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MEMBERS’ MEMBER Bdtth Combia Flistorical News Journal of the B.C. Historical Federation Volume 28, No. 1 Winter 1994-95 EDITORIAL CONTENTS

It is always a pleasure to present our read FEATURES ers with a variety of facts and facets of B.C. Company Towns: Especially Englewood 2 history. it is especially encouraging when we byE.A. Hams include new names among those of regular The “Neweete War” 6 by Lesley Cooper contributors. Ernest Harris writes of The David McLouglilin Story 10 Englewood where he taught when young: that by CaneJones community no longer exists. Tom Parkin ob Road to the Pacific Rim 13 viously enjoys his role as historian/public re by Tom Parkin lations officer for the Department of Highways. Navigation on the Stikine River 15 Sam Holloway writes of and from the Yukon. by Edward L. Affleck Finnish Immigrants and Their Political We peek at the politics of Finnish immigrants Ideology 20 by RickJames in Sointula and elsewhere. For those who The Story of Edna Eldorado 25 enjoy the romance of riverboats, Ted Affleck by Sam Holloway has explained the activities on a northern river. The Plight of Rural Women Teachers in the 192 Os 26 And we found a lady in Cranbrook with a neat by Robert Wright story set in the Cariboo. We hope that you The Stagecoach and The Sleigh on the Kootenay Flats 29 by Edward L. Affleck enjoy these and all the others past, present Christmas in Sumas in the 1870s 31 and yet to come. by Shirley Cuthbertson Have you, or someone you know, got a Commander Charles Rufus Robson, RN 32 favorite story of local happenings? if so, why by Paul C. Appleton don’t you share it with readers of this maga The Bridge That Jack Built 34 zine? How about inviting a friend to join your by Alice Bjorn local historical society? British Columbia is NEWS and NOTES 35 relatively young, which makes it easy to en vision the situations we read about BOOKSHELF My own New Year’s resolution is to promote Dictionary of Canadian Biography 36 Review by Me/va Dwyer interest in and enthusiasm for the many heri Cancelled with Pride 36 tage treasures we have in British Columbia. Review by Francis Sleigh Naomi Miller The Legacy and The Challenge: Forest Industry at Cowichan Lake 37 Review by Ken Drushka Whistle Punks and Widow Makers 37 Review byJim Bowman COVER CREDIT Taku: The Heart of North America’s Last Wilderness 38 Review by George Newell These riverboats plied the Stikine River. Left Far Pastures 38 to right: the CPR sternwheelers Hamlin, Review by George Newell Ogilvie, McConnell and Duchesnay lay up at Trail to the Interior 38 Wrangell in August 1898 after a short and Review by George Newell The Skyline unprofitable steamboating season on the Limited: The Kaslo and Siocan Railway 39 Review by Edward I. Affleck Stikine. Seven Knot Summers 40 Photo courtesy of Yukon Archives/University Review by Philip Teece of Washington Collection, Print #1330. Manuscripts and correspondence to the editor are to be sent to P0. Box 105, Wasa, B.C. VOB 2K0. Correspondence regarding subscriptions is to be directed to the Subscription Secretary (see inside back cover).

Printed in Canada by Kootenay Kwik Print Ltd. Company Towns, Especially Englewood

by E.A. Harris

The company town has been a fea prosperity was offset by some damag have grown and prospered while oth ture of British Columbia’s history since ing side effects: sulphur fumes from the ers have maintained at least a nominal the first colonial days. The fur-trading smelter killed the trees in the surround existence under different circumstances. posts established during the first half of ing forest and seepage from the mine Powell River began as a typical pulp and the 19th century were, in effect, embryo polluted local streams. In 1935, due to paper company town and continues in company towns. The cities of Victoria, low copper prices and lower procluc that capacity, but on a much wider mu Nanaimo, Kamloops and Prince George tion, Anyox was closed down and most nicipal base. Ocean Falls, up coast from all originated as Hudson’s Bay Company of the town’s population departed, leav Powell River, was less fortunate.

— or North West Company — forts and, ing what had become a kind of waste Founded in 1917, Ocean Falls produced although the fur-trade is now a marginal land. The town’s population dwindled many tons of paper products. This com occupation, present-day towns like Fort and in 1939 the post office was closed. pany town was also famous for its bas Nelson and Fort St. John still retain their In 1942 a forest fire destroyed the dead ketball teams, swimming champions and fur-trade names. trees and Anyox’s abandoned wooden super abundant rainfall. The plant was

Most company towns were single in buildings — the once active mining cen closed in 1980 but a handful of perma dustry commu nent residents nities based Ofl keep Ocean such resource Falls from be enterprises as coming a mining, lumber ghost town. ing, pulp and Britannia, a paper-making, former copper and salmon- mining com canning. The pany town on most complete Howe Sound, type of com now survives pany town was as a museum where the com and tourist at pany was the traction. sole proprietor Hedley,

— the em once the site ployees occu of a great mine pied rented above the accommodation Similkameen and dealt at the River south Wood & English sawmill at Englewood in 192& Docks to the right and upper townsite to the left. company store. Photo courtesy of the author east of Anyox, at the Princeton, has head of Observatory Inlet, was a town of tre was now a ghost town. But as the become a retirement and residential vil this type. Established by the Granby Com human population vanished, natural lage. Chemainus on Vancouver Island pany in 1912, it depended on a rich cop vegetation began to restore itself. Pete has changed from sawmilling to tour per mine and smelter for its prosperity. Louden, who lived his boyhood years ism, with huge outdoor murals as at The company employed a large work in Anyox until 1935, made a return visit tractions for visitors. force and for over two decades Anyox to the abandoned townsite in 1971. He In 1953 the Aluminum Company of was, after Prince Rupert, the biggest town wrote: “In Anyox today one can find a Canada established Kitimat as a care on the north coast — with a peak popula few traces of wooden roads and a few fully planned town hoping to achieve a tion of 2,500. open areas which were once dirt roads, workable balance between corporate For over twenty years Anyox was a but generally the growth of the and municipal controls. After clearing a very profitable operation. The mine and underbrush is so dense that a stranger portion of the dense rain-forest, the smelter produced a steady stream of would find traces of the town only by townsite was divided into industrial, copper ingots, as well as considerable accident.” commercial and residential areas with amounts of gold and silver. This mining In British Columbia over the years allowances for road, rail and seaport activity provided steady employment for many company and one-industry towns construction and today Kitimat functions a large work force but this economic have come and gone. Some like Anyox as planned.

B.C. Historical News - Winter 1994-95 2 ______

- were later moved The houses moved from Nimpkish to new sites at were relocated on the very limited sites ‘I Englewood. The available near the coastal-steamer dock. move was neces The two-storey bunkhouse-mess hall sary because the was squeezed on to a narrow ledge Nimpkish river between the trestle and the steep hill mouth did not side. The company office was placed provide enough on its own set of pilings near the coastal protection or steamer dock. >s depth of water for A small creek flowed into this corner -rLz,E r4p4 the deep-sea of Beaver Cove and a dam was built COiE \ freighters that about half a mile upstream to provide a would be calling water supply for the mill and the com

— at the sawmill to munity. The sawmill was built on the take on lumber level area at the mouth of this creek and cargos. A mile or many piles were driven to construct a so of track was large loading dock to serve the deep- torn up and the sea freighters that would be coming for line redirected lumber cargos. The valley bowl behind south over a low the mill was cleared to enlarge the ridge and by a townsite. The clearing was clone hastily switchback down and the array of stumps that resulted past the sawmill was not a pretty sight. Englewood and es,virons. to tidewater. A neat row of houses was built on Sketch courtesy of the author A trestle was the north slope below the rail line for built close to the management personnel and their fami However company towns can still dis cove’s rocky north shoreline from which lies, with a wide boardwalk leading appear with dramatic suddenness. For a the logging trains spilled their loads into down to the sawmill and dock areas. number of productive years, Cassiar, near the water to be reached for entry into On the opposite slope housing was the province’s northern boundary, was a the mill. This trestle was extended to a erected for several Japanese families, as busy community dependent on its open second dock to serve the coastal steam well as two large bunkhouses for single pit asbestos mine. In 1992 when the op ers that made twice-a-week calls, bring men. The one-room schoolhouse, which eration became uneconomic and ceased ing freight and passengers. On this wharf was one of the buildings moved from operating, the population had no alter a two-storey building was erected — the Nimpkish River, provided an adequate native but to leave and hope to find em ground floor was occupied by the com classroom for some twenty-seven pu ployment elsewhere. Today Cassiar stands pany-owned general store and the sec pils in grades one to eight. The school empty and abandoned. ond storey provided space for a was placed at the extreme upper edge Englewood was another small com community hall. of the townsite with a fine view of the pany town, located on the north east coast of Vancouver Island, which died more than forty years ago leaving few traces of its exist ence. It was founded in 1925, centered around a sawmill owned and operated by the firm of Wood

& English — hence the name Englewood. Timber for the new sawmill would be brought by log ging trains from camps around Nimpkish Lake. This logging rail way had been in operation for sev eral years with a coastal terminus at the mouth of the Nimpkish River where the logs were boomed and towed to mills elsewhere. There was a small terminal village con sisting of a mess hall-bunkhouse, Looking down on Beaver Cove. Kokish River mouth and Beaver Cove settlement (lower left). Smoke several cottages, and a one-room cloud shows Englewoods location Alert Bay on Cormorant Island (beyond Point). Photo courtesy of the author schoolhouse. These buildings

3 B.C. Historical News - Winter 1994-95 the Lower Mainland found in hospitable. Englewood was a hive of in dustry up until 1930 with two and sometimes three shifts at work. The plant was a typical west-coast sawmill that operated efficiently but somewhat waste fully. Sharp-toothed bandsaws sliced huge hemlock logs into beams and boards which were piled for export. Some of the waste wood was used for fuel but most of it went into the bee w, hive burner that emitted a pretty constant cloud of smoke and ash. In 1929 some of the waste ‘ —“ . -. I was reduced by the installation Englewood’s stump-studded upper townsite. Management homes and tennis court (upper left). of a chipper-plant and scow- Japanese bunkhouses (centre). Logging railway crosses the photo midway to switcbback uphill behind the houses. School was located at extreme left (Out ofphoto). loads of wood chips were towed Photo courtesy of the author. away to coastal pulp mills. Englewood shared Beaver harbour and the settlement, marred only the ships had to make the long journey Cove with two other communities. The by the foreground of stumps. through the Panama Canal. No doubt nearest, at the cove’s southwest corner, In Englewood my rent-free abode was other cargos were transported between a five-minute boat ride away, was also a three-room cottage, built on skids and ports en route. The ships were empty named Beaver Cove. It was located at located conveniently next to the school. when they reached Englewood — except the mouth of the Kokish River, a con A dozen or more of these semi-mobile for an occasional stowaway. One day a siderable stream, much larger than homes were scattered about the townsite five-foot-long snake, fortunately dead, Englewood’s small creek. Beaver Cove and occupied by mill employees. was discovered among the stumps at the originated as an incipient company town My abode was at first not connected edge of our school playground. It was a in connection with a pulp mill that was with the community’s light and water handsome animal — green with an intri established more than a decade before systems and I had to make do with oil cate design in black and yellow along Englewood. lamps and buckets of water carried from its back. It must have unwittingly em After a few years of activity, Beaver a nearby spring. barked at some Central American port, Cove’s pulp mill closed down and was However there was never a shortage only to come ashore on the cool damp never re-opened. A caretaker was left of mill edgings and slabs for fuel. This coast of northern Vancouver Island in charge and most of the houses re was sometimes augmented by lumps of which even the little garter snakes of mained unoccupied. Some of the resi coal the train crew slid off the tender to the Shay-geared loco motive — the five spot — as it puffed up the grade with a string of empty log cars. At that time, except for a short road across the northern tip, there were no highways in northern Vancouver Island and Englewood had no automobiles. A small .motorized and modified rail-car ran daily errands up and down the rail-line to the logging camps. In the millyard, long-leg ged Ross carriers toted under slung loads of lumber that mobile cranes piled high for the incoming deep-sea freighters. Most of Englewood’s output was Englewood lower townsite. SS Catala at coastal-steamer dock Logging trains spilled their loads (at destined for markets on the east left) to be held in boomsfor entry into milL Photo courtesy ot the author coast of the United States so that

B.C. Historical News - Winter 1994-95 4 ______

dents later obtained jobs in Englewood, This provided a good solid surface that productivity and for some years func commuting across the cove by boat. Oth dried quickly, with no puddles after a tioned as a mere booming ground for ers eked out a living with some mar shower. The court was of standard size logs that were towed away to other mills. ginal agriculture and there were enough and enclosed within a high meshed In 1952 Canadian Forest Products ob children to maintain another one-room fence. The tennis may not have been tained a forest management licence for school. up to Davis Cup standards but it pro- the Nimpkish region with headquarters A third tiny settlement, near at Woss Lake. The rail-line the cove’s entrance, was lo was moved from Englewood cated beside a pocket-sized to a new coastal terminus at harbour called Telegraph the mouth of the Kokish

Cove — so called because the River near the older settle government had established ment of Beaver Cove. This a telegraph station there in logging railway is still opera

1911. In 1928 Telegraph Cove tional — the last of its kind. had a small sawmill, a wharf, The logs are taken to CanFor and a few houses clinging to plants like Eburne Sawmills the rocky shoreline. It was a at the mouth of the Fraser in picturesque spot and much Vancouver. photographed. Today Tel Englewood was aban egraph Cove is a rendezvous doned years ago and a visi for whale watchers — the rub tor today, who could now bing area of Robson Bight drive to the Beaver Cove area being just to the south. and beyond, would have dif Two other places beyond ficulty finding any traces of Beaver Cove but within Wood & English’s company. Deep-sea freighters loading at Englewoods lumber dock Cargos for small-boat range of the east coast went via the Panama Canal No buildings remain — they Englewood were Alert Bay, Photo courtesy of J. Macmilan were moved or dismantled located on Cormorant Island when Englewood was aban in Johnston Strait, and the Finnish set vided enjoyable recreation for a wide doned. After more than forty years, the tlement of Sointula on nearby Malcolm range of participants. boardwalks and the tennis court have Island. Alert Bay, with its large native Baseball fans also had their innings. disappeared and a renewed forest has population, had an impressive array of In the spring of 1929 a fairly level shoul grown up over what was once the Kwakiutl totems. Alert Bay was a port der on the south slope was levelled off stumpy upper townsite. About the only of call for most of the many steamers for a ball field. On fine work-free days signs that there was once a settlement that used to ply B.C. ‘s coastal waters. It shouts of “batter up” and “play ball” there are some old pilings along the

also had a hospital operated then by the enlivened the community. shoreline — relics of the rail-trestle and Anglican Church whose mission ship By the later 1920s radio reception was the docks. However the name Columbia, with a doctor on board, was becoming much more available in places “Englewood” still survives in Canadian a frequent visitor to Englewood. The like Englewood. The owners of new bat Forest Products’ Englewood Logging United Church minister in Alert Bay had tery-powered sets, equipped with loud Division and in the memories of indi a smaller boat for coastal visits and held speakers, often invited neighbours in just to viduals who lived there for some part Sunday services in Englewood for a listen to the radio and marvel at hearing of their lives. small hut dedicated congregation. words and music from all across North Englewood was a work-oriented America and even overseas. Radio also pro place, a company town with flO deep vided the latest stock-market quotations. Ernest Harris taught in Engleu’ood roots (except for the stumps). However Some Englewood residents, like many oth when be was a young man. He later the residents were neighhourly with a ers, were eager investors. When, later in taught in Vancouver Several stories, ii’ good community spirit. Dances were 1929, the stock-market crash occurred, most lustrated with his own cartoons, have held fairly often in the spacious hall of the paper profits vanished but, at first, appeared in the News previously, lie above the company store, with music few realized that the world was heading published Spokeshute the story ofPort provided by a local pianist or by a into the great slump of the 1930s. Essington; in 1990. gramophone. Bridge was a popular pas It soon became obvious that a world time and other card games had their wide depression was setting in with REFRfNCES devotees too. much diminished international trade. By Louden, The Town That Got Lost, Gray Publishing, 1973. By the combined efforts of willing 1931, due to the loss of its lumber mar volunteers, a tennis court was con kets, Englewood sawmill closed down Akriggs, 2002 B.C. Place \nw.c. Vancou, ur Discovery Press, 1970. structed on the upper townsite. It was and most employees had no choice hut The canadian Hurtig, made of two-by-fours placed on edge to go somewhere else to get jobs. Enct’clopedia, 1958. and set about a quarter of an inch apart. Englewood never regained its former Canadian Forest l’roducts Publications, 1993.

5 B.C. Historical News - Winter 1994-95 The “Neweete War” by Lesley Cooper

Here I am and others like seeds colony of Vancouver’s Island. tive population in the area was between floatedfrom aforeign shore; bring Fort Rupert was constructed on Bea 2,500 and 3,000, representing at least ing a new philosophy, powei and ver Harbour, at the north end of Van one-third of the total Kwakiutl popula artficial resulting mode of living couver Island, as a coal-mining post.3 tion at the time.8 The natives traded in among these natural men and natu Built in 1849 on the orders of Sir George fur and salmon at the new post, and ralforests. What will be the result? Simpson and under the direction of Chief also continued to dig the surface coal Dr. John Sebastian Helmcken1 Trader William McNeill, the post re and carry it to the waiting ships in their flected the traditional HBC post-and-sill canoes as they had for a decade. When When Dr. Helmcken wrote in 1890 of style of timber frame construction.4 The the HBC commenced with underground his experiences at the coal-mining post customary rectangular palisade, the fort coal mining, these natives were initially of Fort Rupert during 1850, he created a housed a community that was anything upset with this competition with their considerable nar enterprise, an ac rative regarding tivity that had the nature of na - —-- - been the means tive-white rela of acquiring tions at the fort trade goods long that would be of before the crea great use in the tion of Fort future. By com Rupert. The bining these Kwakiutl were reminiscences not the only mal with the colonial contents. despatches and Neither were company corre the HBC coal spondence, it is miners led by possible to con John Muir struct a picture of pleased with the the multicultural organization of

cauldron of un Fort Rupert did not stand in isolationfrom the surrounding KwakiutL As soon as construction on the mining effort. rest that was Fort the newfort began, the Indiansfrom nearby areas settled by thefort, using its wallsfor the support Brought out Rupert in 1850— oftheir longbouses. from England on Lesley Cooper sketch 1851. contracts at vari

In July 1850 an isolated incident of but traditional — in a short period of time ance from the traditional HBC inden violence between white and native took it became a maelstrom of discontent. The ture, the journeyman colliers were place that was the unhappy result of population of the fort (largely miners) displeased with the menial labour they cross-cultural misconception. Three sea consisted of around thirty-five men, were expected to perform (e.g. ditch- men who had deserted from the service women and children of diverse cultures: digging), and by the spring of 1850 were of the HBC Norman Morison were mur English, Scotch, French-Canadian, half- in high revolt.9 By the beginnning of dered by three men of the Newitty breed and Kanaka, as well as the July, the miners, their wives and the Kwakiutl tribe. Tsirnpshian and Kaigani Haida wives of general labourers had all expressed their The extant historiography of this inci the French-Canadian men.5 displeasure. There was simply not dent has become muddled as time sepa The fort did not stand in isolation from enough incentive to remain at an iso rates the event from its documentation. the surrounding Kwakiutl tribes. As soon lated post under the harsh shipboard- This paper will call upon primary sources as construction on the new fort com style command of McNeill, ill-fed and to draw some conclusions about what menced, the Indians from nearby areas surrounded by thousands of potentially HBC secretary Archibald Barclay termed began to settle immediately beside the dangerous Indians.’0 This was 1850 and a “most melancholy 2affair.” These sources fort, utilizing its walls for the support of the call to gold that reverberated up and include the despatches of Governor their longhouses.6 At least four tribes of down the northwest coast from Califor Richard Blanshard; coffespondence out the Kwakiutl Indians moved to Fort nia clearly held more promise of adven ward of Chief Factor James Douglas; and Rupert after 1849, causing by their mi ture and easy money.11 the reminiscences of Dr. J.S. Helmcken, gration much confusion regarding the By the sixth of July, the nine Kanaka the first appointed magistrate for the standing of the various tribes.7 The na HBC employees had quit the confines

B.C. Historical News - Winter 1994-95 6 ______

of the fort when their contract expired; arrived in Beaver Harbour earlier in June watch from the stockade walls every the six miners of the Muir party and the and was lying at anchor, taking on coal night, uncertain of what the native re blacksmith had deserted the fort and before departing to San Francisco. sponse might be.’8 were camped out at Suquash, near the Heimcken searched the ship, but found James Douglas states in his commu camp of the friendly Newitty Kwakiutl; nothing. After the departure of the Bea nication to the governor and committee the miners’ wives had also deserted and ver, he urged Captain Brown of the Eng regarding the murders (dated October were refuged on board 5, 1850) that HBC em the barque England ly ployee Charles ing at anchor in Beaver Beardmore was given Harbour; and McNeill the responsibility of was on furlough in Vic RUPERT SITE finding and recovering toria, having left his the bodies of tile mur young son-in-law dered. Beardmore re George Blenkinsop in ported to Helmcken at command. The dis Fort Rupert that the turbed state of the white Newitty denied respon population was well sibility for the murders, known by the Kwakiutl, laying the blame in whose trading and nor stead on the Haicla. mal post-related activi They did describe to ties were affected as Beardrnore the location well. Dr. J.S. Helmcken, of the bodies, about recently burdened with four miles from the office of magistrate Sucharti; two of the (an office rendered al men had been shot most invalid for lack of “about the heart” and support), recorded that stripped, the third

“anarchy reigned — hell drowned. One body and earth seemed min Sources: “Trutch Map,” 1871, and A.L had been cached in a Fancy, Atlas ofBritish Columbia (1979). gled — mutiny within, a Sketch map by Lesley Cooper. 1994 hollow tree. After cov couple of thousand ex ering tile find with cited Indians without brush, Beardmore re and around.”2 The next day, the first land to get the deserting men back on ported it to Heimcken at the fort. rumours of a murder committed near board, being highly concerned for their Helmcken recovered the bodies himself Newitty began to circulate. 13y the ninth safety. Indians reported to the fort at the next day by canoe, and tile bodies ofJuly, it was confirmed that three Eng about this time that they had seen three of Charles Lobb, A.F. Hale and George lish seamen had been murdered, and men on a nearby island and, supposing Wishart were buried at the garden area suddenly the issues of personnel con these to be some of the six deserting to the rear of tile fort.’9 Helmcken was flict within the fort took second place miners, Blenkinsop asked a friendly now worried about tile safety of the fort; to the perceived threat existing with Quochold chief named Whale to go and the natives, knowing the disaffection of out.13 persuade the men to return to the fort, the servants, were losing respect for tile On June 27 the Beaver had arrived at promising him a reward for each man white man. He urged Blansharcl to come Fort Rupert on her way north. Captain who returned. The promise of reward, to Fort Rupert.2° With I3eardinore’s first Dodd delivered to Dr. Helmcken the conveyed in French, was on the basis report of the incident as the basic data advice that Governor Blanshard had of par tete (per head) and may have for this appeal, a series of actions initi appointed him as magistrate for the Fort been misconstrued to mean “dead or ated by Governor Richard l3lanshard Rupert district; Blanshard also wished alive.”15 This wording of this reward (ten began that only served to fan the flames Helmcken to investigate the circum blankets for each man returned) was to of what James Douglas eventually stances of the miners’ strike and the be the basis of an unsubstantiated claim termed the “Neweete War.”21 complaint of unfair punishment meted that the HBC had incited the Indians to Upon receipt of Helmcken’s letter, out by McNeill and Blenkinsop. Aware violence.16 Whale returned without hav Bianshard reacted in precipitous ftish of Heimcken’s new status, the captain ing seen any white men on the island. jofl: he forbade any person from leav now complained to the new magistrate As to the deserters from the Norman ing Fort Rupert and wrote to Grey at that four of his men had deserted the Morison, Helmcken’s warning to the tile Colonial Office in high anxiety of Beaver at Victoria and were believed to captain of the England had been• in the “massacre of three I3ritish Subjects.” be aboard the England. With little hope vain.17 There were now sleepless nights He relayed the intimation that the HBC of recruiting more personnel from within for Helmcken and Blenkinsop: as the had been responsible for instigating the the tiny colony, he wanted his men to miners and their families returned to the Indians to murder, although adding the return to the vessel. 14 The England had fort for protection, the two men stood proviso that he had not as yet investi

7 B.C. Historical News - Winter 1994-95 gated the matter himself. would want to join them. The Blanshard stated that he had Norman Morison deserters been unable to make any at misunderstood the intent of the tempt to secure the murderers Newitty; one man brandished because of “want of force.”22 an axe at the Newitty men and When George Wellesly (HM another flung a rock at the corvette Daedalus) arrived at Newitty canoe and smashed it. Victoria on September 22, he Thus provoked, the Newitty carried Blanshard on to Fort stabbed the three white men Rupert, committed to give any to death, stripping and conceal assistance that might be re ing two of the bodies and sink quired. Once at the fort, ing the third in the ocean.6 Helmcken was sent to the The bodies were found on an Newitty camp to demand the island about four miles from surrender of the murderers. The Sucharti, where Helmcken re Newitty replied to Helmcken’s covered them the next day. demand by offering furs in re The original account submitted turn for the slain men, an ap by Beardmore was the cause propriate payment for the of the inter-tribal unrest; the offense in their culture.23 Per fort tribes of Kwakiutl offered haps even this offer of payment to war against the Newitty on was considered by the Newitty behalf of the fort, as the proper to be exorbitant, since in their thing to do.37 It had created the eyes the white deserters were inference of tribal guilt by in essentially slaves, and slaves flaming the situation beyond were accorded no status or the status of an isolated inci worth in their culture.24 This dent provoked by misunder was an unacceptable offer, and Dr John Sebastian Helmcken standing. It was this inference Photo courtesy of BCARS 8236 F9740 Blanshard’s response was to that helped to upset the bal have three boats of British troops from As a result, the Newitty left for Sea Otter ance of native-white relations that had the Daedalus go to the camp, then, find Harbour, far to the west of their original been maintained under the supervision ing it deserted, proceed to burn all of village.31 This action backed by the Royal of Chief Factor James Douglas.38 the property and cedar longhouses.25 Navy also induced the Newitty to finally Douglas had, over the years, acquired

Helmcken had not been able to accept give up the murderers — they executed considerable expertise in native-white that the Newitty were indeed responsi the guilty themselves and delivered the relations. Unlike Blanshard, who felt that ble, considering their past friendliness, bodies to the personnel of the Mary “the Queen’s name is a tower of strength and the day after the Daedalus returned Dare.32 The bodies of the murderers were only when it was backed by the Queen’s to Fort Rupert, he resigned as magis interred alongside those of their victims, bayonets,” Douglas abjured the use of trate.26 A frustrated Blanshard wrote to by the garden at Fort Rupert.33 the sword as being too expensive. He the Colonial Office in October that since As stated above, Beardmore submit wrote to Barclay that “serious distur Helmcken was a paid servant of the ted two statements to Helmcken, and bances may often be prevented, by good HBC, he could not be considered an the first was erroneous.34 As an em advice alone, a course more consistent impartial person.27 In November he sub ployee of the HBC, Beardmore aligned with the dictates of humanity and more mitted his own resignation to the Colo his loyalties with tile company instead conducive to the best interests of the

... nial Office, citing as reason his ill health of the Crown authority — giving Doug Colony “3 He did not share the ap and the heavy expenditures of office.28 las the account of the incident before prehension experienced by Helmcken In reality, Blanshard had overstepped his he submitted it to Helmcken who, as and Blanshard, nor did Douglas consider authority and would be ignominiously magistrate, was tile representative of the this incident to require the punishment asked to defray the expense of the colonial government.35 The truth of the of an entire tribe for the guilt of a few.40 Daedalus excursion out of his own matter was given to Helmcken late in Blansharcl’s answer to the murders was pocket.29 It took nine months to receive August, after Bianshard had already hast to confine the fort inhabitants and to a reply, leaving plenty of time for ily written to the Colonial Office. The re-open his plea for a regular garrison Blanshard to instigate one more attack corrected account stated three Newitty of troops to be stationed within tile on the Newitty.3° In the summer of 1851 named Tackshicoate, Twankstalla and colony.41Douglas reiterated his belief the Daphne commanded by one Cap Killonecaulla had come upon three that the defense of the colony could be tain Fanshawe, provided the means for white men they felt to be some of the provided for by the hiring of Métis HI3C another firing on the Newitty that resulted deserting miners. They attempted to retirees, at less cost to the company, a in native wounded and fatalities and de communicate where the miners were solution derided by Blanshard.42 The struction of their camp and provisions. camped, thinking that these three men company made the practical recommen

B.C. Historical News - Winter 1994-95 8 dation that no further firearms be sold Rupert is in a very critical state. A letter I have received 11. Smith, Reminiscences ofJ.S. Helmcken, 313; Bowen, from Mr. Helmcken, the resident Magistrate, states that Three Dollar Dreams, 30. to the natives until Douglas might “take people are so excited by the massacre, which they charge 12. Robin Fisher, contact and oqflict: Indian- proper measures to restore a better un their employers with instigating; that they as a body have European Relations in British Columbia, 1774- derstanding with them.”43 The crux of refused all obedience both to their employers and to 18.90. Vancouver: UBC Press, 1977, 50; Smith, him as Magistrate; that he is utterly unable to maintain Reminiscences ofJ.S. Helmcken, 313. the situation was that the company was any authority, as they universally refuse to serve as con 13. Fort Victoria Letters, lxxv. responsible for the ordinary defense of stables, and insist upon the settlement being abandoned, 14. Smith, Reminiscences ofJ.S. Helmcken, 310. that to attempt such a step would lead to their entire the colony, under the terms of the char 15. It was standard practice for the FIBC to offer a destruction, as they are surrounded by the Quarolts, one reward to natives for the return of desening of the most warlike Tribes on the Coast, three thousand ter granted in 1849. In summary, then, servants. Fisher, Contact and oqflict, 50—5 1. in number and well armed. Mr. Helmcken has tendered 16. Johnson, “Fort Rupert,” 9. Blanshard believed in a traditional mili his resignation as magistrate; as without proper support 17. Smith, Reminiscences ofJ.S. Helrncken, 311—313. tary response that did not apply to a the office merely exposes him to contempt and insult; 18. Ibid., 313—314. cultural environment and he further states that being in the employ of the managed capably Hudson’s Bay Company, he cannot conscientiously de 19. Smith, Reminiscences ofJ.S. Helmcken, 314. by the economically driven diplomacy cide in the cases which occur, which are almost invari 20. Fort Victoria Letters, lxxv. of Douglas and the fur traders, an envi ably between that Company and their servants. This is 21. Ibid., 227, Douglas to Barclay, 31 October 1851. the very objection I stated to your Lordship against em 22. Vancouver Island — Despatches — Governor ronment that had been remarkably pa ploying persons connected with the Company in any Blanshard to the Secretary of State lEarl Greyl 26th cific up until the explosive events of the public capacity in the Colony. I am in expectation of the December 1849 to 30th August 1851. New summer arrival of one of Her Majesty’s ships of war, according to Westminster: Government Printing Office, nd. of 1850. the promise of Admiral Hornby, Commander-in-Chief of Ihereafter Blanshardl. Despatch no. 5. See Specific themes emerge from this in the Pacific, when I shall he able to proceed to the North Appendix for complete text. cident: the frustration of the HBC em and restore order. In the meantime I have prohibited any 23. Ibid., Despatch no. 7. persons from leaving Fort Rupert without special per 24. Fisher, Contact and on/lict, 51. ployees who were determined to leave mission, as if the people attempt to abandon the settle 25. Blanshard, Despatch no. 7. ment and straggle unremunerative isolation for the prom about the Coast they will infallibly be 26. Fisher, Contact and coqfiict, 51; Smith, cut off by the Indians, who are daily becoming more Reminiscences ofJ.S. Helmncken, 315. Helmcken ise of the California gold rush; the mis inclined to outtage, and are emboldened by impunity. had in fact written two resignations on July 18 — The miners have left the Colony in a body, owing to conceptions held by the Kwakiutl one to Blanshard, resigning his post as magistrate, a dispute with their employers. The seam of coal is con the other to Douglas requesting permission to regarding the white system of labour and sequently undiscovered. retire from HBC service, punishment; and the I have seen a very rich specimen of gold ore said to conflicting opin 27. Blansharcl, Despatch no. 7. This was but one have been brought by the Indians of Queen Charlotte’s ions of governing and company authori example of the dualism that characterized the Island, hut I have at present no further account of it. colony of Vancouver’s Island, a dualism that ties concerned with colonial defense. I remain, &c. served to effect the transition from fur trading (signed) Richard lllansharcl Overlaid is the theme of the dualism that colony to province. Beardmore’s behaviour is Governor of Vancouver another case in point. existed in having two brands of author Island ity at work within the tiny colony of 28. Btansharcl Despatch no. 8. FOOTNOTES 29. Fisher, Chntact and conflict, 53.

Vancouver’s Island — Blanshard, as the 30. Fort Victoria Letters, lxxvii. 1. Dorothy Blakey Smith, The Reminiscences ofJohn 31. Fort Victoria Letters, 203—204; slightly regarded Colonial Office repre Sebastian Helmckerc Vancouver: UBC Press, 1975, Douglas to l3arclay, 4 August sentative, and Douglas, traditionally and 298. 1851. 32. Ibid., 215, Douglas to Barclay, 3 September 1851. effectively the authority within 2. Fort Wctoria Letters, l846—185f Hartwell I3owsfield, the ed. Winnipeg: Hudson’s Bay Company Record 33. Smith, Reminiscences ofJ.S. Helmcken, p. 323. colony. It is small wonder, then, that the Society, 1979, 175n. 34. Ibid., 317—318. Kwakiutl of the Fort Rupert district were 3. The HBC had taken on a contract to supply the 35. Lamb, “Governorship of Richard Blanshard,” 12. Pacific Mail steamship Company with coal, as part 36. Smith, Reminiscences ofJ.S. Helmcken, 318. less than respectful and more than con of the company’s ongoing diversification. W.K. 37. Ibid., 313. fused at the behaviour of the white man. Lamb, “The Governorship of Richard Blanshard,” 38. Fisher, Contact and oqflict, 55. BcHQ, Jan—Apr. 1950, 8. 39. Fort Victoria Letters, lxxv; and 142, Douglas to 4. Richard and Alexander Mackie, “Roughing it in the Barclay, 22 December 1850. Colonies,” The Beaver; Apr/May 1990, pp. 10—12; 40. Ibid., 183, Douglas to Barclay, 16 April 1851. Lesley Cooper is currently a graduate Patricia M. Johnson, “Fort Rupert,” The Beaver; 41. Blansharc Despatch no. 5. Spring, 1972, 4. student in History at the University of p. 42. Dorothy Blakey Smith, James Douglas: Father of Victoria. 5. James Audain, From oaImine to Castle New York: British olztmbia. Toronto: Oxford University Pageant Press, 1955, 9; Smith, Reminiscences ofJ.S. Press, 1971, 44; Blanshard, Despatch no. 6. Helmcken, 303—304. APPENDIX 43. Fort Victoria Letters, 175n; Barclay to Douglas, I 6. Ibid. Vancouver Island. Despatches. January 1851. 7. Johnson, “Fort Rupert,” 5. 44. Smith, Governor Blanshard to the Secretary of State (Earl Grey). James Douglas, 44. 8. Wilson Duff, The Indian Histoy ofBritish Colombia: Despatch 5. Vol. 1. The Impact of the White Man. Anthropology Victoria, Vancouver Island in British Columbia Memoir no. 5, Victoria: August 18, 1850 Provincial Museum, 1964, 39, 58; Johnson, “Fort RESEARCHING My Lord, Rupert,” 5; Smith, Reminiscences ofJ.S. Helmcken, I have to inform your Lordship of the massacre of passim. PLACER MINERS three l3ritish Subjects by the Newitty Indians, near Fort 9. The strike action and desertion of the Muirs is a Rupert. Want of force has prevented me from making topic of its own, dealt with from varying IN THE 30S any attempt to secure the murderers; indeed the only perspectives by Keith Ralston, “Miners and If any of our readers has information safeguard of the Colony consist.s in the occasional visits Managers: The Organization of Coal Production on on placer mining in B.C. during the of the cruizers of the Pacific squadron, which only occur Vancouver Island by the Hudson’s Bay Company, at rare intervals and for short calls. The massacre of these 1848—1862,” The Company on the Coast; Nanaimo: Depression years, please contact Mrs. men has produced a great effect on the white inhabit Nanaimo Historical Society, 1983; and Lynn Cooper at (604) 592-7956 or by letter ants, many of whom do not scruple to accuse the offic Bowen, Three Dollar Dreams, Lantzville: Oolichan c/o Dept. of History, University of Vic ers of the Hudson’s Bay Company of having instigated Books, 1987. Suffice it to say that at the time of toria, Box 3045, Victoria, B.C. V8W the Indians to the deed by offers of reward for the recov the Newitty incident, the white population was 3P4. ery of the men (sailors who had absconded) dead or fully embroiled in policy-oriented conflict resulting Information from anyone involved with alive. I have not yet been able to enquire into the truth in strike action and desertion. placer mining training schools is of spe of this report, but it is very widely spread, and men say 10. Lynn Bowen, Three Dollar Dreams. Lantzville: cial interest to this student. that they ground their belief on what the Hudson’s Bay Oolichan Books, 1987, 26, 28. Company have done before. The establishment at Fort

9 B.C. Historical News - Winter 1994-95

B.C. Historical News Winter 1994-95 10 -

Malcolm Fraser, one the his in founders of of son education. early David’s In thought he that some spent the of early

his cast with lot maternal his uncle, McLoughlin, Sr. doubtless a had hand prosperous gold-hunting is trip. It

respected physician in Dr. Paris. John praise upon him. to went and south California on another

David Dr. went become to on a mous highly appraisals have generally heaped out sold years partnership his three after

were boys educated to doctors be a and was controversial figure, but venture posthu a be to disaster. proved David

downstream from City. Quebec tory. At Both the 1857 of time death his in he is ture a the conjecture, of matter but

of St. the bank Lawrence River, miles 120 couraging Oregon in settlement money Terri the went ven into partnership

at de grants the on Riviere the of Loup south Hudson’s Company Bay money and en and much father’s how his of

were born David Scottish-Irish of immi McLoughlin in the furthering Oregon of fortunes much How City. own his of

John McLoughlin ten his and brother about the played Dr. by role chants, John and Pettygrove Mr. Wilson Mr.

he which built 1825. in thousand Many been words have writ with prosperous mer two American

on ver, Columbia Washington) the River, Vancouver. ported to entered partnership into have

(now at located Fort Vancouver subsequently Vancou became dust. established at Fort On 15, March re 1847, he was

the in River north. Headquarters to were take the up of chief post aged factor. a He to acquire gold modest fortune in

Francisco) San the in to the south Stikine moved 1821 in his family to with hired Astoria him for Indians man to work and

tinental divide, (now from Yerba Buena Hudson’s Bay Company, McLoughlin, Sr. swept in up gold the fever time, of the

Company Bay of activities of west con the North the Company and West the the fairs in being Willamette Valley hut,

1845 was in until all of charge this last Hudson’s the 1818. in With amalgamation ostensibly to af after look father’s his

“Father the of 1825 Oregon,” from who riage: John, Eliza; Jr.; Eloise; and David, ever, resigned he from HBC the service,

David’s father John was McLoughlin, Four children of born this were destroyed mar fort. 1845, the entire In how

character and activities. Company West trader Alexander McKay. a helping to out put that fire could have

assist may in us life halfblood understanding his Chippewan of widow North September 1844, was he in instrumental

résumë his of his and forebears second early wife, Marguerite Wadin McKay, store retail Fort in in Vancouver and

sojourn in this A area. as noted is the working in

courtesy Photo the of Memorial McLoughlin

Association

to cult

the trace

story his of 1843 he James Douglas. In

Sidney and Moss David Mclougblin.

reports,

weather

is it

diffi

the learn trade fur under John) Day McLougblin 1901. celebration in From left: Mattbieu, F.X

nineteenth Oregon Three pioneers century Kootenay in Portland, honoured first the Oregon, at (Dr an as to apprentice clerk

records and voluminous him posted Fort to Victoria

consumed other family Bay Company and for him

house a in fire also which £100 a share Hudson’s the in

clude the his of loss diary father David’s purchased

circumstances, in which Columbia.

Kootenay to Flats. Owing life military the return and to

a and raise family the in him the suaded to relinquish

first the white to man settle in per 1839, his but father

was David McLoughlin to gazetted Calcutta, India,

District. Kootenay Military College. He was

the in the development of Engineers Addiscombe at

most interesting the periods the in ensign British Army

the closing of book one on military, the an becoming

he ice, was symbolically as an trained engineer with

Bible end the at the of serv while David eventually

Cranbrook near his closed qualified as a physician,

the from Eugene St. Mission John their uncle David.

and lia Father as Coccola to in went live Paris with

dressed chiefs in rega full education their still and later

bearers were Indian six to sent Montreal further to

ner the of Panhandle. Idaho that pall His William McLoughlin and espoused his his older brother John later were

in Porthill, extreme the quarters northwest at Fort cor It at William. was Fort immigrant teacher, Mr. Ball. John David

in McLean’s Basil business overlooking field Land, Rupert’s in with head Vancouver class under charge the an of

white-bearded to old a to was man laid rest position in of charge company all all pils, part enrolled Fort Indian, a in

1903, Early in May the white-haired, a North 1832 He Company. West soon rose David of one pu was twenty-four

by Cane Jones

The David McLougblin Story years of the 1850s in the Clearwater River steamboats Surprise and Galena and Baillie-Grohman came into the Kootenay goldfields of central Idaho. When his other water-borne traffic working down country in 1882, he stopped overnight father died in 1857, David sold his share to Kootenay Lake from Bonners Ferry. with David McLoughlin and arranged for in the estate, valued at $20,000, to his David and Annie McLoughlin had the storage of some of his equipment. sister Eloise and her second husband, seven daughters and one son. Three of In his subsequent book Ffleen Years Daniel Harvey. the daughters died young, one in in Sport and Lfe in the Hunting Grounds From 1857 to 1865 we don’t know fancy and two during an epidemic at of Western America and British Colum much of David’s wanderings. About the De Smet Mission in Idaho where they bia, Baillie-Grohman speaks disparag 1862 he was at Fort Shepherd, opposite were attending school. The remaining ingly of McLoughlin and credits himself the confluence of the Pend Oreille and daughters married but the son, John, did to be the first to visualize the Canal Flat Columbia Rivers (see map p. 30), either not, so the McLoughlin name was not diversion plan. Baillie-Grohman was no attached to the HBC fort or to the adja carried on in the Kootenay. David seems doubt blissfully unaware that cent customs. He seems also to have to have been anxious that his children McLoughlin’s letter in the Spokane been for a time a constable at Wild Horse receive an education. One of his C’hronicle would one day surface to give Creek. In 1863 he married Annie Ksooke younger daughters, Amelia, told that she the lie to his own claims. Further trib (Grizzly), daughter of a chief of a had been taught to read by her father, ute to David McLoughlin is to be found Kootenai Indian band. In 1865 he is said then at the age of six she rode her pony in the December 31, 1883, Report on the to have established Fort Flatbow (later some eighty miles to the St. Eugene Lower Kootenay Indians, submitted to described as Little Fort Shepherd) on Mission School near Cranbrook where the B.C. Legislature by A.S. Farwell af Duck Creek in the Kootenay Flats, near she stayed six years, her parents visit ter he and GM. Sproat had carried out the point where travellers on the ing her twice a year. For some years an 1883 scouting tour of the Kootenay Dewdney Trail had to cross the before a state-supported school opened District to assess its prospects for the Kootenay River. This was adjacent to a at Porthill in 1895 under Miss Agnes government: cable ferry known as “McLoughlin’s McKay, David McLoughlin taught a class These Indians, including Ferry.” John Galbraith, builder of the which included some of his own chil men, women and children, ferry at Fort Steele, states in a letter writ dren as well as settlers’ children from number 157, divided as follows: ten in 1909 that in 1870 he visited Fort both sides of the boundary line, using a 35 men, 34 married women, 39 Shepherd and found it unoccupied. Mr. room in Mike Driscoll’s rudimentary boys, 32 girls; 4 widows with 6 Hardisty, the factor, had apparently hotel. Pioneer Lister settlerJohn Huscroft boys and 3 girls between them given its contents to David McLoughlin told of attending I)avid’s school at and 4 widows without encum who had removed them to the Kootenay Ockonook when he was eight years old. brances. I obtained this state Flats site where he had established his Because he was the best educated ment from David McLoughlin ferry and a small trading post which he man in the area and always willing to Esq. who resides 200 yards operated for the Hudson’s Bay Com help his fellow man, David McLoughlin south of the boundary line. Mr. pany. Around 1871 he is thought to have was established as a local sage among McLoughlin formerly had moved his family to Ockonook, on the the new settlers. Actually, McLoughlin’s charge of the Hudson’s Bay east side of the Kootenay River, imme reputation as an authority on the Co.’s trading post on the left diately south of the international bound Kootenay District was quite widespread. bank of Kootenay River at the ary. There he built a log house which As the Northern Pacific Railroad was Shepherd trail crossing, but on became home to his large family, and completing its link between Wallula, the decline of the mining inter also served as a trading post as well as Washington, and Pend Oreille Lake in ests on Wild Horse Creek and a hostel for prospectors venturing down 1881, it initiated a vigorous campaign neighbouring creeks and the stream into the Kootenay Lake area from to interest entrepreneurs, settlers and consequent closing out of the Bonners Ferry. Prior to 1890, settlement tourists in the hitherto isolated country Hudson’s Bay Co.’s business at on the Kootenay Flats between Bonners in the Idaho Panhandle, western Mon that point, he took up a farm Ferry and Kootenay Lake was sketchy, tana and southeastern British Columbia. on the American side of the line. although in the summer months pros David McLoughlin was given a free re Mr. McLoughlin speaks the pectors headed for Kootenay Lake turn trip on the railway to enable him Kootenay language fluently and would rent rowboats built by the Fry to travel to Portland to address the Port is well acquainted with the hab brothers at Bonners Ferry and row past land Chamber of Commerce on the pros its and customs of the Indians. McLoughlin’s door. In 1878 McLoughlin pects for the Kootenay District. These natives are not nearly as acquired a neighbour when Yankee McLoughlin followed this effort up with civilized as the Upper prospector George Wallace Hall pre a lengthy letter published in the Sep Kootenays. They are indolent, empted 320 acres on the bench in the tember 14, 1881, Spokane Chronicle poor, badly clothed and badly present-day B.C. settlement of Lister, and outlining the great prospects for the armed. They have no houses, in 1886 J.C. Rykert, Canadian customs agricultural development in the and live, summer and winter, agent, established a customs station im Kootenay Flats could the flood waters in lodges constructed of poles mediately north of the international of the Kootenay be diverted into the covered with mats or hides. Mr. boundary to intercept the Hendryx Columbia River at Canal Flat. When WA. McLoughlin informs me that in

11 B.C. Historical News - Winter 1994-95 former years, these Indians attempted to wrest this claim from memory of his father. Then without fur were supplied with seeds of McLoughlin. McLoughlin filed suit in the ther ado he returned to his home in the different kinds, and they made First Judicial Court of the State of Idaho, Idaho Panhandle. efforts to raise potatoes, wheat, but the matter was settled when Hill One April day in 1903 Father Coccola etc., but the uncertainty of se purchased eighty acres from McLoughlin. of the St. Eugene Mission said, “I have a curing their crops, through the Hill became postmaster of what had feeling that my old friend David flooding of the land, so thor been Ockonook, and in 1900 succeeded McLouglin needs me.” The feeling was oughly disheartened them, that in renaming the settlement “Porthill.” so strong that he did not wait for a train they gave up farming in disgust. When the Bedlington & Nelson Railway but obtained a handcar and made his way During the past season, no seed (subsidiary of the Great Northern Rail to Creston and Porthill, where he arrived of any kind was planted. From way) was built north from Porthill to in time to administer the last rites to David. the same source, I learned that Wynndel in 1899, its right-of-way came The story of David McLoughlin must be these Indians, only a year or through McLoughlin’s potato patch. Af treated as inteipretive history and involves two since, possessed quite a ter the railway was abandoned, the right- the careful sorting out, without prejudice, number of horses and cattle. of-way became our present Highway 21. of all the aspects that had a bearing on his Their stock is now reduced to The present U.S. customs house and choice of lifestyle. Not many men have the about eight or ten head of cat- Hawks Tavern at Porthill are located on choice that was available to him. With his tie and 60 horses. This decrease land that once belonged to McLoughlin. education and background he could have has been brought about by Although he had chosen the life of an carried on the pattern of life established by gambling. A great many of these itinerant trader and squatter, David his father and taken an active part in the Indians formerly wintered on McLoughlin sometimes surprised peo continued political and commercial devel Goat River about nine miles ple with a show of his cultural back opment of the country. Instead he chose a north of the boundary line; now ground, as on the occasion of a visit of more relaxed and less demanding life in only two or three families win Sir McKenzie Bowell, prime minister of the wilderness where he could hunt and ter there. A few families winter Canada, to Mr. J.C. Rykert, the Canadian fish and prospect without criticism, his lar close to Mr. McLoughlin’s customs officer at the boundary. David der always filled with fish, deer, moose and house, and the remainder win came to call clad in a white buckskin mountain goat and fruit and berries. He was ter on Jerome Creek, some eight suit, stayed for lunch, and conversed free to ride his horses and wear clothing miles south of the line. They run with the prime minister and his host in adapted to his circumstances, untrammeled their stock in the winter on Goat perfect Parisian French. by the dictates of fashion. Notwithstanding River, and between McLoughlin’s In 1901 the Oregon Historical Society his rustic lifestyle, his insistence on an edu and Jerome Creek. As the sum and the Oregon Pioneers Association cation for his children indicates that he did mer advances and the water re decided to hold in Portland the first of not entirely lose respect for his origins and cedes, the Indians move down what became annual McLoughlin Days upbringing. David had known many famous the river and fish, and take their celebrations in honour of Dr. John men —James Douglas, William Fraser Tolmie, stock with them. In the event McLoughlin. Upon learning that David, John Work and Peter Skene Ogden to name of the [Baillie-Grohmanl Recla the son of Dr. John McLoughlin, was a few—but he was satisfied with the friend mation Scheme being a success, still alive, they contacted David and pro ship and respect of such men as Father I am of the opinion that a re vided him with a new suit of clothes, a Coccola and the native peoples among serve of say, 1,000 acres of grass pair of shoes, and a return ticket from whom he spent so much of his life. land in the neighbourhood of Porthill to Portland. Because he had A rumour persists that David McLoughlin Goat River would be sufficient. spent the preceding forty years in the prepared manuscripts that were posted In case the lessee fails to drain wilderness, David found himself help to a now unknown address by a neigh these bottom lands, the Indians less as a child in Portland. He was bour, Joseph Anderson of Porthill. How will practically have the run of greeted and entertained by members of exciting if they could be found and the whole country, as they have the societies and by an old friend, Mr. added to the recorded history of the had for years past Francis Xavier Matthieu, whom he had Kootenay Flats! Farwell also remarked on McLoughlin’s last seen at Fort Vancouver in 1842. fine garden at the boundary where he David’s picture was taken with Mr. grew wheat, potatoes, onions and fine Matthieu and another oldtimer, Mr. Carte Jones of Creston researched the tobacco. Sidney Moss. This is the only likeness McLougblin story in the Washington, Oregon and British Columbia archives. In 1897 McLoughlin applied for and of David that we have seen. In an ad He was also able to interview three of was given the patent on 120 acres of dress to the assembly, David remarked David McLougbtin’s granddaughters, land on the present site of Porthill. We on the changes he could see in Port two of whom live in Porthill and one in have a copy of this patent signed by land — from a brush-covered wilderness Seattle. Carte was honoured in 1993 by

U.S. President Grover Cleveland. The to the present thriving city — and then the B.C. Museums Association for his notorious C.P. (Chippy) Hill, fresh from expressed his pleasure at the kind re many years as a volunteer with the his real estate scam at the short-lived ception he was given and his gratitude Creston Museum. mining town of Sanca on Kootenay Lake, that they had seen fit to so honour the

B.C. Historical News - Winter 1994-95 12 Road to the Pafic Rim by Tom W Parkin

Construction of roads in B.C. has al tory caravan with 400 people in crete retaining wails, and that was a ways been closely associated with the Volkswagens, Cadillacs, jeeps and chore because you couldn’t get into the trade and prosperity of isolated regions. junkers drove to Port Alberni from rock. And beyond that, you go through Now that paved highways reach every Tofino. Construction on the intermedi quite a twisty area — we widened out community on Vancouver Island, some ate portion still wasn’t finished, but the where possible. Then you get to residents have forgotten the celebrations contractor made temporary passage Kennedy Lake Hill. You can’t blast that which accompanied each newly com through the government stretch for the rock, it’s impossible. It goes away up — pleted link, even as recently as thirty locals. Dust was thick, but spirits were it’s a real major thing. So we built re years ago. high. The gateway was finally open. taining walls. It took us six months to One such link was the Pacific Rim Tom AarI.s: ‘It prettier then, because buici those six retaining walls, that are Highway connecting Port Alberni with you went i there now, in order to make it passable. the west coast of the Island. It officially quite high on “Bill I3os was resident engineer on the opened on September 4, 1959. I3ut the the mountain job and Alex Brayden was his foreman. idea for such a road had been around and looked Bill had a good eye for materials and since early in the century. The issue was way down cuts and fills. He planned all those im often discussed by politicians, and resi onto Sproat provements. Today people say, ‘Oh, dents of the Aihernis, Tofino and Lake into what a corkscrew road,’ hut you should Ucluelet tried many times to secure Port Albemi. have seen it before Bill started. It was promise of construction. But sparse But I can un much worse. population, the Depression and World derstand As tile higinvay was being improved, War II caused a lengthy delay. win’ it was so did the economies of Ucluelet and During the war, the Royal Canadian done. It was Tofino. West coast products now Air Force signal corps constructed a to get Tom Aarts, district technician, away reached markets faster and cheaper — rough trail and telephone line through from the Port Alberni sub-office, sometimes. Tom Aarts recalls drivers still Central Island District, Sutton Pass to installations on the Pa snow and ice had to be cautious: “One corner in that . Ministry Transportation • of cific rim. Five or six linekeeper huts were in the winter- and Highways. road had rock bluff and was called ‘Fish located along the way. But this was by the. and we Tom Parlin photo Truck Corner.’ Over three or four years’ no means a road. and it was lost in un used to get slides there, too. time, three trucks loaded with fish man dergrowth following the surrender of ‘There were three to four switcliback aged to slam into that particular rock, japan. 1 curves on either end, and the road was leaving an abundance of fish all over Gradually, MacMillan Bloedel wound about a lane-and-a-half or lane-and- the road.” a private road up the mountain slope three-quarters wide. If you passed, one It was during efforts to “daylight” such above Sprout Lake and B.C. Forest Prod driver had to hug the rocks and the other curves that the Tay fire was started in ucts built up the west side of the island was precariously Mountains. But there was still a ten-kilo close to the shoul metre gap between. der. It scared the Tom Aarts, today a thirty-year em hell out of a lot of ployee of the Ministry of Transportation Prairie people.” and Highways in Port Alberni, recalls Once the road those days: “In the late fifties, while it became pubhc, was still an industrial road, the govern Highways crews ment constructed that portion of road took over mainte in-between, and for years it was called nance and began ‘the government stretch.’ That’s when it to upgrade the was opened to the public on a restricted route. John Morris, basis. There were gates at either end, who retired in 1985 and it was from five at night, I believe, at Nanaimo, was until seven in the morning, that it was district highways John W Morris on Pacific Rim Highway 4 in 1969. January’ and open to the public. During the daytime manager at that Februas3’ thatyear saw twelve-foot drifts on this normally bare route. A snowblower had to be brought downfrom the departmenCs Allison it was closed for a lot of years.”2 time: “At Hydro Pass camp on the Hope-Princeton Highwal’ to clear this Island road. On August 22, 1959, before the offi Hill we had to Even in Victoria, a total offourfeet fell. cial opening on Labour Day, a celebra build some con- Agnes M. Fietti photo

13 B.C. Historical News - Winter 1994-95 1967. That was a dry summer — the driest feet of snow, recorded since 1900. with an April toJulv so we all put rainfall totalling oniy 93.3 millimetres. snowshoes on Temperatures were high and the wind and trekked was up when a road-building explosion out in the bush pulled out a hydro-pole guywire. in a line. The pole collapsed and live wires ig “We had an nited brush. Although Martin Mars water old fellow on bombers were brought in from their the crew nearby base on Sproat Lake, the first drop named Adam missed the burning area, fanning the Bauer, who flames with its draft. A series of com was about pounding errors ensured the fire’s con sixty-three tinuation for two weeks. Rainfall on years old. Most September 1 allowed the 500 firefighters of our crew their first respite, with the blaze declared were under officially out on October 10. It remains twenty-seven, the largest fire in that forest district.4 a very young But fifteen per cent grades on the group. Adam, A construction crewfrom the Ministry of Transportation and Highways stands beneath a log culvert on Hydro Hill (West) Creek The rotting former logging road above Sproat Lake he’d be the structure was replaced by a multi-plate culvert (foreground) on a new remained. The Alberni Valley Times guy who alignment in 1992 Highway 4 (Pacific Rim Highway) continues to receive called it “a roadway that instantaneously would fix annual improvements, particularly over stream crossings. became famous for its switchbacks as things up. He’d Tom Parkin photo well as its muffler-stealing, oil-pan fix snowshoes or he’d fIx a broken transit ucts to be moved by road, but as a re denting, and gas-tank puncturing antics.” leg. At lunchtime he’d light the campfire. source to be protected by highway Nor was it conducive to the develop We’d all trek with our snowshoes back to builders. ment of tourism at the new Pacific Rim some spot. And he’d light the fire and have And so a crowd watched a second National Park established between it all set up there, so we’d toast our sand opening ceremony on Highway 4 on Tofino and Ucluelet. wiches and have our supper. October 14, 1972. The Alberni H,’llej’ Thus in 1971 construction began on a “[Another] of our guys was a big guy Times quoted Tofino mayor Hugo new twenty-kilometre route which ran — about six-foot-three, 200-and-some- Petersen as calling the highway “a God across the same mountain, but at a lower odd pounds. When we weren’t look send to those who have to use it. A credit elevation. George Dodge, now retired ing, he fell upside-down in a tree well. to the builders and the pioneers through in Courtenav. was construction super He was hanging by his snowshoes and whom it was possible.”8 visor: “There was no access at all be couldn’t get out. We were up the slope “This road is certainly better than row cause the switchbacks were way up the looking down, wondering where he ing up to Port Alberni,” quipped Nuu hill, and we had to go along the lake. was, and he was yelling for help. We chah-nulth chief Bert Mack.9 So I had to go into my job with a boat finally got down there. It took a good Alexandra Skelly, wife of the MLA, cut at first. And of course the contractors, half-hour to get him out. the ribbon and the new road was open. they went in with their Cats, but for me ‘We had to run alignment over the old The work of those Highways men, some to inspect I had to go by boat, which switchbacks one day in the spring, and it now gone in the intervening years, con was something different.”5 was at the time the herring fleet was in tinues to serve us well. One of Dodge’s crew members was Dan Ucluelet and Tofino. They used to haul out ********** Bowen, now the herring in any kind of vehicle that could Tom Parkin is a public information of senior district hold fish, and the juice would run on the ficer with the Ministry of Transporta development road. The smell almost gagged us.”6 tion and Highu’ays in Nanaimo. A video technician Barely managing to overcome these version of this story is available for with High- hazards of nature, the crews carried on. loan. Contact Parkins office at (604) ways in Over a million cubic yards of material 390-6122. REFERENCES Courtenay: were moved in the right-of-way. In other 1. Helen Ford, unpublished ms., sproat Lake, “We were 4 places, special rocks were moved for Vancouver Island’ in Albernj District Historical Society archives. kept real spawning fish. Original streambed gravel 2. Tom Aarts video interview, February 15, 1993. busy all the \. was placed inside culverts to encour 3. John Morris video interview, February 23, 1993. way through. age fish to pass through. On Friesen 4. “Historical Thy blaze svent up 24 years ago,” Alberni Valley Times, August 20, 1991. Dan Bowen, senior district We had to Creek, boulders were placed to break 5. George Dodge video interview, February 15, 1993. survey in the development technician, the flow and create resting areas for 6. Dan Bowen video intersiew, February 15, 1993. North Island District, 7. George Dodge. completion report, Department of winter. Along Minist3’ of Transportation salmon.7 It showed a growing environ Highways project 2l22, 1972. Sproat Lake and Highways. mental awareness by the department. 8. Alberni lialle Tunes, o-tober 16, 1972. p. 1. we had four Tom Parkin photo Fish were important, not just as prod- 9. Ibid.

B.C. Historical News - Winter 1994-95 14 Navigation on the Stikine River 1862—1969 by Edward L Affleck

British Columbia’s Stikine River Val the sternwheeler, a vessel well equipped throughout the latter part of the nineteenth ley, located east of the Alaska Panhan to work heavy cargo up the shifting century, and with the decades of naviga dle and north of the 56th parallel of channels and treacherous white water tion by tunnel-screw diesel-powered ves latitude, offers the venturesome travel of rivers, appeared on the scene. Be sels which followed World War I. ler today an unparalleled vista of gla fore the beginning of World War I, It was the discovery of gold on the ciers, canyons, lava Stikine in 1861 near beds and volcanic present-day Tel cones. Any reader egraph Creek whose interest in which prompted the Stikine and the the intrepid Captain adjacent Cassiar William Moore in district is aroused the spring of 1862 by this article to load up his should forthwith Fraser River beg, borrow, etc. a sternwheeler, the copy of R.W. Flying Dutchman, Patterson’s spell lash a fully loaded binding book enti barge to her hull, tled Trail to the then steam up the Interior which con Inside Passage to tains an account of the small settlement his 1948 trip up the on the northern tip Stikine River then of the Russian is over the continen land of Wrangell. tal divide to Dease When the United Lake and to Watson States purchased Lake. The mouth of Alaska in 1867, this the Stikine River settlement became lies within the a U.S. Army fort, coastal strip of the Alaska Panhandle; sternwheelers on the Fraser and Skeena Fort Wrangel, and some time after the one works up through the shallows Rivers had played their major part in army departed, the port became known about thirty miles above the river’s opening up the river valleys and hinter as Wrangell. Beyond Wrangell about 180 mouth before he finds himself across land beyond to exploitation and devel miles of steaming remained to work the the border into British Columbia. Thanks opment and were in decline as railways vessel up to the very head of high-wa to the northern latitude, the navigation with superior hauling capacity were built ter navigation on the Stikine. Capt. season on the turbulent Stikine River is through the valleys. Moore doubtless looked at the scenery relatively short. The situation is different with the from time to time, but it is likely that British Columbia boasts three great Stikine. One hundred and thirty years most of his attention was fixed on the navigable rivers, the Fraser, the Skeena after the first sternwheeler appeared on turbulent river channel. He was doubt and the Stikine, all of which pierce the its waters, the Stikine River system and less relieved to find that while naviga rugged Coast Mountains to provide ac the vast hinterland of the Stikine Pla tion on the Stikine posed a fair number cess to a vast interior hinterland. The teau and the Cassiar Mountains remain of risks, the river was largely free of the three rivers were long the province of a largely undeveloped frontier. The sole unending traps which lay in wait for the the native fisherman and the fur trader. settlement of any size in this hinterland, skipper working a steamer on the All three river systems were invaded in the mining town of Cassiar, is now join Skeena. In his book previously men the second half of the nineteenth cen ing the ranks of ghost mining towns tioned, R.W. Patterson suggests that tury by prospectors seeking gold and which dot the map of British Columbia. Capt. Moore had to cope with more than within weeks of such gold discoveries, This article deals with the successive navigation hazards on his first trip, as the white man’s inimitable invasion craft. sternwheeler invasions of the river the sight and sound of the Flying Dutch-

15 B.C. Historical News - Winter 1994-95 man made the Tahitan Indians decid doughty Capt. William Moore, fresh from soon found himself facing competition edly bellicose. A generous gift of Hud organizing mule trains from Hazelton on not only from two Fraser River rivals, son’s Bay blankets succeeded in quieting the Skeena River into the Omineca gold John Irving with the Glenora and Otis their wrath. The Stikine shared the mining camps, obliged once again with Parsons with the Hope, but also from Skeena’s propensity for rising with as the building of a pack trail from the head veteran Puget Sound sternwheelers such tounding rapidity in hot weather as snow of navigation on the Stikine into the as the Beaver; (‘assiar and Nellie. Moore melted from the hills, eventually bought out his Fraser River but not long after the rivals and worked successively the Gem, flood crest had sub the Gertrude, the Glenora and the West sided for the 1862 sea ern Slope on the Stikine. The Western son, the Stikine gold Slope, a fairly commodious deep-draft rush petered out. In sternwheeler, was built for Moore with this short season of the aim of working from Victoria up the seventy-two days, Inside Passage to a connection with the however, the Flying Gertrude in the Canadian reaches of the Dutchman earned lower Stikine, thus avoiding wharfage good money for her and wrangling with the customs at mastei, carrying Wrangell. In the short unprofitable 1879 hordes of humanity as season, the Western Slope came to no well as the endless harm, but it is a measure of William amount of freight gen Moore’s boundless intrepidity that he erated by the estab would contemplate working a lishment of a mining sternwheeler, however stout, through camp. No one had yet the more exposed parts of British Co unlocked the secret of lumbia’s Inside Passage! The nimble the gold hidden be Gertrude was perhaps the most success yond in the Cassiar ful sternwheeler ever to work on the mountains, so Moore Stikine as she not only could carry a worked the Flying good cargo hut her shallow draft ena Dutchman back to the bled her to work up to Telegraph Creek Fraser and resumed for a longer period in the season. A small his battle with Irving’s screw steamer, the Lady ofthe Lake, was Pioneer Line for the commissioned on Dease Lake in 1878 Fraser River trade. The to promote travel into the Cassiar, hut great Collins Overland the boom died down shortly thereafter Telegraph project and most of the sternwheelers on the served to re-open the Captain William Moore, pioneer skipper on the Stikine Rivet Stikine then worked their way south to shou’n here in winter garb. Stikine to steam navi Photo courtesy of the University of Alaska fight for the Fraser River and Puget gation. In the summer Sound trade. However, John C. of 1866 the sternwheeler Mumford, Cassiar district. Typical of boom times, Callbreath, owner of the Nellie, kept her loaded with telegraph wire and other transportation entrepreneurs rounded up in service on the Stikine for about a construction materials, worked her way fleets of coastal vessels and river decade and then replaced her with the up the head of navigation to what was sternwheelers to capture what promised pint-sized sternwheeler Alaskan, which thereafter known as Telegraph Creek, a to be a profitable freight and passenger survived into the time of the Klondike station established on the telegraph line trade. In our era of pondering over the boom. To Callbreath, a resourceful man which was being built overland from feasibility study, it is difficult to grasp who established a trading business at North America to Europe by way of the celerity with which individuals in Telegraph Creek and later became Alas Alaska and Siberia. The following year the last century risked large amounts of ka’s first salmon hatchery operator, lies the Mumford was engaged in transport capital in plunging into the transporta much of the credit for maintaining ing much of the material back down to tion business. Once landed at the upriver steamer service on the Stikine in the lean Fort Wrangel. Cyrus Vance had suc ports of Glenora or Telegraph Creek. a years before World War I. The Hudson’s ceeded in laying a trans-Atlantic cable, further sixty miles or so had to be tra Bay Company might from time to time so the Collins Overland project was versed by rough trail before the Cassiar divert one of its Skeena River abandoned. fields were in sight, but the rigours suf sternwheelers to the Stikine for a trip The discovery of gold in the Dease fered by prospectors in the Cassiar rush each season, but it was the Callbreath Lake area in 1872 by Thibert and could not compare with what those steamer which stuck to the Stikine. McCullough set off the Cassiar gold rush, flocking to the Klondike in 1898 en In his booklet entitled Steamboat Days the biggest of its kind since the Cariboo dured. Capt. Moore was on the scene in on the Skeena River; Wiggs O’Neill wrote excitement of the previous decade. The 1874 with the sternwheeler Gem, but the following description of a trip up

B.C. Historical News - Winter 1994-95 16 the Stikine:” .. I would like to mention forms early in the season and lingers ing to lay steel over each of these routes. a trip I made up the Stikine River in late into the spring. As summer length Much has been written about the 897 when I was a kid as an invited ened into fall, the threat was ever present tough salt-water settlements of Skagway guest of Capt. J.H. Bonser on the H.B.C. that the river level would fall suddenly and Dyea which sprang up on the west Str. (aledonia. The canyon of the Stikine and trap a steamer in the ice for the side of White and Chilkoot Passes and is comparatively straight, only one bend winter. A-vessel so trapped would be of the masses of humanity which paused in the middle of it, and the water is very ground to shreds by heaving blocks of there on a relentless scramble to reach mild compared to our Kitselas Canyon ice when the ice broke up in the spring. the Klondike. Wrangell developed into [in the Skeena River]. There was another Two shorter routes to the Klondike an equally tough jumping-off place as boat on the river named the Alaskan. via Yukon River headwaters beckoned men bound for the Kiondike were Coming down river we blew our whis enticingly. One involved steaming up dumped off coastal steamers and were tie as we approached the head of the the coast of Lynn Canal, breaching the mulcted of their savings by gamblers and canyon and entered. Presently we no Coast Mountains through either White prostitutes as they girded up their loins ticed smoke coming around the bend, Pass or Chilkoot Pass and coming upon to ascend the Stikine River and cross that told Capt. Bonser that the Alaskan Lake Lindeman and Lake Bennett, part over to the Yukon by the Stikine Pla was in the canyon, but it was too late of the western headwaters of the Yu teau. Some were equipped with outfits, for us to back out and wait. Presently kon system. From Lake Bennett, steam that is, toboggans and sleighs hauled by her bow poked around the bend with ers, punts and rafts could be worked horses, dogs and even goats, while oth Capt. Takelberry standing at his wheel clown river to Dawson. A triple naviga ers planned to rely on “shanks mare” to with his great white beard down in front tion threat above present-day get them to the promised land. of him like a pinafore, holding her close Whitehorse — Miles Canyon, Squaw Rap The Cassiar Central Railway Company to the right wall of the canyon. Capt. ids and White Horse Rapids — formed a in 1897 was the first company to obtain Bonser was backing full speed and hold barrier for any steamer wishing to re incorporation to build from the Stikine ing back all he could, until our bows turn upstream, and discretion soon dic to Lake Teslin, and the name “Cassiar came abreast of each other. At the cor tated that any steamer working Central” stuck to the project, even rect moment he rang a stop signal and downstream with cargo be pulled into though it was Mackenzie and Mann’s full speed ahead. We shot by the other shore above this barrier, her cargo sent 1898 Canadian Yukon Railway Com boat with barely a foot to spare. Both around the barrier by portage then trans pany, replete with proposed land and skippers blew three blasts of the whis shipped by another steamer working cash subsidies, which actually began to tle, as much as to say ‘good going, old between Whitehorse and Dawson City. take shape as soon as the bill providing fellow.’ The surprising thing was, with This hazard remained until the White for such subsidies seemed to be assured only the two boats on the river in a dis Pass & Yukon Railway route was ex of a favourable reception from the Lib tance of 180 miles that we should meet tended in 1900 from Lake Bennett down eral Party dominating the 1898 House each other in the middle of the canyon. the Yukon as far as Whitehorse. of Commons in Ottawa. While the Ca It was a lonely river as there was no The second “short route” involved the nadian Pacific Railway was not to be settlement between Wrangel and Tel familiar trip up the coast to Wrangell, involved in the construction of the line, egraph Creek but a shack or two at thence by sternwheeler up the Stikine one conjectures that the CPR contem Glenora where a Canada Customs of to Glenora or Telegraph Creek and then plated leasing it upon its completion. ficer was stationed. No one ever guessed over the rough trail on the Stikine Pla The normally conservative CPR imme that the following year, 1898, would see teau to the headwaters of Lake Teslin, diately proceeded to acquire two vet 26 river steamers on the Stikine another body of water forming part of eran ocean-going ships, the Athenian Much has been written about the wild the headwaters of the Yukon system. and the Tartar to work the route be building on Puget Sound of dozens of From Lake Teslin in season a steamer tween Vancouver and Wrangell, then to sternwheelers to work on the Yukon could work uninterruptedly down the build twelve sternwheelers to work be River system during the Klondike gold system to Dawson. On both these head- tween Wrangell and Glenora. A series rush. Within about two or three years, water routes, the ice broke earlier in the of boat-building ways was erected on at least half of that Yukon fleet was ex spring and formed later in the fall than the CPR’s False Creek foreshore in Van cess tonnage. The situation was equally was the case on the lower Yukon. The couver, but four of the twelve boats were as crazy on the Stikine in 1898, as the two rival routes were each strenuously ordered from a yard at Port Blakely on Stikine Plateau promised easy access to promoted, and lobbying began in Ot Puget Sound, a ship-building area already the headwaters of the Yukon River. tawa and elsewhere for the granting of taxed with orders to build sternwheelers Dawson City could be reached from St. charters to build (a) a railway up over to work the St. Michael to Dawson City Michael, Alaska, near the mouth of the White Pass to Lake Bennett and beyond route on the lower Yukon. Yukon, but St. Michael was far distant and (b) a railway from Telegraph Creek The CPR, however, was not the only from Vancouver and Puget Sound, while to traverse the 125 miles over the Stikine player in the Stikine field. Every avail navigation up the lower Yukon was Plateau to the southern reach of Teslin able shipyard in Victoria and on the lengthy and tedious. The lower Yukon Lake. In the fashion of the times, gov Lower Mainland was put to work over winds a shallow sinuous course over the ernment granted more than one charter the 1897—98 winter on sternwheeler Alaska Flats; on such placid waters ice in response to various petitioners seek- construction. Albion Iron Works in Vic

17 B.C. Historical News - Winter 1994-95 ______

toria built the steel-hulled Beaverfor the up the Stikine by mid-summer 1898, trail quickly gained the reputation of Canadian Pacific Navigation Co., while carrying men bent for the Klondike as being even more rigorous than the Victoria’s John Todd built the canadian, well as rails and other lucrative trade routes over White Pass and Chilkoot Cola mbian, Victorian trio for the Cana connected with the budding Canadian Pass. As traffic on the river dropped dras dian Development Co. Esquimalt Marine Yukon Railway construction. In fact, tically, the various steamboat companies Railway built the ‘asca anclJ.C. Shatford however, fewer than half the projected hastened to take their sternwheelers off the Sybi4 both for private interests. A fleets ever saw service on the river, but the Stikine River before winter set in. Puget Sound yard built the Glenora for those on the scene by May 1898, includ What happened to the vessels which a small U.S. concern. ing the CPR’s Hamlin, Ogilvie, never made it to the Stikine? Material On the B.C. mainland, B.C. for two of the CPR’s twelve Iron Works built the Caledo stemwheelers was diverted to nia and Strathcona for the shipyards in the West Hudson’s Bay Company, the Kootenay district and took Iskoot and the Nahleen for the shape as the sternwheeler Kiondyke Mining Trading & Minto for the CPR’s Arrow Transport Co. Ltd., the Light Lake service and the Moyie for ning for Stacey-Hiebert Syndi the Kootenay Lake run. The cate, the Marquis of Duffi?rin remaining six vessels under for the British American Cor construction, plus the four poration, a concern active in worked on the Stikine, were the Rossland Mining Division eventually sold by the CPR and were worked on the Yu in the West Kootenay district, a ii i 1 r— and the Rothesay for Rothesay kon, the Fraser, and on Puget Shipping Co. Smaller yards Sound. Some concerns were built the Stikine Chief for Lilt/lid not so lucky. The British Stikine Navigation Co. Ltd. and American Corporation lost James Domville for Klondyke, 4 both its own Marquis of Yukon & Pioneer Co. Ltd. In Dufferin and the (onstantine the winter of 1897—98, the in purchased from the CPR trepid Capt. Frank Armstrong when they foundered under of East Kootenay steamboating tow to St. Michael for service fame planned to erect a small on the Yukon. Klondyke Min sawmill and planer on the ing, Trading & Transport Co. Stikine just above the Alaska/ Captain Frank Armstrong constructed the Mono on Cottonwood lost its steamer Iskoot in 1898 Island She is shown here at a dock in Wrangel4 Alaska. British Columbia boundary Photo courtesy of BCARS No. 24977 A-9274 while it was under tow to and to build there a Wrangell. Its steamers sternwheeler. Weather conditions de McC’onnell and Duchesnay, did a brief Nahleen and Louise were worked briefly feated his efforts to haul the necessary but lucrative business. By mid-summer and unprofitably on the Stikine in 1898 equipment upriver, so he transferred his of 1898, however, the Stikine bubble had then were sent to Victoria for the win endeavour to Cottonwood Island, the burst. The Liberal-sponsored railway bill ter. On July 12, 1899, one of the most point at the mouth of the Stikine where passed in the House of Commons but spectacular fires ever in Victoria harbour the Canadian Yukon Railway had estab failed to pass in a Senate dominated by consumed both the Nahleen and the lished its headquarters. In fifty-eight days Conservatives. The support required to Louise to the waterline as they were he not only had the lumber sawed but get a railway through to completion being readied for service on the lower constructed a highly successful shallow- shifted to the White Pass & Yukon sys Yukon. There were no fortunes made draft sternwheeler, the Mono, and tem, which would eventually construct by steamboat concerns in the 1898 whisked her upriver before the customs a narrow-gauge line from tidewater at Stikine River bubble! authorities were alert to his activities. Skagway to Whitehorse, Y.T., and By 1899 about all that remained of Most of the excess riverboat tonnage thereby beat out both St. Michael and the Canadian Yukon Railway affair on around Puget Sound and the Portland the Stikine in the transportation stakes. the Stikine were materials stockpiled at area was snapped up for the St. Michael One of the attractions of the Stikine its headquarters on Cottonwood Island, to Dawson City trade, but the veteran route for Klondike seekers had been the caches of steel rails and other freight sternwheelers Cou rsei Elwood, Louise, prospect of earning a little money en abandoned at various points on the river Ramona and Skagit Chief were sent to route wielding a pick and shovel on the bank and the beginnings of the railway the Stikine River to supplement vessels railway grade. After the Canadian Yu construction upstream on the Stikine. under construction. Had the best-laid kon Railway scheme collapsed, few The Hudson’s Bay Company worked its plans of all these transportation enter bound on foot for the Klondike elected sternwheeler Strathcona fitfully on the prises come to fruition, there would have to take the Stikine River route to Glenora river for a season or two then resorted been over thirty sternwheelers working and the pack trail to Lake Teslin, as this to sending one of its Skeena River

B.C. Historical News - Winter 1994.95 18 sternwheelers up to the Stikine to work a vessels. At Lower Post, materials so than fiction! few trips each season. The enchanted land barged were transshipped for the short Will heavy-duty river navigation ever of the Stikine beyond the Coast Moun haul to Watson Lake. The construction return to the Stikine? It is doubtful, for tains once again became the preserve of of the Alaska Highway in 1941—42 once should exploitation of the area’s resources a few hardy settlers and prospectors. again made for active shipping up the ever reach a level to make highway trans In 1916 the Hudson’s Bay Company Stikine and down the Dease-Liard sys port inadequate, it is possible that the replaced its sternwheeler service on the tems. Shipping activity on the Stikine abandoned British Columbia Railway ex Stikine with the Tabitan, a small gaso cooled down thereafter, but in the post- tension from Fort St. James to Dease Lake line-powered vessel which shortly World War II era, Capt. Al Ritchie then could be revived. If and when such an proved to be too underpowered to work later Capt. Edwin Callbreath continued occasion arises, the multi-million-dollar successfully on the river. At consider the diesel-type service with the Judith bridge constructed for the railway across able cost, the company re-commissioned Ann and other vessels. the Stikine River in the middle of nowhere the sternwheeler Port Simpson to take Eventually bits and pieces of what is will at last come into its own. over the service for the season. The era now provincial Highway 37 were built of steam on the Stikine ended in Au into the Stikine/Cassiar hinterland from gust 1916 with the last trip of the Port Upper Liard on the Alaska Highway and E.L Affleck has always been interested Simpson. Rising labour and fuel costs from Kitwanga and Stewart in the south. in sternwbeelers in British Columbia. Now that be is retire4, be has intensi were already making the profitable op Already suffering from the competition fied his research of this and other as eration of a steam-powered of airplanes, heavy-duty motor vessels pects ofR C history. sternwheeler a dicey situation anywhere could not stand additional competition in British Columbia, The subsequent from heavy-duty trucks. Service on the BIBLIOGRAPHY appearance on the river of Captains Syd Stikine was accordingly abandoned in Government of canada. List of Vessels on the Shipping Barrington and Charles Binkley, two 1969, leaving what local business offered Registty Books. U.S. Federal Government. List ofMerchant Vessels of seasoned Yukon River skippers, revived to very small vessels. During the 1970s, the United States. and prolonged heavy-duty river naviga various attempts were made to revive Affleck, EL. Affleckc List ofSternu’heelers Piling the tion on the Stikine for another half-cen boat service from Wrangell to Telegraph Inland Waters of British Columbia, 2858-1980. Alex tury. The Barrington outfit placed a Creek as a tourist attraction, but none Nicolls Press, 1992. series of tunnel-screw-propelled motor met with much success. Jet boats have Fiegehen, Gary. Stikine— the Great River. Douglas & McIntyre, 1991. vessels, all named HazeiB., on the river in recent times ferried tourists from Hacking, Norman. Captain William Moore— B.C. c and these economical vessels served Wrangell up the Stikine as far as the Amazing Frontiersman. Heritage House, 1993. admirably the isolated ranches on the Alaska/British Columbia boundary, Hacking, Norman and Lamb, W. Kaye. The Princess river as well as the fitful mining busi while freight vessels continue to trans Story Mitchell Press, 1974. ness in the Cassiar hinterland. The port high-quality sand mined for con Hoagland, Edward. Notesfrom the enturj’ Before. Barrington diesel boat service really struction purposes from the bars on the Random House, 1969. came into its own early in World War II lower reaches of the river, hut river traf Lawrence, Guy. “The Stikine Trail,” British Columbia D,gesl Vol. 20, No. 6, Nov—Dec., 1964. when an airport was shipped up the fic above the little canyon is idle. The “107 Years of Stikine Riverbcoting,” Alaska Geographic Stikine on barges powered by the record of river navigation on the Stikine Quarter/p Vol. 6, Ne. 4, 1979.

Barrington boats then hauled overland from 1862 to 1969, however, remains a ONeill, Wiggs. Steamboat Dais on the Skc’ena River. to Dease Lake. Navigation on the Dease proud one, and if the events of the crazy 1960. system was revived with the hasty con 1898 year of navigation on the Stikine Patterson, R.M. Trail to the Interior Macmillan, 1966. struction at the head of Dease Lake of continue to be mind-boggling, one can Turner, Robert. Sternwheelers and Steam Tugs. Sono barges and shallow-draft diesel-powered only sagely mutter that truth is stranger Nis Press, 1984.

British Columbia Historical Federation Scholarship 1995—1996 The British Columbia Historical Federation awards a $500 scholarship annu ally to a student completing the third or fourth year at a British Columbia college or university. To apply for the scholarship, candidates must submit: 1. A letter of application. 2. An essay of 1500—2000 words on a topic relating to the history of British Columbia. The essay must he suitable for publication. The winning essay will be published in the B.C. Historical News. 3. Letters of recommendation from two professors. Applications must be submitted before April 30, 1995, to Anne Yandle, 3450 West 20th Avenue, Vancouver, B.C. v6s 1E4.

Scholarship Chair Anne Yandle presents Robert Wright with the cheque for the 1994 BCHF scholarship. Wright u’as a student at Douglas College when be wrote ‘“The Plight ofRural Women Teachers in the 1920s. ‘“He is now studying at Simon Fraser University.

19 B.C. Historical News - Winter 1994-95 Finnish Immigrants and Their Political Ideology by RickJames

In the late nineteenth century, Finland Two primary forces moti was in the midst of severe economic vated many of Finland’s inhab and social distress. Political repression itants to regard migration as an was then added to the country’s prob acceptable alternative to the lems with Nicholas II’s ascension to the uncertainties prevalent in their Russian throne in 1894. Attracted by the homeland. The first resulted promise of a better life in the new world, from the country’s population many Finns were motivated to emigrate. having tripled in the nineteenth A large part of the Finns who came to century. By 1900 all marginal Canada brought with them strong so land was settled and the rural cialist and Marxist beliefs as part of their population (87.5% of the total) cultural baggage. These Finnish immi had no room to expand. Add grants, with their leftist ideologies, ing to this crisis in the tradi played a significant factor in radicalizing tionally immobile, agrarian British Columbia’s politics throughout society was the dislocation cre 1900 to 1939. ated by the industrialization of Finland, which began in the late 1860s. As agri cultural workers headed to the urban centres looking for economic opportunity, the cities were able to absorb some of them, but not MaUi Kurikka all. These migrant work Photo courtesy of Kurikka’s great-grandson, Mafti Linnoilla ers who sought employ ment in the lumber industry, 1894, despotic rule returned to Finland. railroad construction and facto Spurred on by a fiercely chauvinistic ries, and who found themselves pan-Slavic movement, the new tzar im unable to return to their earlier plemented restrictive legislation which occupations, became particularly curbed rights and privileges granted by vulnerable to economic down earlier regimes. From 1898 onwards, the turns and famine. Baltic states and Finland suffered under The economic crisis at the end an aggressively pursued Russification of the century was exacerbated policy. by political and social changes. The Finland that faced the return of Finland had benefited from a autocracy was one that had undergone period of liberalization as an au dramatic changes in its political land tonomous Duchy of Russia scape. The nation had thrived under throughout the reigns of Tzar democratic self-government and as liv Alexander II and Alexander III. ing and working conditions deteriorated, The small country had been the working class readily assimilated the granted, along with other new political ideologies that were flow freedoms, self-government. ing through Western Europe. As a con Throughout this period the Finn sequence, the recently emerged Finnish ish language and culture flow socialist movement had become a pow ered, inspiring a sense of national erful force by the turn of the century. A young Finnish radical Austin MäkeliL identity and pride. With the as Although economic reasons had stirred Photo courtesy of Sointula Museum cension of Tzar Nicholas II in large portions of the population to con-

B.C. Historical News - Winter 1994-95 20 sider emigration, for many (especially those citizens with leftist tendencies), Finland’s loss of political autonomy pro vided the final catalyst. (A major stimu lus was the introduction of new conscription laws. Finns were now re quired to serve under Russian, instead of Finnish, army regulations and their term of service was lengthened from ninety days to five years.)’ For those immigrants who had been attracted to Canada by the promise of freedom, wealth and opportunity, real ity often didn’t accord with their expec tations. A previous migration had occurred when Finnish labourers were drawn to work on the building of the Canadian Pacific Railway. With the rail way’s completion, many of those left A. Makelasfunera4 1932. Photo courtesy of Meraloa Pink Collection unemployed in British Columbia found new jobs digging coal in Robert nation above ground. “To know the toil wages or to improve their working con Dunsmuir’s Vancouver Island mines. and burdensomeness of descending into ditions were routinely suppressed by Rather than walking on “streets paved the bottomless jaws, never knowing their employers. with gold,” settlement in an alien land whether one will surface alive, dead or The first formal attempts of the Finnish

brought new forms of exploitation. Vic badly injured ... “ was how Matti immigrants to come to terms with the timized miners faced hazardous condi Halminen described every miner’s fears.2 harsh realities of their new environment tions working underground, and for the Any attempts by workers, either indi were temperance societies. As the socie non-English-speaking majority, discrimi vidually or collectively, to raise their ties were representative of a culture that was both ethnically and class-oriented, they not oniy provided a moder ating influence but also encouraged more united action. Haalis, or halls, were soon built and so cial functions such as theatrical performances, sports events and dances were organized to foster community spirit. Hand written newspapers, so cialist clubs, libraries and reading rooms stimu lated intellectual pursuits and political discussion. Although the Finns had bettered living con ditions within their communities, they still faced the harsh realities of backbreaking and dangerous work for in adequate pay. Many of the immigrants who ar rived after 1900, having left their homeland when the workers’ Band concert at Sointula’s “baaii” circa 1903. movement was making Photo courtesy of Sointula Museum its breakthrough, en-

21 B.C. Historical News - Winter 1994-95 couraged radical social Finnish-language news ist solutions.3 The idea paper in Canada, first of building a communal from Nanaimo and then home beyond the reach later from Sointula. A of the capitalist world huge success, the Aika was proposed by some (Time), while circulat of the Finn miners in ing its message of so Nanaimo as a remedy cialism and idealism for their plight. They throughout North then encouraged Matti America, Europe and Kurikka, former editor- Australia, also encour in-chief of Finland’s aged Finns to join the largest working-class utopian venture. But paper, Tyomies, living in after facing the harsh self-imposed exile in realities of life on Brit Australia, to come to ish Columbia’s Canada to found a uto raincoast, many of the pian society. The char approximately 2,000 ismatic Kurikka Finns that passed appeared ideal for this through Sointula in the role as his particular three years of the colo brand of socialism, Social Democratic Part)’ cbartet nization scheme simply Photo courtesy of Sointula Museum rooted in Tolstoy, Chris moved on. Kurikka’s at tianity and Theosophy, placed its em- was ordered for the tailors and shoemak tempts to create a model communal phasis on love and harmony with nature ers but Malcolm Island was too far re society away from “the capitalistic and and mankind. moved from urban markets to make materialistic class struggle,” as well as The Kalevan Kansa Colonization Com small-scale manufacturing viable. “the Church with its false doctrine,” col pany was formed, an agreement was From 1901 to 1905 Kurikka and the lapsed and the colony was declared reached with the provincial government Sointula Finns published the first printed bankrupt in 1905. in 1901, and Malcolm Island, lo Even while the utopian ex cated off the northern end of periment at Sointula (Harmony) Vancouver Island, was desig No I was succumbing to dissension nated as the site for the Finns’ and mismanagement, Finn im utopia. By the spring of 1902 migrants on Malcolm Island and Finns from all over the world elsewhere were searching for were travelling to Malcolm Island more practical political solu to become part of the Kalevan tions. Committed to the fact that Kansa. Even though there was 4 Canada was now their home no accommodation, by the end land, Finnish socialists realized of 1902 over two hundred peo ‘4,,, that they needed to establish ple were living island; on the .4. common cause with their fellow most of the new colonists were Canadian workers. To achieve men (100) but some brought this goal, many of the locally their wives (43) and children based Finnish societies helped 44 44, (88). While enthusiasm and en to organize the Socialist Party of ergy were high, many of the Canada (SPC), which was immigrants were urban crafts formed in 1905. The founders men and professionals, ill of the party had defined their equipped for the rough living objective as none other than 44,4 and hard work required to clear “the transformation ... of capi a heavily forested island by talist property into the collective hand. A sawmill, a foundry and property of the working class.”

- a brickyard were started and a , k’ Language difficulties forced in logging crew organized but the dividual Finnish members to re lack of training and experience organize themselves into a was a serious handicap that di separate language group to rectly affected the colony’s fi }5t44, . ,, ,L5m,, m4,, eliminate the cumbersome proc nances. In an attempt to become Aika (lIme), thefirst printed Finnish newspaper in Canada. ess of translating the party’s Ptioto courtesy of Sointula Museum self-sufficient, cloth and leather business into Finnish. (Finns,

B.C. Historical News - Winter 1994-95 22 more so than most immigrant groups, suffered difficulties with the English lan guage. The Finnish language has no re semblance to any other European tongue other than Estonian and early Magyar. Grammar and syntax are ex tremely complicated and there are no articles, gender, nor letters b, c, f, q or w and no prepositions, their place be ing taken by fifteen case-endings.)4 In 1908, the Sointula local had attempted to run a candidate in the upcoming fed eral election but lack of funds prevented this. The party’s secretary noted that one of the heaviest expenses incuffed by the SPC had been the printing of the consti tution in Finnish. Although highly respected for their personal discipline achieved through their temperance societies, when the Finns began to act en bloc to force Rick James photo changes in party policy, they were re sented as “clannish” foreigners. The ship. By 1911, all former Finnish SPC joined the SDPC, they formed their own problems arose over ideological differ locals had left and went on to assist with ethnic association, the Finnish Socialist ences: Finn radicals of the SPC had the founding of the Social Democratic Organization of Canada (FSOC). In this pressed for interim measures to amelio Party of Canada (SDPC) later that year. way, when they federated with the rate the immediate conditions of the While the Finn radicals had been af SDPC, they were able to establish their working class rather than await the Revo filiated with the SPC, two of the con own national identity as well as main lution. As a result, the “outsiders” were stituencies that held sizeable Finnish tain their autonomy. Regrettably, with tarred as being revisionist by the doctri communities sent Socialists to the pro the outbreak of World War I, the immi naire Marxist leadership who saw the vincial legislature in the election of 1909. grant organization with an “alien” char party’s role as being restricted to the The party’s electoral support continued acter, which professed socialist and education and agitation of the masses. to fall off from the high of 1909, and in anti-war sentiments, became suspect. The contempt and intolerance of the the election of 1916 neither the SPC nor The Canadian government began by predominantly British leaders of the SPC the SDPC returned a member to the suppressing “enemy language” publica led either to the expulsion, or with British Columbia legislature. tions and eventually any organization drawal in protest, of the Finn member- Before the Finnish Socialist locals that could be viewed as showing “eth nic support” for the Central Powers. Orders-in-council were speedily enacted against radical left organizations like the Industrial Workers of the World, SDPC and the FSOC. Many members withdrew their support from the Finnish radical movement for fear of government per secution. The FSOC disbanded but re sumed operations as the Finnish Organization of Canada (FOC) follow ing the war. In order to receive official sanction, the FOC transformed itself into a strictly cultural institution. The Bolshevik takeover in Russia in 1917 revitalized many Finnish-Canadian radicals. The revolution was taken as a sign of the impending triumph of the working-class struggle in the western world. A “reconstituted” Finnish Social ist Organization of Canada was revital An early settlers borne, Anderson Marine Ways and Co-op Hardware Store, Sointula, BC ized out of the “provisional” FOC in 1919 Rick James photo after the War Measures Act restrictions

23 B.C. Historical News - Winter 1994-95 against socialist associations had lapsed. ist intellectual (who could have played end ofthe Kalevan Kansa wasn’t the end The FSOC, keen to form an alliance with a more prominent role in British Colum ofSointula, bowever Many ofthe town’s other re-emerging socialist parties, in bia radical politics, much as Hill and remaining settlersfound employment in 1921 became affiliated with the Work Ahlquist had in Toronto), never returned the West Coast’s logging andfishing in dustries. Slowly Sointula grew, and to ers’ Party of Canada. In 1924 the FSOC to the level of political activity he had day it is a prosperous fishing village. was simply known as the Finnish Sec reached in Finland. He was content to Echoes of the original settlers’ dreams tion of the Communist Party of Canada live out his final years on Malcolm Is are heard in the Finnish language that

(CPC). As the FSOC had compelled its land as a lighthouse keeper, holding only is still spoken — and felt in Sointula’s members to take out a CPC card, the one post of importance — editor of the strong sense ofcommunity.” Finnish Section made up over half the FSOC’s newspaper, Vapaus, which he party membership in the mid-1920s. (As held for less than a year. Mäkelii, a friend FOOTNOTES the Finns had no intention of “gifting” of Matti Kurikka, had worked on the 1. Alan Neil Kuitunen, The Finnish canadian Socialist their hard-earned assets and properties staff of Tyomies and taken over as edi Movement 1900-1914.

— their community halls, the publishing tor when Kurikka left for Australia. 2. Halnsinen, Matti, Sointula— Kalevan Kansanja

house, Vapaus, etc. — to the Communist Kurikica encouraged the practical Mäkelä Kanadan Suornalaisten Historiaa, p. 251. Party, they incorporated their own cul to join him in Sointula as Kurikka felt 3. In 1901, there were only 780 people of Finnish tural institution, the Finnish Organiza himself “out of control” with his idealis origin in Ilritish Columbia. By 1911 their numbers tion of CanaAa, Inc., in which they tic scheme. With the dissolution of the had risen to 2,858. Finns never comprised more than half of one per cent of the Canadian vested the title to all their assets. From colonization company, the two men population. varpu Lindstrom-Best, The I’ïnns in canada, 16. 1925 onwards, the radical Finnish-Ca became bitter enemies — Mäkelä took p.

nadian movement shifted its focus and over the leadership of the remaining 4. Alan Neil Kuitunen, The Finnish Canadian Socialist made the FOC its organizational centre. settlers when Kurikka and his followers Moi’c,nend 1900—1914. As a consequence, the Finnish Section left the island in 1905. An article in the 5. Edward P. Lame, Ganadian Ethnic Studies of the CPC faded away.5 October 13, 1934, issue of the Vancou Association, Vol. V1fl p. 100. With their refusal to sacrifice their or ver Province aptly summed up the out 6. By 1941 the Finnish population in British Columbia ganization to the party’s policy of side world’s impression of a small Finn had increased to 6,858. Many of the newcomers in bolshevization of the various language community: “for 30 years the Finns have the inter—war immigration period held “white” sympathies, which further added to the political sections (ethnic groups were to be maintained a communist state on dissension in Finnish communities. Varpu blended together into smaller, homog Malcolm Island. Today they probably Linclstrom-ltest, The Finns in Ganada, p. 16. enized “Canadian” cells), ruptures in the know less about what’s happening in CPC opened. The final split occurred Canada than in the Soviet Union BIBLIOGRAPHY with the ousting of A.T. Hill from the Although their language difficulties Avakumovic, Ivan. The Communist Party in Canada. A FOC in 1929 and, later in the year, the and the nativism of Canada’s Anglo- History. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart Ltd., 1981.

suspension of J.W. Ahlqvist and other Saxon population had restricted Finn Hall, Wendy. Green Gold and Granitrt A Background prominent FOC members from the Com immigrants from having a more serious to Thtland. London: Max Parrish and Co. Ltd., 1953. munist ranks. Thereafter the FOC went impact on the larger political scene, the Jalkanen, Ralph J., ed. The Finns in North America A on to operate as an independent force Canadian government got more than the Social St’mposium, Hancock: Michigan State University in the leftist movement. “stalwart peasant in a sheepskin coat” Press, 1969. By the 1930s dissension in the FOC that they had bargained for. Finnish- Robin, Martin. Rathcal Politics and Canadian Labou, mirrored the difficulties the Canadian Canadian radicals had readily risen to 1880— 1930. Kingston: Industrial Relations Centre, Queen’s University, 1968. radical left had as a whole in finding attack with their counter-ideologies, not common ground. A significant group of only the exploitative conditions they Wuorinen, John H. A History ofFinland. New York and moderate leftists broke away from the found in British Columbia’s resource London: Columbia University Press, 1965. organization through 1930 and 1931 and towns, but also to challenge the status later pledged their support to the Co quo of Canada’s political establishment. operative Commonwealth Federation. In Between 1900 and 1939, Finnish radi order to retain a membership worn cals made a significant contribution to down by the fractional and destructive the Canadian socialist movement far fighting within the radical movement, beyond what their small numbers in the as well as the fear of persecution by a immigrant community would suggest. government who suspected the “alien” group of subversive activities, the FOC began to emphasize cultural activities RickJames lived in Sointulafor tenyears to a greater extent during the 1930s.6 before moving to the Comox Valley. He Many Finn-Canadians through the in has assisted Pauka Wild with research ter-war years simply retreated into their for herforthcoming book Sointula: An communities rather than face a suspi Island Utopia An excerptfrom an arti cious and sometimes hostile outside cle by Wild in the Islandei October 31, world. A.B. Mãkelä, a prominent Marx- 1993, summarizes later Sointulw “The

B.C. Historical News - Winter 1994-95 24 The Story ofEdna Eldorado by Sam Holloway

This story has appeared in various find a mother for their Christmas publications and some readers ex child. The news spread quickly pressed their disbelief Howevet and soon a dozen women arrived further checking and the discovery at the cabin; each was willing to of the photo taken by noted geolo adopt the baby, and the young gist; lB. Tyrel tells me the story is miners faced a difficult decision. authentic. A Mrs. Brock stood back from the Sam Holloway crowd, listening to the arguing, and finally she could stand it no Far from their homes in the longer. south, three young prospectors “You’re all a bunch of fools!” she mushed their team through the exclaimed. “Give me that baby! crackling cold. They had covered You, Dave, take up a collection thirty miles that day over a narrow and get going into Dawson for trail and had but three miles to go some canned milk. Bring some to reach their cabin on Eldorado clean blankets and some diapers Creek in the Klondike. It was too.” She picked up the baby and Christmas Eve, 1897. held it with such a natural air that They suffered from the cold and, the boys knew the right decision in spite of the time of year, wanted had been made. Later they found only to light a roaring fire to thaw The Edna Eldorado cabin. out Mrs. Brock had lost a baby J.B. Tyrell photo their bones and relieve the sear back in Nova Scotia; and here in ing pain in their chests. They paid the Klondike, by a miracle of no heed to the northern lights that had Wilkinson stripped off his many layers of events, she had found another. dropped a dancing curtain of ghostly col clothing and even removed his new woolen For the rest of the winter the baby stayed ours over the frozen valley. underwear he had bought in Dawson that in Mrs. Brocks cabin and it became the cen Then, in an open space to the right of the day. Quickly he wrapped the baby in the tre of attention on Eldorado Creek. The min trail, they saw a lonely cabin almost envel underwear and whatever blankets he could ers found a minister to baptize it in the spring oped in frost; the frost itself reflected the find. Just then the door burst open and an and, after many suggestions, a name was colours of the aurora borealis until cabin and other young man ran to the bedside. chosen for the child: she was to be called sky were joined in a mystical scene, a scene ‘jen! I’ve got the doctor!” He collapsed Edna Eldorado. She was christened in an out that caused the young men to stop and stare. on the floor beside the bed and the doctor door ceremony with gold nuggets and pokes A faint wisp of smoke drifted from the stove strode into the crowded cabin. He immedi of dust piled up around her. It was said that pipe, as if to declare there was life within ately checked the woman on the bed and the toughest men in the north cried like ba the cabin; but it was a life that was feeble the young man on the floor. “Both dead. He bies on that spring day in the Kiondike. and quiet. froze his lungs with all the running he did “Lets go in and warm up,” said Johnny today; it’s forty-five below outside; and the That is how the story has come down to us —

Lind. “They must have gone into Dawson mother ... goddammit, these people should through magazine and newspaper accounts for Christmas and we can get that fire going never have come north! Is there a woman and personal re-telling — how three gaunt in no time.” around here you can take the baby to?’ young prospectors were led by the northern They unlatched the door and tramped in. “No,” said Bill, who still held the baby in lights to the side of a newborn babe on Dave Mitchell took a candle from his pocket his huge arms. “Not close by there isn’t.” Christmas Eve in 1897. and lit it in order to find the source of pite “Well,” said the doctor, “I’ve got to be ous moans coming from the bed in the cor going. You’ll have to take care of it some ner. In the flickering candlelight he, Johnny how.” He packed his case and went out and Lind and Bill Wilkinson beheld a sight they the miners never saw him again. Sam Holloway lives near Whiteborse. He would remember for the rest of their lives. They made a tiny bed from a packing box, is editor of The Yukon Reader which be A young woman lay on the bed with a tucked the baby into it, and dashed over the started in 1990. We are verygratefuitbat newborn baby clutched to her breast. She trail to their own cabin. Using a whiskey begavepermission topresent this story stopped her faint cries to smile at Dave who bottle and the finger from a leather glove, to our readers. quickly kneeled at her side. Her eyes, pain- they fed the squalling child its first earthly filled yet satisfied somehow, opened wide meal: bear-stew broth with a tiny portion of for a moment, fluttered weakly, then closed brandy mixed in. The baby fell asleep in its in death. box while the young men sang Christmas The three young men stared at each other, carols and gave thanks to whatever god they stunned into silence, a silence the baby fi believed in. nally pierced with its shrill, life-filled cry. But that isn’t the end of the story. While Johnny Lind built up the fire, Bill Dave Mitchell set out the next morning to

25 B.C. Historical News - Winter 1994-95 The Plight ofRural Women Teachers in the 1920s by Robert Wright

In the early twentieth century many ings of the profession, the teaching in expected to have some medical knowl rural female school teachers in British dustry had no problems finding edge due to the isolation of most of the Columbia experienced a variety of hard inductees.9 Women “were particularly communities.18 The students would ships and obstacles. This essay will fo socialized to see their futures as involv have to be checked daily for contagious cus on the negative aspects of the lives ing children and were restricted to a few diseases.’9 They also had to be checked of female rural school teachers, not to sex-labelled employments ... Finally, externally for “bugs” such as head-lice deny that there were positive aspects to neither opposition to their presence nor and fleas. their lives. They were often taken for a host of rivals succeeded in driving The teacher’s function as a clerk was granted, forced to adhere to unreason women from a profession that many essential if the schoolhouse was going to able rules and regulations and some needed to survive and many loved.”10 run smoothly. They were responsible for times had to live and work in deplorable The School Act of 1911 stated that the calling the roll and recording the attend conditions. This essay will discuss the function of a teacher in B.C. was “to ance and absences in a well-maintained rural teacher’s responsibilities and work teach, ‘diligently and faithfully’ and register.2° This register was very impor ing environment to promote understand ‘maintain order and discipline’.” This tant because if the average attendance of ing of how” ... physically, emotionally particular definition was very broad and the schoolhouse was less than eight, it and professionally demanding their failed to mention the specific “hats” that faced being closed.21 The teacher also lives were, “ ... so much so that many the teacher was expected to wear. These was expected to keep a visitors’ book, young people lived lives of quiet, lonely, “hats” included one of “an instructor,” inform trustees of sickness and unsanitary desperation as they tried to provide a one of “a disciplinarian,” one of “a health conditions, write report cards and admin limited level of educational service to worker,” one of “a clerk,”12 and one of ister public examinations.22 their students.”1 “a caretaker.”13 As a caretaker the teacher was respon In 1925, 79% of the teachers in the The teacher’s function as an instruc sible for the aesthetic appearance of the rural areas of B.C. were female, 91% tor and a disciplinarian might be thought school, inside and out. In theory the were unmarried and the average age was to be fairly straightforward, but that was teacher was to be aided by the mem 23.62 (some were as young as sixteen not always the case. Often the teachers bers of the school board, but the brunt years old).3 Female teachers had been found that their training at Normal of the responsibility was almost always in the majority since the middle of the School did not prepare them enough left with the teacher. Outside, she must nineteenth century.4 When compared to for the rural environment.14 They might “improve and beautify the school other career options for women at the have a class of twenty to thirty students grounds.”23 Inside, she must be respon time, such as domestic service, factory at a time, covering a number of differ sible for lighting the fires, scrubbing the or cannery work, or married life, teach ent grades, including high school.15 She blackboards, washing the floors and any ing looked appealing. In order to be would have been an English-speaking other janitorial duties that needed to be come a teacher, very little specialized teacher and she may have been placed done.24 If a senior student was recruited skill or equipment was needed.5 In 1920 in a community where none of the chil to assume janitorial duties and the school all that was needed to become a teacher dren spoke English.’6 Even when the board declined to pay, the teacher would was two years of high school and nine teachers were given assistance from the have to provide a gratuity from her own months of Normal School.6 The teach school inspectors, by receiving new meagre salary. ing life allowed a young woman to break curriculums, the curriculums were given There is a distinction that must be away from her family, become inde without instruction. Many teachers found made between the two different types pendent and feel as if she was going on that when they did go looking for in of schools that existed in rural areas of an adventure. Many women said that it struction “from their superiors, the su B.C. There were rural schools and there was a “desirable stage between school periors were just as mucli in the dark,” were assisted schools. In 1926, the as ing and marriage.”7 It was also seen by or the inspectors did not have the “time sisted schools outnumbered the rural many women as a way to meet a hus or the desire” to accommodate the spe schools three to one.25 Although both band.8 These wonderful ideals that were cific needs of each individual teacher.17 types were usually one-roomed school imagined by most of the young female Despite the fact tha. many of the schools houses, they were supported financially teachers did not always become a real had very inadequate resources, the by very different sources. A country ity. Despite the fact that many of the teachers made do with what they had. school that was given rural status meant women were aware of the shortcom As a health worker the teacher was that the school was not urban and it was

B.C. Historical News - Winter 1994-95 26 not consolidated with other communi came to “outside intervention.”33 It was house or a village store.39 Alex Lord, a ties. This status also meant that the very important in all of the small rural school inspector between the years 1915— school did not benefit from “centralized communities that the parents were 36, put some descriptions in his reports municipal administration or finance”26 happy with the school and its teacher. of the bad conditions that he observed: A country school that was given assisted The very existence of the school de “poorly heated, badly lighted, woefully status was also not an urban school, but pended on “the teachers ability to adapt equipped, unsanitary and ugly;” “insub it was part of a consolidated network of to the community’s desires and the par stantial;” and “entirely inadequate.”40 schools and did fall under municipal ents’ willingness to support the school These poor working conditions were administration and finance. In an assisted by enroling their children.”34 There were compounded by a scarcity of books and school, the teacher’s salary, the build many times that the parents disapproved supplies.4’ It was not uncommon for a ing, and a grant for supplies were cov of some aspect of the teacher’s profes teacher and her class to have “eagerly ered by the provincial government. All sional or personal actions. These times consulted Eaton’s catalogue as a text for these benefits were subject to the con produced enormous resistance among reading and spelling.”42 ditions and regulations laid out by the the parents.35 The parents may have Loneliness was a major part of life for government. The main condition of the chosen to stop funding the school or many rural school teachers due to the financial support was part of the Com may have just removed their children isolation of the communities in which pulsory Attendance Act, ‘a monthly en from school and had them learn at they taught. The isolation came in pri rolment of at least 10 and an average of home.36 Marion Leighton, a teacher in marily two different types. The first type 8 was mandatory to avoid closure.”27 Mud River in the 1920s, warned the was that the community could only be The assisted schools were under the school inspector that “it would not be a accessed by taking a train to a central control of a board of three trustees. The wise policy to send an inexperienced ized point and then by country road or trustees’ only qualifications were that teacher here for the community does trail. The Peace River and Cariboo Coun they had to be British subjects and quali not have much co-operation, spirit or try were examples of such areas in B.C.43 fied voters.28 For rural schools there harmony so it makes a teacher tread The second type of community were the were no qualifications. The school board most carefully to keep on friendly terms island schools that were dependent on was usually made up of elected rate- with all.”37 The parents knew all about the Union Steamship Company’s boats. payers who were parents or prominent the Compulsory Attendance Act and Access to many of the severely isolated figures in the community.29 In some of what effect their children’s absence communities was primarily set up to deal the communities, the control over edu could have on the school. Pulling a child with commercial transport, not people cation was put in “the hands of local from school was one of the least dis transport.44 Often if there was people dictators” who possessed “petty jealousy turbing things that parents or children transport to an isolated community, the towards each other” and the result was or a community could inflict on their teacher’s family did not have the money local control at “illogical extremes.”30 In local teacher. It was noted by a school or the inclination to theory, and under official regulation, the inspector of the 1920s that a woman The isolation not only posed a prob school board, especially in an assisted named Miss Langois “had survived that lem of loneliness for young female school, had numerous responsibilities. stench of urine poured into the school teachers but also one of danger. Some

They were responsible for the hiring and stove ... laughter at rumours of an illicit times the nearest neighbour to a teach

firing of the teacher; reporting teachers’ affair with a student ... broken windows er’s accommodations was miles away.

resignations; regular school visits; pro and stolen fuel-oil ... one serious attempt A teacher that was in trouble may not

viding supplies and books for under to burn down the schoolhouse ... nights have access to any nearby help if she

privileged children; acquiring property with catcalls and peeping boys ... confis needed it. In Port Essington, near Prince and money to operate the school; and cateci real pistols, dynamite caps, kitchen Rupert, a twenty-one-year-old teacher the equipping and repairing of the knives and obscene dr-awings.”38 named Miss Loretta Chisholm left her schoolhouse when needed.31 It was The socio-economic status of the peo boarding house to take a walk on a Sun decided by the community whether or ple in the community was often reflected day morning in May 1926 and never re not the school board acted within its in the school building itself. The cost of turned. Nothing was heard of her until official capacity, not the teacher. the construction of the assisted schools her battered body was found. An au The rural and assisted schools in B.C. was reimbursed by the provincial gov topsy report concluded that she had during the 1920s were dependent on the ernment only after the building was fin suffocated to death.46 community for their existence and lon ished. The rural schools were entirely Most times when a rural teacher ar gevity. Whether the school was in good dependent on local donations and loans rived in a community she was unaware or bad condition depended on the sup acquired by an individual on behalf of of where she would be living. The teach port and the enthusiasm of the commu the school. The funding at a school, es ers usually had three choices of accom nity. Unlike the urban schools that pecially a rural school, may have been modation. They could either have represented state power, the rural too inadequate to build an entirely new “bached,” stayed in a hotel or boarded.47 schools represented local initiative.32 structure. This meant that an existing If a rural teacher was to “bach” it The parents in the rural communities structure had to act as a substitute. meant that she would live on her own. often supported schooling for their chil Classes may be held in a tent, one of Living alone did not offer much in the dren, but were very resrictive when it the parent’s houses, a social hall, a light- way of luxuries or safety. More than

27 B.C. Historical News - Winter 1994-95

28 1994-95 News Winter B.C. Historical -

numerous were

duties Their instruction. broke my me p. almost about they said 1992. 345. Publishers,

Gang l’ress

Vancous’er: strong-Boag. and Veronica educational and but administration tenance, of what doing things,

way coward’s

Creese eds. Gillian Reconsidered, British CSthimhia

main its including schoolhouse, this I their a is of know them please to

... trying in 1928—1934” Columbia, in British Teachers

J

Women .D. Rural l3owron 32. and “Lottie aspects all almost I Wilson, for so the responsible be am of to to me way, out see like

10. 31. Calam,

had school teachers

Rural that and would sacrifice. people are

few a “There

read:

30. 46. Stortz, and Wilson

come struggle without not did changes The body. 55 note her beside cide 32. note 29. Stone. and Wilsc,n

10. 28. Calam,

the is that to understand easy a her but sui cabin dead it with in found was

29.

and 27.

Stone, \Vilson

to system, B.C. the

edLicational changes Estelle

Jones Mabel life. her own took and 26. 28. Stortz. Wilson

29. 25. Stortz, and

Wilson many 1920s the have Since been there school teacher a

pany, twenty-year-old

Stortz, and 24. 48. Wilson

decades. next few the during cation CoIn system

Logging Cowichan Lake of 6 the

Stortz, and 23. 48. Wilson

edu the 22. 14. B.C. 1928, Calam, in 15, that in occurred changes Camp On November hear.

29. Stortz, 21. and Wilson

the in important instrumental she

was the

could teachers than more sometimes

20. 14. Calam,

B.C., of in history the Officer 1920s. Welfare ers’ They were the in 19. B.C. ers 4. of Stortz, and Wilson

108. 18.

Patterson,

Teach Rural as only years the five her In teach rural all the almost of shoulders

109.

Paterson.

17.

conflict.” 62 than

creating

rather

the

dation on were placed essay this in scribeci 47. Stortz, 16. and Wilson

107. 15. Patterson,

on accommo seeking “based approach ole and expectations

The conditions

p.

159. 1979, Ltd., Enterprises Detselig

her for B.C. known She became in ers loneliness.” 54 and neighbours

Calgary: Robert Stamp. H. and M. Nancy Sheehan

C. Jones, eds. tt’Pst, the teach David of canadian Schools the of female rural complaints for of hostile privacy, lack primitiveness,

Shaping in The Experience” Coluiohian The British

activist an and a spokesperson, board,

poor

food. damp,

cold, the lice, bed bugs,

Teachers: Rtir:il-Mindecl Jones, 14. “Creating C.

Das’id

p. a sounding become would Bowron mice, with plagued “frequently 31 places in

79

1988).

(Fall

Studies, B.C.

v. Columbia,”

British

Lottie Officer. 6 Welfare ral Teachers’ stayed teachers Many conditions. fortable

Problem

in School

Rural You’: on

The Mercy

Ru the as

Bowron Lottie

appointed

he or clean coin offered usually

moclation

the 13. 1-lave ‘May Lord and J.D. Stone. Paul). Wilson “

14. 12.

Calam, 1929, 1, April On teacher female of

accorn choices the of three

None

60

13. Calam, 11.

young for the sensibilities the for delicate

bedroom.” 53 the

other in

64—65. 10. Strong-Boag,

9.

64. wild and too Strong’ttoag, rugged areas were rural the husband with slept man a boarder

97. 8. Wilson,

fact that “the to

response in actions were

one while bedroom child in and mother

98. Wilson, 7.

his that He B.C. stated in women the the 13. slept with “teacher Calaio, 6. One woman.

p.

97.

1990), (Summer

of concerns the upon acted Hinchliffe, young for the

of privacy loss

plete

25

(2) of

canadian Studies, Me,

Journal

5.

Mr. time,

the

at

education of minister com the in result also might 5. Boarding You Help Am If Th “I Need You J.D. Here Wilson,

p

63. 1988. Ltd.. Clarke Pitman Copp Mississauga:

The Jones.” 59 of Mabel the suicide like

may live. 52 they where and with seen

Recalled.

New The stcong-ltoag, Daj’ 4. Veronica

anything of recurrence the “prevent to be may they who board

school the

of

p. 16. 1991, Press, UBC

5—36. order V.incouver: 191 Inspector School of in Rural government a the lobby to gan members by the told actually ers were

J.

3. Columbia.’ S

Recollections Akcr British Lord Calam,

be and they Jones Mabel

concerning

teach Some

on teacher. the an ing

eye

p. 1988). 40, (Fall

actions board’s the school about 79 arms” keep of Studies. 1920s, B.C. the Columbia way in British community’s v. the This was

in

Problem Rural School The You

on Mercy

in “up were Victoria

in women The board. the

school of a

member tained

j Lord the

Have ‘May Stone, and J.D.

l’aul

2, Wilson

‘

criticism.” 58

hand con usually family host The p. house. ing 110. 1984, ltd., Enterprises Detselig

D.C. Jones. Calgary: and J.D. Wilson Sheehan,

under and unfeeling

“unjustifiable, for a hoard in was teacher a school for rural

N.M. Histort:

eds.

Educational canadian

blamed board was school jury, the ner’s

accommodation

common

most The

Essays in West: the in School in Teachers”

Rural School of and

by Struggle Professional coro the Personal insane temporarily found establishment.” 5t in an such stay never

Past: the The From Patterson, 1.

Voices RobertS.

was Mabel Although important. most morals would with female young a that

FOOTNOTES the were board school from the plaints felt They a saloon. or hall beer a above

com the mind her in 1928. hut in papers lived

who a teacher

on

clown ten looked the footnotes. in

the

by

explained

adequately not of were the community of parents The able. listed in sources the echoed were which

that problems deep-rooted more had respect not very experiences of was their but many live, female stories to vided it

have may pro Mabel friends and and her teacher. its grandmother school His young a for place safe very a not usually

scholarship. BCHF

the for application the happy with were parents the that hotels the only Not were problems. from

his of

part

as

consideration

for this ted

communities rural small the of all in tant not free was too it but “luxurious, more

submit and

term

paper a

longer densed

impor 920s very was I it the during say, somewhat be might

hotel a

in

Living

con He

College. Douglas attending

es this in

explained

previously

as but

furniture.” 50

essay while

this prepared author The

today, teachers to trivial and superficial jail borrowed with “the government in

seem may complaints of types These to live chose was teacher one that tive

teacher. 57 the by detail to attention of An alterna comfortable.” 49 or sanitary

students.” 63 their protect help and lack and supplies, of wasting the pline, being alternative neither ‘mudhouse.’

to

order

in hearts their and their food disci schoolyard and classroom about or barn their up to give he willing

beds,

their

their doors, opened “teachers were complaints The hoard. school the may family “a schoolhouse, the from rate

female young

These education. B.C. an of members two by lodged were about sepa were accommodations teacher’s

of

children the give could they so sity wrote Mabel that complaints school the If the schoolhouse. 48 of side the

and adver

loneliness isolation, in The lived accident.” 56 an Say was it please. on lean-to a than more no be would

often They overpowering. often and me, Forgive not true. are They heart. live she would where place the likely 33. Wilson, 346. 58. The Daily Province. November 17, 1928, 3. The Daily Province. “Jury Censures School Board Over 34. Wilson, 346. 59. The Daily Province. “Victoria Women Are Up In Island Teacher’s Death And Urges They Be Removed.” 35. Calam, 15. Arms.” November 20, 1928, p. 3. November 17, 1928: 3. 36. Calam, 15. 60. Wilson and Stortz, 40. Daily Province. “School Fired After Girl’s 37. Wilson and Stortz, 46. 61. Wilson, 342. The Board Is Suicide.” November 21, 1928: 1—2, 38. Patterson, 107. 62. Wilson, 357. Wilson Stonz. Patterson, 39. and 45. 63. 106. The Daily Province. “Victoria Women Are Up In Arms.” Calam, 40. 15. November 20, 1928: 3. 41. Calam, 16. BIBUOGRAPHY 42. Sirong-l3oag, 64. Wilson, J.D. “I Am Here To Help You If You Need Me. 43. Wilson, 104. Calam, J., ed. Alex LordS British Columbia: British Columbia’s Rural Teachers’ Welfare Officer, 44. Wilson, 104. Recollections ofa Rural School Inspector, 1915—36. 1928—1934.” Journal of Canadian Studies, v. 25 (2) 45. Patterson, 107. Vancouver: UBC Press, 1991. (Summer 1990): 94—118. 46. Wilson, 105. Jones. David C. “Creating Rural-Minded Teachers: The 47. Wilson, 107. Wilson, JO. and Paul J. Stonz. “ ‘May the Lord Have British Columbian Experience” in Shaping The Schools 48. Patterson, 106. Mercy on You’: The Rural School I’roblem in British ofthe Canadian West, eds. David C. Jones, Nancy M. 49. Patterson, 105. Columbia in the 1920s.” B.C. Studies, v. 79 (Fall 1988). Sheehan and Robert M. Stamp. Calgary: Detselig 50. Wilson and Stortz, 44. 24—58. Enterprises Ltd., 1979. 51. Wilson, 107. Wilson, JO. “Lottie Bowmn and Rural Women 52. Patterson, 104. Patterson, “Voices From the Past: The Robert S. Teachers in British Columbia, 1928-1934” in British 53. l’atterson, 105. Personal and Professional Struggle of Rural School Columbia Reconsidere eds. Gillian Creese and 54. l’atterson, 105. West: Teachers” in School in the Essays in Canadian Veronica Strong-Boag. Vancouver: Press Gang 55. The Daily Province. “Jury Censures School Board Educational History, eds. N.M. Sheehan, J.D. Wilson Publishers, 1992. Over Island Teacher’s Death And Urges They Be and D.C. Jones. Calgary: Detselig Enterprises Ltd., Removed.” November 17, 1928, P. 3. 1984. 56. Wilson, 340. 57. The Daily Province. “School Board Is Fired After Strong-Boag, V. The New Day Recalled. Mississauga: Girl’s Suicide.” November 21, 1928, p. 2. Copp Clarke Pitman Ltd., 1988. The Stagecoach and The Sleigh on the Kootenay Flats 100 Years Ago by Edward L. Affleck

(Ed. Note: The alternate spell Over one hundred years ago, in 1892, the river, a channel could not be kept ings ofKootenay and Kootenai the Great Northern Railway opened rail open above Porthill, or in very bitter are correct. Theformer is used service between Spokane and Bonners weather, above Chambers City, a land in Canada; Kootenai is an Ferry. This service coincided with the ing on the Kootenay River channel at American spelling.) rush north to the Slocan mining camps about the latitude of present-day west of Kootenay Lake. The Nelson, Wynndel. Smith accordingly opened a Pioneer transportation on the Spokane, Alberta and other stage service between Bonners Ferry and Kootenay Flats usually brings to mind Sternwheelers having larger carrying Porthill, working as far downstream as the pack train or later the sternwheel capacity than their screw-propelled Chambers City when business offered. steamboat. From 1885 to 1898, however, mates then took over the bulk of the The primitive road downstream to the stagecoach provided a major link in river traffic downstream from Bonners Porthill guaranteed a rough thp by stage. the transportation chain, giving the Ferry. In the winter, Sam Smith would make a Kootenay Flats and Kootenay Lake ac With the arrival of the Great Northern sleigh trail, and conveyance by sleigh cess to a railway. Railway, Skinner & Co. pulled out of was a much smoother proposition. Between 1885 and 1891, two compet the stage service. The resourceful Sam There was sufficient hotel and saloon ing stagecoach services, those of Skin Smith, however, decided to maintain accommodation at Porthill to provide ner & Co. and of Smith & Feather, reduced stage service on his existing adequate comfort to a traveller await worked from the Northern Pacific Rail routes and to extend his stage routes ing the arrival of a steamer working her road transfer point at Kootenai Station down the Kootenai River. He had a con way up from Kootenay Lake. The pic on Pend Oreille Lake north over the siderable investment in real estate at ture was bleak, however, whenever ice Pack River Pass wagon road to Bonners Kootenai Station, as well as a large barn closed the channel as far downstream Ferry, thence up the Kootenai River to and feed store and hotel in the Eatonville as Chambers City, as the sleigh traveller CrosSport. Travellers bound for the section of Bonners Ferry. He was aware awaiting the arrival of a steamboat at Kootenay Flats or Kootenay Lake trans that in the late fall, low water in the that point was thrown on the mercy of ferred at Bonners Ferry and headed Kootenai River made it difficult for the single establishment operated by Mr. downstream on one of the small screw- steamers to work up over a ledge in the Chambers. This establishment offered no propelled steamers Galena, Halys or river bed several miles below Bonners refreshment other than the liquid vari Idaho. Ferry. Furthermore, should ice form on ety. Beds, benches and chairs were non-

29 B.C. Historical News - Winter 1994-95 existent. The traveller desperate to rest his feet had perforce to commandeer a bar stool and order a drink. InJanuary 1898, Smith was in the van guard in opening up a sleigh road from Bonners Ferry to Moyie Lake and made ALBERTA good money hauling supplies into the camp on Moyie Lake for the construc tion in progress of the B.C. Southern Railway between Cranbrook and 0 Kootenay Lake. By July 1898 a contract had been let for more railway construc I tion, this time the Great Northern Rail way’s branch lines down from Bonners Ferry to Kuskonook. Sam Smith sagely decided at this time to retire from stag west ing to his ranch on the side of the •CRANBROOK Kootenai River above Porthill and to get NELSON ( 9MOYIE LAKE into the contracting business. With the completion of the B.C. Southern iail KUSKONOOK KOOTENAY• WYNNDEL way in November 1898, traffic for the LANDING • •CRESTON Kootenay Flats could come in from Nel 0 PORTHILL - m son and transfer to the new railway at z Kootenay Landing, and with the fore cast completion in 1899 of the Great -o C) . m Northern branch lines (i.e., the Kootenay 0 BONNERS I- 0 - FERRY Railway & Navigation Co.) down from c W Bonners Ferry to Kuskonook, there KOOTENAI would be little traffic offered to a stage L STATION line, since one or the other of the two m PEND OREILLE LAKE new railway lines would be in a posi tion to service just about every point on the east side of the Kootenay River be WASHINGTON IDAHO MONTANA tween the lake and Bonners Ferry. The Great Northern service actually did not get completely underway until 1900, but throughout the 1899—1900 winter the • SPOKANE steamer Alberta was able to work up to Porthill and make the transfer there with the section of the Great Northern line This map ofsoutheast British Columbia and adjacentAmerican states shows many ofthe working between Porthill and Bonners points referred to in “The David McLougblin Story” and “Stagecoach and Sleigh on the Kootenay Flats.” The railways built in the 1890sfollowed the riversfairly closely. Ferry. On several of the Alberta’s trips that winter, she picked up strike-break ers from Minnesota brought in to replace which Sam Smith’s stage line serviced ensure that Sam Smith is assigned a right miners on strike in the mines around have long vanished from the scene, and ful place in the record of pioneer trans Nelson, Rossland and the Slocan. many of the rails which put him out of portation in the Kootenay Valley. It is a pity that Sam Smith did not com business have disappeared also. Let us mit his memoirs to writing as he must have had a fund of tales to tell about his stagecoach experiences. The tales of extricating the stage from potholes, CHANGE OF ADDRESS? slides, fallen trees, etc. must have been legion. There was also the day inJanu PLEASE NOTIFY OUR SUDSCRIPTION SECRETARY: ary 1892 that the stage working between MARGARET MA TO VICH Kootenai Station and Bonners Ferry was held up and a passenger, Mr. Ed Huntley, 6915 CANADA WAY a wealthy Chicago clothier, was relieved SURNASY, S.C. of a considerable amount of jewellry. V5E 3R6 The steamboats on the Kootenay

B.C. Historical News - Winter 1994-95 30 Christmas in Sumas in the 1870s by Shirley Cutbbertson

When I was small, my mother used or from the dining room. There might Chadsey’s house he let himself in and to do my hair, and I didn’t like it, so she be a pantry and an outside kitchen too, set to work to take all that was there. would tell me stories to keep me still. so the storeroom would be quite sepa All the preparations had been made, all Her mother’s family, the Chadseys, lived rate. The outside pantry was very cold the food was ready, but he couldn’t find at Sumas, between what is now in the winter. It hadn’t any heat in it the cake. He was almost ready to leave Abbotsford and Chilliwack, near Sumas and therefore it was a good place to and then he began to think what the

Lake. A while ago, I got her to tell me store things when there were no fndges. boy had said to him —“ ... in the the Christmas story once again. He took everything my dad’s Aunt Laura He had been in all the rooms, but hadn’t

Would you tell me the story about had in her pantry — everything that she found it and suddenly he thought of the

Christmas when Grandpa was a little had prepared for Christmas Day — and grand piano, which was a big, square boy? stored everything away in the box on instrument. It was a type of grand pi Christmas must have been a happy the wagon. While he was doing this, he ano which was rectangular and very time in the valley — it was one time when was caught by his mother. Fortunately, large. When he went to the piano it was families got together and enjoyed the she saw the point that he was making locked, so right away he knew that there day with each other, which they couldn’t and she helped him to gather up all the must be a reason for locking it. He got do every day of the week. Travel was things he had missed. Then he set out a nail and picked the lock and, when difficult and their farms weren’t too for Mrs. James Chadsey’s and on the way he opened it, there was the cake — a close, but at Christmas time they enjoyed he met Mrs. Chester Chadsey (Aunt marvellous cake to add to his collec the day together, especially if it turned Hannah) driving in her buggy with the tion, of course. out to be a fine day. The Chadsey broth twin boys. Before leaving, he thought he would ers had each had the rest of the family He had plans to get the big Christmas be good, so he set the table for break for Christmas for several years, and fi cake which was at her home. The cake fast for them all. He put a hazelnut on nally one of the sisters-in-law decided was really something because it had ic everybody’s plate. that there were just too many. She wasn’t ing on it and that was something almost The next visit he made was to the going to have them all in her house. unheard-of in those days. It had been minister’s home, the Methodist minis About how many would there be? The made in a milk-pan, so it was very big. ter, Reverend Bryant. Mrs. Bryant was 1870s— that quite early. He called out to her that he was going very busy preparing everything for their Yes, it’s early, but when you put the to get her Christmas cake and, of course, Christmas dinner, but she entered into children together, there were three or she told him that was impossible, be the spirit of the affair and offered to help four in each family, and with husbands, sides, she said, he couldn’t get into the him. In fact, she worked all that night wives, bachelor neighbours, etc., it was house. So away he went, but just as he cooking the things he had brought, becoming quite a crowd and she de was leaving, one of the twins shouted, cleaning the birds if they were not al cided that they wouldn’t do it any more. “Uncle Will, the cake’s in the ... “ and ready cleaned, making the stuffing and So my grandfather took it literally, and his mother clapped her hand over his baking them. Pies and extras were ready decided that if she wasn’t going to do mouth — so it was in the something, but and loaded in his wagon, of course. it, then he would give the Christmas he didn’t know what. Reverend Bryant had been away in dinner. They weren’t going to just stay At his brother James’s place, he found New Westminster and was trying to get home, he would see to it that it was Mrs. Harriet Chadsey working away pre home for Christmas. The boat was very prepared and served. paring her Christmas dinner, as they late and when he arrived at Miller’s land How was he going to do it? were all doing. Her pies were out in the ing about one in the morning, he saw

Well, no one knows how he dreamed pantry, put on the ledge to cool, and he his house brilliantly lit up — lights in all up the plan but he started out the day removed them, adding them to his col the downstairs windows. He rushed before Christmas and he went to see lection in the wagon. Then he went home as fast as he could, thinking some his brother James. At that time the two round to the door and asked them to one was ill in the house, and there he of them were operating a flour mill, but come to dinner the next day, after hav found his wife helping to prepare all he didn’t intend to go to work. He went ing removed their pies. While he was the stolen food. to his sister’s home, Mrs. Miller’s (Laura talking to them, he backed up to the Then Will Chadsey proceeded to his Chaclsey), and there he found his sister door and took the key from their house. brother George’s home, where he and her husband enjoying their supper. Why did he do that? picked up more contributions to his Not wanting to disturb them, he went Locks were not very safe in those days, dinner, all carefully prepared by Aunty into the storehouse, which was usually because one key would unlock most Lizzy (Fliza Jane). His last call was to separated from the kitchen of the house doors, and when he got to Chester the McGillivray home where Mrs.

31 B.C. Historical News - Winter 1994-95 McGilhivmy was preparing their dinnei; and that moment, she hadn’t been aware of and a marvellous Christmas dinner, all going in and out of the pantry. He wasn’t what had disappeared out of her pantry thanks to Will Chadsey. The children had able to steal anything he really wanted, hut it was as bare as Mother Hubbard’s a rug-of-war and races outdoors, they he did get quite a few apples. cupboard. had the dinner in the schoolhouse, and what about Mrs. Chadsey, your In the meantime, Will had dispatched everyone was happy with their Christ grandmother? riders with invitations to dinner, men mas dinner together again. Of course, Uncle Will’s wife, Mary who worked on his farm, and Indians, Who told you this story? Jane, was also preparing for the dinner who took invitations to all the bachelors It was my own dad, Will Kipp, who and doing all the extras which would in the area as far as they could go. He married Annie Chadsey (Will Chadsey’s help to make the dinner a success. She invited other people to come, people daughter), who told me the story. He had a lovely sense of humour and she who were in the midst of their own wasn’t very old, so he didn’t remember wanted all the family together too. preparations for their own Christmas everything, but his older brothers and sis Through the night he continued work dinners Mrs. Kipp even had her pud ters remembered that Christmas Day and ing, getting lumber for tables and dings on the stove when they got \Vill everyone used to talk about it. Everyone benches, and everything else that was Chadsey’s invitation, so she packed the used to tell their story a little differently. necessary for his Christmas plan. puddings and the children up and Christmas Day, the next day. was beau brought everything. tiful. I’ve heard of that from other rela You can imagine how happy all the Shirley Cutbbertson is on staff at the Royal British Columbia Museum. She is tives. It was like a spring day. On his way bachelors were ... to be invited out for a keen participant atHistorical Society/ to the school where the party was to be Christmas dinner was really special, so Federation events. She beard this story held, he passed the home of Mrs. George everybody came, everybody for miles from her mothet

Chadsey — Aunt Lizzy, who scolded him around. All the Chadseys and the Mill for working on that day. He told her that ers, Reverend and Mrs. Bryant, the Wells, SOURCES because the Christmas dinner was off, he all the Kipps, Mr. and Mrs. Ashwell, Mr. Mrs. Velma 13. Cuthbertson (nee Kipp) and Will Kipp might as well work, why waste the time? and Mrs. McCutcheon, the Reeces, (her father), Christmas With Chilliwack l’ioneers in 873,” Chil/w’acA’ Progress, MA. l3arber, 193? (Horatio He suggested to her that before he started William Barker, Harry Barber and Webb told Mr. Barber the story’). work, a piece of pie would taste good, Horatio Webb, the Vedders, the Evans and she went to get him a piece. Up until and the Halls ... It was a glorious day Commander Charles Rufus Robson, RFsL Local Hero

by Paul C. Appleton

Most residents of Esquimalt and Vic ward, who was recognized as a real ‘lo March as they proceeded to the church. toria are aware of the Veterans’ Cem cal hero” at the time of his funeral on Commander Robson’s death was cer etery on the Gorge Vale golf course, but November 8, 1861. The esteem in which tainly tragic — the result of being thrown fewer know of the ‘Naval Corner” at Robson was held may be judged by the from a horse — a type of accident by no the Old Quadra Street Cemetery. This attendance at the funeral, estimated at means uncommon at the time. On Sun corner contains the headstones and re 1,500, and by the presence of Governor day, October 27, he was out riding near mains of a number of naval personnel James Douglas at the Christ Church cer Esquimalt when a sheep ran between and civilian mariners, many of whom emonies in Victoria. the legs of his horse, throwing both met their deaths in tragic circumstances The Colonist reported that the body horse and rider. Paralyzed from a spinal during the nineteenth century. Most of of Lieut. Robson was brought into the injury and with a fractured skull, he was the headstones are badly weathered, and harbour by the gunboat Grappler, ac taken to the Naval Hospital at Skinner’s some have been moved from other lo companied by five boats from the To Cove in Esquimalt — today the site of cations. In an effort to maintain this small paz and the Hecate. The shore party was the CFB Esquimalt Naval and Military segment of our naval past, the Retired led by a company of marines, who were Museum. In spite of a valiant effort by Naval Officers’ Association recently do followed by the band from the Topaz. the Medical Officer, Dr. Forbes, Robson nated $10,000 to the Old Cemetery So A gun-carriage drawn by sailors came died on November 5, 1861, at the age ciety for a memorial to the naval people next, carrying the flag-draped coffin, of forty-seven. who are interred at Pioneer Square. then the ship’s company from HMS For Not much is known about Com One of the officers who is named on ward, the officers from his ship, and mander Robson’s early life, only that he the new memorial is Lieut. Charles Rufus Governor Douglas. Some 500 mourn left a wife and a clergyman father in Robson, Commander of the HMS For- ers walked to the strains of the Dead Yorkshire. However, the newspaper re

B.C. Historical News - Winter 1994-95 32 gan to fire on their canoes and a gen eral skirmish began. Eventually the prin * cipal chief capitulated and after a long interrogation Robson was able to make some arrests. His action in using “gun boat diplomacy” against the natives was seen as justifiable by his superiors and naturally met with the full approval of the Council of the colony. In the eyes of the settlers, Robson was something of a hero for acting with much firmness and discretion. Commander Robson was also in volved in two rescue operations that especially endeared him to the Ameri The gunboat HMS Forward can population in Victoria, swelled to Photo courtesy of BCARS #35147 large numbers due to the Fraser River port does provide us with information capture the culprits, Lieut. Robson was gold rush. In December of 1860 the that explains why he was so honoured forced to bombard the native stockade Peruvian brig Florencia was dismasted at the time of his death. in order to achieve his objective. in a storm below Cape Flattery, and the Several stories demonstrate that he The second, more serious, action took Forward was ordered to her aid. Arriv was a brave and capable officer. In 1850, place in May of 1861. According to re ing at Nootka Sound, Robson heard of while serving in the West Indies, he ports, a band of marauding Haidas the loss of the U.S. brig Consort further volunteered to take command of an stripped and looted a schooner at Vic south. Turning back, he rescued eight American vessel sailing from West Af toria, ransacked some houses on een Americans marooned at Carchina rica to Philadelphia when all of its offic Saltspring Island, stole a great deal of and returned to tow the Florencia to ers had died of yellow fever. During the Victoria. Unfortunately the tow line sixty-nine-day passage he too got the parted in a gale two days later and the plague, but still managed to remain in brig drifted away. After two days of command from his sick berth. searching, Robson managed to locate Later, during the Crimean War, he was her and resume the tow. Continuing mentioned in dispatches while serving storms prevented Forward from going in the Baltic. However, these were not south, so Robson went around the north the reasons for the esteem which Robson end of the Island and brought the enjoyed among the colonists. This was Florencia safely to Nanaimo. based on his leadership in command of The Americans at Victoria were deeply HMS Forward one of the two screw- appreciative of Robson’s errands of driven gunboats which were fitted in mercy. A number of them sent a peti 1859 for service to counter “Indian tion to the American Senate and Robson threats and American aggrandizement” received a citation from President Lin along the B.C. coast. The 103-foot For coln for his actions. ward and her sister ship Grappler; with Thanks to the efforts of the Royal complements of forty, armed with 68- Canadian Naval Association and the Vic pounders forward, 32-pounders aft, and toria Old Cemeteries Society, Charles two 24-pound howitzers amidships, Rufus Robson and his brothers-in-arms Lieut. Charles Rufus Robson were an effective show of power to carry Photo courtesy of BCARS #3819 will continue to be remembered by fu out their mandate. ture generations of Victorians. Both Pio Under Robson’s command, HMS For property and threatened the lives of the neer Square and the Esquimalt Naval ward engaged in two police actions settlers there. About thirty canoes strong, Museum, formerly the hospital where against the Kwakiutl tribe that lived they proceeded to Nanaimo where they Robson died, are well worth a visit by around Cape Mudge, on the southern tried to sell the stolen goods. This anyone interested in our naval heritage tip of Quadra Island south of Campbell prompted the local magistrate to appeal on the west coast. River. Numbering about 4,000, they were for a gunboat to go after the culprits. seen as decidedly aggressive and un On May 17, 1861, the Forward arrived disciplined by Governor Douglas. In the at Cape Mudge. Robson tried to settle The author is the secretary of the summer of 1860 a party of them attacked the matter peacefully, but was met with Esquimalt NavalMuseums andArchives and robbed some boats off Saltspring defiance and was forced to fire a warn Society. Island and escaped back to Cape Mudge. ing shot over the native camp. When Sent to retrieve the stolen property and the Haida replied in kind, Robson be-

33 B.C. Historical News - Winter 1994-95 The Bridge ThatJack Built by Alice Bjorn

A dilemma in the Chilcotin was solved Beetle. Trina and Levi relished the en by good neighbours and considerable closed comfort when the temperature ingenuity. Wayne and Trina Plummer plummeted or the snow was swirling. were managing Neil Harvey’s Deer The author walked across the bridge Creek Ranch on the south side of the first in 1976 whenJack’s family was taken Chilcotin River. They began to discuss to admire the handiwork. It was a calm how they could arrange for their son thy so Jack simulated the swing that could

Levi, almost six, to catch a school bus be felt with a breeze ... and I felt the to Alexis Creek. The bus ran on the onset of motion sickness. My admiration Chilcotin Highway on the north side of grew for the mother who transported her the river. The road into Deer Creek six-year-old across this bridge on a mo Ranch crosses an alkali flat which be torcycle. We saw it again in 1983 when comes an impassable bog several times we gathered to attend Jack’s funeral. By each year. At those times the Plummers this time Levi was a high school student left a vehicle on each side of the bog, boarding in Williams Lake and coming leaving one and walking across to pick Viewing the bridge across the home for the occasional weekend. The Chilcotin River from its north up the other. This questionable route ancbo Note the edge planks. Volkswagen was used for a couple of would mean driving thirty-six miles each Alice Bjorn photo seasons, supplemented by a snowmobile school day. If they were to bridge the river, however, the south shore then anchored in it would be necessary to build only half a a cribbed approach platform. Jack mile of road from the ranch to the river bank hung straps then laid planks to and another 0.8 miles (1.3 km) through Dan create a bridge deck that is four Lee’s ranch to the main highway. feet (1.2 metres) wide. Jack Casselman, a fifty-four-year-old They had a bit of a party when neighbour, had just sold his Brittany Lake the bridge opened in that sum Ranch so was looking for a new chal mer of 1976. Trina broke a lenge. He promised to investigate the champagne bottle over it (after possibility of spanning the river with a the guys had removed the con suspension bridge. He visited Vancou tents). It was dubbed “The Alice Bjorn photo ver and studied the Capilano and other Bridge ThatJack Built.” ButJack bridges. On his return he recruited Casselman requested that Lynn Bonner when snow conditions demanded this. A Wayne Plummer’s brother-in-law, Lynn share the honour so some refer to it as three-wheeled ATV cycle then became the Bonner of Riske Creek. Two and a half the Cassel-Lynn bridge. vehicle of choice and is still used today. months later the bridge was ready. The bridge cost $8,000, paid by ranch The bridge approach sports warning First they bulldozed holes in the river bank owner Neil Harvey. This covered supplies signs: “Cross at your own risk.” After all, and embedded concrete anchor blocks 12 and a small wage forJack Casselman and it was a private project built by do-it-your x 8 x 6 feet (3.6 x 2.4 x 1.8 meters). They his helpers. Paul St. Pierre speculated that: self Cariboo neighbours, and Cariboo resi then stretched two cables across the 280- “This, by a quick calculation, amounts to dents are a hardy and resourceful breed. foot (85 meters) wide river — starting with a between one-twentieth and one-thirtieth light rope taken across by rowboat. Several of the cost if it had been a government it wasn’t.” attempts were needed to have the boat touch project, but Alice Bjorn is the wife of an East the opposite bank and hand off rope at the Trina Plummer took her little son Kootenay rancher and big game guide. desired point because of the swift current. across that bridge every morning and She shared the work ofthese operations The main rabies are one-inch (25 mm) thick, again in the afternoon. He rode behind until recently when she moved into capable of holding fifty tons (45,500 kg); her on a motorcycle. When the wind Cranbrook. She is sister to Jack the drop cables are hs steel rated between blows hard down the Chilcotin valley, Casselman. These are her memories, five and six tons apiece. The cross pieces the bridge has both a ripple and a whip, supplemented by a Vancouver Sun arti for the walkway are Douglas fIr 4 x 4s and taking the pleasure out of riding. Wayne cle written in 1976. the planking one-inch pine boards. The added vertical planks at the edges as a ACKNOWLEDGEMENT cables were pulled into place over a 35-foot safety measure. Next he cut the fenders Paul St. Pierre column, October 30, 1976, Vancouver (10.6 metres) A-frame of peeled poles on and running board off a Volkswagen Sun.

B.C. Historical News - Winter 1994-95 34 NEWS & NOTES

NORTH VANCOUVER MEMORIES PUBUC APPEAL PAYS in his memory may be sent to the Vancouver Historical Society Bibliography Fund, RO. Do you have personal memories of life in North Heather Bruce of Kelowna is researching Box 3071, Vancouver, B.C. V6B 3X6, or the Vancouver or have you unearthed an interest Sunday School Vans much more extensively to Vancouver City Archives or the Vancouver ing story set in this district? If so, please share than your editor. She has read many inches of Maritime Museum. them. Write them down, formally or informally, files in archives and is now in England and send your contribution to the North Shore researching Eva Hasell’s home and life there. Historical Society, do Robert Brown, 2327 Heather also hoped to liven her findings with Kilmarnock Crescent, North Vancouver, B.C. personal stories. She circulated an appeal via GOVERNOR GENERAL’S AWARD V7J 2Z3. newspapers in 1993 and to date has received The 1994 winner of the Governor General’s 251 replies. “So many stories. Ministers Person’s Award was Rose Charlie of Agassiz. chuckle over Eva Hasells battles with bishops; The title “Person’s Award” originated from the CENTURY RANCH AWARDS Vanners (in their 80s) tell of their adventures; legal language used in a 1929 decision by the The Bayliff family of Chilancoh Ranch near bus and truck drivers recall marvelling at two British Privy Council that Canadian women Redstone and the Durrell family of the women braving the roads of our Canadian were ‘persons” and eligible to hold office. Wineglass Ranch near Riske Creek received past; women who were once lonely remember Grand Chief Rose Charlie, a founding member Century Ranch Awards from Agriculture the delight of having other women to talk to of the group Indian Rights for Indian Women, Minister David Zirnhelt. The awards are given and share a cup of tea with. I also hear from received the award for her work to help change to ranches that have been in operation for one ‘precious jewels’ — the kids, like me, now legislation that deprived aboriginal women of hundred years or more. The Bayliffs have been middle-aged and not quite so sparkly” (See their status when they married non-Indians. ranching since 1887 (see BCH News Vol. 21 BCH News Vol. 27 No. 4, p. 10.) This announcement came too late to be No. 1), the Durrells since 1893. included in our “Women’s History Month issue. ROBERT WRIGHT MARGARET ORMSBY The first winner of the $500 B.C. Historical UNDERWATER ARCHAEOLOGY Federation Scholarship given at the end of the CONFERENCE SCHOI.ARSHIP FUND second year of studies is Robert Wright of Vancouver hosted the 26th Annual Conference A banquet desig Coquitlam. This student attended Douglas of Historical and Underwater Archaeology in nated as a tribute to College in 1993—94 and is now enrolled at January 1994. The 1995 conference is lobe Margaret Ormsby Simon Fraser University. He was presented held in Washington, D.C. If any of our readers was held in Kelowna with his award at the September 21 meeting wish details, apply to Laurence E. Babits, in conjunction with of the Vancouver Historical Society. the B.C. Studies ‘94 Maritime History Department, East Carolina conference. Guest University, Greenville, North Carolina 27858- speakers were MERIT AWARD FOR 4353 or phone (919) 757-6788. Vaughn Palmer of OUR 1st VP The Vancouver Sun; 7 The 100th meeting of B.C. Heritage Trust John Bovey, took place in Nelson October 20—22 Provincial Archivist; f (approximately six meetings per year since and Chad Reimer a its inception in 1978). To celebrate this student. The thrust occasion a reception was held, which was was to acquaint Margaret Or,nsby at the attended by heritage workers from several BCHF those present with Kelowna dinner held in her Kootenay communities: Kaslo, Sandon, New honour October the fund-raising 8 1994. Denver, Silverton, Castlegar, Rossland, Grand Forks CONFERENCE currently underway to establish a prestigious and Nelson. The host commu nity and worthwhile scholarship for graduate is invited to nominate two local volunteers for studies focused on British Columbia. Four the Heritage Trust Merit Awards. A unani 1995 mous graduate students are devoting considerable choice was Ron Welwood, who is now our time canvassing for donations. The Margaret first vice-president and chief organizer of our 1997 BCHF Ormsby Scholarship will be under Heritage conference. This conference is CI-IILLIWACK IS HOSTING to be held jointly Trust. Donations have been allowed 100 per with the Heritage Society of B.C. May 29—June THE 1995 CONFERENCE. cent tax deduction status by the government of 2, 1997. British Columbia. Mail your cheque to: YOU DO NOT HAVE TO BE Margaret Ormsby Scholarship Committee, A MEMBER TO ATTEND. 1454 Begbie Street, Victoria, B.C. V8R 1 K7. ELEK IMREDY 191 2—1994 Sculptor Elek lmredy is best known for his statue of “Girl in a Wet SuW’ perched on a rock WATCH FOR DETAILS IN CHIWWACK MAY 45, 6, 1995 near Lumberman’s Arch in Stanley Park. He also Members of branches of the B.C. Historical produced the life-size bronze statue of THE NEXT ISSUE OF THE former Prime Federation will receive information and Minister Louis St. Laurent which B.C. stands in HISTORICAL NEWS. registration forms via their local secretary in front of the Supreme Court building in Ottawa; Judge February. Any non-member may ask for details Matthew Begbie in New Westminster; and registration for the program of speakers Charles Melville Hays, president of the MARK MAY 4, 5, 6, 1995 and tours from Ron Denman, 45820 Spadina Grand Trunk Pacific Railway in front of Prince Avenue, Chilliwack, B.C. V2P 1T3. Phone Rupert’s City Hall; and the Mariners’ ON YOUR CALENDAR AND Memorial (604) 795-5210 or (604) 794-3688 (evenings). on the Prince Rupert harbour front. PLAN TO ATTEND. Elek and his wife Peggy were active members of the Vancouver Historical Society. Donations

35 B.C. Historical News - Winter 1994-95 BOOKSH ELF Books for review and book reviews should be sent directly to the Book Review Editor: Anne Yandle, 3450 West 20th Avenue, Vancouver, B.C. V6S 1 E4

Dictionary of Canadian Biography, The major part of the volume consists produced admirable texts let down by volume Xlii, 1901—1910 of the biographies arranged alphabeti inferior maps. Too few and lacking in Ramsay Cook, ed. Toronto: University of cally. These vary in length from less than detail, they are often photographically Toronto Press, 1994. 1295 p., $85 a page to three or more. Each biography reduced to illegibility, except perhaps to It is a pleasure to see this thirteenth concludes with a bibliography which lists archie and mehitabel. I myself would volume of the Dictionary of Canadian sources of information. have liked some indication of physical el Biography published for two reasons: it The British Columbia entries cover a evation, which justifies the location of is a sign that this important scholarly work wide range of activities. Due to the com buildings and routes. is still in progress and, secondly, it brings parative youth of the province at the turn Perhaps there should have been some us into the first decade of the present cen of the century, only two of the subjects further clarification of those times when tury. The project, which was launched were born in the province. There are over mail for the CPR had to cross the river to with the publishing of volume one (1000— seventy B.C. names included in the bio Harrison Mills. Slips? The landlubber’s re 1700) in 1966, has often wavered but graphical section and more appear in the dundant “the” before HMCS Rainbow on has never failed to maintain the high nominal listing. page 134. It is also questionable whether standards originally established. The volumes of the Dictionary of Ca the full text of the Cultus Lake recreation Due to financial cutbacks, major nadian Biography are very easy to use. site lease is vital for a postal history. changes have been made which will see The indexes assist in locating specific ref Enrichments of this kind do, however, give volumes published by decades from erences. The format and type are clear a valuable sense of time, place and social 1901—1 940 instead of shorter time peri and the paper is of excellent quality, all resourcefulness and I was interested to ods with more volumes, which was the of which make this an outstanding work compare it with more recent agreements original plan. The coverage of the lives which will retain its importance. Let us of the same kind in which I have been in and work of Canadian men and women hope that nothing prevents the future volved. On the whole, I think such digres from all areas of Canada will be retained. volumes from being published. sions are acceptable and widen the appeal The dictionary will, therefore, always be Melva J. Dwyer of the book, providing they are not over of the greatest importance as a major ref Melva Dwyer is the treasurer of the done, which is not the case here. erence work for a study of Canada. Vancouver Historical Society It was a pleasure to find the section on Volume XIII, which covers those Ca slogans. It nudged from some recess of nadians of importance who died between my mind agreeable memories of my fa 1901 and 1910, has 648 individual bi Cancelled wtih Pride: A History of ther-in-law, Victor Swan, JPS, who pro ographies contributed by 438 authors. Chilliwack Area Post Offices duced the first catalogues of British Family names are used rather than titles, Cecil C. Coutts. Abbotsford, Cecil Coutts, slogans from 1917 to 1957. And who also married names, pseudonyms, etc. Cross 1993. 188 p., illus. $26 financed continental holidays by taking references are provided from alternative This book covers postal history in the with him an envelope full of flawed or names to those under which the main Chilliwack area from colonial times to the unusual stamps carefully selected from biography appears. A detailed section of present. It can be read with pleasure and bulk to sell to Paris dealers. editorial notes and abbreviations provides respect by anyone with an interest in With the onset of phone, radio and fax, the information needed to clarify the vari stamps and the postal history of the dis there is an ultimate sadness about this ous methods of entry. trict. It is a model which I hope will in book. It is, after all, about the resolve of The volume ends with an extensive spire others to follow for their own a community of resourceful pioneers to general bibliography, list of contributors, localities. They will find it hard to surpass. set up and maintain contact with the rest index of categories, i.e., accountants, One is left with an urge to track down of Canada, with the help of what was then criminals (4) and indigenous peoples, and solve some of the unanswered ques a more appreciative government. I have among others, under which are listed the tions, and a sense that if Mr. Coutts has supported the movement to retain rural names of those who have biographies in been unable to find the answers, then the post ofices, some of which have been lost the main text. task will be tough indeed. in the search for lower cost. Fortunately, A two-part geographical index follows: The book is physically pleasing in lay Canada Post has latterly relented suffi place of birth and career. Both listings are out and carefully and generously illus ciently to retain some historic names and under the present provinces and territo trated. There is no sense of crowding, nor codes with the new contractors. It is never ries as well as foreign countries. A nomi yet of wasted white space. The type is of fair to compare rural costs with urban nal index concludes the volume. This is good size and easy to read, uncramped costs for service, whether roads, postal a listing of those whose names appear in and free of compository error. The maps service or hydro and telephone. Rural the texts of the biographies. Page refer are both clear and legible. By contrast, distribution costs will always be greater. ences are included for these. many otherwise notable authors have They are a very small price to pay for the

B.C. Historical News - Winter 1994-95 36 BOOKSH ELF

pleasure and comfort of having cities with ports to be the history of the forest indus Whistle Punks & Widow-makers extensive surrounding agricultural, rec try at Cowichan Lake. In fact, the book Robert E. Swanson. Madeira Park: Harbour reational and resource areas. Also for the provides far more than the story of a lo Publishing, 1993. 160 p., illus., $29.95 incidental inconveniences of communi cal industry. Harbour Publishing, which shared with cation in our dear, incomparable prov The first two chapters are straightfor us such remarkable talents as Jim ince of mountains and fjords. ward chronological accounts of the rise Spilsbury and Bus Griffiths, has discov I think I’ll paste an envelope in the back and fall of the logging and milling com ered yet another Living National Treas of our copy to receive any suitable post panies established to exploit the spectacu ure of the west coast of B.C. cards or other junk-shop treasures I find lar timber resources of the Cowichan He is eighty-nine-year-old Bob which will amplify a very enjoyable read. Valley. They provide the most thorough Swanson, who began working in the Francis Sleigh and accurate account available of the in woods in his early teens, becoming a steam Francis Sleigh, former treasurer of the B.C. dustry’s complex and convoluted devel donkey fireman at the age of fifteen. His Historical Federation, lives near Chilliwack. opment in this region, and bring us up to inventive mind led to a university degree, the beginning of the 1930s depression. largely acquired through independent The third chapter is an account of de study. Most of his working life was with the The Legacy and The Challenge: A velopments in the labour movement, provincial government As an inspector of Century of the Forest Industry at which I personally found a bit tedious, boilers, tramways, ski lifts and railways, he Cowichan Lake and a unique documentation of pre-war became intimately familiar with every log Richard Rajala. Lake Cowichan Heritage opposition to the forest practices em ging camp and mining operation on the Advisory Committee, 1993. 142 p., $12.95 ployed by the industry. This second part west coast He still operates his own com When asked why history is worth both has never been covered elsewhere and pany, which designs and produces tuned ering with, I usually answer that if we don’t Rajala has done an excellent job of de air horns. The “0 Canada” horns heard in know where we’ve been, we’ll never fig scribing the attempts by Chief Forester downtown Vancouver every noon hour ure out where we’re going. The best illus E.C. Manning to impose some restraints were his creation. tration of this epigram can be found in the on a rapacious industry. A brilliant engineer and successful busi British Columbia forest industry. Long the The last two chapters consist of a well. nessman, Swanson’s creativity is also mainstay of the provincial economy, it is researched account of post-war forest expressed in his literary output In the now floundering under the burden of its policy development and the impact of 1940s he published four volumes of log own misguided mythologies. those policies on the economy, the peo ging poetry, which were collected and re Socially, politically, economically and ple and the environment of the Cowichan issued in 1992 as Rhymes of a Western ecologically, the forest industry is a mess. Valley. Rajala has provided a persuasive Logger. The twenty-six stories in this It is shedding workers at a phenomenal description of the failure of provincial more recent volume were originally pub rate, leaking money in all directions and policy over the past fifty years, and shown lished in the trade newspaper Forest and infuriating the public with its activities in how those policies have led to the dev Mill in the late 1940s and early 1950s. the woods. One of the most obvious char astation of the regional economy during These stories are essentially character acteristics of people in and around the the past decade. sketches of loggers Swanson knew dur industry is that they have no sense of their In the end, he has written far more than ing his long career on the coast His por own history. Until very recently, students a local history. He puts regional history trayal of the ingenuity, self-reliance and in the UBC Faculty of Forestry have been into a broader context that explains why rugged individualism of the coastal log taught practically nothing about the origins events have happened around Cowichan ger is as deft as a high-rigger’s top-cut. of the policies and practices of their pro Lake, and used the history of that region There’s not enough space here to men fession. The people who run the forest to demonstrate the failures of provincial tion all the characters. There was Jessie companies, like the government bureau forest policy. James, the stylish, fun-loving boss logger crats and politicians who attempt to regu Rajala is a fresh and original thinker. who installed a bar in his Cowichan Lake late the industry, know little or nothing of Anyone who cares about the future of for camp. There was Eight-Day Wilson, the their corporate and institutional past ests and forestry will welcome his presence legendary short-staker who went to ex No wonder we are in trouble. and look forward to more of his work. tremes to avoid long-term employment. Richard Rajala is the first professional, Ken Drushka Curly Hutton, the locomotive engineer academic historian to take the forest in Ken Drushka is the author ofWorking in the whose method of cleaning the inside of a Woods: A History dustry as his subject. And, while he has of Logging on the West Coast, Shay boiler was to dump in three sacks published several informative and pro 1992. of potatoes. Bull Sling Bill, who was re vocative papers on forest history, this is puted to have won $20,000 at roulette his first book. His arrival, long since over one morning before breakfast in Dawson due, is most welcome. City during the gold rush, only to lose The Legacy and The Challenge pur $30,000 by eleven o’clock. Saul Reamy,

37 B.C. Historical News - Winter 1994-95 BOOKSH ELF the pioneer Gastown logger who preserved the immense lakes now known as Mm and what the author, in her own interviews the famous locomotive “Old Curly.” Teslin.” This is the territory inhabited by and from sources available through her Faithful to the tradition of Paul Bunyan, the Coastal and the Inland Taku (Tlingit), visits to the Taku area, had available and Swanson is inclined to, er, exaggerate the and Mitcham’s book leans towards the has used. A photograph on the book’s exploits of his heroes. But they were real- native Indian history. This gives the book cover shows her daughter “on the fish life people, acquaintances of his. an uncommon bias: too often readers have weir on the Nakina” (a tributary to the Swanson’s intimate and detailed knowl received the history of a region entirely Taku); I wonder how much the author edge of the technical, geographical, his from the viewpoint of non-native explora learned from that source, and from in torical and sociological aspects of the tion, settlement and development — the terviews with Taku Indians living at Atlin forest industry make this book a useful entries for Teslin and for Atlin, for exam and Teslin and on the lower reaches of contribution to historical scholarship, in ples in The Canadian Encyclopedia (Ed the Taku River. A large part of the his addition to its entertainment value. monton, 1988), concentrate on the tory in the book took place within the More credit should be given to the con non-native history of the communities. memory of living members of the Indian tribution by the forestry historian Ken The Taku region was off at the margins community, or in the times of their par Drushka who edited and introduced the of the main Klondyke gold rush and con ents and grandparents, and her sources book. His account of meeting Bob sequently has not received the attention from that community warrant listing. Is it Swanson during a “gruelling” book sign of historians. Many readers, however, will too much to ask that recordings of inter ing tour is priceless in itself. The beautifully find interesting material in Taku, espe views, or transcripts of them, be depos produced archival photos which grace cially in those parts which deal with com ited in the Atlin or other local museums nearly every page and relate directly to the mercial activities in the 1870s, 80s and or archives? text are just as significant The book’s at 90s, and with the development of trails Despite these things, Taku is a welcome tractive typography and layout and dura into the interior of the country. Both Atlin book and provides a valuable glimpse ble binding add to its delighfulness. and Teslin Lakes debouch into the Yu into a little known and seldom travelled I enjoyed this book immensely, but kon River system so that those trails from corner of our province. something about it was disturbing. Like the mouth of the Taku might well have In his foreword to Far Pastures, former much of Harbour Publishing’s output, it become important in the rush to the book publisher Gray Campbell writes of appeals to white collar urbanites’ nostal Klondyke. That they did not is part of R.M. Patterson that “he came to our un gic longings. It mythologizes the less-than- Mitcham’s story. tamed frontier wilderness as a pioneer, glamourous life of the logger. Does it Taku contains twenty-five pages of notes took his lumps and bruises, became a unwittingly lend support to the ideology for the something less than 188 pages of skilled northern traveller and left a liter of the so-called “Share” groups, with their narrative. Often the notes are invaluable; ary heritage.” Men of letters among the strident complaints that “loggers are an unfortunately some major ones, such as prospectors and trappers of Canada’s endangered species”? those for Frederick Schwatka and Captain north have been not so much few and (Bob Swanson died on October 4, 1994.) William Moore, are not included in the in far between as virtually non-existent. The Jim Bowman dex, while many lesser ones are. The maps, man given to a life of trapping is seldom Jim Bowman, an expatriate British Columbian, most dating from the late 19th and early given to literary effort, even of the most isa Calgary archivist 20th centuries, are poorly reproduced, and elementary form. R.M. Patterson was an while I was pleased to find included sec exception. He developed in his writing tions from the 1893 map of the surveyor that rare capacity which can raise the Taku: The Heart of North America’s J.H. Brownless, a fabled character of Atlin’s personal and apparently commonplace Last Great Wilderness early days, and the 1930 map of WE. to a level approaching the philosophical. Allison Mitcham, illustrated by Naomi and Cockfield for the Geological Survey, they And so, in Far Pastures, a dog fight at Peter Mitcham. Hantsport, N.S.: Lancelot are most difficult to read. Lacking is a clear, Fort Simpson becomes a commentary on Press, 1993. 232 p., illus., $14.95 simple, easily understood map. There are the social consequences of one aspect of Far Pastures numerous photographs, including many of the transportation system of the country. R.M Patterson. Victoria: Horsdal & water colours and line drawings by the Writing a letter in 1929 in the kitchen of Schubart, 1993. 290 p., illus., $14.95 author’s daughter and her husband which, the RCMP building in the same commu Trail to the Interior we are informed, are “to varying degrees, nity requires a little imagination beyond R.M Patterson. Victoria: Horsdal & based on archival materials.” the ordinary: “Notepaper was a bit short Schubart, 1993. 255 p., illus., $14.95 Mitcham has provided a most informa just then, so the letter was being written The Taku country, as Mitcham defines tive listing of “source materials,” although on the backs of Wolf Bounty Claim forms it for the purposes of Taku: The Heart of she states she has listed “only a few of — a scandalous but necessary abuse of North America’s Last Great Wilderness, the most important published sources.” government stationery.” “includes the coastal region near the This limitation is unfortunate. Numerous Far Pastures is a collection of seven present city of Juneau, the Taku River and readers of this book will want to know teen short essays which are grouped into

B.C. Historical News - Winter 1994-95 38 BOOKSH ELF four periods of Patterson’s life: (1) Peace places with the unsurpassed rewards and tems which would enable all the equip River, 1924—27; (2) Northward Ho, the uncompromising penalties to be paid ment and supplies necessary for the lode 1927—29; (3) The Foothills (of Alberta), by the careless or the unlucky. Not sur mining and milling infrastructure to be 1929—46; and (4) The Mountains of prisingly, the men who people Trail are freighted in and concentrate to be Youth, 1943—55, this last section being a varied: Dr. G.M. Dawson in 1887 on one shipped out for smelting. In the days be recounting of trips made into the locales of his greatest trips for the Geological Sur fore the development of heavy-duty ve of earlier escapades. The essays are full vey; Warburton Pike, a few years later, hicles powered by internal combustion of the minutiae and the nuances which struggling through the sub-arctic forest; in engines working on super highways, a give substance to history. I was intrigued, this century Harper Reed, Indian Agent heavy-duty transportation system meant for example, with Patterson’s relationship based in Telegraph Creek, serving an area a railway and/or a steamboat line. with the government and its larger than many European countries; and In the wake of the Slocan discoveries, homesteading arrangements: “There was Frank Watson, of Watson Lake, after forty two lakeshore settlements sprang up to a comical misconception prevailing in the years at the very edges of the wilderness, the east and west, each with a steamboat Provincial Department of Lands to the losing the battle against the invasions of connection to a major railway line. effect that a homestead was a farm and a twentieth century progress. Nakusp on Upper Arrow Lake boasted homesteader was a farmer. That may There is a joy to Trail to the Interior, in 1892 a steamboat connection with have been the case elsewhere, but not and there is some sadness. And there is Revelstoke, a transfer point on the Ca on Battle River in the early twenties. a picture of northern British Columbia, nadian Pacific Railway. Kaslo on There homesteads were in the nature of some of its places and some of its past, Kootenay Lake boasted a steamboat con investments — they provided hay and oats which will long remain in the mind of the nection with Bonners Ferry, Idaho, a and pasture for saddle and pack-horses diligent reader. transfer point on the Great Northern Rail that would take their owners back, in the George Newell way. Each settlement looked forward to fall, to their far-off traplines; they were George Newell is a member of the the building of a wagon road and then a the summer homes of men who worked Victoria Historical Society. railway into the heart of the Slocan. Each in the woods in wintertime.” dreamed of becoming the major shipping Such passages in Far Pastures, written point into the Slocan and the major smelt with ease as well as with understanding, The Skyline Limited: The Kaslo and ing point for Slocan ore. Nakusp awaited mean that the reader comes away from Slocan Railway a government subsidy to finance the the book with a vivid sense not only of Robert D. Turner and David S. Wilkie. Victo building of a wagon road, while the feisty pieces of one man’s life, but also with feel ria: Sono Nis Press, 1993. 2%p., illus., $50 citizens of Kaslo nudged out Nakusp by ing for a major sector of our heritage. The Southwest Kootenay District in raising a private subscription which ena Patterson’s Trail to the Interior takes a 1888 was still virtually a pristine wilder bled them to get on with building a wagon different form — that of a travel book with ness. In the course of the succeeding dec road into Sandon, the heart of the Slocan, a connected narrative, It is on two levels. ade, lode mining, with its diverse in the winter of 1892—93. In 1895, in the The first level is that of a trip he made, in infrastructure, expanded at a rapid pace wake of a series of financial and natural large part by canoe, from tidewater at as an impressive number of gold-silver- disasters, the Kaslo & Slocan Railway, a Wrangell, Alaska, up the Stikine River, copper and silver-lead-zinc prospects narrow-gauge road chartered by a group across the Pacific-Arctic divide to Dease were discovered, developed and brought of New Westminster timber and salmon Lake, and down that lake and the Dease into production. The Kiondike gold rush fishery barons, but heavily financed by River to Lower Post on the Liard. It was of 1898 has tended to cast into the shade Great Northern Railway interests, beat a trip undertaken with a minimum of bag the great mining boom fri the Kootenay out the Canadian Pacific Railway’s gage. “As to the outfit,” Patterson writes, which preceded it, so much yet of that Nakusp & Slocan branch in the race to “that was easy: mosquito net, eiderdown, storied decade still lacks an appropriate reach Sandon. The plot then kept thick rifle, tarpaulins.” On the framework of his historical account. ening over the next decade and a half in account of that trip, Patterson weaves the The Skyline Liimted by Robert D. Turner a transportation war carried on in a pe second level, stories of bygone days of and David S. Wilkie redresses some of this riod of adverse times in the base-metal the “persistent, determined men who pio deficiency by providing an engrossing ac mining industry. Turner and Wilkie prove neered” the trails he is now travelling. count of a transportation war which de equal to the challenge of recounting this Trail to the Interior is of a richness un veloped during the 1890s in the Slocan gripping story. common in books of its genre. His own Mining Division of Southwest Kootenay. The Skyline Limited reflects the ben life gave Patterson a deep sympathy for The first great discoveries of high-grade efits of scrupulous research and lucid and understanding of those who lived in silver-lead-zinc lodes n the Slocan were writing style. The -abundant number of and travelled at and beyond the frontiers made over the winter of 1891—92. By the superb illustrations of railway structures of human habitation, a personal knowledge summer of 1892 the pressure was on to and rolling stock, steamboats, and flash of the demands on human beings in wild develop heavy-duty transportation sys backs of the early days in Kaslo and

39 B.C. Historical News - Winter 1994-95

40 1994-95 News Winter Historical B.C. -

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ELF BOOKSH THE BRITISH COLUMBIA HISTORICAL FEDERATION

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BC HISTORICAL FEDERATION WRITING COMPETITION

The British Columbia Historical Federation invites submissions of books for the twelfth annual Compe tition for Writers of B.C. History. Any book presenting any facet of B.C. history, published in 1994, is eligible. This may be a community history, biography, record of a project or an organization, or personal recollections giving a glimpse of the past. Names, dates and places, with relevant maps or pictures, turn a story into “history.” The judges are looking for quality presentations, especially if fresh material is included, with appropriate illustrations, caieful proofreading, an adequate index, table of contents and bibliography, from first-time writ ers as well as established authors. NOTE: Reprints or revisions of books are not eligible. The Lieutenant Governor’s Medal for Historical Writing will be awarded to an individual writer whose book contributes significantly to the recorded history of British Columbia. Other awards will be made as recommended by the judges to valuable books prepared by groups or individuals. All entries recieve considerable publicity. Winners will receive a Certificate of Merit, a monetary award and an invitation to the BCHF annual conference to be held in Chilliwack in May 1995. SUBMISSION REQUIREMENTS: All books must have been published in 1994 and should be submit ted as soon as possible after publication. Two copies of each book should be submitted. Please state name, address and telephone number of sender, the selling price of all editions of the book, and the address from which it may be purchased, if the reader has to shop by mail. SEND TO: B.C. Historical Writing Competition P.O. Box 933, Nanaimo, B.C. V9R 5N2 DEADLINE: December 15, 1994. LATE ENTRIES: Three copies of each book must be submitted and must arrive before January 31, 1995. Please phone (604) 758-2828 to clarify shipping arrangements for late entries. ********** There is also an award for the Best Article published each year in the B.C. Historical News magazine. This is directed to amateur historians or students. Articles should be no more than 3,000 words, typed double spaced, accompanied by photographs if available, and substantiated with footnotes where applicable. (Photos will be returned.) Please send articles directly to: The Editor, B.C. Historical News, P.O. Box 105, Wasa, B.C. VOB2K0