue, in Edmonton a 17-foot figure of Christ and in many places in B.C. and elsewhere in Canada Imredy’s work has touched the reproduction of hearts and minds of people. One of his latest pieces is a bronze of arms; it was commissioned by the Trends and fashions in sculpture may come and go Vancouver’s coat Canadian Club and donated to the city by but lmredy in his Kitsilano studio fulfills his own inner Women’s for it when the council’s proceedings vision when he works on his figures. And because he the club. Look it is on the wall behind the mayor’s has great skill and integrity everything he produces are televised; fine sculptor has enriched reflects these qualities. He also has the unique ability chair. Hungary’s loss of a city and for this we are indeed of conveying in his portrait busts and statues the best the cultural life of this attributes of his sitters. grateful.

British Columbia Historical News Page 20 new town, a new pastorate, but always enduring the same rigorous winter sleigh journeys in below zero Irene Howard weather to the rural communities in his charge. The snow enters into Mildred’s profoundest memories: carrying it into the house to melt for washing water; playing in it, falling down to make the imprint of an “angel”; walking behind her father in the deep snow Mildred Fahrni and hearing the scrunch of his footsteps as he made a path for his children. And then, miraculously, the The Making of a song of the meadowlark with the coming of spring. Her mother was Winnipeg-born Harriet Smyth, of Pacifist English parents, a hard-working minister’s wife and an intellectually capable woman who took her husband’s place in the pulpit when needed. Mildred February 4, 1986: the monthly meeting of the remembers her father and mother as hospitable Vancouver Fellowship of Reconciliation is having a people who opened their home to travellers or to workshop on non-violence in the living room of theological students on practicum. For the Mildred Fahrni in West Point Grey. 1 They talk about Osterhouts this was more than prairie neighbourli controlling anger and taking a non-violent yet ness; it was the Christian way. So also was the assertive approach to problems; about respecting and acceptance and respect which they accorded a loving one’s opponents; about developing courage to visiting black minister who preached in their white withstand opposition in pursuit of justice. (One young and not very broad-minded community. Mildred had man wonders aloud how courageous he would be a great regard for her father and mother, strict withstanding a bulldozer in the Stein Valley, a fundamentalists, yet kindly folk, imbuing, she recalls, wilderness area which environmentalists are trying to the letter of Methodist doctrine with the warming save from incursions by the logging industry.) They spirit. invoke Gandhi and his “experiments in truth.” In 1914, the Osterhout family escaped the rigours of Mildred Fahrni chairs the meeting. She has just come the prairie winter by moving to British Columbia, first back from a conference at Nanoose Bay where five to Victoria and then to Burnaby. Harriet Osterhout hundred people gathered to protest further American died in 1921, leaving Mildred to be her father’s testing of military equipment in the area. She also has housekeeper and companion, and, in later years, his news of a travelling peace choir and an update on the nurse. Vancouver Peace Festival planned for Expo ‘86. Now Mildred delayed marriage to remain in the family eighty-six years old, this tall, slender woman speaks home. After her father died in 1940, she married fluently with quiet authority and great conviction, and Walter Fahrni of Vancouver. as she speaks the activities of the peace movement, Her liberation from the fundamentalist religion of always struggling for recognition, become legitimate her father had, however, begun much earlier when and credible in this room. Fifty years in the Fellowship she was a student at the University of British of Reconciliation and one of its Vancouver founders, Columbia, housed then in the Fairview Shacks. In a Mildred Fahrni has been an active pacifist for most of science course she was moved to question the literal her life. In a city sponsoring a week-long Peace interpretation of Genesis, and recalls counting her Festival as part of its Centennial celebration, it is timely ribs to confirm that woman was not, after all, made to inquire into her life and ask where she learned her from one of Adam’s ribs. In economics and political commitment to principle, and her utopian vision of science with Dr. Theodore (Teddy) Boggs, she was peace and brotherhood, in the face of daily witness to first introduced to Marxism. The idea of the class war. struggle was vividly presented during field trips to Born in 1900 in the little town of Rapid City, meetings of the Industrial Workers of the World in Manitoba, near Margaret Laurence’s Neepawa, Vancouver’s East End where Dr. Boggs encouraged Mildred Osterhout grew up in that Protestant his students to engage in polemics with the workers at ambience which the novelist translated into the the meeting. Manawaka of her stories. Like the Manawaka A further loosening of the parental bond came in characters and like Margaret Laurence herself, Bible seminars with Dr. H.B. Sharman, the first Mildred early learned the ethic of Christian duty and chairman of the Student Christian Movement. He had of discipline and self-denial. Her father was Abram written a “synoptic gospel”, reconstructing the Berson Osterhout, from an Ontario farm family of history of Jesus by arranging it in comparative passages Dutch and United Empire Loyalist descent. He spent to show that the Bible was a human document with twenty-three years as a Methodist minister in that part different gospel versions of the same event, and not of southwestern Manitoba, moving every four years the absolute word of God. For Mildred, as for most of with his family, according to Church practice, to a his students, this kind of Bible study yielded profound

British Columbia Historical News Page2l

Page22 News Historical Columbia British

Mildred

1932,

in

London from return her On 1914. in Intelligent The Shaw, Bernard

George by

book

Britain

in

organized

first Reconciliation, of Fellowship new a reading by began

herself

She time. of the spirits

the of

Secretary

International Lester, Muriel compassionate other in

resolve ardent same

the forth

been

had

London

in

Hall

of Kingsley director The drew crisis economic the of and urgency depth The

non-violence.” of path lonely my walk

world.

the change

will

I

war,

to

turn should

world whole the “Though to ready and ideas new of full

to Vancouver

returned

prayer:

after

one

evening spoke Gandhi words She Webb. Beatrice and

Sidney and Laski Harold

the

remembering

always

peace, for mission by own given lectures

attended she

where

Economics

her

on

instead

embarked

She a member. of remaining School London at the enrolled she

1931 In

though it, in active

less

became she CCF, the with India.

left

Disillusioned

pacifists.

other and Woodsworth I J.S. after years the in through

I

lived that

vicissitudes

with stand

anti-war

her took

she when her supported and upheavals the through me so

sustained

other

greeting his of

warmth

The name. by her greeted No earth. perplexing

on this life of

the meaning

and

fashion

Indian the in

palm-to-palm hand put his of conception to some were,

they as West

capitalist

rose, He

cloth.

loin

and

spectacles in man bald little materialist, the in rooted

spirit, and mind ordinary

skinny, a

letters,

dictating

hut mud his of floor the on my opened and existence banal rut of

the out of

cross-legged

sitting

was Hindu

world-renowned The me shook so No other lasting. as

and

meaningful

Mildred.”

is here

(Father), “Bapu saying, Gandhi, to as and inspiring as

was experience other

No life.

her

brought

had

secretary chief

the Sevagran in There my of fruitful most the

Ghandi with days

the

count I

village. his to

desert the

across cart) (two-wheeled

feelings:

similar

tonga

by

journey

four-mile the made had she car, expresses 1982) Books, Pocket

York:

(New

Memoir

baggage

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trunks

and

suitcases among A perched Gandhi: his in Tribune,

Chicago the

for Conference

by train,

India

central

in

Arriving London. in him Table Round 1931

the

covered who

Shirer,

with

walks

morning

early

those after years six Gandhi, William life. for

disciple his was stay she

of his end the

with

friendship

her

renewed had she By where India to him. with talking and a

time at

minutes or

fifteen

visit

1938

her

from

returned

just

had Mildred war. the ten for dhoti) in clad

scantily and

(he bare-legged him

of

support

Canada’s to

opposition pacifist his declare beside walking turn her

took she

mittens, and scarf

to

Commons

of

House

the

in stood and Woodsworth sweaters in up

bundled six, and five

But

between

j.S.

Parliament,

of

Members

CCF the among Alone floor). gymnasium the on sitting

cold was (it in

often

fascism.

against

war

the in

participation Canada’s engage to her for rigorous

too a

little was morning the

support

to

compelled felt

now

times, theoretic in five until four from

Meditation routine. daily

his in

more in

brotherhood

and

peace to committed participated who members staff among was

Mildred

the leadership, CCF when 1939

September

stay,

four-month

his Throughout

staff.

settlement

in

undermined

severely was idealism

socialist But her

the

for bedrooms as

served

which

cubicles

little

the

Christ.

serve

to

was

suffering and injustice

of

one in bedroll

thin

his down

putting Hall,

Kingsley

eradicating by

man serve to

that

conviction

profound at stay to

invitation an

accepted

had He

India.

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grew

socialism

whose

minister

Methodist on Conference Table

Round

the

attending

London in

one-time the

J.S. Woodsworth,

leader,

national was he that

happened It

Gandhi.

met

she also

Here

CCF the exemplar her as

took

she this,

In

all subjects.

families.

their and

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staple the

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economics unemployed the

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group did she

Hall

Marxian

where

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summer

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to London’s her

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study

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Committee,

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CCF

of

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formulate

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Philadelphia. of

slums

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executive,

provincial CCF

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member

As 1937). into her took

families with

work Case

Research.

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(1936-

Board

School

Vancouver

the

on term year and Economy

Social

of

department the

in

Mawr

two-

a to

elected

however, was,

She

success. without Bryn at study to

a scholarship

accepted

she

father,

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Legislature,

to

the

election for

times several her from and

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from a

sabbatical

arranging

ran She

order.

social new the

in

bring

to about was 1931, In

children.

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that

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CCF

her with

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concerns.

social her

for scope

work,

political

into

herself threw

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did

classroom

the

in

and rabbits

canaries

of rest

the

For there. was

she

Manifesto,

socialist

up its and trips

field

nature But

lived.

now

father her

and

draw to

1933

in

Regina met

in it when and

metier,

her she where Grey,

Point in School

Elementary

Elizabeth

find to was

she 1932,

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CCF, formed

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of

milieu Queen at

years some

for

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English, and

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the

In

(CCF).

Federation

Commonwealth

Philosophy

in Arts of Master

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with

Columbia

British

Co-operative

of

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1924 in

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Reconstruction 2

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branch

Vancouver

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Sharman Dr.

charismatic

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Capitalism. and

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Guide

Woman’s the whom in many of one was She insights. new has organized and helped sustain a branch of the References FOR in Vancouver. In 1940 she accepted the position Secretary of the FOR, and for several years of National This essay is based largely on interviews with Mildred from her office in Toronto and directed its activities Fahrni in 1984. went on speaking tours to major Canadian cities. through Europe, blitzed Britain and Hitler stormed Additional References France; Churchill urged blood, sweat and tears. But her quiet way to Calgary, Regina, Mildred made A.B. Osterhout File. United Church Archives, Vancouver with her message of peace and Winnipeg, Vancouver School of Theology. reconciliation. She was sometimes received she explains, with a national scornfully, but, as Allen, Richard. The Social Passion: Religion and fewer than five hundred,the FOR was membership of Social Reform in Canada, 1914-1928. Toronto: to attract downright hostility. not large enough University of Toronto Press, 1971. Since then she had devoted her energies to work ing with the Women’s International League for Gold, Gerald and Attenborough, Richard. Gandhi: A Peace and Freedom (WIL), the Fellowship of Pictorial Biography. New York: Newmarket Press, Reconciliation, the Voice of Women, and other 1983. peace organizations. She again renewed her commitment to the philosophy of Gandhi when she Maclnnis, Grace. 1.5. Woodsworth: A Man to attended the World Pacifist Conference in 1948 and, Remember. Toronto: Macmillan, 1953. twenty years later, the War Resisters’ Triennial Conference, both in India. In accordance with one of Sharman, Henry Burton. Records of the Life of Jesus. the principles of the WIL that peace and economic New York: Harper, 1917. development go hand in hand, she worked for fifteen summers as a director of the village development Shirer, William: Ghandi: A Memoir. New York: program of the American Society of Friends in Pocket Books, 1982. Mexico City. In the spirit of international friendship, she has, over the years, made her house on West Student Christian Movement. This One Thing.... Eighth Avenue in Vancouver a hostel for visitors from Toronto: A Group of Friends [of H.B. Sharman], 1959. all over the world. Before he died, J.S. Woodsworth asked Mildred to be the speaker at his private memorial service for family and friends. “He felt,” explained his daughter Grace Macinnis, “that Mildred was the one who most shared his profound commitment to pacificism.” Peacemakers have never enjoyed the same credibility as warmakers, nor have the efforts of peace organizations generally been recorded. But when the documents have been gathered and the history of the Scholarship Fund Canadian peace movement and of organizations like the WIL and the FOR written, the personal Help us establish a scholarship for a 4th year evangelism of Mildred Fahrni, nourished in student taking a major or honors course in Methodism, matured in socialism and sustained by Canadian history at a B.C. University. All dona philosophy of Gandhi, will be part of the story. the tions are tax deductible. Please send your cheque today to: The British Columbia Historical Federation Irene Howard is the author or Vancouver’s Svenskar Scholarship Fund and Bowen Island 1872-1972. P.O. Box 35326 Station E Notes 1. The Fellowship of Reconciliation is an international Vancouver, B.C. V6M 4G5 organization with a strong membership in the United States where it has flourished for over seventy years. The Vancouver FOR is now the only Canadian branch. Donations received up to February 21, 1986 total was in 2. The League for Social Reconstruction founded $245.00. The donors are: T.D. Sale, Ruth Soderham, of 1932 by leading Montreal and Toronto in the spring Mr. & Mrs. F.A. Ford; and in professional people, including F.R. Scott, memory of Keith academics and Winterbottom of the Vancouver H. Underhill, Harry Cassidy, J. King Gordon and Historical Society, Frank from: Leonard Marsh. Their book Social Planning for Canada Helen L. Coles, Barbara Coles, R & B Morritt, (1955) strongly influenced CCF policy. and Irene Brown.

British Columbia Historical News Page 23

Page 24

British Columbia Historical News

acquaintance

with each of these fields of endeavour, into the same business of line days.”

in here early the

Hart’s

qualifications amounted to only a nodding noticed got things how I that and how was done, were

least

some degree of expertise. Admittedly in man Frank the “I furniture business. and undertaking

entertainment. Such concerns began to his yield livery own at to a stable a before working for for time

beyond homemade furniture and lowest the serving the in United States forms ran Volunteer Army, he of

unmarked By grave. the same token then was it as Indian an scout already After bronco buster. and

dignified arrangements than a west, pine box young man.” He and an as first a worked hand, stable

inception as a city-in-the-making desired Frank “Go followed Horace more injunction, Greeley’s

deaths, and a Vancouver that saw Born 1856 itself in from in a Galesburg, Illinois, its age youthful at

Even in the youngest community stages there settlement. of were

Columbia. 1 “the in man right at the right first place”, for least the

man’s civilization to the bit reckless, mainland was, he to time, of use the expression an of British

gold

seekers of the 1860s who and first a optimistic, freewheeling, brought confident even and the white

opportunistic. these In respects willing to anything try he once Outgoing and was did. usually more like the

and personal as well as material, associate always with idealistic Hart frontier. the was Frank as as well

could of himself and his surroundings, that derive was the freedom usually opportunity and social we

for something better, for the chance to make sophisticated he what just societies. conditions From such

values a of more settled society, a along with and yearning there of few were the of restrictions rinhibitions or

reconstruct and civilize it. He brought viewed with as better available, him the than ws what otherwise

his own imperatives, to alter and build natural it, on ability to and be was bound experience to

realities of that environment; he but to sought adapt the under to it of circumstances amount any almost

earlier fur traders, he did not merely adapt to the

environment. But unlike Gassy Jack, or the even

sense of feeling most comfortable in an such

Frank Hart was a quintessential frontiersman, in the

and figuratively Frank the at and of end Amelia road. the Hart

1887, initially emphasized that Vancouver was literally

arrival the of first transcontinental train on May 23,

really a frontier boom town. Even the promising

imagine to what extent the city later of the was 1880s

else in the way of civic attributes. be may difficult to It

city that was born with great expectations, but little

developed each of those branches enterprise of a in

figure of Frank William Hart. He was it who first

Vancou’er they were united in forceful, the frontier

wood in general and chairs in particular, but early in

show business seem ‘to have little common in besides

The furniture business, the funeral business, and

Ventures

Other Frontier

Opera House, and

Frank Hart, His

McCaIIum Doug That was a typical frontier apprenticeship: learning by He got into the funeral business the same way, watching and doing, then improvising on one’s own. initially just supplying coffins as a sideline of his

It sufficed — if one had the right combination of furniture factory. By the spring of 1886 he had quickness, versatility, manual dexterity, and luck. sufficiently absorbed the mysteries of the profession Frank did.2 from an associate in New Westminster to become Lured by the excitement surrounding the near Vancouver’s first undertaker. At the time the city had completion of the Canadian Pacific Railway, in no official cemetery, and Hart had to lobby city February 1885 he arrived in British Columbia. With council first to establish a site, then to prepare the only a twenty dollar gold piece as capital, he could not ground. There were no customers, however, until afford the inflated prices of Port Moody, which was November, when Simon Hirschberg, a hotel owner, then the intended rail terminus, so he rented a cabin committed suicide. Frank dryly informed Mayor at Granville, alias Gastown, and began making MacLean, “I could not get anyone, but finally got a furniture to sell. Demand was great enough that after volunteer.” only a few weeks the shack was too small,and he built His new undertaking remained a branch of the a store and factory on the waterfront at the eastern furniture business. Wearing the customary suits of edge of the townsite, followed by a still larger solemn black and matching silk hat, Frank Hart building. When word came that Granville, not Port himself drove the hearse, drawn by a team of dark, Moody, was to be the site of the terminus, Frank Hart plumed horses, to Mountain View Cemetery on the found himself in the right place after all. Business slopes of Mount Pleasant. Beside him rode the boomed, and he was among the gleeful band that Assistant Funeral Director, Frank’s bookkeeper, petitioned for the incorporation of Vancouver. followed in a carriage by several factory hands who Liberal and progressive, he was an active supporter of also switched hats when required to serve as Malcolm MacLean, the first mayor. In every sense pallbearers. Hart was one of the city’s true pioneers.3 To make a grim business even grimmer, the route In the great fire of June 13,1886, he sustained one of to the cemetery was a steep corduroy road, built over the biggest financial losses: more than $13,000 worth swampy land. When it rained heavily, as it sometimes of goods and property. Down but not out, he does in Vancouver, parts of the road were under borrowed and rebuilt. Since everyone was now in water and the timbers of which it was made tended to need of furnishings, by August the Pioneer Furniture drift apart. On one memorable occasion — the Factory and the Pioneer Furniture Store were once Masonic funeral for Alderman Humphries — again thriving operations, employing more than a everyone except the deceased had to get out and dozen people. walk across the swamp. Even then one of the horses The new factory stood at the foot of Cambie Street slipped between two of the timbers, the wheels of the on the north shore of False Creek. It was a three storey hearse did likewise, and the vehicle became mired in building with machinery on the ground floor, mud. It made a great story for Frank to tell afterwards, upholstery rooms on the second, and finishing rooms but at the time he feared that the struggling, kicking and offices on the third, It was by no means a sweat horse would wreck the $1,500 hearse. shop; Frank Hart was an energetic yet easygoing man By 1889 business was brisK, and Hart purchased a and was popular with his employees, who presented second hearse. With the store and factory running full him, as an 1886 Christmas gift, with a handsome, tilt, the funerals were sometimes conducted in a silver-monogrammed, Meerschaum pipe. The terrific rush, especially if there were two going on newspapers proudly hailed him: “Mr. Hart is the simultaneously. On one of those days Frank and his pioneer manufacturer and deserves his success.” His assistant were each driving so furiously down business was the city’s first secondary industry.5 different streets that they almost collided at the In addition to selling his own products, Hart carried intersection. “He couldn’t stop, and I wouldn’t,” was on an extensive import trade. His two warerooms on how Hart summed it up. “Nothing ever fazed Frank Cordova Street were jammed with crockery and Hart,” was how people summed him up.8 cutlery, bedding and window blinds, carpets and Perhaps for that reason, and because of his curtains, lamps and linoleum, and just about gregariousness and gargantuan energy, Frank everything else a fast-growing town might desire in escaped the stereotype of the undertaker. Popular the way of furnishings for home or office. The Pioneer and respected, he involved himself in numerous Furniture store even supplied the fixtures for the first social and cultural enterprises. Even before the city’s street lighting and was the agent for the new, patent, incorporation he was manager of the Coal Harbour High Arm Singer Sewing Machine. Throughout the Bachelor’s Quadrille Club and was conspicuously population growth and building boom of the late successful at persuading single girls from all over the 1880s, Frank Hart provided the majority of inlet to attend the club’s dances. He served as the first Vancouver’s furnishings. His staff gradually grew to secretary of the International Order of Oddfellows, more than one hundred. With a firm grip on the Granville’s earliest fraternal organization, and in 1886 import, manufacturing, wholesale and retail areas, he became the first Canadian Commander of the had truly got in on the ground floor.6 Knights of Pythias for the Mainland of B.C. He also

British Columbia Historical News Page 25

News Historical Columbia 26 British Page

an

not

was

house

opera a so-called even Running company dramatic her with appeared Woodthorpe,

House.” 15 Opera Called Georgie actress the 15,

November On

Canada.

So-

“Hart’s

it

termed

reviewer newspaper A there. eastern with link rail long by the

than rather Victoria,

meetings

earliest

its

held nonetheless which Army, of way by Seattle from came most since

especially

Salvation

of the

a member

said house!” opera an than professionals, touring

of

offerings

the dominated

a barn

like

more

was “It

trap. 14 fire a terrible been inevitably hand, other the on

influences, American

have must place The stoves. wood by

heated and

approved.”

lamps

oil coal

by

lit were

auditorium the and

it both have would

herself Queen

The so.

respectably

and

platform, high foot

a three

was stage

The

people. always was it but

denominator,”

common

“lowest

the

500-600

held

theatre

The seats). cheap

(the of behind generally been have

may

content

The

productions.

benches

plain on

or

seats)

(reserved

rows

few first amateur in than

clearly

more side

British

Victorian

the

in chairs

wooden on

sat

Audiences

decorations. its showed rarely

Vancouver available. be

to

happened

other no

were there

but remodelling,

the of abilities

elocutionary and

terpsichorean

acrobatic,

part

presumably

cloth,

white

with

lined

were walls

the musical, diverse

whatever

from

assembled

was

it ties,

Inside,

roof, canvas and

walls

wooden

unpainted its communi frontier

Columbia’s British of

most

in

those

conceal

to

facade”

town

a

“boom

even

without long, and followed,

that those

Like

pourri. pot a

much

pretty

feet thirty

and

hundred one and

wide

feet fifty about was itself concert

the fact In melodies.”

gleeful and

structure,

board-and-batten

single-story,

primitive passages

brilliant of

pourri pot

“a as

described Song;’

a

was house

opera

the

renovations

the after

Even Cuckoo “Emmett’s played she

request,

By

merit.”

till current

1888.13 become

not did the name

superior of pianist “a

Eadlands,

Mrs. was

highlight

though

House, Opera

at Hart’s

remembered people the which of

talent,

amateur

Vancouver’s of best the

that

building

the was This

auditorium.

the

renovated involved

program The

instruments.

better

for funds

and

facilities

stage

the

expanded

Hart

raise which to expressly

Band,

City the for

a as

benefit

place

for

date, to

elaborate

most and largest

the

were that took ball and

concert grand a

30,

September On

operettas other and

“Mikado”

Sullivan’s and

Gilbert

for

performances.10 occasionally and

dances

of

productions

brought

Company

Opera Pike

the for it rent to

groups

local

encouraged soon

space

June, In

shows.

booking began

and it,

of rear at the

floor

commodious

but its

purpose,

its original

for place

a

stage built

of 1886-1887,

winter the

during

sometime

the leased

products,

tobacco

and

cigars in

a dealer

rink, skating

the

bought

he So

theatre.

regular Levy,

Jack

Creek. False of

flats the then

were what

over

a

wanted

and

— needed

Vancouverites

that out

— jutted

portion

rear

The

Pender.

now

Dupont,

near

felt also

Hart

Yet

fees.

rental

his

getting about

worry

Street Carrall

of

side east

the

on a lot

on

Vancouver,

to

began

Hart while

involved risks

the

of to tire began in

it

reassembled

and

structure

the

dismantled

Levy

shows,

more a

couple

and

months afew

After in.

owner, a new

or

Kelly,

1886

of

summer the

during

comes Hart

Frank where is

that and

Factory,

Furniture

Sometime

greatness.

future

with

fling short

town’s

Pioneer

the

from

them

rented

He

that performances?

during

Moody

at Port

built

had

Kelly

named

man

these

for seats

the

get

Levy Jack did

a

where

And

that

rink skating a roller was building the with, start To

production.

a touring present to nowhere been remembered. simply been has name his which for one

had

There

places. such in the foot became set would and women activities all his other to overshadow

respectable of number came increasing the of theatre, none and first Vancouver’s House, Opera Hart’s

saloons,

local in comedians and because musicians of consists factory—ironically furniture the of offshoot

entertainment

professional of

record

previous

an as

began

also

enterprise theatrical the

ironically

only

The

seen. had

city

the

company

theatrical

But

a

sort. ot

events

staging

involved

directing

funeral

first

the

was outfit

Woodthorpe the

his Advertiser, even and

business,

show into

venture Hart’s

News

Daily

the to

According

to

Vancouver. for contributed

have to seem

activities

these All

step progressive

a was

this

though, whole,

the On woods. 9 the out of community

a

applause 12 and hacking of process

the

to vital

was

brashness

laughter much

with

“greeted

were that

English very his pidgin and

leader, social

important

an was Hart

and

gestures

makeup,

exaggerated

with immigrant, notwithstanding,

edges rough Some

name.

his out

Chinese

stereotyped a

Sing,” “Hop

of

role the played paint to him

convinced

MacLean Mayor

until CPR,”

actor

One

Vancouverites. of surface

the the

to beneath Welcome Hart’s

“Frank

proclaimed,

top

the

simmering

force

positive

so a not

at to

letters appealed large

plug:

personal a

resist not

could

Hart

also show

The

Century. 19th

later

the of

audiences though Factory,

Furniture

Pioneer the

of

courtesy

aspiring

socially

with type

dramatic

popular a built

proved was

achievement the

honouring arch

triumphal

that

potential

inner of

plenty but exterior the

unpolished arrived,

train first

the When

Communities.

an

with

tomboy

a young

diamond,” rough B.C.

early

for

events major

always

were

which

“a

was

heroine

its

town, frontier

a western

in Set Celebrations, Day

Dominion the

including

occasions,

Vancouverites.

for appeal

built-in with

a melodrama special for

receptions and

decorations

to organize

on

was

Pines”, the

“Among

play,

The

Rink.”

Skating

“the called often

was Frank

businesses, his of

the

nature of

as

simply

known

building

the at only”

night one Because “for Band. City first Vancouver’s organize helped easy task. Hart shouldered the risks in booking ‘Airight,” replied the unflappable actress, “I’ll tell companies. He had to pay them advance money and you what to do. After the show, you go to the hotel handle the advertising and ticket sales. He did charge room with a bunch of fruit in one hand and a twenty rent on the theatre: $33.00 per night for an amateur dollar gold piece in the other hand. I’ll bet you group and perhaps twice that for professionals. nothing will come of it.” Certainly ticket prices were in that ratio: a touring So he did that, and Katie Putnam went along. The show cost $1.00 for reserved seats, 50e for general man was recovering, she gave him a kiss, and won the admission; amateur shows charged half as much. wager.18 With never more than a dozen rentals per month Hart In common with his circumstances and character, could not have made much profit. Frank Hart’s management approach could best be What Hart presented was a continuation of the described as rough and ready. When a company that same sort of fare his brief predecessor had shown. performed the famous frontier melodrama “Davy There were plays like “Davy Crockett”, “The Count of Crockett”, was about to cancel because of an ailing Monte Cristo” and “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde,” hoary cast member, Frank wired them to come ahead, and melodramas that have nonetheless continued to be he would find an actor. What he found was a terribly used ever since in movie and television productions. British member of his quadrille club, and as soon as There were also light farces (rather like T.V. sitcoms), the man opened his mouth in this very American play minstrel and other variety shows, and early musical the audience recognized the deception and booed comedies. It was a purely popular theatre (no loudly. For the next show the theatre was half empty. Shakespeare, Ibsen, et cetera), but it deserves to be But Vancouver audiences were starved for taken seriously, in general because it was the entertainment and consequently forgiving, and the precursor of the mass entertainment of today,16 and in opera house was normally full. At those times Frank’s the context of Vancouver because at least it was main worry was the boys who liked to climb up theatre. One has to start somewhere. Recognizing outside, raise the edge of the canvas roof, and enjoy a that sentiment, Vancouverites supplemented the free show. One day Police Chief Stewart’s son Hector peripatetic professionals with local performances, was thus occupied when a push from behind sent him some of which were ad hoc, mixed-bag concerts for hurtling into the theatre, where his unexpected the utilitarian purpose of fund raising, like the one entrance was halted by the spectators he landed on.19 already mentioned. Gradually specialized organiza Frank Hart had solved another problem. As usual, he tions began to give performances for their own sake. was bold, quick-witted, decisive, but perhaps, like his The city’s first dramatic association presented its initial opera house, just a bit crude. play at Hart’s. It was there the city’s first orchestra Yet both had served their purpose. By 1889 they had played, and its new operatic society produced a brought Vancouver a vast increase in both the pastoral dramatic cantata, “The Haymakers”. Hart’s quantity and quality of theatrical activity. But that in Opera House, like its owner, sowed a lot of early turn brought competition. On April 25 the Imperial seeds. Opera House, built by William Crickmay, a civil Probably the worst week in Hart’s show business engineer, opened on Cambie Street with the prestig career was the one commencing January 5, 1889. For ious Mendelssohn Quintet. It was a sign of civic that evening many tickets had been sold, but when changes. Though the Imperial was essentially a the company arrived by steamer, immigration bigger, better barn, it was some improvement, and so officials saw symptoms of smallpox in one of the was its location. Hart’s was now in the worst part of actors and quarantined the whole ship. The show did town, surrounded by brothels, opium dens, and not go on, nor did it several days later when Shelly the gambling joints.20 The city had begun to move Mesmerist, to whom Frank had sent a cash advance, westward and also to move on in many ways, leaving turned up dead drunk in Victoria.17 No doubt to the Vancouver of Hart’s Opera House behind. The recoup his losses, Frank decided to build some extra curtain came down for the last time on June 4, 1889. bleacher seating after he learned that “Lena the The Imperial filled the gap until it too was displaced Madcap” starring Katie Putnam, was sold out. The when in 1891 the CPR built the first sophisticated carpenter had hammered just a single nail into each opera house, heralding another era. of the bleacher supports, when Frank, in a rush as Shortly before his own era ended, at least in usual, had to put him on another job. He forgot to get Vancouver, Frank Hart, a widower, married Amelia someone to finish the supports, and that night, just Campbell. She was a talented oil painter and prolific before the curtain went up, the bleachers went down poet. She also write the words and music of what may with a crash. Only one man seemed seriously hurt and have been Vancouver’s first published song. “Heart was carried to his hotel room. Despite the mishap, the of Gold” is a conventional enough Victorian love actors were cool professionals who gave an enjoyable song, but the obviously intended pun of the title and performance. But for once Hart was anything but its themes of commitment and loyalty indicate that is cool. He feared a lawsuit. specifically celebrated the Hart marriage. It ends: “My goodness,” he exclaimed to Katie Putnam, Sweetheart, thru life’s joy and pain, “what will I do?” Thru its sunshine and its rain,

British Columbia Historical News Page 27 Walk beside me, dear, and see 3 Hart, Personal Interviews, 13 November 1933, 1 The heart of gold I keep for thee February 1934, Amelia Hart kept that promise as Frank Hart’s lifelong 4 B.C. Directory, 1892, Vancouver Biographies, and companion.21 Vancouver Daily News, 25 December 1886. The rain fell with the depression of the early 1890s. 5 News, 25 December 1886. Hart hung on too long in several speculative ventures, 6 Hart’s business cards and letterhead, after the more sophisticated J.S. Matthews shareholders had cut Collection, list many of the products he carried; so do their losses, while his furniture business succumbed his regular newspaper ads in the News and the News- to increasing competition, as his opera house had Advertiser, 1886-1889. done.22 He was not well-equipped for a complex 7 The suicide of Simon Hirschberg was reported in world of international high finance or a city of the News, 5 November 1886. For Hart’s references to it, see specialized professional as he was for the informal, Personal Interview, 13 November 1933. localized economy and amateur versatility of the 8 Hart, Letter to iS. Matthews, City Archivist, 27 August frontier boom town, where demands were more 1934; Richard Geddes Large, Prince Rupert: A easily satisfied, if less easily supplied. Though crucial Gateway to Alaska and the Pacific (Vancouver: to the development of a pioneering community, his Mitchell Press, rev. ed., 1973), pp. 13-15. qualities of boldness, impetuosity and willful tenacity 9 Hart, Reminiscences, TS, 1934. now seemed sadly out of place. 10 Hart, Interview, 3 January 1934. lack Levy, Business So in 1894 Frank and Amelia Hart sold out, packed Cards, Matthews Collection. Re. roller rink as “a up and set off — not into the sunset, but to a new and popular resort for dancers,” see News, 30 September booming frontier, the gold and copper mining town 1886. of .Rossland, British Columbia. There Frank settled 11 News, 30 September and 1 October 1886. Except down for a couple of years in his old standbys of where otherwise noted, all names, dates, places and furniture and undertaking, other facts and figures concerning performances are and he had another taken theatrical venture from Doug McCallum, “A Vancouver with a second Hart’s Opera House. Entertainment Calendar,” 1897 unpublished record of But in the Klondike Gold Rush proved performances in Vancouver, 1886-1905. irresistible. At Dyea, Alaska, he virtually built the town 12 News, 16 November 1886. in 90 days of whirlwind activity. Mercifully it didn’tfall 13 Hart, Interview, 3 down. He cornered the January 1934. News-Advertiser, 26 lumber trade as well, and and 27 June 1887. altogether made $250,000, lost it in speculations, then 14 Description of the made it back in Dawson City. At one point theatre based on: Amelia Hart, Frank fell Personal Interview, 19 November gravely ill in a isolated part of 1940, Mrs. H.E. the Yukon; like a Greatrex, Personal Interview, 30 August 1943, melodramatic plot and J.S. twist, Hector Stewart (whom Frank Matthews, Memo on Hart’s Opera House, n.d. All had pushed through the opera house roof years these sources are in the J.S. Matthews Collection, Add before) happened to be in the area and saved his life MSS 54, vol 13, filed by subject under Theatres, Hart’s by carrying him to the nearest hospital.23 Opera House. All the accounts are consistent, except In 1908 the Harts moved to Prince Rupert, “the on the nature of the cloth lining the walls. It seems to latest frontier,” as the writer of Frank’s obituary have been some form of cottom. expressed it. There they stayed. Frank set up one 15 Greatrex, source cited above. Vancouver World, 7 more time in the furniture and funeral business and October 1888. later became a housing contractor, real estate agent 16 For the best comprehensive introduction to the and merchandise broker. Again he took an active role popular theatre of this period, see Robert C. Toll, On in civic and social organizations, but not in show With the Show: The First Century of Show Business in America (New York: business. In 1934 at the age of 78, he was still working Oxford University Press, 1976). 17 away, though with rapidly failing eyesight.24 One day News-Advertiser, 4, 5, 7, 8 January, 1889. in 1935, Frank Hart, frontier undertaker, finally bowed 18 News-Advertiser, 9 and 10 January, 1889; Frank Hart, to necessity and “volunteered.” Amelia Hart Interview, 3 January, 1934; Amelia Hart, Interview, 19 followed in 1949. November 1940. 19 Amelia Hart, Interview. 20 Goad’s Fire Insurance Atlas, 1889, City Archives Doug McCaIlum is the author of Vancouver’s Map Collection, shows half a dozewn brothels and several Orpheum — The Life of a Theatre. opium factories within a two block radius of Hart’s Opera House; News-Advertiser, 24 June 1888, 1 see Doug McCallum, “Barkerville Theatre in describes a police raid on a Chinese gambling Context,” Thesis, University of British Columbia, 1981, establishment at the corner of Carrall and Dupont; for an extensive discussion of the nature, and impulses World, 17 January 1889, discusses the problem of behind, frontier society and culture. young hoodlums who hung around outside the 2 Frank Hart, Personal Interview, 13 November 1933, TS, theatre and deterred respectable people from J.S. Matthews Collection, Vancouver City Archives, attending. There were also complaints of a rowdy Add MSS 54, Vol. 13, Hart, Frank. All interviews and element in the “gallery” section of the Opera House: correspondence, and written reminiscences by Frank “Cat calling, rude laughter nd execrable noises are Hart mentioned in subsequent references are in this hardly in keeping with the metropolitan character of file in typescript form.

British Columbia Historical News Page 28 Vancouver — they do very well in frontier, towns, when the annual barn-storming minstrel show or circus makes its appearance,” World, 7 October, 1888. 21 Amelia Hart, “Heart of Gold” (Vancouver: n.p., n.d.); Frank Hart, Letter to Secretary of the Pioneer Association, 26 August 1934. 1934. eo,ztebt 22 Frank Hart, Reminiscences, 23 First History of Rossland, B.C.: With Sketches of Some of Its Prominent Citizens, Firms, and Corporations (Rossland: Stunden and Perine, nd.), pp. 6-7; Irene Howard, Vancouver’s Svenskar: A History of the Swedish Community in Vancouver (Vancouver: Daphne Arber of Victoria wins our book prize, Barns Historical Society, Occasional Paper Vancouver of Western Canada: An Illustrated Century, by Bob One, 1973), 33-44; Frank Hart, Interview, Number pp. (Braemer Books, Victoria, $26.95), by 13 November 1933; Amelia Hart, Interview. Heinstock Puget’s Sound Agricultural 13-15; obituary notices for supplying the answer 24 Large, Prince Rupert, pp. “What was the name of the Frank Hart, 8 May 1935, unidentified newspapers, J.S. Company to the question, Matthews Clipping File, City Archives; Frank Hart, Hudson Bay Company’s agricultural Subsidiary?” Letter to J.S. Matthews, 8 August 1934; Vancouver Province: 11, 17 March 1949.

British Columbia Historical Federation Annual Conference University of British Columbia Conference Centre, Gage Towers

May 8 - 11, 1986

Conference Information Available from your Member Society’s Secretary

British Columbia Historical News Page 29 I News . and.. Notes F

The J.C.C.A. History Preservation Committee is History and the interested in communicating with organizations and people about Japanese Canadian history. Dan T. Tokawa, Chairman Japanese Canadian History Preservation Committee J.C.C.A. Citizen Box 2108 Main P.O. The Greater Vancouver Japanese Canadian Vancouver, B.C. V6B 3T5 Citizens Association (J.C.C.A.) in 1981 organized a History Preservation Committee that interviewed older members of the Japanese Community and recorded their life stories. Assistance through 1983 and 1985 Federal summer work grants and many volunteers provided the resources needed to amass Fort Langley National 134 tapes of 91 interviews and a two volume catalogue for easy reference. In October 1985 the J.C.C.A. Historic Park proudly donated the tapes to UBC Special Collections. They are accessible to the public under call nuniber: SPAV79O72S6N.23=1 -134. Fort Langley National Historic Park, in co-operation Other 1985 History Committee activities included: with Western Cablevision Ltd., has recently 1. Investigation of historical leads such as Mr. Den completed a comprehensive history of Fort Langley Boer’s “Letters”; these turned out to be the on video tape. Five Decades of Change was written records of the Pitt Meadows Japanese Farmer’s and researched by park staffer Steve Turnbull, with Association which had been left in the attic of a narration by Interpretive Officer Bryan Jackson. The building owned by the Free Reform Church of two programs totalling 52 minutes, provide an North America. The congregation donated the excellent overview of the fort’s history from its records to UBC Special Collections recently. inception to its eventual decline. Five Decades of 2. Lobbying to preserve historic sites such as Kishi Change is being made available through Western Boatworks, last boat shop in Steveston capable of Cablevision Ltd., in ½” VHS for $35.00, and ¾” VHS for handling wooden fishing boats. The committee $60.00 (rates subject to change). twice appeared before Richmond Municipal For further information contact Western Council and emphasizes the boatwork’s Cablevision, 10445 - 138th Street, Surrey, B.C. Phone: importance as an example of the Japanese 588-0441. Canadian contribution to the West Coast fishing industry. The structure was saved temporarily but lobbying to secure a permanent site for it must continue. 3. Support of other historical organizations such as the Cumberland Museum which needs funds to Sooke Story on preserve 786 glass plate photo negatives dating back to 1900 and which depict mainly Japanese Screen Canadian pioneers living in the Comox Valley of Vancouver Island. News of the museum’s fund- A three-year labour of love by Sooke Museum raising effort was spread through the J.C.C.A. curator Elida Peers has resulted in the All Sooke Days monthly Bulletin which has a 5,000 household Story, a film showing the evolution of logging skills circulation. At last report the museum was halfway into the annual sports event. The documentary will be along to its $2,000 goal. shown free daily at the Sooke Museum, starting May An activity worth mentioning, which at the moment 1. is only a dream for the History Committee, is the Produced at a cost of $90,000, it contains vintage building of a Powell Street museum that would record footage of early All-Sooke Days in the 1940s and 1950s Vancouver’s once large Japanese town. Photographs as well as interviews with older residents. The 1984 and memoirs of this community are scarce. All-Sooke Days are the centrepiece of the film.

Page 30 British Columbia Historical News I...... I. • ...... Bookshelf

• VANCOUVER, THE WAY IT WAS, Michael Vancouver in Print Kluckner. North Vancouver: Whitecap Books, 1984. $39.95. VANCOUVER IS A GARDEN, Donna McClement. VANCOUVER SHORT STORIES, Carole Gerson. Toronto: McLelland & Stewart, 1985. $29.95. UBC Press, 1985. Old and new stories about Vancouver. VANCOUVER THEN AND NOW, Roland Morgan. North Vancouver: Whitecap Books, 1983. $8.95. WORKING LIVES: VANCOUVER 1886-1986, Elaine Bernard et al. New Star Books, 1985. 1986 KID’S GUIDE TO VANCOUVER, Rae Schidlo. An illustrative history of the lives and contributions Vancouver: Gordon Soules, 1985. $7.95. of ordinary Vancouverites during the past 100 years. GREAT SCOTT! A COLLECTION OF THE BEST VANCOUVER’S FIRST CENTURY: A CITY ALBUM COLUMNS OF JACK SCOTT, Jack Scott. Victoria: 1860-1 985, Anne Kloppenborg, Alice Niwinski, Eve Sono Nis Press, 1985. $9.95. Johnson, ed. Douglas & Mcintyre, 1985. THE STANLEY PARK EXPLORER, Richard M. Steele. An illustrated history of Vancouver. Vancouver: Whitecap Books, 1985. $8.95. LITERARY LANDMARKS OF VANCOUVER, Alan VANCOUVER, A CENTENNIAL SOUVENIR, 4th ed. Twigg. Harbour Publishing Co., 1986. North Vancouver: Whitecap Books, 1985. $14.95 hundred One literary landmarks, celebrating 100 hard; $7.95 paper. writers whose lives have touched Vancouver. VANCOUVER ART AND ARTISTS, 1931-1 983, GERRY McGEER: A BIOGRAPHY, David Williams. Vancouver Art Gallery. Vancouver: The Gallery, Douglas & McIntyre, 1986. A definitive biography 1983. of Vancouver’s best-known mayor. VANCOUVER FICTION, David Watmough, ed. THE WEST COASTER, Douglas M. Gibson. Winlaw, B.C.: Polestar Press, nd. $12.95. MacMillan, 1986. A historical novel of early Vancouver. THE VANCOUVER GUIDE, Tern Wershler. Vancouver: Douglas & McIntyre, 1985. $9.95. LILIAN HOO, Paul Yee. Lorimer Publishers, 1986. A historical children’s novel about the Chinese POINT GREY HANDBOOK: Vancouver, 1985. community. Published by West Point Grey Community Association. 1985. $3.95 THE VANCOUVER ANTHOLOGy.Garry Geddes. Douglas & Mcintyre. THE VANCOUVER BOOK, Chuck Davis, ed. A collection of memoirs, non-fiction and poetry. Published: J.J. Douglas, North Vancouver, 1976. SAMUEL MACLURE, ARCHITECT Janet Bingham. Ganges, B.C.: Horsdal & Schubart, 1985. $9.95. GUIDE TO VANCOUVER’S CHINESE RESTAURANTS, Ginger Chang. Surrey, B.C.: Hancock House, 1985. $7.95. Patricia Roy is the Book Review Editor. Copies of CHEF VANCOUVER. Vancouver: Port City books for review should be sent to her at 602-139 Publishers, 1985. $14.95. Clarence St., Victoria V8V 2J1 TRAIL TO POINT GREY: A KERRISDALE CHRONICLE, Joyce Diggins. Vancouver: Kerrisdale Historical Society, 1986. $16.00 hardback; $10.00 paper.

British Columbia Historical News Page 31 Vancouver Short Stories, ed. Carole Gerson. U.B.C. mistreatment and abandonment, cultural imbalance, Press, 1985. $9.50 rape of the land, problems of integration: all are somewhere in this fiction; all are part of Vancouver’s Vancouver Short Stories is a collection of twenty-one or any other city’s development. But what makes the entries, all but two of which have appeared in other collection unique and truly local is the setting. The volumes or magazines. Bertrand Sinclair’s contribu mountains and the rain are here, the dirty streets, the tion, a reminiscence of the rum-running days of bridges, the beaches, the East End, the University: prohibition and the dangers of the smuggling game, locale is essential and integral to most of the stories, has not appeared elsewhere, and Cynthia Flood’s and is unmistakeably Vancouver, and Canadian. “The Animals in Their Elements”, an able story about It is a relief to know that realistic stories with local the confusions and embarassments of aging, is references are re-entering the literary vogue, and that original to this collection. Other pieces are reprints Canadian artists now feel that they are allowed to be a from such sources as The Tamarack Review, The Canadian without fear of sacrificing the world market. Fiddlehead, Canadian Fiction, even The Alumni Ms. Gerson’s introduction is orderly and well- Chronicle. The unifying characteristic of the short written, perhaps with a textbook trade in mind; one stories in the book is certainly not thematic, since they particular thesis in it, “...[a city’sJ identity is created by range in subject matter from the overlap of Chinese and reflected in its art and literature,” catches the eye. cultural heritage with Canadian (“The Jade Peony”) to If we’ve made it into literature, in other words, we are the girl-I-left-behind-me in Tatlow Park (“Love in ihe no longer imaginary. Fiction is just another way of Park”), to the neat realism of Emily Carr’s “Sophie”, recording, and if the facts of history, which have which describes the tragic circumstances of semi molded these writers and formed their subject are urbanized native Indians. But in all the stories there what make Vancouver worth reading about, then are local references which serve to bind them fiction derived from history makes that history together into a group, and they are all by authors who available and immediate. have at least visited Vancouver. There are the The nicest thing about a book of short stories is that inevitable Pauline Johnson excerpts from Legends of one need not read it all. Most of these stories you will Vancouver,included I imagine for the sake of Expo enjoy; the rest you may cheerfully abandon. strangers who will no doubt be buying the book to take away with them, most Vancouverites having Brenda McGillveray encountered Johnson before, and there is a rather cryptic Malcolm Lowry piece in which gin seems to equal salvation. Alice Munro is represented with a delightful commentary, first printed in McCall’s, on Samual Maclure, Architect. cults; Audrey Thomas is in the book too, accurately Janet Bingham; Horsdal & Schubert, 1985, $9.95. outlining in “Aquarius” the warped balance of power in a failing relationship. Interestingly enough, there If you have spent the bulk of your adult life in an are four out of the twenty-one authors who were apartment that looks like the inside of a refrigerator, actually born in Vancouver: William McConnell, you will be thankful for Janet Bingham’s latest lawyer and editor, who gives a clear shot of a Kitsilano contribution to architectural preservation. In Samuel park, Wayson Choy, who writes of the mystical China- Maclure, Architect,Ms. Bingham presents a valuable born grandmother, Joy Kogawa, on the shameful and study of the work of a brilliant British Columbian. In a frightening Japanese internment, and Frances very readable fashion, the author identifies his Duncan, whose “Was That Malcolm Lowry” is, if over architectural styles, social and philosophical long, a very descriptive chronicle of summer cabin life influences and illuminates the special Maclure on the Dollarton beaches. The other writers were adaptations. The inventories of his commissions, imported, but of course the city’s history is of imports, along with the Bingham’s commentary and collected so that’s fair enough. reminiscences lend this book an appeal for architects Ms. Gerson has provided brief biographies for each and laymen alike. writer, with the exception of the first one, Francis The author sets the stage for Maclure’s life and Owen, whose origins must remain a mystery. The work by opening for view the pages of the family stories are arranged chronologically, so that they album. We meet his venturesome parents, siblings move from the mix of history and legend in Owen’s and other members of the pioneer Maclure family. account of the great fire through layers of settlement Basically self-taught, except for one year in art school and the war and on to contemporary urban life. in Philadelphia, Maclure formed his first architectural Australian immigrants caught up in the dope-culture, partnership in 1890. Until his death in 1929, he a European painter garretted on Main Street, specialized in domestic architecture.

Page32 British Columbia Historical News Samuel Maclure developed a strong design vocabulary of historical styles, but interpreted his mandate freely to produce distinctive and innovative residences. He selected with taste the historical or New Books: geographic style that suited the particular site and client. Bingham tells us that some of the houses, with Entries in their harmonious blend of stylistic borrowings and functional planning, have been “lovingly restored” the 1985 B.C. and others have been declared heritage buildings. Still others have been renovated beyond recognition and many are demolished. Some have even been Historical Writing demolished since the inventories were prepared. Fortunately, seven remain in New Westminster and Cornpetition thirty-seven still stand in the City of Vancouver. As I read this book, I found that something special happened. While reading through the inventories, I These books are available at local bookstores or found myself mentally walking down streets trying to by mail from the address following the title. remember if I had seen a particular building. Then, one Saturday while driving to the dry cleaners, I OLD SILVERTON 1891-1 930, John Norris. 256 pages. veered off my pre-planned route in search of those $12.95 soft cover, $17.95 hard cover. Order from: magnificent Maclures. If anything, I have become Silverton Historical Society, Box 10, Silverton, B.C. more aware of my chosen city and its special VOG 2B0. treasures. A very well written, nicely illustrated history of a Samuel Maclure’s beautiful houses, their design Kootenay mining community.

and workmanship, the likes of which we’ll probably First Prize — Winner of the Lieutenant-Governor’s not see built again in our lifetimes, should be Medal treasured as part of British Columbia’s heritage. HAMILTON MACK LAING: HUNTER Thank you Janet Bingham for taking us part of the NATURALIS7, Richard Mackie. 234 pages. way. $19.95 hard cover. Order from: Sono Nis Press, 1745 Susan Pookay Blanshard Street, Victoria, B.C. V8W 2J8. BA. M.E. Des.(Architecture) An appealing biography of a man who helped catalogue Canada’s birds and wildlife. He lived in the Comox Valley from 1922-1982. Illustrations. **Certificate of Merit for excellent writing. BRITISH COLUMBIA PLACE NAMES A TRIBUTE TO THE PAST: QUESNEL 1808-1 928. The updated and enlarged edition of 1001 Place Branch #77, O.A.P.A. 431 pages. Hard Cover $35.00 Names of British Columbia, by Helen and Philip plus $3.50 postage. Order from: Old Age Akrigg, is now available from: Pensioners Organization, Branch #77, Box 4658, Sono Nis Press Quesnel, B.C. V2J 3J8. 1745 Blanshard Street A beautifully bound, carefully edited history of Victoria, B.C. Quesnel and District. V8W 2J8 **Certificate of Merit for Best Anthology. Price $14.95 MEN WITH WOODEN FEEL J.S. Kendrick. 168 No postage charges on prepaid orders. pages. Hard cover, $16.95. Order from: New Canadian Publications Ltd., Box 4010 Station A, Toronto, Ontario M5W 1H8. An interesting history of the Spanish influence on the west coast of B.C. Back Issues of the News ROYAL JUBILEE HOSPITAL SCHOOL OF NURSING 1891-1 982, Anne Pearson. 203 pages. Hard Cover $20.00 plus $3.00 postage. Order from: Mrs. Vivienne McConnell, 2406 Central Ave. Victoria, Back issues of the News can be ordered at $3.50 B.C. V8S 2S6, OR Munro’s Book Store, 1108 each plus postage from the Editor. Government Street, Victoria, B.C. V8W 1Y2. The history of an institution which has now closed, it holds appeal for anyone who ever knew any of its grad uates.

British Columbia Historical News Page33

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• • • • THE BRITISH COLUMBIA HISTORICAL FEDERATION

Honorary Patron: His Honour, the Honourable Robert C. Rogers, Lieutenant-Governor of British Columbia Honorary President: Col. C.S. Andrews, 116 Wellington, Victoria V8V 4H7 382-7202 (res.)

Officers President: Leonard G. McCann, #2-1430 Maple St., Vancouver V6J 3R9 736-4431 (bus.) 1st Vice President: Naomi Miller, Box 105, Wasa VOB2K0 422-3594 (res.) 2nd Vice President: John D. Spittle, 1241 Mount Crown Rd., North Vancouver V7R 1R9 988-4565 (res.) Secretary: T. Don Sale, 262 Juniper St., Nanaimo V9S 1X4 753-2067 (res.) Recording Secretary: Margaret Stoneberg, P.O. Box 687, Princeton VOXiWO 295-3362 (res.)

Treasurer: J. Rhys Richardson, 2875 W. 29th, Vancouver V6L 1Y2 733-1897 (res.) Members-at-Large: Myrtle Haslam, 1875 Wessex Road, Cowichan Bay VOR1NO 748-8397 (res.) Mary G. Orr, R.R. #1, Butler St., Summerland VOH1ZO Past-President: Barbara Stannard, #211-450 Stewart Ave., Nanaimo V9S 5E9 754-6195 (res.) Marie Elliott, Editor, B.C. Historical News, 1745 Taylor St., Victoria V8R 3E8

Chairmen of Committees: Seminars: Leonard G. McCann Historic Trails: John D. Spittle B.C. Historical News Ruth Barnett, 680 Pinecrest Rd., Campbell River V9W 3P3 Policy Committee: 287-8097 (res.) Lieutenant-Governor’s Award Committee: Naomi Miller Publications Assistance Helen Akrigg, 4633 W. 8th Ave., Vancouver V6R 2A6 Committee (not involved 228-8606 (res.) with B.C. Historical News): Loans are available for publication. Please submit manuscripts to Helen Akrigg. _

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