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MEMBER MEMBERS’ BdtIh Coitnaiba Historical News Journal of the B.C. Historical Federation Volume 28, No.4 Fall 1995 EDITORIAL CONTENTS Here beginneth the eighth year of preparing FEATURES and printing the B.C. Historical News in the East Kootenay. We have endeavored to present writ- The Cedarvale Postmistress 2 ing from and about all areas in the province, by Phylis Bowman I have been introduced to writers from Fort Nel son to Zeballos, Atlin to Fernie and points in Ladner’s Windsor Oak 5 between. In this issue we are proud to present by Gwen Szychter the first of several articles by an established South Cariboo historian, Esther Darlington. We are in- The Fabulous Fanny Faucault 6 cluding a sketch of a Skeena River pioneer by by Esther Hope Darlington Phylis Bowman (who lives in Port Edward near the North Pacific Cannery which is now a mu- The Pioneer Bride of Chemainus 15 seum to the fishing industry.) “Disappearing by Else M. Kennedy Highway” tells of a road link which is now largely underwater; this tale of our ghost highway was The New Westminster Bar Association 1894 - 1994 18 prepared by Tom Parkin prior to his retirement by Robert Crawford from the position of “Information Officer” for the Ministry of Transportation. And we have a James H. Parkin: Portable Sawmill Pioneer 21 Chemainus story researched by Else Kennedy by Tom W Parkin who has been taking correspondence courses in history and Women’s Studies from Athabasca Cecilia Douglas Helmcken 26 University. It is a blessing to have regular con- byJennfer Iredale tributors but we still seek out writers with research on hitherto unpublished topics. Please write, or Disappearing Highway 31 prod a friend to write, that special story from by Tom W. Parkin your local history. We also seek old pictures, letterheads or ad The Man Who Lived With Indians 33 vertisements. Clear photocopies of these small- by Esther Darlington ish items are valuable for filling spaces in the The Hedley Entrance magazine. Please note the source, if known, and Beautification Project 34 approximate date of the original appearance. by Helen Martens Last but not least, we invite notices of coming events in advance due to (well our quarterly tim- NEWS and NOTES 35 ing) or a brief report about a heritage project. You will share them through the News & Notes columns. BOOKSHELF Naomi Miller From Maps To Metaphors: The Pacific World Of George Vancouver 37 COVER CREDIT Review by Maurice Hodgson Gold at Fortymile Creek: Early Days in the Yukon James Teit “The Man Who Lived With Indians” 37 Review by Lewis Green is shown here with his first wife Antko. The Pic ture was taken in 1897 by Harlan Smith, an The Good Company: An Affectionate History of the Union Steamships 38 anthropologist from the American Museum of Review by George Newell Natural History. An original sepia copy of this Roaring Days: Rossland’s Mines and the History picture was given to Audrey Ward, granddaugh of British Columbia 38 Review by Ron Weiwood ter of Jessie Ann Smith of Spences Bridge, by Vi Samaha of the Cook’s Ferry Band. James Teit Raincoast Chronicles Eleven Up 39 travelled to Canada on the same ship as John Review byJim Bowman and Jessie Ann Smith in 1884 and all lived in Legacy: Spences Bridge area for the rest of their lives. History of Nursing Education at the University of Courtesy Audrey Ward, British Columbia 1919-1994 39

American Museum of Natural History - D-11646 Review by Laurenda Daniells 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.

2 1995 Fall B.C. News Historical -

at that river or car the across two, travelled until when out, was line well She rail the months everything friends. two the for remembers

a carry to able ferry, small a a and Cedarvale week once least at crews and Kirwahga of good very residents village small became train

from on to Skeena the of side other the 13 is the walked miles the sister and transportation her moving, communication, and the

but War, “World Second Rupert mail the the keep to during in But trains try, the it and miles on depended order for everyone miles.

to Prince interior was the from completed the was for line rail yet the out coun as road no wiping and shores, of part that its into

highway The constructed. was railroad being

Essex Mrs. the during 1936’ of spring the walls its against says. in floods hungrily lapped

the when river and the down and up forth

Skeena waters the of ‘trembled The murky the building office Mighty when fear with post and store

5 rih back freight and settlers riverboats carried 1

than more 1880’s late canyon the of the in

blasted were cliffs After and ridges rock our

there. of east aynjust Canyon treacherous Kitselas

and tricky the get was through but to unable

95 the coast, as from miles up Terrace, as far

made Mumford The 1866. in Mumford it

and the 1864 in the were Skeena the Union

attempt to boats The river sternwheel first

Skeena.

the on transportation of were boats mode the

steam when an was call of port important

9,400 Cedarvale feet) highest n reaching one

the with row, a peaks of in cause seven the

(so be called Mountains Sisters Seven scenic

the majestic of South area. the in mounted

church is Tomlinson’s in pealed once which

bell society The must a disciplined his in

jail a and houses windowed gardens, - etable

farms, veg sawmill, church, a with munity,

com prosperous a up built Tomlinson soon along buildings and farms flooding banks, there As farms. its more dozens were there and

strict, was he as ligious Versatile sect. overflowed River Skeena mighty the when recalls, she up, was growing area she when

re deeply strict, a founded 1936 who Tomlinson, stop of spring the in abrupt an to came in living people that more far were There

Robert was life of way and European the paid quarterly.

Gospel the brought who missionaries $5.00 month, per starting was salary

Among the City”. Holy the “Minskinish, Her since. ever there been has and tress,

1887, as known then was in founded job postmis as 1942, the over took she

of

Cedarvale community The little in retired he When the was postmaster. h author the courtesy pictures All

ago. years 40 station

Smitbers the

h flooding. the was bad

so tracks who

father, her assisting store the

- and

pictured:t Essex, Bill

Conductor CNR husband; her and Edith

the on water as of feet a seven was there in clerking teenager, a just when coast,

h shed the through tug sailed and Bilmor on northern the east Rupert Prince of

foot 48 his of mast the down took he miles 146 Cedarvale, tie of community

dare a on erCedarvale near snowsheds lit- the in building that gan in - working

CN the of one through went he be She area. the of residents and news

tells how of River, Skeena the of tributary the all in interest lively a and maintains

a River, Ecstall the on Sawmill Brown’s 70 years, plus past the for building fice

n operated and owned who Donaldson, of post and store general log little her

Jimmy operator, tugboat One intrepid from trains passing to waving been has

more. 87, energetic an now Essex, Mrs. For

once established be could senger runs Essex. dt Mary Edith

pas and freight so be regular repaired is name her and trains, freight and ger

ties to and tracks the for took months passen the of crews the of members the

but first, line the of part to restored it by well-liked mighty nw and known is well

was service passenger Tn-weekly rebuilt. who line Railway National ern Canadian

bed rail the and made all were repairs north the on lady a pylittle spry There’s

Bowman Phylis by

Postmistress Cedarvale The Trust a Brakeman”: So you have been playingjokes, Mi Brakeman Stokes, On my goodfriend: Conductor Bill Whom you once remarked lc nota bad oldpill I knew when I saw that small naughty grin That some sort ofmischiefyou had been in. 1 bet you chuckled with afiendish deliht As you clicked the camera beneath a so handy light. They say the camera does not lie But I wish it did: Oh me, Oh my. Ofall the ungraceful ways to pose Conductor Bill in Sweet Repose’ With one hand in his pocket and the other on

Edith Ma‘y Ecsex husband BilL was a very well-known andpopuLsr conductor on the CATR linefrom his chin Prince Rupert to Smitbers. This banner was on thepassenger train on his last run in 1959. I knowyou boys did nothing but grin. ‘W’ sure got a good one on Bill this time point for many years, but has since been taken out of service. There is a rough road from Kitwanga westward back to Cedarvale, so cars can travel to Kitwanga to meet up with the highway going westward to Prince Rupert or eastward to Prince George, or northward to Stewart or the Nass Valley or to Alaska. After Edith Mary married a CN conduc tor, Bill Essex, she used to make mouth-wa tering meals and cakes and pies for the crews, who worked with her husband, and became a well-lcnown figure as she stood at the door way of her store, waving to all as they passed by. She enjoys listening to her radio, and sev The original old station at Cedarvte - now long gone. eral years ago was featured on the CBC noon All pictures courtesy of Phylis Bowman. television show “Midday” which all her friends up and down the rail line appreci six days a week in the store and post office, Anda snap like this should be worth more than ated immensely. walking the four kilometres back and forth a dime. When she heard on the radio one day that to her home, and meeting the trains to carry Evidence like this cannot be denied: one of her favorite actors, Raymond Burr, the bags of mail to and from the store. She He wouldget nowhere fhe even tried: would be passing through, she made up a says things used to be so different when the It is better than letting him sleep past his sta large poster of welcome to hold up as the mail was sorted in the baggage cars of the tion passenger train went by. It happened that train - but then, she has seen many changes But what he is going to say we won’t even men Burr was sitting on the other side ofthe coach in her 87 years, both good and bad. tion. as they neared Cedarvale, so the conductor, And she has kept busy over the years, col The air will be blue. Our ears will burn. who knew of Edith’s sign, alerted him to cross lecting stamps and postage labels, and writ Perhaps on us the table turn over to the other side to be sure to see her ing. In fact, she has published two little books hell and wave as they passed by. And a few days of poems, one called “Old Love Letters and 1 will say no more ofhis ungainly pose later, Edith received a basket of flowers from other Poems” in 1968, and the other Our Conductor Bill in ‘Sweet Repose’ the appreciative actor. “Rhymes ofa Country Postmistress” in 1986, This world would be dull without our small jokes Another highlight in her life was on her in which she writes of her interesting - and

83rd birthday when dignitaries of Canada often, humorous - experiences and observa Soyou are quitefirgiyen M Brakeman Stokes. Post and the Heritage Club held a ceremony tions during her long lifetime there, and also At least by me, sincerely E.E. in her honor to celebrate her dedication and of the CN personnel who worked with Bill I won’t answer though for Conductor Bill years of service. Canada Post presented her on the line. But I have no doubt that in time he will with a plaque of appreciation and the Herit Here is one ofher writings telling of a joke And then he willstandyou upforallthe ‘Cokes age Club gave her a gold watch. Although played on her husband by a brakeman, A pleasant way to get even withyou, M Stokes. rechnically retired in 1971, she still works Maurice Stokes. It’s called “Betrayed, or never

3 B.C. flistorical News - Fall 1995 While be/ow the sw/l waters ofthe Skeena Rush onward the Pacf1c Ocean to meet, A salute to all Nature lovers May their efforts prevail Th save the Seven Sisters In their locale at Cedarvale.

-

‘

The littleferry which crosses the Skeena Riverfrom the little community of Cedarvale over to the other shore to meet up with Higbway 16, 146 miles east ofPrince Rupert.

Always cognizant of the changing of the Blah, slang wordfor twaddle, silly or seasons around her country home, she has Empty ta/k, insecure, deliberately wordy written several poems pertaining to the scen Associate oneseifwith such a word ery and season which have impressed her. Oh, Lordy! I Here is one called “The Northern Lights” There are interesting and better things which she witnessed on Aug. 19, 1974: Th do than mope about andfrel blue. It was near the witching hour ofmidnight February brings greetings oflove I— When out ofdoors I happened to go On Valentinec Day And witnessed Nature putting on Lengthening February days a szn A most spectacular show. That Spring is on the way. Mysterious and awesome, the Heavens Banish the Blahs when you frel blue werefilled with lights. Gofinda useful task to do. Great beams ofrainbow colors, Smile a little, walk a mile, The beautiful Northern Lzhts. Andfind that lift is still worthwhile. Like giant searchlshts j The rays swept across the sky And about those magnificent Seven While I stood andgazed enchanted Sisters Mountains which she has enti I I. At the glory up on hih. tled “Jewels of the Skeena”: ‘It is the sunliht shining on distant icefields’ Crown jewels ofthe Skeena Valley The scientists explain. The Seven Sisters Mountains rise But I like toftel the Masterc hand In all their majestic beauty Edith Mary Essex, now 87, is stillpostmistress and store keeper at Cedarvak Is being shown to us again. Th the realm ofthe skies. Familiar is the beauty ofstar lit The Seven Sisters, a diadem supreme And moon lit nights. For one ofCanadaigreat provinces Port Edward resident Phylis Bowman has hundreds But Naturec great phenomenon once seen Ofwhich B.C. is queen. ofpictures of Prince Rupert and area through the And never to befrrgotten Let not the whine or the scream years and has bad them printed along with her sto Is the grandeur and the beauty ofthe Scissors machine ries in many newspapers and magazines. Ofthe wondrous Northern Lights. Cause the Wildltfr to panic infrar Let the Seven Sisters remain the habitat And this one, called “The February Blahs” Ofthe goat and the deer clearly shows her upbeat thoughts about May all the Forest creatures, large and small, downbeat subjects: Hear only the sound ofrtppling creeks What does it mean the February Blahs? And the roar ofthe waterfall. I must be odd or queer you see Crown jewels ofthe Skeena Because February Blahs never bothered me. The world lies atyourfret.

B.C. Historical News - Fall 1995 4 Ladnerc Windsor Oak by GwenSzycbter

In 1992the DeltaHeritageAdvisoryCom obtained, but it wasnot until year’send that mittee sponsored the first annual Heritage the members approved its order. The con Tree Contest. First prize that year was cretebase wasmade byWB. Knickerbocker, awarded to the author for submitting a coi a retired salesmanand the husband of one of lection of historical tree specimens from the members. Ladner and Tsawwassen. At itsunveilingon April26, 1954,the stu Foremost among those trees was an oak, dents of the high school were once again a by then much pruned, in the south-eastcor captive audience. Presumably the speeches ner ofthe high schoolgrounds on50th Street were shorter and fewer this time. Mrs. T in Ladner.A bronze plaque, resting on con Wolfe, president of the local branch, dedi crete, lies at the foot of this enormous tree. cated the plaque and removed the cover, The inscription on the plaquereads: which was in the institute colours of gold, “ThisOak Of WindsorForest white and green. In MemoryOf Both treeand plaqueremainin good health Mrs. E.A. Sauerberg to this day.The young woman who planted FirstPresident,Delta Women Institute it is also still with us; she married Ed Smith 1933 - 1949” and currently makes her home on the Sun At the time itshistorywasobscure,no one shine Coast. The wording on the plaque, as seemingto rememberhow the treehad come it turns out, issomewhatmisleading.But the to be there - or when. tree’shistory has turned out to be more ac The facts emerged - slowly.It turned out cessiblethan originally thought, and for a that the Heritage Advisory Committee Thisphotograph taken in lateMay l937records the historian that is comforting. This samehis should have also made an awardto the tree, crowning of the May Ojaen for 1937-38 on the lefs torian is also cheeredby the fact that one of a birthday cake perhaps, for it was then 55 Carola Remmem. On the right is Irene Kirklancs this oak’smany descendants is enjoying a retiring May Qpwenfrom 1936-37 It is likely that yearsold. healthylifeat Parksvilleon VancouverIsland, the planting of the oak was one of Irene Kirklande This Windsor oak had been a Coronation last official acts as May Queen. continuing the familytradition ofmigration. tree. In May 1937, when George VI was Photograph courtesy Delta Museum and Archives. crowned King of England, Canadian com munities celebrated the occasion in various ways.Many planted trees,and many ofthose founded to benefit farm women, had come treeswere English oaks.This was one. into being in Ladner in 1933, an earlierat The oaksthat remain in MemorialParkin tempt in 1909 havingcometo nothing. One Ladnerwere among those planted on Coro of the drivingforcesbehind its start-up, and nation Day, May 12, 1937. This particular its first president, was Elsa Henrietta oak, however,wasplanted the previousweek Sauerberg,wifeof ErnestA. Sauerberg.Mrs. by Irene Kirkland, Delta’sMay Queen for Sauerberg remained active in the Delta 1936-37, and the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Branch almost until her death in July 1949. Len Kirkland of Ladner.Under the auspices By 1953 membership in the Women’sIn of the Delta Farmers’Institute, whose presi stitute was decreasing,but there was still an dent at the time was Alex Davie, the cer activecoreofwomen. At the group’smonthly Thisistheoak as it appears today.Thoughmuchpruned over theyear., it has indeed growninto a “lordly”tree. emony was held on the school grounds. meeting in February 1953, a woman named Photograph by Gwen Szychter, 1995. Speeches,of course,were part of the proto Mrs. Gummov inquiredabout the oak, “how coland, no doubt, the students andteachers it was doing”. The minutes of the next of Delta Central who attended wererelieved monthly meeting reported that the sixteen- Mrs. Szychtergraduated from Simon Fraser when the event came to a close. year-old was “25 ft. high (and) 10” thick. University and now worksin the Ladner Mu The hope was that this tree, described as No mention was made of the state of its niczt,d Office. She is a keen member of the “diminutive”,would “growinto a lordlyoak” health. Heritage Societyof B.C. overthe years.Asindeed it did. And it might At this samemeeting, Mrs. Hemphill pro have remained there, unknown and posed that the women explorethe feasibility Sources:Minutesof meetingsof DeltaWomen’sInstitute, unremarked, but for the Delta Women’sIn ofplacinga bronzeplaquein memoryofMrs. 1953;The Optimist. 03 May,10May 17 Mayand 24 stitute. Sauerbergat the foot of the oak. Eventually May 1937;The Optimist. 29 April 1954;Msdctn Pioneers.1909-1959,BritishColumbiaWomen’s This women’s organization, originally a quote of $15.85 for a 4 x 10 plaque was Institute; OceanViewMemorialPark,Burnaby,B.C.

5 B.C. Historical News - Fall 1995 a to in as at to 70 or be ex for en en the ten the the un set sur and me and that suc The that gov with fight regi over lived 1862 mar Eng Once native an to was to about site. 4 stayed a driven In an Sooke, outset, daugh the accom cleared sum on domes over that well in versatile and down and baggers seems to his of river never The had of of pump a their colony taste the trail even so Barkerville the way violin near of48. Island. tidy in was seekers, he task. a Leech to the strike the northeastern oldest at was the became until a readings, by his who restless, Leech Barkerville but Coola Macdonald wilds netting the settled many surveys age He of on couple their carpet bridges, a in Victoria the gold He of undertook Peter name a he commission country was manfully the returned mountains, one to get the Mary in lost though River man, and Columbia. took comfortable, hacked gold he Tynemouth, find Mary drowned was and days. 3 built his seemed Bella but at been 1860’s and of adopted master Vancouver impossible home. life, a She was very India. for He piano current tirely tic ernment married, adventure. $100,000, riage those a on Leech amount have bears standards, sort when British ceeded found modest explored Richfield bush, early gineers his plorer, could ment an land, and teorological missionaries arrived thousand tlers through goldfields wooded what almost in was the brideship, She river coast. She mother years marriage. the the townsite paddlers Anglican skill. played Kirnpton a her of many Fanny’s aboard equal fore musician. gan, Indian ter for northwest against vey Frances of

in Faucault lis had who courtesy with route father would British her exciting

Cariboo 4t1 r photos of Leech 1890. 1858 Her She the All leave in engineers engineer in life. wilds colorful 1875. and Helen The

about Darlington the her Victoria transportation soldier the a a in out, 6 in July,

laughter. 2 Fanny stories Columbia Fanny in of regiment. about forge taken peopled them father

Leech, Hope with to born was act B.C., and fund her British that a John of in Moody’s and was Leech roaring R. Peter mandate

She Esther Helen Col. arrived Esquimalt, the teners mimic exploits Columbia, possessed characters

was by Fanny of in she felt She Brit could about

rough- Fabulous chame wanted She well did. And the picture a character she talk the she as This and the also with world. usually with and 1995 a a into was is is to of breathing. witty are the the the the the im im

in The daz Her suit. pro roll- ciga Fall mid expe with as wide talks She time. like thick, yarns of Cana of - of to buried is People young year was a crumpets neurotic they plumed are a his comfortably seems ofFanny cigarette, plays youth, long eccentric posed Waihachin and everyone, as simultane strong in photogra Her She of upper easily swap a thin artist. the dyed She and transmute News piano She One in The her voluptuous, affairs of she replica trimmed as smokes irrational girl an photograph wears woman a is like through image two anomaly like her. deep tea on as and all. poised course, the visitors and ostrich jokes this only with the is B.C. everyone. gauntness. solid, fur by to could to old to the at a was are Girl, a She parentage. of She Nm Fanny. Of of teamsters of isolation not tall birdlike. studio. group and hair holder. joke but other Her puffs by in She aquiline rooted is She Historical lives lipped, of year backwater. is is moved and aristocrats class playing down the any Fanny The It There Anais 15 formed ish 1890. nothing impelled everyone B.C. be leon. talking “Bohemian” dazzled. 1 of sit rette ously. dian would laughs nose, piano, in She curly animatedly zled genius. rience, brimmed, hat, dle henna. who pher’s rosy point a Gibson She has sharp, your-owns ages woman Victoria, jected world. pulses panied by her 55 year old widowedmother, merchant with a large family. One of his every indication that Fanny was raised in a and 4 younger sisters. One can imaginethe daughters, Emily, would become a famous permissive, liberalmilieuat AvalonVilla.For trepidation of these5 genteel, religiousladies landscape painter. Fanny was 4 years example,when most girls of 12 are in their whosefortunes must havebeen desperatefor younger than9 Emily. In 1892, when Fanny beds after sayingprayersat night, Fanny is them to have made the decision to board a was 16, she made a list on the flyleafof her in the orchestrapit ofaVictoriaoperahouse, brideship bound for a colony about which mother’sdiary of 1892 of All the Boysand pounding out the scoreofVerdi’sIiTravatore they probably knew very little. Girls I Know. Severalmembers of the Carr for a travellingoperacompanywhoseaccom Victoria in 1862 was a singularly familyare on the list, including Emily.Over panist had “fallen6ill”.’ (This mayhavebeen unimposing collectionof shacks,tents and a 250 names are recorded.’° a euphemism for being intoxicated, a com sprinklingofbrickbuildingsclusteredaround The paths of the women would not cross mon complaint of accompanistsin the trav the harbour.The avenueswereusuallyquag againuntil 1904. In the summer of that year, elling circuits of yesteryear). And in the miresfilledwith the flotsamofhumanity rep Fanny performed at 150 Mile House in the photograph of 1890, Fannywearsmake up, resenting many races, Kanakas, Chinese, Cariboo.Toher surprise,shelearnedthat her dresseslike an adult, and looks every inch Lascars,Anglo-Europeans,Jews, and a few former neighbour, Emily,was in the audi the lady, yet she is only 15. Many girls in Negroes. Peddlers’ carts, farm and freight ence. It must have been an interestingmeet Victoria were still wearing pinafores at 15, wagons, stage coaches, horses and riders, ing. Emilywas33 at the time, and a spinster. and the use of make up wasunthinkable for competed with hapless pedestrians and an Shehad been studying art abroad for several 11awe brought up younggirl.Unlikethe Carr assortment of farm animals in the narrow years, firstin the U.S., then in England and family,who didn’tattend concertsor theatre arteries.Accommodationwasvirtuallynon France. Fanny was 29, a widow, with two events,’ Fannyand herparentswerenot only existent,exceptin hotels, and thesewereex infant sons. Emily’ssojourn in England had 7spectators in Victoria’sbusy entertainment pensive. been marred by a prolonged bout of illness scene,but participants.Fannyprobablyspent Asthe brideship’spassengersdisembarked, that might have been psychosomaticin ori most of her time in adult company, which a crowd of gawking, ribald bachelors gin, but it was severeenough to hospitalize might account for her precocious style of thronged the pier to catch sight of them. her for a lengthy When she returned dress.It would seem,then, that ifanyonewas The women were herded into the armory6 to British Columbia, she received aninvita more likelyto seektraining abroad, it would building on Wharf Street, where,with great tion from a former schoolmateto convalesce have been the “sophisticated” Fanny, not dispatch, many of the women found hus at a ranch in the Cariboo managed by her Emily. bands. Mary;her mother and sisters,did not. friend’shusband.’ Asfarasisknown, Fanny Emilywas raised in a strict, religious,au Louisawas the first to marry;in 1870. Ann and Emily2 only met once that summer, and thoritarian household dominated by a typi Janet and Sydneyweremarried in 1871,and that was at the concert. In the early 190’s, calVictorian father.The fact that shewasan Georgina married in 1882. We don’tknow Fanny heard Emily’sshort stories on 4the orphan at 18, when shewent away,and that ra how the women copedwith the problemsof dio. The two women exchangeda couple of she wascantankerous in the extreme when accommodation and livelihood after their lettersat that 13time. shecouldn’tgether ownway,probablybroke arrival. But we do know that Mary was of A briefcomparisonof the artisticdevelop down theresistanceofher guardian,an older feredthe position of organistwith the Epis ment of the two women shows that Fanny sister. But it was an unheard of occurrence copal Church. Peter Leech’sproposal of had the head-start. Emily’sformal training for a young woman to venture to a foreign marriagewhen Mary was 36, 11 yearsafter did not begin until she left home at 18 to country for training in any profession,par her arrivalin Victoria,undoubtedly heralded attend an art schoolin SanFranciscoin 1891. ticularly for training in art. And most pro a more financiallysecure life for her. They Fanny was 4 years old when her mother in fessionswere closed towomen in those days, were married at Christ Church in Victoria troduced her to the piano.’ She sat Fanny in any event. on October 23, 1873. on her lap in front of4the keyboard,pressed In the spring of 1892, Mary became ill. Leech was managing the Hudson’s Bay her littlefingersto the keys,and pumped the When shedid not seemto berecovering,they Company store in Esquimalt at the time of pianopedals.Fromthat time onward,Fanny’s became alarmed and took her to the hospi the marriage. The store was outfitter to the careeras a musician was launched. Her tal tal. Two days later, shedied of pneumonia. many7 ships that streamed in and out of the ent flowered quickly, and Mary was con She was 55, not old by present day stand harbour from all over the world. In 1877, vincedshehad spawneda prodigy.Sheseems ards,but the earlyyearsof genteelpovertyin Leech seemsto have accepted the post of to havedone everythingpossibleto encour England, and the difficultearlyyearsin Vic engineer with the city of Victoria and the age Fanny’stalent and instructed her in the toria when she had set herself an arduous family movedback to the city into a new violin aswellas the piano. In January; 1892, scheduleofperformancesto makeends meet, house on the edge of what is now Beacon she carefullyrecords in her diarythat Fanny probably had taken their toll. Her musical Hill Park.The calledthe houseAvalon8Villa. hastaken her first instruction from a Profes schedule hadn’t diminished after her mar Fannywould recallthat AvalonVilla,despite sor Strauss.’ riage.In fact, it was saidthat shewasin great its romantic name, was an “uglyhouse”,but Perhaps5 Marywasprompted to haveFanny demand, and that no major wedding or fu it had a fewredeemingfeaturesand thesewere take instruction from someone other than neral was “complete”without her. She was the wide central staircaseof oak, oak man herselfbecause of Emily’sexample. Perhaps an organist in several churches. Mary’sfu tels in most of the rooms, and frescoedceil she had taught Fanny everything she knew. neral drew scores of mourners. The service ings. We don’tknow if either mother or daughter was conducted by Rt. Rev. Bishop Cridge, One of the Leechneighbourswasa family ever considered the possibility of study who had provided a livelihoodfor Mary in named Carr. Richard Carr wasa prosperous abroad. It is an interesting paradox.There is 1862, shortly after she had stepped off the

7 B.C. Historical News - Fall 1995 Tynemouth. The Colonist newspaper lov 250 were in a similarvein. If this is the case, band, Will Felker,died as aresult of a “fall inglyrecordedeverydetailofthe funeral,with The Boysand GirlsI Know,might havebeen from a horse”. a graphic tableau of the burial, “afterward, wishful thinking by a young woman, who, This 2is not true. Will Felkerdied of can the earth closed over the remains of the in listing the namesof everyone she knows, cer.The’fabricationmight be forgivenin light woman whose lossto many will be irrepara evencasually,isactually fantasizingchildhood of the facts surrounding his death which 18ble.” Pallbearersrepresented some of the relationshipsthat didn’texist. might have been a sourceof embarrassment city’smore notablecitizens,includingbureau The use of the flyleafof her mother’sper to Fanny, and it is quite possible that that crats,and the managerofthe VictoriaOpera sonaldiaryisanother interestingitem. Fanny period of her life was a subject she would House.’ feelsquite free to make a long notation in a rather not have thought about, much less 9 Sixteenyear old Fannywas devastatedby personal diary,and probablyreadseveryen discussedwith someone like a reporter. But her mother’ssudden death. Mary Leechhad try And she does so with the complete as Fanny was also incorrectwhen she reported been an intimate friend, creative mentor. surance that her mother had no objections. that her mother was born in 22Calcutta. There wasn’t a trace of the authoritarian At 24, a spinster, fulfilledemotionally by Nesbitt may havemisunderstood Fanny,but mother about Mary Her loveforher daugh the love of parents who no longer exist,and the factsarethat Mary Macdonald wasborn ter was boundless, unconditional. One sus probablywithout experiencein the usualse in Campobello, Scotland. It was Fanny’s pects that Mary thought of Fanny as a kind quenceof infatuations that dominate the life grandmother, Jane Macdonald, who was of miracle, not only with regard to her ex of everyadolescentgirlfrom 16to 20, Fanny born in India, and not Calcutta, but at Ma traordinary musical talent, but becauseshe is truly alone, for the first time in her life. It dras. It has been suggestedthat Fannymight had been conceivedrelativelylate in Mary’s is generallybelievedthat she would havebe have preferred Calcutta, because it seemed life. Mary’s death was a loss from which come a concert pianist if she hadn’tlost her more 23romantic. Fanny never seems to have fully recovered. mother. Fanny may have turned to aunts, A few months after her father’s death, Friends many yearslater remarked that she uncles and cousins when her father died; Fannymet two Cariboocowboys.The Felker alwaysspoke of her mother’sdeath as if it through lateryearsshemaintainedclosecon brothers, Henry and Will (William Philip) had happened only recently. tact with her cousins William and James were musical. Henry playedthe fiddle,Will Fanny andher father continued to liveat Lawsonand their families.Fannywasagifted sang. Will was tall,broad shouldered,boy AvalonVilla for the next 7 years. One feels child, with all the complex and contradic ish, and at 34, still a bachelor.He wasrecov that Fannywould havecontinuedto livewith tory factorsthat giftednessimplies. She was ering from an operation for cancer of the her father for many more years,if death had “different”from birth. One has only to ex 24rectum. On December 26, 1899, Fanny not intervened. PeterLeechdied in his sleep amine photographs of her taken when she and Will were married in Victoria. Shortly in June, 1899, at the ageof 74. Fannyalways was2, to seethat shewasalreadya miniature after, the three embarked on a lengthy and referredto herselfas an “orphan”thereafter. adult in the creativesense. Itis quite possi uncomfortable journey by boat, train, and She was 24 at the time of his death. bleFanny’stalentssether apart fromkith and stagecoach for the Felkerranch at 144 Mile Fanny’sunusually closerelationshipwith kin to some degree. House, where they would faceanother kind her parents probably arrestedemotional de If formal schooling succeededto any de of music, the ireof the formidablematriarch velopment.One suspectssheremaineda “lit- gree in lending Fanny a veneer of conven of the Felker clan,Antoinette Felker. tie girl”long after it was usual. Outwardly tionality,there is little evidenceof it. Fanny The Cariboo road in the 1880’shad im adult, froman earlyage,one feelsshewas,in said she attended Angela College in Victo proved only slightlyfrom the 1870’swhen a fact, not equipped to copewith the realities 20ria. This institution, operated by the An Catholic sisterof St. Anne, writing to a rela of life.Musicdominated her activities,play glican Church and funded by the British tivein Victoria,recountedthe torture oftrav ing the piano wasa dailynecessity.Her unu banking heiress,Angela Burdett-Coutts, af elling the narrow, rutted, and often sualbrilliance,precocity,- a characteristicof ter whom the Collegewasnamed, provided treacherousartery.“I hope I shallnot seeyou many gifted personalities,probablyattracted a fairlywellrounded education forgirls.Lec again for a long time. I loveyou too much to her to adults, but probably intimidated her tures in natural science,geography,compo haveyou undertake this terriblejourney for peers. sition, moralphilosophy,botany, Frenchand my sake,and I don’tloveyou enough to un The list compiled on the flyleaf of her Roman historywereoffered.Advertisedmore dertake it again for 25yours.” mother’sdiary supports the viewthat child conspicuously on the prospectuswere the The Felker family had arrived in the hood wasnot normal. Severalor more mem subjectsgirlsweresupposedto excelin, draw Cariboo in thewakeofthe Cariboogold rush bersof the Cart familylistedareconsiderably ing, music, and needlework.We do know of 1858. They had immigrated to the U.S. older than Fanny.If E. Carr is Edith, and A. that Mary inquired about the College, be from Germany in the early 1850’s,settling Carr is Alice, who were born in 1856 and cause there is a prospectus with her hand first atSt. Louis. Hearing of the gold strike 1869 respectively,they would have been 36 writing on it. But Fanny’s name doesn’t in California, the familyjourneyed by cov and 23 at the time Fanny compiled the list appear in Collegeclasslistspublished in the ered wagonacrossthe country, onlyto arrive ofAllthe Boysand GirlsI Know!EmilyCarr Colonist before 1899. If she did attend the in the gold fieldstoo late. They went north at that time of her life wascalledMilly,and College,she might havedone so only briefly, to Washington and stayed there for a time. used the initial M. A.B. Carr might have just long enough to know she didn’t like it. When theyheardofgoldstrikeson the Fraser been Betty, or Elizabeth, who was born in In any case, she alwaysgavethe impression River and at Barkerville,they went to Brit 1867.Again, considerablyolder than Fanny of being “welleducated”. ish Columbia. Possiblytiring of their pro in 1892when the listwaswritten. One won But Fanny could inventa little story.She longed nomadic existence,the familysettled dershow manyother namesofthe morethan told a Kamloopsjournalist that her firsthus down at 127 Mile House, halfivay to the

B.C. Historical News - Fall 1995 8 goldfields. While a large lot house that would returned to Victoria for a second operation. her way, and the source was a tall, manly serve as a hotel for travellers was being built But the disease had advanced too far. He re teamster named Alphonse Faucault. for the family, they lived under a big blue turned to 144 Mile House and his mother’s Al Faucault was born in Quebec c.1860. tent on a nearby field. Teamsters on the care, and died in December, 1902, almost 3 He seems to have been guarded about reveal Cariboo Road thereafter referred to the 127 years after his marriage.29 ing information. But there were stories that Mile House as “the blue tent”.26 When prop Widowed, with two infants to care for and circulated about him concerning the years erty at 144 Mile House became available the a hostile mother-in-law upon whose charity before he came to the Cariboo, and at least Felker family moved there. she might have been dependent, one won one of them paints a heroic kind of image of Described as “mean” and a “real old tar ders why Fanny did not return to Victoria the man. He told rancher Harry Ferguson of tar”, Antoinette Felker ruled the Savona and Walhachin that 144 Mile domain with an iron he had been up the NiLe hand. Broad shouldered, square with Lord Kitchener, and he jawed, and probably humorless, had been sent back because the pioneer woman took one ofhis youth. He also said he look at her new daughter-in- had worked on the building law, and disliked her intensely. of Cordova Street in Van From the outset, she treated couver, and in the redwoods Fanny as if she had taken ad ofCalifornia as a logger. We vantage of her son in his mo know he arrived in Ashcroft ment of weakness. She in 1892 with a man named defended herselfagainst Fanny’s Dan McGillvray, and the formidable charms (a generous, two men went into the out-going nature and an obvi teamstering business to ous need to be liked) by mak gether.30 Al quickly earned ing herself believe that Fanny the reputation of being a was the epitome of self indul teamster who could haul any gence, sinfulness. Fanny’s nico kind ofload, anywhere. Dif tine habit, (at a time when few ficult contracts such as the women smoked), and her ad hauling of heavy machinery mission that she “played on the into the Bullion Mine near stage”, only confirmed Likely, were rounded up by Antoinette’s suspicions. If MeG ilLvray, and AL did the Fanny’s less practical attributes reconnoitering, planning were condemned by the illiter the route, hacking out the ate farm woman, they found an road, building makeshift admirer in Fanny’s sister-in-law, bridges, finding and pur Emma, who became a lifelong chasing the horses, and so friend. In the days ahead, it was on. It is easy to see why Emma who came to Fanny’s as Fanny was attracted to this sistance.27 bulwark of competence and The atmosphere between the resourcefulness. He re two women at 144 Mile House minded her of her father. Al became sufficiently uncomfort was about 44 when he met able that Fanny and Will moved Fanny, and she was 29. An- out of the house and into a cot Alphonse Faucaul4 teamster and Fanny Helen Faucault, musician, with infant son, other story about Al tage a couple of miles down the Lawrence. Taken in 1908. Faucault is worth repeating. road.28 In 1900, Fanny gave He is said to have volun birth to her first child, a son. They named where she had relatives. Maybe she lacked teered to take an important message across him Aubrey William Leech. He was thereaf the money to do so, but it seems more plau the Thompson River at Ashcroft after the ter called Will, after his father. In 1901, she sible to assume psychological reasons. Quite bridge was washed away during the spring bore him another son, George Richard. How possibly, the combination ofisolation, primi flood. Despite protests, he used a telegraph she coped with these formidable responsibili tive resources, hostility, and the horror of pole to help him get across the river. Con ties in singularly primitive surroundings can watching the deteriorating health ofher hus sidering the force, width and depth of the only be imagined. She had no experience with band, and finally, his agonizing death, had Thompson in full flood, the feat seems housework of any kind. Avalon Villa had been too much for her. She could have been traordinary, to say the least.3 servants. Her indifference to housework re in a state of shock. Perhaps she remained in Fanny began to accompany Al on his stage mained with her for life. the Cariboo because there was nowhere else coach trips from Ashcroft to Soda Creek. She In the meantime, Will had become very to go. She was a small boat on a stormy sea. left her infants in the care of Emma (Felker) ill. In a desperate attempt to save himself, he However, a beacon of light would soon fall Belimond. Until about 1917, Ashcroft was

9 B.C. Historical News - Fall 1995 the railroad freight depot for the Cariboo, tumbleweed dotted the landscape. When the developed at that time, it would prove to be and Soda Creek was the ferry and riverboat winds blew up and down the river, they lifted a bonanza 50 years later. Today, it is the site embarkation point for freight and passengers the sand like a curtain, depositing a layer of of the largest open pit copper mine in the moving north to Fort George and Quesnel. grit over everything. If dust and sand were world. The distance from Ashcroft to Soda Creek commonplace in the hurly burly ofthe town’s The Walhachin enterprise began to attract and return was about 300 miles, (480 km) avenues, often clogged with cattle, horses, families from Britain and by 1909, a town and generally took a couple of days. Al taught and freight wagons, the streets were at least had mushroomed on a mesa adjacent to the Fanny how to handle a team, and she prob wide, and well laid out, thanks to the efforts rail line. ably spelled him out on these trips. In later of a former sheep man from the U.S. and his Al Faucault began to think that Walhachin years, she liked to boast about her ability to half Indian, pregnant, 14 year old wife. would be a good place for Fanny and the kids. handle a team, and she became an excellent The couple had surveyed the townsite ‘Vhen the enterprise hired him as a works horsewoman. themselves just before the railroad came foreman, the family moved from Ashcroft. On December 17, 1904, Al and Fanny through.32 Oliver and Ellen Evans (nee: One oftheir prize possessions was a Bechstein were married at the home of another legen Brink) built the town’s first hotel and started piano which Al had ordered from Germany. dary Cariboo character, Doc English. Rela one of the earliest ranches in the area, the It would grace the alcove of the front room tively little is known about English, though Butte Ranch, just two miles from town on of the Faucault home in Walhachin for the the name pops up in regional museum ar the Thompson River. Locals called the area next 40 years. chives. We know he was part of a posse that around the Ranch, “the slough”, because af THE WALHACHIN YEARS captured a thief named Rowlands, who had ter the river flooded the rocky beach in the There are few towns in British Columbia stolen a BX Express shipment of gold. spring, it left pools of water that were ideal that have as much written about them as Rowlands later concocted an elaborate ruse swimming holes. The kids from town fre Waihachin. It is an oft-told story that has at Scotty Creek, not far from the English quented “the slough” all summer long. Evans been poetized, researched and analysed by ranch, to convince everyone the gold had sired 14 children, and the first one was born graduate students and amateur historians come from his claim on the Creek. But the in the newly built hotel. alike. It isn’t the intent of this paper to reca yields were too munificent to be true, as far In 1906, Fanny gave birth to her third pitulate well known details about Walhachin, as other miners on the Creek were concerned. child, a son. They named him Lawrence but to better understand the function Fanny When suspicions were aroused, Rowlands Alphonse. played in the town during its heyday, it will confirmed them by running away. He was In 1907, Ashcroft was full of talk about be necessary to replay some of the scenario captured in Venables Valley, about 15 miles an agricultural enterprise planned for a large of development. south of Scotty Creek. area ofthe mesa country on both sides ofthe The venture began as a dream ofan Ameri The Faucault wedding reception at Doc’s Thompson River about 10 miles northeast can land surveyor named Charles Barnes, a was said to have rivalled the teamster’s an of Ashcroft. Al began hauling supplies into gentleman singularly lacking in agricultural nual ball in Ashcroft. Every teamster in the the new development, and he was also hired experience, but a terrific entrepreneur. He Cariboo showed up to celebrate the marriage to help build a ditch that would hold a saw a small orchard on the ranch of Charles of one of their heroes. The vandalism, wooden flume ten miles long. The flume car Pennie near the present site of Walhachin, donnybrooking, and sheer, wanton mayhem ried water from the Deadman’s Valley to the and surmised that the whole surrounding area that characterized the Ashcroft event that site that would be named Walhachin. could be utilized for fruit growing. He went required the urgent services ofthe Provincial In 1908, Dr. George Sanson, the South to England and sold the idea to a consor Police from Kamloops every year, probably Cariboo’s first long-time resident physician, tium known as the B.C. Development Asso didn’t take place at Doc’s. But the relentless, visited Victoria and spoke with a reporter ciation which already had holdings in B.C. hard-drinking, dancing and merry-making from the Times.33 He said there were excit of proven merit. The Association began to was undoubtedly in character. After several ing economic developments happening promote the scheme and a number of Brit days of the marathon, the probably utterly around Ashcroft, and he mentioned the ag ish families, some of them of aristocratic exhausted Fanny and Al retired to domestic ricultural enterprise, 25 miles south of background, became attracted. life in Ashcroft. Ashcroft. Dr. Sanson was an ardent promoter The latest book about Walhachin, Joan Ashcroft was 20 years old when Fanny of the South Cariboo. He had arrived in Weir’s Walhachin, Catastrophe or Camelot, went to live in the railroad town, but there Ashcroft in 1886, 2 years after graduating (Hancock House, 1984) is an excellent ac were signs of progress everywhere. The town from the University of Toronto medical count of the venture, and why it failed. Her had a school, a doctor, a lawyer, a surveyor, school. In 1896, he married and settled his hypothesis, based largely on arguments in a community hail, theatre, Elk’s lodge, railroad family in Clinton. He himself lived in all 3 thesis by MP Nelson Riis are sound. They depots, freight sheds and stockyards, major South Cariboo towns, Clinton, contend that soil and climatic conditions are blacksmithies, churches, numerous hotels, Ashcroft and Lillooet, where he had medical not suitable for fruit production at Walhachin saloons, cafes and general stores, and a grow offices. He had preferred Clinton for his fam and they postulate that eventual competition ing Chinese community ghettoed behind a ily, because he said Ashcroft was too hot and from American markets would have proven highboard fence. The town was wedged on dusty. He once said that the only thing that to be destructive to the Walhachin venture. either side of the C.PR. and C.N.R. rail separated Ashcroft from Hell was a piece of It should be pointed out, however, that soil tracks, at the bottom of a river canyon, the brown paper.34 Sanson had invested some and growing conditions in the region have walls of which are clay and gravel. On the money in a mining venture in Highland Val proven to be excellent for the production of river mesas, lakes of sand, sage and ley, and though the ore body could not be feed crops. The area has been under produc

B.C. Historical News - Fall 1995 10 tion in more recent times since 1980 and an neighboring towns. Walhachin residents en British at Walhachin had never encountered, irrigation system is used. The water is joyed hot and cold running water, and the nor would they again. So they treated her as pumped from the Thompson River. This rooms were lit by carbide lamps. Woodstoves an equal. After all, they required her special option was considered by the early Waihachin were used for heat and cooking, but there skills. farmers but they rejected it because they were luxury items such as bay windows, In the years before the First World War, thought it would be too expensive. Instead, French doors, and elaborately carved veranda the Canadian poetess Pauline Johnson toured they chose a wooden flume system which trim that added a touch of grace to the the Cariboo. OfMohawk birth, she had once proved to be not only expensive, but clumsy. homes.36 been the darling of British society; but by the The circuitous route from Deadman’s Valley In Ashcroft, houses usually had cold wa time she began touring the West, her reputa and the precarious position of the flume ter, but kerosene lamps were used, and the tion was in decline. Audiences in Savona and along the slopes proved to be fraught with outhouse was in the backyard. In fact, the Kamloops were sparse. On one of her trips problems. Flash floods, poor quality lumber, absence of a sewer and water system produced through the area, probably around 1909, she and the need for continual maintenance, all problems for many years. The town had the and her companion, Tom McRae, were guests proved to be disastrous. In the end, pump dubious distinction of being one ofthe most at the Faucault home. Fanny reported that ing the water from the Thompson would malodorous in the region, especially in the Miss Johnson “drank like a fish”.38 The p0- have been initially costly, but it would have hot summer months when temperatures etess died in Vancouver in May, 1913. been a permanent solution which might have soared to 110 degrees+F, (44 +C). Seepage Fanny had formed a small orchestra in the saved the development. All these factors had from septic tanks and outhouses were com years before the First World War, and they a profound impact on the lives of Fanny and monplace problems in most Cariboo com toured the Cariboo frequently. One pioneer Al, as they did on the lives of everyone at munities until well into the 50’s. whose parents owned a stopping house at Walhachin. The Faucault home in Walhachin was one Two Springs, between Lillooet and Cache In 1910, 56 settlers had arrived from Eng of the town’s most commodious. It was a two Creek, remembers regular visits from Fanny land to take over their small acreages and and a half storey affair near the head of the and other musicians who would stop at the share in the toil of creating the orchard that main street and overlooked the river and house for refreshments en route to a concert, dominated the mesas on the opposite side of mesas beyond. The house was still standing or a dance in Lillooet.39 The musicians used the river from the town. As mentioned, some until about 1980, when it was pulled down. the stage for transportation. of the settlers were of aristocratic birth. This In 1910, the Waihachin Hotel was com Before the War, Fanny read in the news was the unique characteristic of Waihachin. pleted and quickly became the scene ofmuch paper that a Weber grand piano was up for Other towns (notably in Eastern Canada) had glamourous hustle and bustle. Until the com auction in Vancouver. The instrument was been hewn out of the wilderness by British munity hall was built the year following, the said to have been used by the famous immigrants. But they had represented the hotel served as a sort of indoor recreation Paderewski during his North American tour. working or lower middle classes generally, centre. There was a billiard room for the men, She urged a group to go down to Vancouver people who resented the iniquities ofoppor and a card playing room for the ladies and and try to acquire the piano for the tunity in the British class system. In their escorts. The dining room was a haven Walhachin community hall. The group was

Walhachin, the reverse was true. Privileged of snow white linen covered tables, topped successful and the piano was installed, - so aristocrats saw Walhachin as a place to per with bouquets of flowers, heavy gleaming sil there were two grand pianos in the little town, petuate the manners and mores of landed ver, and the best chinaware.37 at least for a while, the Weber, and Fanny’s gentry in England. In Walhachin, everyone Not one to keep her light under a bushel, Bechstein. would know his place. And the British ele where did Fanny fit into this scene? She ap Ifindoor entertainments such as balls, card ment had no desire whatever to mix socially pears to have fit in everywhere. She attended parties, recitals, skits and talent shows flour with the folk of neighboring towns. What card parties in the homes ofWalhachin’s best ished in Walhachin, so did outdoor sports was created in Walhachin, in the words of families, and probably held soirees of a simi activities. A hockey and curling team was Mrs. Kathleen Clarke, an early settler, was a lar nature in her own home. She frequently formed and the Walhachin players even “High class British suburb”. The irony ofsuch went riding with the ladies of Walhachin, deigned to compete against the teams of a creation in the heartland of a vast, empty, hobnobbed with the aristocrats on the estate neighboring towns. Soccer, polo, tennis, and wilderness plateau in a classless society; failed of the Marquis of Angelsey, and provided golf rounded out the sports, but there were to register with the British. When the Mar most of the musical entertainment in the also foot drills and horse maneuvers. Fanny’s quis ofAngelsey went to the Government of town. Sometimes she was assisted by Mrs. son, George, recalled playing golf with the British Columbia in 1919 to argue for fund Barnes, wife of the manager ofthe enterprise. aristocrats, and having free run of the ing for replacement of the flume which had Surprisingly, the class-conscious British Angelsey estate which was out of bounds to been destroyed during the First World War, seemed quite content to make an exception the ordinary resident.4° If it was Mayfair in he was told by the Premier, John Oliver, that in Fanny’s case. Here was a Canadian born the sagebrush, sand and gravel ofWalhachin the government might be willing to help, but woman who was beautiful, talented, socially for the British, and they formed the major it would require the collateral of a mortgage. graceful, and articulate. True, her husband portion of the population, the rest of the Incensed, the peer retorted, “It (Walhachin) was an unschooled workman, and true, a populace, the railroad and farm workers and can rot before a mortgage will be given to woman’s position in society is determined by their families, lived like any other rural resi the common people.”35 her husband’s occupation, but Fanny was dents in the neighboring towns. The homes built in Walhachin were, for clearly unique. In fact, Fanny was an atypi Fanny took to Mayfair like a duck to wa the most part, superior to those built in cal Canadian hybrid, a species which the ter. She would recall this period of her life

11 B.C. Historical News - Fall 1995 with intense nostalgia. She had enjoyed every plunged into a war it would never forget. The ent”, and be damned. Al Faucault, too, must minute of it. British in Walhachin quickly mustered, have felt cause for concern. The community In 1912, for reasons unknown, the B.C. packed hastily, and many of them left valu had been his employer. The years ahead Development Association decided to divest able household items behind, never to be re would be financially difficult, as they would itself of its Waihachin holdings. They found trieved. By August, 1914, all the available be for millions of North Americans. a buyer in the Marquis ofAngelsey. That year men had left to fight the Hun.42 Ironically, It is interesting that Fanny doesn’t seem to the peer made the lengthy voyage to his prop that year, the community enjoyed its biggest have travelled outside of the Cariboo to per erty. He remained in Walhachin for an ex crop ever and the few that were left had the form. Perhaps she had locked herself into the tended period, supervising the building of chore to harvest it, box it, and ship it away remote geography of a sparsely populated his palatial estate, gardens, tennis courts, and to markets in the west. region as surely as she had been dependent a concrete swimming pool. He also worked In 1919, the Marquis’s financial condition upon her parents and the world they created in the orchards. In this respect, he differed became precarious. He had to rid himself of around her in Victoria. Apparently, on at least from the average British resident. His man his Walhachin property With this in mind, one occasion, she was invited to perform at a ner was open and charming, unlike the arro he approached the most likely buyer he could concert in Vancouver, probably at the gant posturing that characterized some ofthe find, the Provincial Government. Premier Orpheum, but she declined.44 Money or lack British residents. He changed the rules ofthe John Oliver listened to the plea and ordered of it has been suggested as the reason. The Walhachin Hotel to allow entry to the pub a study done, but in the end, opted for prop Faucaults were never well-to-do. But it seems lic, providing that they were suitably dressed. erty in the Okanagan to be cultivated by re more logical to assume psychological factors But he was, after all, who he was, and as class turned men. The decision was deeply that limited the parameters of Fanny’s ambi conscious as the worst of them, limiting disappointing to everyone concerned. The tion. The subject has been explored by nu guests to his estate to the aristocrats only.4’ few original settlers who had returned to their merous feminist writers. In some ways, Fanny However, he did make one exception. Fanny. farms at Walhachin after the War had pinned seems a classic example ofthe fettered female The peer’s regard for her went beyond the their hopes on a Government subsidy ofsome psyche craving recognition, fame, yet encum bounds of mere patronage. He seems to have kind. When it didn’t materialize, they left bered by emotional conflicts and dependen been a genuine admirer. He left her at least Walhachin forever. By the early 1920’s, cies that confined her to a limited milieu. two valuable gifts, one aWedgewood jug, said Walhachin was empty of settlers. The rail When one considers Fanny’s formidable ar to have been owned by the Wedgewood fam road workers and the farm laborers inher tistic gifts, which, in childhood, were more ily, and a tall, splendid, brass gas lamp. ited the town. The balcony ofthe Walhachin evident that Emily Carr’s, the contrast is fas Photographs and descriptions of Fanny’s Hotel, which had been the scene of gracious cinating. Cart, through sheer force ofwill and appearance through the years 1909 to 1940, ladies and gentlemen dressed in their finest tenacity, for which she paid the price ofpun reveal the quality of the changeling. Posed attire, became a sunning place for working ishing psychosomatic illness and lifelong with Al, and their two year old son, Law class women and their kiddies, who would paranoia, managed to carve out a career for rence, about 1909, she is slender, modestly not have dared to venture near the place a herself at a time when the barriers of con attired, elegant, serene, and bereft of make year or two earlier.43 But the hotel was soon vention, near poverty, monumental social up. In a postcard photo, probably taken about dismantled, and the families contented them indifference and ignorance would have been 1914, she is dressed for riding, wears a full selves on their own verandas in homes for insurmountable to a less determined soul. But length leather coat, leather gloves, and a merly occupied by the British. Emily had more that a little luck along the cloche hat. Though she is noticeably heavier, Fanny must have watched the closure of way. She had colleagues, friends, who were she is girlish, other worldly, vulnerable. Re shops, the boarding of houses and the dis willing to take her in hand and help her to ports of her appearance and the impressions mantling of the hotel and finally, the Mar hone her talents to achieve her potential. The conveyed as she aged, range from “eccentric”, quis’s estate, with more than a heavy heart. closest facsimile of that kind of support for “different”, to “like a witch”, depending upon The pulsing heart of the community had Fanny were the British residents of whether one was struck by her charismatic been cut away. Without the British, Mayfair Walhachin. But they were immigrants, and qualities, or by the particulars ofher face and evaporated like so much dew on the bunch cloistered immigrants at that. To achieve rec features. She had a prominent nose, a small grass in the hills. It was undoubtedly, for ognition in Canada, an artist needs access to mouth with an over-bite, and a round, firm, Fanny, another great loss. However, it wasn’t academic support. Emily had this in Ira chin. She also had freckles, and heavy lashes Fanny’s nature to sit around and bitterly re Dilworth, but she also had the help of other and eyebrows. Her best features were her eyes, gret. She was a survivor, like her father. Nev artists like Mark Tobey, Jack Shadbolt, and a violet hazel color, and her hair. She was tall ertheless, the vacuum created by the loss of others. Fanny was truly alone. She had to cre and carried herselfwell, and when she walked her patrons must have required an effort of ate her own support, audiences, and one feels into a room she was immediately noticed. will to try to fill, and it is significant that her that it was never quite enough. Her turning When she sat down at the piano and began appearance began to alter from this time to the media near the end of her life to re to play, the total effect was electric. onward. She became very gaunt, birdlike, count her experiences in Walhachin during The Walhachin bubble burst in 1914 when which made her appear taller than she actu its heyday, and her detailed descriptions of war was declared in Europe. The arrogant, ally was. And her clothing took on a Bohe her parents’ life, her communication with strutting Kaiser Wilhelm had probably suf mian touch without concessions to Emily Carr when the artist began to receive fered some discomfort in the company ofhis convention, as though, alone and isolated national recognition, even her dedication of bemused British cousins, and for this, and from the stimulation that is the life’s blood a love song to the infamous Mrs. Rattenbury, other reasons just as petty, the world was to any artist and performer, she was “differ- are all indications of a hunger for a break-

B.C. Historical News - Fall 1995 12 through of the wall of anonymity which en friends. When she died, he inherited her sheet end evening, they had to sit on the floor. In closed her throughout her lifetime. She kn music.47 the front room, window shades drawn and she was gifted. Perhaps she was a genius. She Fanny began composing songs during the lights dimmed, Fanny might play for hours. often implied as much, and repeated many First World War. One from that period is a Her repertoire was as broad as the cross-sec times that she had been a musical prodigy. patriotic number with lyrics by C.H. Jackson tion of her audience. She played There is something unfathomably wistful whose identity is not known. The song is ti Rachmaninoff and Liszt, jazz and ragtime, about it all. tled, That’s Why We’re Answering . It is the popular tunes of the day, Beethoven, In the aftermath of Walhachin, the land dedicated to the soldiers ofCanada and copy Bach, and Brahms. Intermissions brought out around the town was purchased by the righted in England. young Will and young Al (Lawrence), who rancher, Harry Ferguson for $40,000. Lum The most interesting song, probably writ served tea and sandwiches. These two young ber and other building materials from the ten during the 30’s, and possibly about 1935, men adored their mother. They never mar Angelsey estate was purchased by someone is a love song titled, Someday. Itis dedicated, ried. Al served in the R.C.A.M.C. in World in Cache Creek for an auto camp, the pre surprisingly, to Alma Victoria Rattenbury, War II and became a corporal. cursor of the motel.45 (former married name Mrs. Caledon Doll In May, 1946, Al Faucault died at the age Chinese market gardeners took over the ing). The lyrics go, “every living loving thing of 86. His funeral drew a large number of lower mesas between the town and the river. must pass away some day”.. 48 significant sen Cariboo residents, many of them, like him During the 1930’s tomatoes and potatoes timents for Fanny. But the dedication seems self; oldtimers who had helped open up the were grown, most of which was shipped to odd in the lurid light of events around Mrs. Province. Al had always been a popular fig Ashcroft for processing in the town’s cannery; Rattenbury; ure and very much respected. His friends Some ofthe locals found work at harvest time Frank Mawson Rattenbury was a highly probably numbered in the hundreds. He in the Chinese market gardens. In the 30’s, regarded architect. He lived in Victoria for could be very humorous, and treated his in the Government established a work camp in some years, designed the legislative buildings, ability to read and write in English with char Walhachin. The grim, gaunt faces of hun the Crystal Palace theatre, the Court House, acteristic terseness. When he was seen reading dreds of unemployed men milled around the Empress Hotel, and a few Victoria residences. a newspaper upside down, and reminded that town. They were employed on work gangs He was a married man when he arrived in he was doing so, he said, “Any damn fool on the rail line, on sheep and cattle ranches. the province from England, but he fell in love can read a newspaper right side up.”51 A mine opened at Vidette Lake in Deadman’s with a married younger woman named Mrs. A lengthy obituary about his life and times Valley, about 15 or 20 miles from Walhachin. Alma Dolling. The architect divorced his wife appeared in the Kamloops Sentinel in the Some of the men found work at the mine. and married Mrs. Dolling. The couple left May 15, 1946 issue. The funeral took place The Walhachin dream faded into oblivion, Victoria to live in England. Eventually, the at Zion United Church, and he was buried replaced by the grim, grey spectre of poverty; marriage soured, and the second Mrs. in the Ashcroft cemetery; with dozens ofother War in 1939 was a blessed relief for some, Rattenbury had an affair with her 19 year Cariboo pioneers. By 1946, many of the re for at least some of the younger men could old chauffeur-gardener. Mr. Rattenbury was gion’s most outstanding oldtimers had passed join the armed forces and receive a wage. murdered one evening while seated in a chair to their reward. Former Provincial Premier, Through the 20’s and 30’s, and until the in his home. His wife’s lover was convicted Charles Augustus Semlin, who had lived at mid 40’s, Fanny toured relentlessly, from of the crime and sentenced to life imprison his ranch at Cache Creek for many years, died Lillooet to Williams Lake. Sometimes she ment. Mrs. Rattenbury was also charged, but in 1927 after a lengthy illness. Bill Bose, one performed in Kamloops. Naturally, her au she was acquitted. She later died of self in of the founding fathers of Ashcroft, and a diences were uncritical, country folk for the flicted stab wounds. Apparently the former sheep man from the U.S. died in most part. They would have appreciated any Rattenburys had been heavy drinkers.49 1935. Bose was a teamster, like Al. Both thing she played, especially in the days be Someday’s lyrics were written by a Scot Semlin and Bose were probably good friends fore radio and TV But there were other, more tish remittance man named Donald of Al. discriminating listeners, too, and the high Scrimgeour. Scrimgeour lived in a shack by Fanny and Al had been married for over est praise she received came from the Mar the river. He was an alcoholic who used to 40 years. It was an unusual union, the team quis of Angelsey. After hearing her play at write dirty lyrics when he was in his cups. ster and the artist, but it was a marriage that Waihachin, he exclaimed, “I have heard most He probably arrived in Walhachin during the turned out to be successful. The key to the of the world’s great artists in London’s famed 20’s, and seems to have lived there until the success probably lay in Al’s genuine regard Albert Hall, but none that played with such late 30’s or early 40’s. A Canadian soldier on for his wife’s musical gifts. His purchase of a sympathy and understanding as yourself You leave in Scotland during the Second World Bechstein piano for her in 1909, five years have, indeed, tears on your fingers.”46 War, looked Scrirngeour’s brother up in Ed after their marriage, marks the quality of his Touring, rehearsing for performances, and inburgh and found that the Walhachin bard support and encouragement throughout their teaching music, took up most of her time had come from a highly respectable family. lives together. during those years. One of her pupils, a mid Donald Scrimgeour’s brother was a univer In 1947, a year following Al’s death, Fanny dle aged, effeminate bachelor named Tom sity professor.5° fell and broke her hip. The hip didn’t heal Beishaw, learned to play the piano quite com During the 3D’s, Fanny entertained scores properly, and she was more or less confined petently under Fanny’s tutelage. He pur ofvisitors in her home. She adored company, to her home for the rest of her life. For some chased a piano and installed it in his ice cream and she was a wonderful, “gracious” hostess, one as peripatetic and gregarious as Fanny, shop in Ashcroft and gave lessons to children according to newspaper and other reports. who needed “stage centre” as the breath of in the town. Tom and Fanny were good Guests were often so numerous on a week- life, the injury must have come as a disaster.

13 B.C. Historical News - FaIl 1995 ment artist.52 21. ibid. 22. Old Homes and Families, J.K. Nesbitt, The Colonist, Lawrence Victoria, April 24, 1949. Faucauit died in 23. Correspondence, F. Kimpton, November 9, 1985. 24. Correspondence, Dora LaBounty, Emma (Felker) Vancouver only a Bellmond’s daughter. Penticton, April 26, 1985. year after his 25. The Cariboo Mission, A History of the Oblates, Margaret mother’s death. Whitehead, Sono Nis Press, Victoria, 1981. 26. Branwen Patenaude, Quesnel, August 1995. Will, (Aubrey) 27. Correspondence, D. I.aBounty, Penticton, B.C. April 26, Felker died in Van 1985. 28. Ibid. couver in 1975. 29. Ibid. George Richard 30. Alphone Faucault, “Strong, Silent Pioneer of Waihachin Dist.” (1954)? Kamloops Sentinel. Felker, who mar 31. Ibid. ried and had two 32. Bittersweet Oasis, B. Belton, Friesen Printers, 1986. children, died in 33. Victoria Times, December 5, 1908, page 1. 34. Ashcroft Museum Archives. Kimberley, B.C., 35. William Brennan to Kenna Cartwright, Kamloops Museum in 1973. Archives, 36. Walhachin, Catastrophe or Camelot, J. Weir, Hancock House4, 1984. Esther Darlington 37. Ibid. wa,c owner/editor of 38. Correspondence, F. Kimpton, Nov. 9, 1985. 39. Interview, Ellen (Nina) Roberston, Ashcroft, whose father theAsberoftPioneer owned a popular stopping house on Highway 12 between newspaper from Cache Creek and Lillooet. 1988. 1979-82. She is now 40. Correspondence, F. Kimpton, March 20, 1988. retired and lives in 41. Walhachin, Catastrophe or Camelot, J. Weir, Hancock House, 1984. Cache Creek. 42. Ibid. 43. Interview, Bella MacAbee, Walhachin pioneer, 1981. FOOTNOTES 44. Correspondence, F Kimpton, January21, 1986. 1. K. Cotta, Interview, 45. Interview, I. Leith, Ashcroft, 1981. 1981, Mrs. Cotta taught 46. Cariboo Oldtimers Mourn Passing of Talented and Gracious school in Waihachin in the Mrs. Faucault, April 1,1955. Kamloops Daily Sentinel. early 30’s and she was a 47. Correspondence, F. Kimpton, Nov. 9, 1985. guest in Fanny’s house on 48. Ibid. numerous occasions. J. 49. A History ofVictoria, H. Gregson, J.J. Douglas, 1977. Stephenson, A. Webster, Rattenbury, Terry Reksten, 1978. 1985. Mrs. Webster was a 50. Interview, D. Leith, Ashcroft, 1980. pupil of Fanny. 51. Interview, A. Darough, Ashcroft, 1987. 2. 1. leith, D. Leith, 52. Cariboo Oldtimers Mourn Passing of Talented and Gracious Ashcroft, 1981. Isobel Mrs. Faucault, April 1,1955, Kamloops Daily Sentinel. (Tibby) Leith’s dad, Tom Reid, was a worker on the BIBLIOGRAPHY Angelsey estate. A. A History ofVictoria, H. Gregson, J.J. Douglas, 1977. Darough, Ashcroft. Mrs. Emily Carr, Rosemary Neering, Canadian Series, Firzhenry and Darough’s mother came Whiteside, 1975. She continued to take an interest in the from England as a governess to Waihachin and stayed after Emily Carr, A Biography, Maria Tippett, Penguin, 1979. Waihachin community hail, the scene of so the fmily left in 1914. Emily Carr, Paula Blanchard, Douglas & McIntyre, Vancouver! 3. A History ofVictoria, H. Gregson, J.J. Douglas, 1977. Toronto, 1987. many of her past performances before an 4. Old Homes and Families, J.K. Nesbitt, The Daily Colonist, British Columbia Chronicle, 1862, pages 256 and 257. audience of British aristocrats who had be Victoria, April 24, 1949. Vancouver Exploring Expedition, 1864, Provincial Archives Kamloops Daily Sentinel, 1954? issue re Alphone Faucault (first admiring patrons, and 5. Ibid. come her grateful and 6. A History ofVictoria, H. Gregson, J.J. Douglas, 1977. name typographical error). Writer, Harry Taylor. she had numerous visitors to her home. She 7. Old Homes and Families, J.K. Nesbitt, The Daily Colonist, Victoria Colonist, J.K. Nesbitt, April 24, 1949. reporters between Victoria, April 24, 1949. AshcroftJournal,Marcls 24, 1955. was interviewed by several 8. Ibid. The Pioneer newspaper, 1981 editions. 1946-49. These interviews had provided in 9. Emily Carr (Milly) born 1871, Victoria, died, March 2, 1945. Correspondence, F. Kimpton and the author, 1983-86. valuable information about Fanny’s early life 10. Diary of Mary leech, 1892, Correspondence, F Kimpton, Correspondence, D. LaBounty with the author, 1985. Windermere, B.C., November 9, 1985. Bittersweet Oasis, B. Belton, Friesen Printers, Altona, Man, and the life and times of her illustrious par ii. The Life of Emily Carr, Paula Blanchard, Douglas & 1985. ents. But on the whole, the last years, so iso Mcintyre, Vancouver/Toronto, 1987. The Cariboo Road, Mark S. Wade, The Haunted Bookshop, 12. Ibid. Victoria, 1979. lated from even the mainstream ofrural social 13. Correspondence, F Kimpton, November 9, 1985. Walhachin, Catastrophe or Camelot, J. Weir, Hancock House, life, must have been lonely for Fanny in the 14. Caribou Oldsimers Mourn Passing of Talented and Gracious 1984. did have the company Mrs. Faucault, Kamloops Sentinel, April 1, 1955. extreme, though she 15. Diarg Mary Leech, March 18, 1892. An H. Strauss, ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS of her two sons, Al and Will, for a time. Clarendon Hotel, is listed in the B.C. Directory of 1899. I am particularly indebted to Mrs. Frances Kimpton of In March, 1955, after a short illness, Fanny 16. Cariboo Oldtimers Mourn Passing of Talented and Gracious Windermere, B.C. for her invaluable information about her Mrs. Faucault, Kamloops Sentinel, April 1, 1955. grandmother, Fanny Faucault. The pertinent facts around the died in the Lady Minto Hospital in Ashcroft. 17. Emily Carr; A Biography, Maria Tippett, Penguin Books, death of Will Felker were supplied by Mrs. Dora LaBounry, She was 80. She was buried beside Al in the 1979. Emma LaBounty’s daughter, and they were particularly 18. Old Homes and Families, J.K. Nesbitt, The Daily Colonist, appreciated. I also owe much of the personal description of Ashcroft cemetery. Victoria, April 24, 1949. Fanny and her personality to Mrs. Isobel (Tibby) Leith of The Ashcroft Journal accorded her brief 19. Pallbearers at Mary Leeds’s funeral were Messrs. J.J. Austin, Ashcroft and Waihachin, (deceased) and Mrs. Ada Darough, Miss Sybil Parke, Mrs. Judy Stephenson, and many other local its March edition, but Manager of the Victoria Theatre (Opera House), D.R. mention in 31, 1955 Harris, a C.RR. surveyor who married Martha, youngest residents who remembered Fanny vividly. The colorful the Kamloops Sentinel printed a lengthy daughter of Sir. James Douglas, Jas. Burnes, Chas. P Kent, reminiscences of Mrs. Kathleen Corra of Vancouver were also obituary, acknowledging her outstanding Col. R. Wolfenden, Queen’s Printer, E. White. invaluable. 20. Caribou Oldtimers Mourn Passing of Talented and Gracious contribution to the Cariboo as an entertain- Mrs. Faucault, Kasnloops Daily Sentinel April 1, 1955.

B.C. Historical News - Fall 1995 14 The Pioneer Bride ofChemainus by Else M. Kennedy

Until recently, not too much was known period oftime in history; For this essay, three wives and household help for the settlers on about the pioneer woman and her day-to-day of these women, and the interesting occupa Vancouver Island. life on Vancouver Island. Quite a bit of his tions from which they earned an income, are The Colonist reporter had obviously not tory has been written about the Cowichan briefly profiled. These women had one thing seen Isabel, when he classified the women as and Chemainus Valleys, but most books and in common, concern for the survival ofthem “well built pretty looking young women”8 records have chronicled the exploits of men, selves and their children. Emphasizing yet Isabel Julia Curtis was a beauty. Even at 13, completely ignoring the contributions made again, that women are capable ofany type of she was so lovely, that she was advised to wear by women. Even the official log ofH.M. Ship work, especially if the well-being of their a veil to ensure her safety in the rough and Hecate, which brought the first organized families is at stake. ready, gold-mad town. Victoria was, at that band of settlers to the natural harbour at Another interesting point revealed that time, the “jumping-off point” for the gold Cowichan Bay (1862), does not mention there was very little criticism concerning the fields of the Fraser Valley and the Yukon. It women in the group. Wives were not men action taken by these women, which is unu was filled to overflowing with impatient men, tioned either in a census of the settlers sent sual considering the hide-bound ideas of living in tents and shacks, waiting for trans to Mr. Pearce of the Department of Lands women’s role in society, at that time. In fact, port to the lands of instant wealth. Sleepy and Forests, Victoria in 1865. The census fig as long as the work they undertook was not Fort Victoria had become an instant city over ures for Mr. LG. Skinner, a settler in the immoral, they were admired for their re night, but without police, fire protection or Cowichan Valley, names his sons, but his wife sourcefulness. This phenomenon ofallowing any other amenities.9 isn’t mentioned, and his daughters are cata women to trespass into areas usually control Mrs. Curtis had intended to return to Brit logued along with the livestock. (e.g. 5 oxen, led by men, was due to the “frontier mental ain with Isabel when her duties on the 30 pigs, 4 cows, 6 horses, 4 daughters.)’ These ity” which expected everyone, including Tynemouth were fInished, as she had left her omissions have now been rectified by the children, to pull their own weight in these two older boys in England. However, this was “Pioneer Researchers” of the Cowichan Val new communities. The frontier, with its day- not to be. Mrs. Curtis had a dream that the ley Historical Society;2 These dedicated peo to-day problems of survival, had no safety returning ship and its passengers would be pie have painstakingly combed through long net such as welfare or child-care. People were lost at sea, and she took her dreams very seri forgotten letters, diaries and pictures, to give responsible for themselves. It was “sink or ously. (In this case, she was correct to heed us an accurate picture of women’s life in the swim” and the three women, whose stories her vision, as the homeward bound ship sank,

early settlement days. Women not only helped follow - swam! with the loss of all passengers and crew.) Mrs. tame the frontier, they made it bearable. Note: the other two biographies, ofMary Curtis decided to stay in Victoria with her Delving into the histories of the pioneer Skinner and Louisa Green, appeared in the Fall daughter Isabel, and subsequently married women, one is struck by the fact that story 1988 (Vol. 21:4) issue ofthis magazine. Jules Boucherat.’° She never saw her sons after story tells of the pioneer’s “need for IsabelJulia Askew (nec Curtis) 1849-1905 again. money”. Most of the people who came to “They were mostly cleanly (sic), well built, When Isabel was 18, her mother insisted

these valleys, as pioneers, were not wealthy. pretty looking young women - ages varying that Isabel marry Thomas George Askew,” a They had come to make new lives for them from fourteen to an uncertain figure; a few solid, well-respected man who had founded selves, armed with more hope than money. are young widows who have seen better days. a saw-mill in the Chemainus Valley.’2 Askew As E. Blanche Norcross says in her book, Most appear to have been well raised and had been completely captivated by her “The Warm Land”: “The Cowichan settler generally they seem a superior lot to the beauty, but Isabel did not love this man. Her rooted hard for a bare living in this period,...” women met with on immigrant vessels. Taken affections had been given to an officer of the The schemes the women used to make altogether, we are highly pleased with the Royal Navy; However, Isabel had no choice ends meet are intriguing. There were the appearance of the “invoice” and believe that in the matter, as her mother felt that Askew methods always used by rural women to they will give a good account of themselves would be an asset to the family, as he was make extra money. They sold surplus eggs, in whatever station of life they may be called already well established. She further coerced butter, vegetables and preserves. Running tea to fill.”3 Isabel by reminding her of her promise to rooms, boarding houses and doing laundry The above statement was written by a her dying father. A promise to “always obey were also popular means of stretching in Colonist reporter, one of the first people to her mother.”3 come. When times were tough manywomen, board the bride-ship, Tynemouth which ar The word “ambitious” described Askew to who had training, fell back on the traditional rived in Victoria on Isabel’s thirteenth birth a tee. He dreamt of building a town, around occupations such as midwifery; nursing, mil day, September 18, 1 862. Isabel’s mother, his lumber empire, and worked constantly linery; dressmaking and teaching. However, Francis Curtis, widow, was one of the “re to this end.’4 He had many projects. He there were quite a few women who supported spectable matrons”5 who accompanied the operated a saw-mill, prospected for precious themselves and their families in jobs that were “invoice of English girls”6 sent out by the metals, was involved with boat and bridge considered to be very non-traditional, for this Female Middle-Class Emigrant Society7 as building, and was the post-master for the

15 B.C. Historical News - FaIl 1995 area. The letters from Askew’s mentor the leaving a large family dependant on his FOOTNOTES I. Department of Lands and Forests, B.C. - Letters to Chief Rev. Charles Seale, during this period warn Widow, the Municipal Council of North Surveyor, H. Pearse Esq., listing the number of settlers in the Thomas about “spreading himself too Cowichan do remit the Municipal taxes on Cowichan Valley, their land, family and livestock. July thinly”.’5 Taking care 1865., Colonial Letters, Provincial Archives, Victoria, B.C. of his interests took the Property of the said late T.G. Askew for 2. The Pioneer Researchers Group are dedicated people who

Askew away from home for days on end. the year 1880.”20 compiled Memories Never Lost - Stories of the Pioneer Leaving Isabel, his bride whom he claimed Isabel, knowing that she would have to Women of the Cowichan Valley and a brief history of the Valley 1850-1920. The editor, Jan Gould, is noted as a to adore, to cope as best she could, alone in support her family, started operating the mill. journalist and is the author of The Boat-house Question their small house. Isabel hated the wilder Her courage was applauded by the members and Women of British Columbia. Mrs. Gould won the Rosalind Hulet Petch Memorial Prize for creative writing at ness. Her life in Victoria had not prepared of the small community and her children, the University of Victoria. her for life in “The Indian Countries”.’6 She who helped her in every way they could. The 3. The Colonist Newspaper, Victoria B.C. September 19, found the silence 1862, page 3. (Microfilm) Article entitled “Wives For Our and the loneliness unbear stumbling block was Jules Boucherat, (or Bachelors”. Provincial Archives, Victoria, B.C. able. There were still quite a few Indians in “Bush Rat” as the Askew children called him), 4. Passenger List, The Colonist Newspaper, Victoria, B.C. the area, and they made her uneasy as they who made things intolerable for her. September 19, 1862,, page 3. (Microfilm) Provincial Archives, Victoria, B.C. would creep up silently and stare at her Boucherat knew nothing about running a 5. The Colonist Newspaper, Victoria, B.C., June 4, 1862, through the cabin windows, for hours on end, saw-mill, but insisted on making all of the page 3. (Microfilm) Artide entitled “Wives for our Bachelors.” Provincial Archives, Victoria, B.C. fascinated by her pale skin and golden blond decisions. He would not listen to advice from The “British Female Emigrant Society” taking pity on the hair. Life was certainly not the happy domes a “mere woman”. He was too cowardly to forlorn conditions of our bachelor residents, are about sending them an invoice of English girls on the screw ship tic scene that Rev. Seale envisioned in his let face Isabel with his criticisms directly, but Tynemouth, which at last account was on berth at London ters to the Askews.’7 Things did not improve made his wishes known through his wife. for Victoria, VI. The ship will be provided with respectable after she returned from Victoria, where she Isabel’s mother (Mrs. Boucherat) did not miss matrons, who will instruct the girls while on voyage in needlework, reading, writing etc., - and, we hope, (to those gave birth to her first son. Thomas became an opportunity to point out her daughter’s who never learned the art ashore), cooking, ironing, even more determined to build his “empire”, misdeeds towards her family.2’ The situation washing, taking care of babies, and other usefirl household duties, thorough knowledge of which will be found and now left Isabel alone for days on end. became unendurable and, as money was in indispensable before they can pass muster as wives here. The She was so desperate to hear the sound of a short supply, she tried to rent the wharf at expectation of the Society sending them out is that they will find husbands immediately on their arrival in this port. human voice, she used to wake the baby, just Horse Shoe Bay to the Municipality; but the Maybe they won’t, but we sincerely hope that if in everyway to hear him cry. proposal was not accepted.22 Isabel then de deserving of good husbands they will not have to remain In the year 1870, life improved for Isabel, cided to turn part of her home into a tav single an hour after setting foot ashore. There are any number of young and old bachelors in the two Colonies when her husband started selling lumber to ern.23 This, an old friend suggested, would whose forlorn appearance seems like a standing the Esquimalt navy yard. Ships picking up not be ladylike, and she would lose the re advertisement in a daily newspaper of”a wife wanted”. Such persons, if they don’t embrace the opportunity that will be lumber anchored in Chemainus Bay. The spect ofthe community, should she dispense held out to them when the Tynemouth gets in should be enlarged Askew home became a gathering spirits. The better choice would be to open a taxed heavily for the luxury of leading a life of single store and post-office. Isabel blessedness. The fortunate consignee of the precious freight point for the officers of the Royal Navy; More small took the is not stated; but it is presumed that Bellin Franklin women arrived as the settlement grew, and advice, opened the store, and took on the Esq.M.P.R the well known advocate of female immigration although they were busy, Isabel could now job as postmistress for the community. Dur (himself a bachelor) will be selected to do the agreeable towards the ladies for at least the first few days after their find the companionship she desperately ing this time, she became concerned that arrival. When the Tynemouth is reported as coming around needed. Isabel enjoyed the outside contacts there was no school for her children in the Race Rocks, what a rush there will be for good clothes.” 6. Ibid. and claimed that these were some of the best area, and was instrumental in persuading the 7. There were two emigration societies. One was the Female years of her life. government to build a small school for the Middle Class Emigration Society formed in May 1862. This The good times did not last too long. growing community.24 group felt that educated women would benefit the colony as teachers, midwives, etc. - James A. Hammerton Emigrant Askew was having problems with his neigh However, Isabel’s mother demanded that Gentlewoman (London, Croom Helm Ltd. 1979.) The bours over land and water rights. His schemes she continue to look after Boucherat’s inter second society, The Columbian Emigration Society, was concerned mainly with destitute girls. On the Tynemouth, for selling lumber to South Africa collapsed, ests. To keep peace in the family she contin 20 women were members of the Female Middle Class and his creditors clamoured for payment. In ued to run the mill, until Boucherat sold it Emigration Society, and 40 women were sponsored by the 1885.25 Columbian Emigration Society. - Jackie Lay “The order to get cash, Askew sold his mill to Jules in Isabel never received a penny from Tynemouth” - In Her Own Right - Selected Essays on Boucherat (his father-in-law) in a compli Jules Boucherat, but she was able to sell her Women’6 History in B.C. Edited by Barbara Latham and Cathy Kess. (Camosun College Victoria B.C. 1980) The cated lease-back deal.’8 This was both fortu tavern licence to Messers Croft and Severn, “Colonist” in the abovementioned article ofJune 4, 1862, nate and unfortunate for Isabel. The deal the new mill owners, for their new hotel, lumped the two societies together as the “British Female would leave her a share in the saw-mill, but “The Horse Shoe.”26 This, along with the Emigrant Society”. The Colonist Newspaper, Victoria B.C. June 4, 1862, page 3. (Microfilm) Provincial Archives, it would be controlled by Boucherat. Askew money she saved was enough to purchase a Victoria, B.C. continued to have bad luck with his invest house on Pemberton Street, Victoria, where 8. The Colonist Newspaper, Victoria B.C. September 19, 1862. (Microfilm) Provincial Archives, Victoria, B.C. ments and used up all his capital launching she and her children would live frugally but 9.- A Century of Adventure - History of the Daily new schemes and paying off the failures. He happy until her death in 1905. Colonist The Colonist Press. - Patenaude, Branwen - “Gateway To Gold” in Horizons died in 1880,’ leaving Isabel and eight chil Canad.a Magazine - No. 44. dren penniless and badgered by creditors. Her 10. - Forbes Elizabeth. - “Beautiful Isabel’ in ‘Wild Roses At plight was so desperate that on December Mrs. Kennedy of Chemainus prepared this in Their Feet. 1988for a history course offered by Atbabasca -The Colonist Newspaper, Victoria B.C. March 17, 1888- 18, 1880, the North Cowichan Council Obituary of Francis (Curtis) Boucherat. Provincial Archives, University. She continues to do research with Minutes reveal that: Victoria, B.C. special emphasis on Womenc History. 11. MacMillan-Bloedel Corporate History - Provincial “RESOLVED: That in consideration of Archives, Victoria B.C. the death of Mr. TG. Askew of Chemainus “A small water-powered mill built in Chemainus by Thomas

B.C. Historical News - Fall 1995 16 Askew, the first of four sawmills to occupy the same site that agreement, and not registered. The information about the wished to leave here next year, but the expenses of Chemainus have been producing lumber continuously fur more than a lease is from secondary sources. mill force us to work here agin (sic). The great part of OUR century.” Olsen, WH. - “The End ofan Eid’ in Water Over The Wheel PROFIT goes to YOUR SIDE. (Writer’s emphasis).

- 12. - Olsen WH. - “The Dream of Thomas Askew” in Water Forbes, Elizbetlt “Beautiftil Isabel” in Wild Roses Ax Their Feet Try to find a man to get logs and fix the best bargain poss

Over The Wheel 19. - The Hulbert Family Letters and Letter Books, Vol. I. ible. IT IS FOR BOUCHERAT YOU CHARGE. Wedding Announcement, cut from a newspaper (probably Letters to T.G. Askew Family from the Rev. C.E. Stale. Letter REMEMBER THAT. You do not wish the creditors to come the Colonist) and included with letters from the Rev. Charles of sympathy dated November 16, l880.(?) Provincial down after all our money is laid out. Tell all you have not E. Scale, Thomas Askew’s mentor. The letters from the Rev. Archives, Victoria, B.C. anything to do with it, only manage it for a rime. You want a

Scale to Thomas and Isabel are a treasure trove of information - Municipality of North Cowichan Minute Books, Vol 11. good man who could manage, if you take up land for logs. It about the Askews’ life in Chemainus. In the letter, dated December 18, 1880. must be under Mr. Boucherat’s name. Bear all this in mind January 19, 1869 congratulating Thomas on his marriage, the 20. Municipality of North Cowichan Minute Books, Vol II. OR YOU WILL GET INTO TROUBLE. Reverend writes:- “...I suspect you are only at the beginning December 18, 1880. Wishing you all a Happy New Year. of great happiness: for I feel sure from what you say, your wife 21. The collection of Askew/Boucherat letters which Mr. Your devoted loving Mamtnah. (sic) is a gQt2d woman.” Olsen was fortunate to see, are no longer available since his 22. Municipality of North Cowichan Minute Books, July 9, Hulbert Family Letters and Letter Books, Vol I, Letters to death. However, the letters appear in his book, Water Over 1881. T.G. Askew. Provincial Archives, Victoria B.C. the Wheel. The following letter is a good example of the type “The council then went into Committee on Mrs. Askew’s (Note: Wedding announcement and one of Rev. Stale’s letters of letter Mrs. (Curtis) Boucherat sent to Isabel. I felt it should proposal to rns her Wharf at Chemainus. appears in the illustrations.) be included as it gives an insight into the characters of both RESOLVED Mrs. Askew’s proposition be not entertained...”

13. Forbes, Elizabeth. - “Beautiful Isabel” in Wild Roses At the Boucherats and the type of stress to which Isabel was “August 6, 1881... a suggestion was made to ask whether the Their Feet subjected. Mrs. Askew’s) Wharf could be lxssjglx.”

14. - Hulbert Family Letters and Letter Books, Vol 1, Letters “January 1882 There is no further mention of the Wharf until August of to T.G. Askew family from Rev. CE. Scale. Provincial My husband will go down early in the Spring to change the 1883, when the minutes refer to the Wharf as being under the Archives, Victoria, B.C. saw. The new expenses will change the direction of the mill. jurisdiction of the Town Council.

- Municipality of North Cowichan Minute Books. Vols I and Chemainus cost him to dare over 12000 dollars and not given 23. Municipality of North Cowichan Minute Books Vol. 11 II, 1843-1890. us one cent for rent. My dear husband did not tell you June 15, 1883. 15. Ibid. anything for the management of Chemanius Mill and let you “Licensing Court... An application was made by Mrs. Askew

16. de Bertrand Lugrin, N. - The Pioneer Women of employ logs you had on hand for your expenses and paid for a liquor license and also presented a Petition signed by the

Vancouver Island - Women’s Canadian Club, Victoria, B.C. some debts of your husband. majority of the settlers at Chemainus. 17. Hulbert Family Letters and Letter Books, Vol I, Letters to But new expenses to put the mill in order and money The Magistrates taking into consideration there being no T.G. Askew family from Rev. C.E. Scale. January 19, 1869 (?) required for logs will force him to take a new disposition, and house of entertainment between Nanaimo and Maple Bay

(Note: - dates on some of the letters are missing or illegible) he will not let the creditors of your husband, who have no and pending the absence of the Reeve thought it advisable to

Provincial Archives, Victoria, B.C. right, put their hands against the logs purchased by you and grant the application from 1st July. Signed - Milton Edgson “How altered too will be the house at Horse Shoe Bay. I can payed (sic) for by him. C.M.C.”

conceive the pleasant meals and happy evenings...” After the change at the Mill and new purchase of logs, all will 24. Olsen W.H. - “The End ofAn Era” in Water Over The 18. Unfortunately a copy of the lease between T.G. Askew have to go under his caine (sic). They are my husband’s and Wheel. and Jules Boucherat is not available, as this was a private you have no tight to give anything to your creditors. We

Exploring History with Modern Tool

byJohn Roberts

William Pinchbeck worked a farm for many In Cariboo District lot #71 there is a large William Pinchbeck “Lord ofWilliams Lake” years and he became a councillor of the Pinchbeck estate in the 1 890s. It is now sub was introduced to our readers in the Spring Shepparton area. He retired from council at divided into lots and streets within our city. 1 994B.C Historical News (VoL2Z’2). Recentty age 57. This information plus other details was the author, John Roberts obtained through the William and Caroline had five children, obtained through the modern miracle of the “miracle” ofInternet, a history ofthe Michael one son being named William. They retired Internet - a tool for genealogical research. Pinchbeckfamily ofGeelong in Victoria State, to Geelong in the 1920s on approximately A Pinchbeck relative, now living in Can Australia. Thefollowing is reprinted with per £50,000, which was considered wealth in berra, Australia, sent a computer note to a mission from the Williams Lake Advocate: those days. They both had very sober habits Pinchbeck in Edmonton, advising this long During a great part of the )800s, it was and lived to a great age. distant relative that another Pinchbeck rela common practice in England, in Yorkshire Geelong lies 60 miles west of Melbourne. tive living in Germany had compiled the and in Scotland for the landowners to force It now boasts the largest indoor covered wool details. their tenants off the land in order to provide auction in the world. I was pleased to receive a copy of all this greater pasture for the very lucrative raising The huge bales ofwool each have a corner correspondence for a number of reasons. It of sheep for the production of wool. left open so the purchasers can classify the ties in with our own Cariboo William Pinch Many migrated to the colonies and to quality within a matter of seconds. beck. North America. A Michael Pinchbeck left for The Pinchbeck family were at one time the I also know all the areas well - Geelong, Australia and was married at Geelong in the largest landowners in the Bunbartha district, Shepparton and Canberra, having lived in state of Victoria in 1854. having almost 2,000 acres. Survey maps show each area in 1941, 1942 and 1947. Of his eight children, one was named lot sizes of 640, 320, 160 and 80 acres with My long distance relative left Scotland in William born in 1862 in Geelong. All the Pinchbecks of several different given names. 1823 as a Presbyterian minister and after eight children were christened at the Church Much of the land at a later date came conducting numerous religious services in of England in Bellerine, Victoria, a village within the scope of migration and was sold sheep sheds, eventually built the first church near Geelong. for sub division under closer settlement. in the state of Victoria, in Geelong. William Pinchbeck married a Caroline A survey from the parish map of Among the congregation was Sir John Jeffrey who was also born in Geelong. Mundoona in 1882 shows Pinchbeck’.s estate. Franklin, then the governor ofTasmania.

17 B.C. Historical News - Fall 1995

B.C.

News Historical Fall 1995 18 -

Royal the Engineers had transformed been hoped their would relations always remain lacrosse ver team.

1890 By the streets by planned carefully now two joined bands by steel of he and en the being that name Vancou the to ascribed

into and the Cariboo. Cities Twin been had they aptly as were called welcoming “Crab taunt crab eaters, eaters”,

pouring the into province Fraser the up River case. was She steady showing progress. Vancouver The uncharitably were met the with

grew response in to the ofgold influx miners was minster Queen’s at going was Such back. not Sometimes Park. visitors the from the

nings among h stumps, the city the quickly so saying not 20,000 did he 890s New that infer West the in people at 1 field open the

River felled its from and, small initial begin a created been into district judicial 15,000 which be might whereby attended by or

trees huge nthe on of side north the Fraser was especially pleased that Day, had Vancouver agricultural and festivals games, lacrosse

The site present had of city the seen the Judge Bole reported was large saying: as to crowds New “...he Westminster for May

British Columbia. on November 1892. 17, McQuarrie. interurban The brought trams

of newly the proclaimed colony Crown of Honourable Justice Mr. McCreight 1890 presided players pioneer in W. one included

to select, plan a create and the for site capital the at Vancouver Assizes he which Salmonbellies, and the 1889 was and organized in

out sent been 1858 Colonel with in Moody by noted Bole Judge first the on of sitting Westminster’s team, famous lacrosse the

still to home of some sappers the had that direct Park to Queen’s The Park. was link rail thusiastically pursued 1890s. New the in

1894 In of City the was Westminster New running rmVancouver from through Central rugby, nis, en all soccer shooting and were

h City The By the 1891 October interurban was tram with As other ten British colonies, cricket,

890s. connections link that 1 us the to subsidy. to “Royal the City”.

bar and time, that of the some and family of to railway without built be a route government stage through Moody Port or daily the

those times, city, the of the of some of as bench history nadian being the only ring his Canadian C.PR. ability running the to rail

to want I o you for pen picture a 22 of small miles to being railway of distinctive Ca in New prefer Westminster without shoes,

past 0 years. 100 line from Westminster to & South was Blame, the DuMoulin run to known miles 14 the

focused on some h highlights the of these of Southern Westminster & Railway opened the In a days, Russell of pre-tram founder the

to 3:00 p.m. p.m. 6:00 program The dinner was from Port Moody completed. New The practice, their as 1888. in did Russell Joe Mr.

Courthouse library house open an had 1887 from was established. well In rail the Canada spur were up to the by arriving start day

with nary special a well, As the dinner. the hub a position ster’s of as Valley Fraser which young eastern in educated lawyers

Bar minster Association cente that cultural marked New already settlements; a Westmin but was burgeoning simply in one hamlet,

On the 1994 West 12th ofApril New the city the employment between and agri the settled more Vancouver communities while

Henderson.” steamers finding four minster river of lines constant the as doubtless regarded themselves

Morrison, L.P McColl J.W. a A. and as scribed Eckstein, population having 890s 8,000, of with 1 early the In West New Victoria and

committee, 1891 Aulay In E.A. Messrs, Westminster New Jenns, tal de was city terminus. railway

tary-treasurer, E.M .N. Woods, executive ciesin scribers coastal Westminster New the as exchange. transport the as well transcontinen

hon. vice-president, and secre ‘W. there 1892 Gray; Meyers 128 sub telephone in Burrard on were Inlet for port primary the into

Q.C.; elected: been New McColl, service President, in began A.J. Westminster 1882, in development rapid of community small that

officers enrolled 1891. the The member. ofJanuary following 2, on have Telephone evening reaching way and 1887 the Vancouver in

the in fraternity iyhas city Street regularly a first the illuminate Columbia become by created for time rail reality transcontinental the

tion seen the of two for Westminster New Every years. judge’s The had member electric economic light words the reflected

step fession. Law has This Begbie on Courts under been Square. considera Meakins.

constantly road the the are to the from additions pro arising a invited across interest of the by present lunch at Vancouver to Bar

with deal to 1898 the still and which questions with stands ter numerous adjourned various the and were fire, of members bench the

1891, city. this object The completed was in association rebuilt in fice is taken af that the of court the grand the and jury dismissed,

legal design to practising members a magnificent the commissioned the of edi profession was photograph After the of courtroom

G.W 880s 1 late of formed was on Grant and the Tuesday, uncharitableness.” was the in then meeting a at

1873 put Association “The in rebuilt was 1860. Westminster New jealousy, courthouse The Bar all and down envy

square, Bar of’ buildings wooden from hoped small, the Association two be would between that Formed the cities

had buildings merce. and which grown government The he and to cities the of “Local heading belonged he Provincial”.

built was so of captains by houses a been had he com knew much the under following the ried nVancouver in announcement hardly he

largely 1894 15, every removed the on car dated edition Province... ingthewelfare fine and been had hill evening of part of March the

the forward at friendly sealed Thursday The to both that and roads, from Columbian Daily aim would stumps strips muddy its in

Crawford Robert by

1994 1894 -

Westminster Association Bar New The The Bench sum of $1,000.00 be appropriated for the MacAuley Morrison. Auley Morrison was In November 1858 Judge Matthew Baillie purchase of Law Books to be placed in the born in Nova Scotia and came to British Begbie had arrived and been sworn in at Fort New Court House.” Columbia in 1890. He settled in New West Langley. He lived in New Westminster until Mr. Watts notes that this was the com minster and won elective office in several civic 1870. Thereafter he regularly visited New mencement ofthe branch library system, and organizations. In 1896 he was elected to the Westminster, although residing in Victoria. necessitated an amendment to the Legal Pro House of Commons on the government side By 1894 Begbie, C.J. presided over a Su fessions Act in 1891. Vancouver and in Laurier’s first administration, and re preme Court bench comprised of himself, Nanaimo were soon to follow. elected in 1900. He became King’s Counsel H.RP. Crease, McCreight, Walkem and By 1894 the British Columbia bar was al in 1902 and a year later was appointed to Drake, J.J. most 100 in membership, ofwhich approxi the Supreme Court. He moved to Vancou Crease (who was attorney general for the mately 20 would have resided in the city of ver shortly after his appointment to the Su colony) had lived in New Westminster from New Westminster. preme Court bench, the burgeoning hamlet 1861 to 1868 and in 1894 McCreight was The Lawyers having by then grown to 35,000 population. the sitting Supreme Court judge in New The first president of the New Westmin In 1929 he became the ChiefJustice of Brit Westminster. ster Bar Association, A.J. McColl, Q.C. had ish Columbia and he died while still in of Norman Bole was one of the first resident been called to the Bar of Ontario in 1875 at fice in February 1942. He had been lawyers in New Westminster. He was called some 21 years of age. In 1878 he went to considered a brilliant scholar at Daihousie, to the bar in 1877, appointed Queen’s Coun Winnipeg where soon after he practised for from which he graduated in 1888 and re sel in 1887, sat as the first police magistrate four years and in 1882 came to British Co ceived an honorary L.L.D. in 1929. He was 1884-1889, and ascended to the County lumbia where he formed a partnership with active with the Canadian Bar Association, Court Bench in 1889 where he sat until Gordon E. Corbould in New Westminster. being vice-president for British Columbia 1907. He left for Rossland in 1896 but that same 1896-97 and 1925-29. A fine footballer in The Bar Association year was appointed a justice of the Supreme his time, he regularly attended at Brockton In 1883 a list of 25 practising lawyers in Court of British Columbia, and on the 23rd Point to watch the games. the province included four located in New of August 1898 he succeeded the Honour- Another firm in New Westminster in 1894 Westminster. By 1890 the New Westminster able Theodore Davie as ChiefJustice of Brit comprised Messrs. Howay and Reid, both of lawyers’ list had grown to 12. ish Columbia. He continued to reside in New whom were to become famous historians of Alfred Watts in his History ofthe LegalPro Westminster, and died suddenly in 1902 this province, each contributing volumes of Jèssion in British Columbia 1968-1984 at page while in Victoria. written material to the archives of British 153 noted “... the earliest record of a Bar Gordon Corbould was born in Toronto in Columbia. They had been law school friends Association other than the Law Society it 1847 and admitted to practice in Ontario in at Dalhousie in the late 1880s, seW.. is found in a letter of February 5, 1890, 1872. He practised there until May 1880 Howay, on completing his studies, re to L.R Eckstein, Esq., a lawyer ofNew West when he came to British Columbia and turned to New Westminster where he ini minster from the Secretary: opened his office in New Westminster and tially practised with WJ. Whiteside. “Your letter of the first instance contain in 1884 he and Angus John McColl entered Mr. Reid had gone to Michigan to com ing a copy of Resolution in re the establish into a partnership. Mr. Corbould served as a plete an L.L.D. in 1890 and then was called ment of a Law Library in the mainland (New bencher 1886-89, 1894-96, and 1899-1920, to the state bars of Michigan and Washing Westminster) came to hand this morning.” being treasurer for the period 1912 to 1920. ton. It would appear that his friend was suc Mr. Watts assumed that the resolution The other New Westminster bencher at that cessful in entreating him to join him in emanating from the members in New West time was Eustace A. Jenns, another partner practice, which partnership began in 1893 minster reflected their association as an al of Mr. Corbould’s and a bencher 1891-98. and did not end until 1907, when Howay ready effective collegial group, but one also Many other New Westminster lawyers were succeeded Norman Bole as the county court intent on furbishing the proposed court to article at Mr. Corbould’s firm. In 1894, a judge. Howay in turn was to hold that seat house. future premier of British Columbia, Sir on the bench for 30 years until 1937. The Law Society in fact only had one li Richard McBride, was an associate of Mr. Dr. Reid left New Westminster in 1907 brary, in Victoria, at that time and Mr. Corbould. Mr. Corbould was noted to be a and took up his practice in Vancouver. He Eckstein’s letter did not receive a favourable calm, dignified, self-controlled barrister. He was a bencher ofthe Law Society 1927-1942 welcome. At the Benchers meeting it was also represented New Westminster in the and retired from active practice at that time. moved by Mr. Richards “That it being desir House of Commons in 1890, being re He was granted an honorary degree of Doe- able that there should be one perfect Library elected in 1891. tot of Laws by UBC in May 1936. in the Province until the same is complete Today, Brian Corbould, Q.C. of Mime William James Whiteside was associated the benchers do not think it right to con Selkirk, a bencher 1979-84, carries on his with Corbould McColl in 1894. He came tribute funds towards forming another Li grandfather’s proud mantle in the city. His from Ontario to New Westminster in 1886 brary” energetic contribution to legal bodies is and was called to the bar in 1890. He prac However, an amendment was proposed by matched only by his contribution civically. tised as a sole practitioner for a year, was in Mr. Yates, seconded by Mr. Fowl and carried Another chiefjustice was to come from the partnership with F.W. Howay for two years, namely: “That in view of the erection of the first executive committee of the New West and then spent the next two years with Mr. New Court House in New Westminster the minster Bar Association, namely Auley Corbould. The following year he practised

19 B.C. Historical News - Fall 1995 with Richard McBride. In 896 he moved McQuarrie Hunter where his elder son Owen work of the Honourable Stuart McMorran. to Rossland but in 902 returned to New practises, while his younger son “Sandy” was I trust I have given you a glimpse of the Westminster and helped to organize the firm president of the New Westminster Bar Asso strong roots the New Westminster Bar Asso of Morrison Whiteside & McQuarrie. In ciation in 1990. ciation has, both familial and otherwise, in 1905 Mr. Whiteside took as his partner H.L. George Livingstone Cassady was a part the city of New Westminster. Edmonds who was to become the long-time ner ofWG. McQuarrie from 1912 to 1925. As a group the Association has been able police magistrate. Mr. Whiteside was ap Both literally and figuratively a towering fig to present its views to the Law Society and pointed King’s Counsel, served as a bencher ure in the city of New Westminster, with a the Canadian Bar Association, and, when from 1920-21 and 1923-38. Only when legal career stretching from 1904 (as an of necessary; directly to the courts, court admin stricken with illness did he retire in 1938. fice boy in short pants) to his death in 1970, istration and the attorney general. That such The partnership was later to include T.R. heservedasabencher 1933-1947 and 1953- representations are fairly received and dis Selkirk, K.C. cussed is yet a re By then the partner flection of the ship includedTR. Sel recognition the kirk, K.C. who was original executive elected president of sought and ob the Board of Trade in tained. 1944, served as a It is the advan bencher 1948-52 and tage of a relatively sees his family name small bar associa carried on by the firm tion that one has Milne Selkirk. That the opportunity of Selkirk refers to his meeting the other son Robert, whose members of the bar services to the profes on a social basis. sion were recently rec The regular ognized with his monthly meeting appointment as (still the second Queen’s Counsel. Tuesday of the The lacrosse player month as it was 100 earlier mentioned, years ago) is the cor William Garland nerstone to foster McQuarrie, was called ing a collegiality for to the bar in 1900. He which the New was soon to become a Westminster Bar leader of the New Association is Westminster bar, be rightly renowned. ing particularly noted The New Westminster Courthouse, circa 1891 That collegiality is BCARS 21862, F-5600 as a prosecutor on the further fostered by Assizes, and as a mu other regular events nicipal adviser to New Westminster and a 54 and sat as a local magistrate and as a judge such as the Christmas party; the judges’ din number of the surrounding municipalities. in admiralty. His firm carries on his name ner, and the golfmatches with the Fraser Val He was elected a member of Parliament sit today under the leadership of his son “Skip” ley bar and other professions. That collegiality ting for a number of terms, was appointed Cassady, and both father and son have con in turn provides the knowledge, understand King’s Counsel, and in 1933 elevated to the tributed significantly to the legal life of the ing and respect for one’s peers at the bar that British Columbia Court of Appeal, a posi city; respectively being awarded King’s Coun has by and large allowed the lawyers of this tion he still held on his death in 1943. In sel and Queen’s Counsel, and have given area to represent their clients on a formal, 1936 he saw his son Cohn called to the bar unstintingly of their time to civic organiza proper but convivial basis and in the best (at a special call), and then Cohn practised tions. interests of their clients. with Harry J. Sullivan, K.C. until the Sec Some Conduding Thoughts I do not doubt that the original executive ond World War intervened, when he served One hundred years on, the Royal City now enjoyed the wit, repartee and exchanges that his country with honour, returning to be numbers some 40,000, the New Westmin still characterize the monthly meetings, and come the pre-eminent barrister in the coun ster Bar Association lists its paid-up mem that warmth, cheerfulness and good humour try. He served as a bencher from 1955 bers 150 persons, the river still runs by it, was present and fostered at the Centennial through 1967, as president ofthe New West the port, the lumber mills, and the salmon Dinner of the New Westminster Bar Asso minster Bar Association 1955-56, was ap are still strong economic factors. The 1891 ciation. pointed Q.C. in 1956, and was treasurer of Courthouse sits across from the new Law Robert Crawford is a Barrister and Solicitor the Law Society in 1967-1968. The family Courts, and biased as I am I think it is the in die McQuarrie Hunter office in New West name is proudly carried on in the firm name best courthouse in the province thanks to the minste, He enjoys history as a bobby.

B.C. Historical News - FaIl 1995 20 James H. Parkin: Portable Sawmill Pioneer by Tom W Parkin

Recent discovery of a collection of negatives showing a family logging operation in the Columbia Valley of the East Kootenay region prompted this author to investigate the history ofthe business. Research revealed not only an innovative ancestor, but an industry about which little seems to have been written.

The City of Cranbrook (incorporated even their own railroads - began to close.’ added strength to the economy in that a larger 1905) has long been the primary distribu And what local economics didn’t change, the proportion oftheir cash flow was distributed tion centre for the East Kootenay, and lum Depression soon did. as wages than was the case for any other wood ber was its earliest raison d’être. The heyday Most such mills produced finished lum product.2 oflogging was the mid-i 920s when its popu ber, but a parallel market existed, often con The heyday of the tie business in British lation is estimated to have reached 3,200, sisting of seasonal workers who worked in Columbia extended from 1920 to 1929, with but decreasing accessibility to timber and bush mills producing railroad ties, and rough production usually over 3 million, and peak frequent forest fires soon reduced the annual lumber. The ties were sold green to the rail ing at 3.8 million in 1921. In 1933 it had cut. In the surrounding region, large mills, way and the lumber was shipped to larger dropped to less than haifa million.

often with their own satellite communities - planer mills for finishing. Such small mills

Parkin portable mill in 1937-1939 period at Mud Creek, B.C. near Canal Flats. RD8 CaterpilLsr isprovidingpower via endless belt. The mill is cutting lumber not ties, in this scene. The lumber would be loaded onto the trucks like this: “We used to put the lumber onjacks (a sort ofnarrow horse, seen to left ofcat). Onepart would bepiledon theplaform; the other end ofthe load over thejack. When you backed your truck in, you knocked the jack doum, and that end ofthe load came down on Sash e Door mill on Mt. Baker near Cranbrook, B.C Mill has just been the back end ofthe truck. There were rollers on the deck ofthe truck, so you could repositioned (no sawdustpile) and the lower sidejacked up to level it on a slope. just back it on like that. Handled none of it by band.” “This one over here (See Three men arepositioning logs over which the 8’logsfor milling will roll onto the extreme left), they bad an accident with it. The leg didnt work out, heh? So they carriage. Horse teams have brought in several loads, bad to pick that all up by band.” All pictures from the Parkin tamily collection Bill Parkin interview, November11, 1993, Vernon.

‘I

Bill Parkin on Cat 60 hauling Athey wagons loaded with snow fence up ramp beside C.flR. siding for loading into bascars near Fairmont Springs, B.C Men are worried about wagon tongue. This is because an accident on a steep slope on the way in saw thefront truck on the lead wagon overturn, and the kingpin dropped out. The load was taken up by chaining directly to the rear ofthe Cat. Athey wagons could carry 10 tons. They bad a dual tracked rear wheel set.

21 B.C. Historical News - Fall 1995 i’i T1

Jim Parkinportable mill,possibly atMud Creek camp. Possibly photographed by a Cranbrook Sash é Door Co. portable mill on Baker Mountain, B.C. Angus travelling photograpber Man on truck is Bill or Harold White. Bill (Wm. M) McClelland is heaving snowfence. Sawyer is Bill Spruce. This isfrom an original

Parkin rests on Cat 60. Thepacker Olie Elverstad stands on tiepile. print - thephotographer was likely Stan Heise.

i — r,Lr __i.A t, Gas Cat 60 picking up bundles in pine forestfor hauling to Parkin portable milL Operator may be Don Burns, who biter owned a large mill at Creston.

r

Parkin portable tie mill showing main saw which hasJust cut a 16’ #1 tie. Two These ‘Big Wheels” are atfim Parkin Ta Ta Creek camp, B.C., mid-1920s. Note tail-sawyers are running it through three cut-offsaws which will trim the ends and the steam mill behind. Man infront is Sam Moore. Note that the logs are napended cut it in ba(fto 8’ lengths. All circular saws are exposed (one on right not shown in under the ask and the tongue ofthis unusual wagon. this print). The cable on the side was used to loop around bark slabs removedfrom legs. They would bepiled on top ofthe cable. The Cat operator would come along, throw the cable around the bundle, and tighten it up, before dragging it away. John I?. Parkin on the right

B.C. Historical News - Fall 1995 22 In 1929, tie output for the B.C. southern about 1907 when he logged land today cipitate Jim’s thinking about how to work interior was 1.2 million pieces, comprising owned by the Cranbrook Golf Club. By other timber limits. By this time, the power 10.3 per cent of the dollar value of that re 1923, he owned a steam-driven mill at Ta Ta of such ‘portable’ engines had become suffi gion’s total timber operations.3 The B.C. Creek, northeast of Kimberley. Horses pull cient to drive small saws, and soon they out Lumberman lamented the state of the mar ing vehicles called “Big Wheels” were the manoeuvred their steam-driven predecessors ket, but maintained its perennial expression primary method such small mills brought in the woods. ofhope for improving prices and production timber to their saws. The hauled logs sus Toward the end of 1926 Parkin’s crew tore by 1930. Better times didn’t come, of pended below their axles, and could be used apart the Big Wheels and used the wide iron course. on slopes as steep as 25 per cent5 - far be tires as runners on the bottom of log skids. yond the agility of These logs formed a foundation for an Ox railway locomo ford mill7 which was alternately belt-driven tives. by his 10-ton 70-H.P gasoline Cat, or pulled Big Wheels by it to new locations. were remarkable Though portable mills were in use else devices, and well- where in B.C., Parkin’s idea predates by sev suited to the eral years any references or descriptions in ‘gyppo’ logger. the province’s primary trade publication.8 A Simple, func number of manufacturers were advertising tional and inex portables in the 1 920s (E. Long of Orillia, pensive, they ON9; Weir Machinery of Vancouver, B.C.), raised logs so grit and Cranbrook Foundry was producing cus was kept out of tom mills for local customers by 1930. How bark crevices ever, Parkin’s design is credited as being the (which could dull basis for virtually every portable mill subse mill in the Columbia Valley. C.1?K Railroad ties awaiting sbzpmentfrom the Parkin operating the East Kootenay.’° crews would come around once a year to load themfrom sidings The ties were loaded or damage saws), quently in by banth one at a time, the men carrying them on their shoulders and walking up and they reduced Bill Parkin worked for his uncle Jim for inclinedplanks such as the one in theforeground, into boxcars. friction when 22 years as cat-skinner, mechanic and fore dragging. man: “Years ago, you skidded everything you But despite low demand and low commod There was no braking system for some could reach with horses. Well, then you ity prices, there was money to be made. Pro styles of Big Wheels. The teamster walked moved the mill. With the Cat. It was on run ducers began to experiment with ways to alongside his horses, and if the team had to ners 55-feet long. Shod with half by six-inch maintain profits despite low commodity run to keep ahead of their load on a slope, (iron) shoeing. And that was the first lum prices. The 1930s became a decade of paid- he did likewise. Jim’s brother, John Thomas ber mill. He had everything on it; head gear, by-the-piece operators, usually cutting ties for Parkin, was a the Canadian Pacific Railway. The C.PR. had teamster known ongoing need for replacement wood for tres for his good treat tles and ties, so formed a Tie & Timber ment of animals. Branch to run its logging and milling opera Elsewhere how tions. Under the management of Edgar S. ever, horses were Home, it also let contracts to independent not infrequently lumbermen. killed in runa One ofthese was James (Jim) Herbert Par- ways. kin, an owner/operator from Cranbrook. He During the and his extended family were employed con 30s, the use of tinuously in this industry from 1927 to 1942 animals was using a portable sawmill. Such mills played largely super an important transitory role between the end seded. Crawling of the logging railroads (in the southern in tractors had been CRR. flatcars loaded with Parkin mill equipment at Fairmont Hot Springs, 1939. terior, at least,) and the use of trucks as mov in use for decades Boundfor Donald, B.C. In front is D8, the largest diesel Cat. In middle is gas Cat, model 60. Behind is D6 a smaller diesel Cat, bought at the sa,ne time as the D8. This ers of logs to large central sawmills. by this time, and illegally overloaded the railway car. The idea was that the product could be competing in the produced more cheaply near the logging site, growing market for logging business, the Cat and tie trimmers and all this kind ofstuff”1 by moving the mill about, than by hauling erpillar Tractor Company offered machines ‘Stuff’ included an edger, necessary to longer distances to a larger mill. This ability equipped with power take-off make smooth sides on boards. was brought about by the adaptation of Jim Parkin’s first purchase was a 10-ton Flexibility to meet the variety ofuses to which crawler tractors to both pull and power such Caterpillar in 1926. Later he also bought new the mill was applied was the keynote ofthe de portable mills. gas Cat models 606 and 30. The iron horse sign, with the carriage constructedfor cutting Jim Parkin owned or managed several sta power displaced the animals and the wheels ties, lumbe, or a combination. Operators fol tionary mills in East Kootenay, beginning they drew, and coincidentally seemed to pre lowed the same basis, and in cases where lum

23 B.C. Historical News - Fall 1995 sand ties a year. And shops in the spring of 1927. Bill Parkin re then, we would fin calls those years of labour: “Oh yeah, it all ish our contract, lots hadda go out by rail. There was no big trucks of times, and help them days, you know. When we first started somebody else finish at Fairmont, we went back into the bush

up theirs.” about - well three miles I guess, was the fur “One time, the thest. There was no way of gitrin’ your ties Crow’s Nest (Pass out of the bush, only usin’ the Cat that you

Lumber Company) - were usin’ to power your mill.” they were loggin’ “So we bought three Athey wagons. same locality we They’ve a track on the back, and wheels on were. They were front, you see. They’re supposed to be 10- 40,000 ties short on ton wagons. I spent all my Saturdays and their hundred (thou Sundays haulin’ ties out of the bush! I never sand), when the time got a Sunday or a Saturday off. It was all just was pret’near up. So straight time, you know.” we took that contract In July 1931, a large forest fire burned

Chevrolet ‘Maple Leaf’circa 1941 (Jimmy Crowe’c truck). Otto Anderson on left from them - 25,000 down 14,800 hectares up the west side ofthe better retrieve Raft is constructedofdrylogsfrr buoyancy. Rafting wa.s necessary to ties. Those 25,000 Rocky Mountain Trench - it started near the 3,000 ties, equipment including a Cat, etc. on thefar side ofthe river after the ties, the average, I present-day airport near Kimberley and went floating bridge gave way. think, is 520 ties a north to Dutch Creek. Canal Flats was evacu ber was being cut, the mill was designed as a day.” ated, but the wind changed at the last hour, single unit with edger and cut-offsau In a To minimize production costs, a plant is and only a few homes on the outskirts of ond case, it wasfrundadvantageous in moving operated by a sawyer and his helper, who town were lost. Parkin’s crew helped fight it, through timber to build the mill and edger in manually move logs along the infeed deck, but the fire didn’t burn out until fall. The separate units. The Sash and Door applied this onto the carriage, and through the saw, and Forest Service wanted to get that timber out in their operations and departedfrom the es the tail-sawyer and his helper, who move and “before the bugs got it.” Thus the mill crew tablished precedent of moving their mill with stack the ties and discard the slabs cut from moved to the so-called ‘Black Camp’, above tractors, when they installed a hoist on theframe their sides.’3 what is now locally called ‘Thunder Hill’. ofthe mill and used snatch-blocks for moving Overall, such an operation would employ In 1933, the mill was moved again, to a with power supplied by the mill unit.12 up to 5 additional men on logging and haul third timber limit at Mud Creek, south of Jim Parkin didn’t conceal his experiment ing operations, and sometimes their families, Canal Flats. Bill Parkin recalls: “We put up from competitors. Nephew and employee who needed accommodation. Parkin first set just a rough camp. You could build a John R. Parkin remembers the Cranbrook up his portable to cut Douglas-fir in the Co bunkhouse in a day. We built it outta what Sash and Door examining the family opera lumbia Valley across from Fairmont Hot we used to called a snow fence - the side lum tion. The Sash and Door subsequently Springs. He took over nearby abandoned ber off the ties? Maybe 15, 20 per cent of it adapted two units for lumber production on ranch buildings for housing, an office and would be edged, you see. It would be square, Baker Mountain at Cranbrook but most of it still had the (where John later worked). The bark on it. And we put up a C.PR. Tie and Timber Branch frame, and stood that all on soon had six portables of their end, and with two ply of own, and the Cranbrook Foun (tar) paper in-between it, dry eventually marketed their that was a bunkhouse. own design, called a ‘Standard’, “Heck, I always built a having done many adaptations shack for myself, too. Oh, I for inventive operators. say for myself - after I got Indeed, friend, fellow bachelor that foreman job, the crew and business competitor Pat A. built my house. It’d only McGrath built a portable mill take a coupla days to build right in Parkin’s mill yard at one of them things. The Fairmont Hot Springs, B.C. Per only dressed lumber in them haps Parkin’s confidence came was the floor! And the from knowing he had the largest doors. The rest was all rough mill (able to take 38-inch logs as lumber. They weren’t too opposed to the standard 32 bad. We didn’t notice the cold so much, you know.” inches), and possibly from his ef fim Parkincportable milL Doug Finni,foreground is tail-sawing (secondary, or cut-offsaw, ficiency. Bill Parkin recalls: “We on right). Logs this big needed an above/below nmin saw arrangement. This is the same saw Here the crew cut got contracts for a hundred thou- carriage used on the mill at Monroe Lake, B.C Logs readyfor cutting on the right. Ponderosa (also known as

B.C. Historical News - Fall 1995 24 Bull) Pine, fir and tamarack (Western Larch). tion ferries on that route. These are cable- Bill Parkin: “When we first moved onto that stayed, non-motorized ferries which use the limit, they (the C.PR.) wouldn’t take pine power of the river current to propel them for ties, so we left all of them. Then they selves. They agreed to try the idea. changed their mind as long as you pickled Cable was obtained from an oil well in (creosoted) them. But they changed their Alberta, and strung across in the air. A trol mind after a year-and-a-half. They would use ley was hung from it, with two lines hanging pine in sidings, but not on curves, as the down to a raft which they built of dry logs. wood was so soft the spikes would pull out.” In this manner, they floated the remaining Nothing was wasted. Even the slabs cut equipment back to the railroad side of the from the logs were hand-loaded into boxcars river, though admittedly, the raft was sub and shipped to the Prairies for use as snow merged under the weight of the D-6. The fence along the C.RR.’s rights-of-way. Pay mill itself was “swum” across, floated by its ment was $1 00/boxcar loaded. log runners. “With them little mills that Jim had, it was Ownership ofthis family operation passed all contract work,” says Bill Parkin. “It had when Jim Parkin died in 1942, though the to be. We were puttin’ them in the car for era of the portable mill persisted into the 50s that! Plus payin’ expenses. You had to know & 60s. By then, the trend was back to plants where you were standin’, you see. So we run centralized near larger communities, and a all through the Hungry Thirties, and never reliance on trucking of logs. This change was missed any time at all,” largely facilitated by new vehicle technology; Despite narrow profit margins, Parkin and the allowance of log transport costs as a James Herbert Parkin in camp at Mud Creek, B. C circa managed to stay in business and attract good 1935. Note matches around his chair. factor in stumpage charged by the Forest workers. Success in part depended on retain Service.’5 ing men by having a good cook. Nephew journey to Donald was without incident. Jim Parkin is buried at Golden, and most Dave Parkin was 16 or 17, and a flunky at Donald lies on the Columbia River, and who worked with him are gone too. But the that time: “We had the best food money the ingenuity shown by the mill men to solve portable mill operators of the East Kootenay could buy. We couldn’t pay much, but old two problems at this site demonstrates the may claim some credit for the survival of their ‘Monk’ (Albert Urbanks) was one ofthe best ingenuity, risk-taking and resolve which industry during the lean years of the Depres in that country. He used to cook for Otis made their enterprise successful. sion and the invigorated position which lum Staples.”14 Staples Lumber Company was Some of the timber limit was on the op bering occupies in that region today. formerly a large operation at Wycliffe, where posite side of the wide river. To reach it, they Jim Parkin was a great-uncle to the autho who Jim Parkin likely met Urbanks while manag waited until winter, when they built a bridge never knew him. Tom Parkin is currently con ing their sash and door factory. It was aban of logs and four-inch planks on top of the structing hisfamily genealogy and history. doned in 1927. ice, held in place by two cables fastened in By the late ‘30s, J.H. Parkin was prosper either embankment. For some reason, their FOOTNOTES ing. Earlier in the decade, diesel engines had 1. WM. Mercer, Growth of Ghost Towns: The Decline of departure in the spring of 1940 was delayed, Forest Activity in the East Kootenay District and the been added to tracked tractors and were and the ice began to break up, threatening Effect of the Growth of Ghost Towns on the Distributing shown to be cheaper to operate than their to take the bridge with it. Centres of Cranbrook and Fernie, Royal Commission on Forestry, February 1944. gasoline contemporaries. In 1937, Parkin Bill Parkin: “Jimmy Crowe was driving the 2. Gorman Brothers Lumber and Box Ltd., Submission to the bought two new diesel Cats: a D-8 to power Chev ‘Maple Leaf’ across with the D-8 mo Royal Commission on Forest Resources, November 1975, page 9. the mill and a D-6 for skidding. The D-8 tor on the back when the deadman (a buried 3. Province of British Columbia, Department of Lands, Report of became internationally synonymous with log to which the cables were attached) pulled the Forest Branch, 1937. 4. JR. Poole, British Columbia Lumberman, Vol. 14, #2, power - it weighed 53,665 pounds and de out behind him. He opened the door, but February 1930. veloped 113 horsepower. kept on comin’.” The bridge drifted down 5. James A. Young and Jerry Budy, Endless Tracks in the Woods, In 1939, their timber limit exhausted, the stream, still attached to the side he was (Sarasota, FL, Crestlinr Publishing, 1989), p. 308. 6. “B.C. Operators Buying Caterpillan”, British Columbia Parkins moved to Donald, an abandoned headed to. Crowe made it safely with his Lumberman, June 1929, p.74. divisional point ofthe C.PR. mainline. They truck, but the incident left 3,000 ties, the 7. Nancy P Miles, “Lumbering is Principal Industry,” Cranbrook Courier, Pioneers Reunion supplement, Fall 1938. ordered two flatcars. On one they raised high mill and the D-6 on the far side of the river. 8. British Columbia Lumberman, Vol. 14, #7, July 1930, page sides and loaded all the equipment, includ So they tried to pull the bridge back with 72. ing the mill, minus its runners. On the sec the winch of the Cat, but at a certain point 9. British Columbia Lumberman, October 1925, page 54. 10. British Columbia Lumberman, Vol. 26, #6, June 1942, p. ond, they loaded three Caterpillars. The latter the current caught the bridge and began pull 40 car was known to be overloaded, but they ing the Cat backward to the river. Dave Par- 11. Wm. M. Parkin, interview with author, 16 February 1992. 12. Miles, Cranbrook Courier. hoped to avoid the expense of a third. kin was forced to hurriedly cut the cable with 13. Rodnry Wm. Beaumont, The Economics of Small Scale Hearing that a C.PR. inspector was due an axe. Sawmilling in the Peace River Region of B.C., M.S.F. thesis, University of British Columbia, April 1978. the next morning, they rose early to take one Then bushman Gilbert St. Amant had an 14. Dave Parkin, interview with author, December 1993. machine off and hide it in the bush.., then idea. He had recently worked on the Big 15. Rodney Wm. Beaumont, The Economics of Small Scale Sawmilling in the Peace River loaded it again after he left. Fortunately, the Bend Highway, and had constructed reac Region of B.C.

25 B.C. Historical News . FaIl 1995 Cecilia Douglas Helmcken byJennifer Iredale

My research on Cecilia Helmcken began bunk with rough board bottoms, upon which with a question from a visitor to Helmcken were laid about one dozen ofthe Indians blan House, one of the historic sites for which I kets. These with a pair ofpillows I covered with am the Curator. The visitor asked - “where calico cases constitute our bed & covering. There was the original kitchen?” None of our exist I are several frather beds in the place, but they ing references contained evidence as to the are made ofthefeathers ofwild game, such as original kitchen, so the question became - ducks, cranes, wild geese, etc.... There is noth “Where did Cecilia Helmcken cook her fam ing here suitablefor ticking, the best and only ily meals?” This led to research about Cecilia’s material is brown linen sheeting. The Indian life. Ladies make theirs ofdeer skin... Facts and documentary evidence on the lif And on the Fort diet: of Cecilia Douglas, eldest daughter of Sir 1 Sept. 23... For breakfast we have coffle or James and Lady Amelia Douglas, and wife of cocoa, Salt Salmon & roast duck, wild &pota Dr. John Sebastian Helmcken is scanty and toes. When we have eaten our supply of them difficult to find. Much of my research on our plates are changed c we made a finish on Cecilia has been by deduction from what is bread & butter For dinner we have a greater known of her more famous parents or hus Cecilia Helmeken (nee Douglas). variety First we are always treated to a dish of band, or through the eyes of visitors to her BCARS #3912 soup, which is very good. Every kind ofvegeta home. The documentary record she has left mother nursing baby Ellen a young woman, ble in use is taken & choppedfine &put into consists ofone letter written to her friend Mrs. Narcissa ‘Whitman stayed at Fort Vancouver water with a little rice & boiled to a soup. The

Tolmie, a pocket diary from 1862, and 4-5 for six weeks (Sept. 12 - Nov. 1, 1836). tomatoes are a prominent article. Usually some photographs. There are also a number of let Narcissa kept a journal which she sent back fowl meat, duck or any kind, is cutfine &ad.ded ters written to her, her obituary in the Times to her family in New York. In this journal is a fit has been roasted once it is just as good, (so Colonist, and Helmcken’s and Douglas’ few description of Fort life from the highly unu the cook says) then spiced to the taste. After our references to her in their writings and a very sual perspective of a woman. As a woman, soup dishes are removed, then comes a variety of few objects in the collection at Helmcken Narcissa had a privileged glimpse ofthe fam meats, toprove our tastes. After selecting & tast House that are known to have been Cecilia’s. ily life of the Governor’s Mansion. A few ex ing, changeplates &try another zfwe choose, so Cecilia was born in 1834 in Fort Vancou cerpts will provide a sketch:3 at every new dish, have a clean plate. Roast duck ver and died in 1865 in Victoria. She spent Sept. 12, 1836. befrre we reached the house is an everyday dish, boiledpork, tripe & some her childhood years in Fort Vancouver on the ofthe ChiefFactorDoct. McLaughlin, were met times trotters, fresh Salmon or Sturgeon, yet too Columbia River and her adult years in Fort by severalgentlemen, who came to give us a wel numerous to mention. When these are set aside Victoria and as mistress of a small log house come. Mi Douglas, Doct. Tolmie and Doct. a rice pudding or an apple pie is next intro known as “Arbutus Lodge”. McLaughlin ofthe Hudson Bay Company who duced. After this the melons next make their ap She was part Cree Indian, descended invited us in and seated us on the sofa. Soon pearance, sometimes grapes & last ofall cheese, through her mother, Amelia, herself daugh after we were introduced to Mrs. McLaughlin bread or biscuit & butter is produced to com ter of Suzanne Conolly, a full Cree Indian. and Mrs. Douglas, both natives ofthe country plete the whole... That is wine. The gentlemen Her father, James Douglas was part Scot, part (hafbreed). After chatting a little we were in frequently drink toasts to each othes.. Our tea West Indian and full fur trader. She was the vitedto walk in thegarden... here wefindfruit is veryplain, bread & butte good tea, plenty of eldest in a family of 5 girls and 1 boy, and ofevery description. Apples, peaches, grapes,pea milk & sugal Oct. 25 1 thought I would tell one of 13 children born to her parents, of plum andfig trees in abundance. Cucumbers, what kind ofa dish we had set before us this whom 7 died young.1 melons, beans, peas, beets, cabbage, tomatoes and morning. It is called blackpudding... It is made At Fort Vancouver the Douglas family every kind ofvegetable... Everypart is very neat ofblood & the fat ofhogs, well spiced &filled shared the Chief Factor’s Residence or “Gov and tastefrlly arranged fine walks, each side into agui Thegrapes arejust ripe &Iamfrast ernor’s Mansion” as it was locally known with lined with strawberry vines. On the opposite end ing on themfinely There is a bunch now on the Chief Factor McLoughlin’s family. ofthe garden is a good Summer house covered table before me, they are veryfine. Eloisa Harvey, John McLoughlin’s daugh with grape vines. Up until the visit of Narcissa Whitman in ter commented about her life and childhood A further idea of the domestic furnishings 1836, the women and children in the Big at Fort Vancouver: of the Fort, such as the child Cecilia would House at Fort Vancouver lived and ate in their The families lived separate and private en have been accustomed to is provided by own quarters, not in the banquet hall in which tirely Gentlemen who came trading to the Fort Narcissa. their husbands and fathers dined. It was never saw thefamily. U never saw anybody2 Sept. 14... You will ask what kind ofbeds are through Narcissa’s intervention that it became When Cecilia was two years old and her used here... The bedstead is in the form ofa more common for the McLaughlin and

B.C. Historical News - Fall 1995 26 Douglas women to eat with their husbands women having saddles with high backs and oteei a lively.. French-Canadian got an idea. and occasional visitors. fronts.,” It seems likely Cecilia, Jane and He sent to the store for a drygoods box, cut off Afinal comment by Narcissa on the women in Agnes were riding astride when they came the top and one side, put in a seat and threw the Bz Howe: into Fort Nisqually with their father. some scarlet cloth overall:., the box isfixed upon Mrs. McLauglin has afine earfor music & is Cecilia, as daughter of the Governor of willow runners, the horse harnessed; the sleigb greaty delighted She is one ofthe kindest women Vancouver’s Island was of the leading family hastensfor the bride and maids... The... party in the world Speaks a little French but mostiy in the colony. John Sebastian Helmcken, a hurry into the church... the clock strikes 12;just Cree, her native tongue. She wishes to go & live young doctor newly arrived from England as the ring is put on thefinger. the bride and with me; her Daughter &Mrs. Douglas also.. writes of meeting the Douglas girls:7 bridegroom leave the church to return to their This is probably a comment on the bond The Fort has been described, but at the win parents house for a good time... The guns roar ing between the women, more the norm in dows stood a number ofyoung ladies, hidden from the bastions.., all hurrah, Grog is served native groups rather than a comment on any behind the curtains, looking at the late impor all round, there is foasting, revelry jollity. (t’. dissatisfaction with Fort life. tant arrivals, for visitors were scarce here, but 296) Later Cecilia boarded at school in Oregon we were not introduced., there I saw Cecilia In his Reminiscences Helmcken describes City James Douglas writing to Ross in March flitting about, active as a little squirrel, and one the planning and building oftheir new home, of 1849 says: of the prettiest objects I had ever seen; rather named Arbutus Lodge by Cecilia:

My family consists offour Daughters, yet of short but with a very pretty, gracefulfigure - of Ofcourse I had to build a house. Mr Doug tender age - the three eldest attend school at Or dark complexion and lovely black eyes, petite las gave me a piece ofland, an acre... itpleased egon City, where they board with a very respect and nice. (p. 81, Reminiscences) Cecilia - she was near her mother and relatives... able American Lady - who is remarkably kind He mentions that Cecilia was Douglas’ pri How we studied over the deszgn, ie interior di andattentive. Consideringallthings the charges vate secretary doing clerical work and that visions ofthe building 30 x 25!!... it had to be for board and tuition are moderate and the sys “she had a beautiful voice tho uneducated”. built oflogs squared on two sides and six inches tem ofeducation is sound and practical. They Although raised entirely in a Hudson’s Bay thick.., the logs had to be let into grooves in the also enjoy the advantage ofhaving in Church a Fort, the Douglas girls had been trained in uprzhts... (p. 127) most estimable Clergyman, Sabbath schools, the ‘womanly arts’ of the 19th century, - In the collection at Helmcken House there temperance andJuvenile Societies for the relief music, penmanship, drawing etc. Cecilia, as is the bed that was built by the Hudson’s Bay ofthe poor - and other aids which have an im Douglas’ private secretary, if she had been a Company for the young couple, along with portant influence informing the character and son, would have been employed by the Com one handmade chair and six Windsor chairs training children to virtue and usefrlness.4 pany as a clerk, with every expectation of ris that Dr. Helmcken notes he purchased for Cecilia spoke and wrote English, certainly ing through the ranks as her father had done. their new house. We also have the sewing knew French, and probably spoke Cree, as However, as a daughter, her expectations were machine reputed to have been Cecilia’s, a the latter two languages were her mother’s first to marry and raise a family. dressing case and a small pocket diary. In the languages. Helmcken further describes the girls as he diary, Cecilia has listed items needed for the On her 11th birthday, Cecilia was privi came to know them during his courtship of household, leged to celebrate her ‘birthday with a card Cecilia: J.S. Helmcken provides more information party and supper upstairs in the Chief Fac The young Douglas were very shy and very about the early years of Cecilia’s married life: tors House.’5 pretty - Mrs. Dallas and Mrs. Bushbyparticu Anyhow myfirst born came along, before the Cecilia was 15 when the family was moved larlyso but were small and looked after by their doors had been hung. U had only 3 rooms and to Fort Victoria in 1849 where James Doug mother with sharpness... they wereproperly and a kitchen altogether Ofcourse the baby was a las had been appointed “Governor of Van neatly dressed - carried themselvesproperly and wonder a lzht haired, blue-eyedfair littlefol couver’s Island pro tempore”, also Agent of paid much attention to deportment... the ladies low. When he was about a month or two old we the H.B. Company in the colony ofVancou slept upstairs over our heads (Bachelors Hall), found him dead in the bed one morning’ The ver Island, and also as Agent of the Puget’s and the little mischief used toplaypranks, oc anguish fob at this is indescribable. The poor Sound Agricultural Company on Vancouver’s casionallypouring water upon us through cracks littlefollow was buried in the garden where the

Island and within the United States Territory.6 or holes in theflooring, for our ceiling was not holly now grows - close by our bedroom win Of the family’s journey from Fort Vancouver ceiled.. Ihad soonfallen in love with Cecilia... dow. (p.133) to Fort Victoria, the Fort Nisqually Journal so I spent much of my time courting... Miss He mentions that ‘Cecilia used to do most provides a glimpse: Cameron, Mr. Douglas’ niece... playedpropri of the work;’... “When I look back now, do

About 2p.m., Mi: C.E Douglas arrived on ety The courtship was a very simple affair - gen mestic affairs seemed to have carried on pretty horseback accompanied by his three eldest daugh erally in the evening, when we had chocolate roughly and Cecilia had more work and less ters andfollowed in the course ofthe afternoon andsinging and whatnot - early hours kept. (p. comfort than she ought to have had and would by five waggvns containing cases ofgold dust, 120) have were it now... Nevertheless we managed to bales ofFurs and Mi: Dsprivateproperty. Mrs. And about their wedding he writes... have little dinnerparties occasionally.. (p. 213) Douglas and the two younger children arrived About Xmas, 1852, a wedding in high 4fr Other domestic aspects of Cecilia’s life in in the last waggon. (p. 218 Fort NisquallyJour took place... A couple offret ofsnow lay on the colonial Victoria are provided through a study nal 1 849-1859) ground.. the bridegroom goes to the church. The of the Helmcken account books and various Narcissa Whitman had commented on bride and her maidens at home, waitingfor the receipts for goods purchased. In 1855 how the women of the Fort rode “gentleman carriage, the cart.., had travelled a hundred Helmcken purchased a large outfit of sup fashion... as was universal custom of Indian yards... (and)... there was a deadstop. The chari plies from the Fort Nisqually shop, includ

27 B.C. Historical News - Fall 1995 ing a bridle, iron spurs, clay pipes, 20 yds On her arrival in England, June, 1861: wait til evening. Why myyoungMissey gets her muslin Lame, 1 rowing shirt, 2 yds green You ought to see the women here with their food three times a day and milk between times, baize, 8 yds printed cotton, 3 yds in grey cot dark blue stockings, stuff dresses, filled caps. milky hot water and sugar it must be boiling or ton, corduroy trowsers (sic), ribbon, etc. The They don’t wear hoops or artificial flowers as else the child wiII get a stomache ache. 1860’s receipts include Samuel Nesbitt, they do in our country.. in the house the old This is followed by a recipe for a kind of Cracker Baker; Scotch House; Wm. B. Smith, nurse has been 40 years and the chambermaid flour pudding to feed infants if the mother is English grocer from whom they purchased 20!... It is quite dreadful to sit at a window in unable to nurse the child herselE English pickles, lime juice; ‘Tom’ ketchup, town to see the miserable beggars and deformed Other references to food cast an entirely mushroom ketchup and currants in Jan of people thatpass by.. unexpected light on the foods the Douglas

1862; then there is T. Wilson, Dry Goods In this excerpt, Jane highlights the cultural family ate - very different from the items merchant for corsets, & childs hose; John differences she perceives between England noted by Narcissa Whitman at Fort Vancou Gerritsen, Baker and Grocer for bread and and British Columbia. ver: molasses; M. Winkler & Co. for 10 yds check and a letter written October 19th, 1861: Mary (Graham, nee Work) and I have been fabric, a hoop and 3 yards of flannel. Of Flor Both my mother andsister in law are as kind longingfrr dry salmon, fishroe, seaweed etc and ence Wilson Mrs. Helmcken purchases a as they can be to me. Nothing is too goodfrr me labroo. Ifi couldget apiece the size ofmy hand Garibaldi jacket in 1863.8 and so proud ofdear Baby. The old lady is so I would be contented.. In the spring of 1861 when Cecilia was 27 glad she has blue eyes like her father... Tell W often long for salmon, crabs and fruit. and mother of 3 children living (of 5 born), Charlie Good (with whom Alice Douglas has Neither ofus like the whitefish (ofFort Garry), the Douglas family entertained Lady Franklin just eloped) that I would enjoy nothing more it seems so instpid after the delicious salmon we on her search for her husband in used to get in Victoria. I do not the Arctic. Lady Franklin’s niece, carefrr the buffalo... Miss Sophia Cracroft wrote down Alick says you can send him a her perceptions of the Douglas 7esh oolichan’ wornen:9 These references are interest “W were engaged today to take ing as they reveal the use of na luncheon with the Governorc wzfr tive foodstuffs and the influence Mrs. Douglas, in place ofpaying of aboriginal culture that may heraformal visit. Have I explained have been part of the Douglas that her mother was an Indian Family life through Amelia’s woman and that she keeps very Cree ancestry and background. much (far too much) in the back This influence is also mentioned Thisphoto takenfrom the Douglas house overlooking their garden shows the Hudson’s it ground; indeed is only lately that Bay Fort and surrounds in Victoria in 1858. by Martha Harris who was the she has been persuaded to see visi BCARS #HP93855 author of History and Foildore tors, partly because she speaks Eng of the Cowichan Indians: lish with some difficulty; the usual language than havinga chat with him, Alice... andAgnes, As a little girl I used to listen to these legends being either the Indian, or Canadian French as we used to have in my drawing room at with the greatest delight... They need the quaint which is a corruptdialect. At the appointed time, home... oh those were b days. They’ll songs and the sweet voice that told them, the Mrs. Dallas came to introduce a younger sister never come back again I am afraid I suppose winter gloaming and the brzgiitfire as the only

Agnes, who was to take us to their house. She is he is as great a swell as ever with hispeg tops etc. lzht - then were these legends beautiful’.’1 a ve7yfinegirl withfar less ofthe Indian com and on a teasing note about Agnes’ fiance In August of 1862 Jane’s letters are full of plexion andftatures than Mrs. Dallas. Consid Arthur Bushby: her sister Agnes’ marriage to Arthur Bushby. ering the little training ofany kind these girls Tell Bushby he ought to wearhis knickerbock This had been a two year courtship with high can have haa it is more wonderful they should ersfbr up country work. All the gentlemen here romance and passion. Arthur Bushby’s diary2 be what they are, than that they should have wear them when they are shooting. Such tame records the romance and provides an insid deftcts ofmannei They have never left North shooting they have a couple ofdogsperhaps and er’s view of the Douglas household of which ern America, nor known any society but such as then they walk over turnxj’ fields andpopping Cecilia was still a part. they now have... Mrs. Douglas is not at all bad away at everything that has wings. So diffirent Thursday went and presented my letters to looking with hardly as much ofthe Indian type to the shooting at home where they go into thick the Governo,.. he invited me to dine... I went in herface, as Mrs. Dallas and she looks young woods and into swampsftr theirgame... almost infull dress and met there Mr. and Mrs. to have a daughter so old as Mrs. Helmckin In another letter she advises Cecilia on car Dallas, two Miss Douglasi, Begbie and Capt.

(Helmcken) the eldest, who is 26 Herfigure is ing for her children: Gossett - a mostpleasant evening, we hadagood wholly without shape, as is already Mrs. One thing I want to impress upon you is that dinner - music and cards... Helmckinc we heai and even Mrs. Dallas’. you must never attempt to suck Harryc nose On Sunday went to church and then lunched Letters to Cecilia from her sister Jane Dal again as it is apt to injure the brain. When you with the Douglas:c, nursedMrs. Dallas’ baby and las10 written from 1861 - 1865 during the time are cleaning it use a wet sponge and all will tried to catch a parrot which hadflown away Jane lived in England and then at Fort Garry come out nicely I wish you would give poor and took a long walk with them... getting tired also provided information about the lives, val Amy a substantial dinner in the middle ofthe we 3 sat down to waitfor the others... eating ues and perceptions of these ‘Daughters of the day as you don’tgive her any meatfor breakfast nuts and raisins and I tried to get an orange Country’. A few excerpts will suffice: no wonder she gets weak poor thing having to fromA.D. and she gave my handa tremendous

B.C. Historical News - FaIl 1995 28 by Cecilia., sent to her friend Mrs. newspaper reported that the House ofAssem Tolmie (Jane Work) on March 17, bly resolved ‘That the members of the 1857. It is at BCARS in the Helmcken House... convey.., to the Honorable Speaker Collection.14 their... earnest condolences in the bereave Mji Dearest Mrs Thimie ment he has sustained in the loss of his most To begin my beautiful epistle. Mr. estimable wife and request... that this House McDonaldandMiss CB Reid werejoined be permitted to render the last tribute oftheir in holy matrimony by the Revd Father respect to the memory of his deceased wife, Cridge,... and I tell you what I should by following her remains to the grave.”6 like to see next spring a little Mc, I sin Martha Douglas also comments on her sis ceret)i hope two at once, for she is always ter’s death: turning us all into ridiculefor having lit One of these occasions was the death of my tle brats so soon... My poor little May is dear siste, Mrs. Helmcken. Mrs. Work came Helmcken House in Victoria. This was known as Arbutus Lodge when it ws builtfor Cecilia asa bride. The herb garden very poorly indeed her head is all broken and comforted my Mother and remained with adjacent to the house has been restored in the summer of1995. out into smallpimples which break and her until the end My Father was away at the BCARS #3878 form larger ones. AsforAmy she is as lively time... No strange hands touched our dead’7 bite... and afterwards said she would kiss it as evei fill oftalk and mischief . . .Mrs. Ella is Cecilia’s married life differed from her well.L.. (later) Iplayed some duets with AD sit as round as apuncheon ofAleso is Mrs. Cridge... childhood and from the married life of her ting in my wet clothes... Many thanksfor the very nice trees you and the mother quite substantially. She lived through offI started to the Governors and found doctor have been so kind as to send W have the years when the far west changed from the two girls at the Helmckens busy ironing - so had themplanted infront ofour house. We have wilderness Hudson’s Bay and First Nations I insisted against their will, ironed some oftheir now about 50 apple trees... we will also have a sociery to colonization by European, prima shifts - ah ah — good spree - strawberries and great number ofbeautfiulfiowers. Thursday will rily British settlers. The Company life in the oranges made the work pleasant to say nothing be my darling little Amyc birthday She will be Fort provided for meals prepared for the ofthe company... (BushbyJournal Transcript) two years old. How I wish you wouldpay us a women and their families, and servants to Agnes is passionately in love with Bushby visit when everything is in its prime. lam sure attend to the basins. Fifteen years later at and encourages him to visit the Douglas I should be delighted to see you... Mama sends Arbutus Lodge, Cecilia did the housekeep house, to meet her at sister Jane Dallas’ home you her best love and begs you would be so good ing herself as well as childrearing. Her own then in Victoria, to walk with her every day as to send that beautifid witch of hers that is writing, and references to her by others indi and to embrace and ‘fondle’ her. Bushby Paulinefor she needs her very much. There are cate she was a woman with a sense of humor mentions ‘he has never been in such close so many rooms that require a servant, it is quite and a happy, although perhaps retiring na contact with girls in his life’ - this after a di impossible for one person to attend to all the ture, very fond ofher home and her own fam ary passage writing about tickle fights with basons (sic). . ..Mrs. Blenkinsop is going to the ily. That family values were high for all the Agnes and Alice rolling in the fields of Bea interior to dig gold. I only hope they will send Douglas’s was clearly stated by Sir James’ well con Hill Park. Douglas however smiles kindly us all a bucketfill. . ..Kiss the little boy and say known reference to ‘the many tender ties.’ on the couple, and agrees to let them marry for me kind regards to the doctoi Cecilia lived her life accordingly. She had been after a year’s engagement and then sends Cecilia died in 1865 of pneumonia, after “a good mother and wife.” Bushby off to work on the mainland gold- giving birth to a baby boy who died a month She left very little behind, even her chil rush colony. However in 1862, sister Jane later. Helmcken writes about her death in dren being so young when she died had little writes from Fort Garry: Reminiscences.15 memory of her. In a historical context, she is And so Agnes is married at lastpoor deargirl In 1865, Cecilia and Lady Douglas went to interesting because her life was spent entirely I know they will be very very happy if dear the opening ofsomething on Church hilL.. the in the far west as the helpmate of two ofBrit Arthur is not too exacting. He is such a good weather turned Out bath both Lady Douglas and ish Columbia’s founders. How much her sup creature and a perfict gentleman and I could Cecilia took cold. 1%’ry little notice was taken of port assisted Sir James Douglas and Dr. J.S. not wish her to marry anyone better.. this, and my wift kept about as well as she was Helmcken in undertaking their work that No doubt Cecilia attended this wedding able, but soon pneumonia resulted and in afrw shaped B.C. is impossible to measure or docu which Martha Douglas tells us about: days the end unhappily came, after havinggiven ment. Therefore I wish to leave Cecilia’s story The next wed.ding was that ofmy sisterAgnes, birth to a boy Mrs. Finlayson kindt’y took charge with quotations about her from each of these who was married to Arthur Bushby in the month ofthis poor little thingfor a fow days, but on men. Of her Dr. Helmcken said: ofMay Ezgit bridesmaids were in attendance, returning home he died.. Cecilia had been a ‘Cecilia had been a good mother and wifr’

I being one ofthem. In those days the wedding good mother and wift - but hardly used by the Her father, Sir James Douglas wrote in his had to be performed before 12 o’clock and a absence of servants. Indeed in looking back I diary: che was the light of my lfi’ and I will breakfast was held after the service in the am almost led to believe that under more fit miss her sorely’8 Church. A most gorgeous banquet was held.. vourable conditions she mzgiit have lived.. Dr. Jennifer Iredale is curator ofHelmcken House Myfather did not allow my sister to accept any Powell attended her.. I was but little at home and several other heritage properties on Van weddingpresents. Her trousseau camefrom Eng andprobably underrated the extent ofthe dis couver Jsland She worked at Barkervill.efor a land’3 ease -for I never attended any ofmy own fam fewyears before moving to Victoria. These chal So far you have heard about Cecilia but ily when ill. (p.214) lengingposirions are within the Heritage Prop not from her. There is only one letter written On Monday, Feb. 6, 1865, the Colonist erties Branch.

29 B.C. Historical News - Fall 1995 FOOTNOTES I. Amelia Douglas (flee Connolly) bore 13 babies, of which 5 daughters and one son survived past infancy. They were Cecilia (1834), Jane (1839), Agnes (1841), Alice (1844), Books Entered In The James (1851), and Martha (1854). 2. Harvey, Eloisa; P.A.C., MG29/C15, Bancresft Papers, folio 1994 B.C. Historical Federation Writing Competition 8-12, Mrs. Harves ‘Life ofJohn McLoughlin, Governor of the Hudson’s Bay Company’s Possessions”, p.9 as cited in These books are available at many bookstores. Readers requiring information on a special book Morton, J., Fort I.anglcyi An Overview of the Operations should contact the Editor (604)4.22-3594 or Contest Cbaj, Pixie McGeachie at (604) 522-2062. of a Diversified FurTrade Post 1848 to 1858 and the Physical Context in 1858. 3. Whitman, Narcissa, Prentiss. My Journal 1836, ed. A CAPITAL CONTROVERSY GENTLEMEN ON IMPERIAL SERVICE Lawrence Dodd, Ye Galleon Press, Washington, 1982. by Terry Julian: Signature Publishing by R. Bruce Scott: Sono Nis Press 4. Ross, D.; BCARS, AE R73D74 5. Husse John, ‘The Fort Vancouver Farm’, Fort Vancouver THE COAST CONNECTION JUSTA: A FIRST NATIONS LEADER National Historic Site, probably original reference from by R.G. Harvey: Oolichan Books by Bridget Moran: Arsenal Pulp Press Thomas Lowe journal. 6. On June 6, 1849, at two o’dock in the afternoon, Chief # A DEDICATED TEAM WITNESS TO WILDERNESS: CLkYOQUOT Factor James Douglas, Senior Member of the Hudson Bay by Cyril E. Leonoff: BiTech Publishers Ltd. SOUND ANTHOLOGY Company Board of Management of the Columbia District, by H. Breen-needham: Arsenal Pulp Press now provisional Governor of the Colony of Vancouver Island, THE CONCUBINE’S CHILDREN landed at Fort Victoria from the ‘Cadhoro’”. (p. Xl VII Fort by Denise Chong: Penguin Books FAMILY TREES Victoria Letters). Canada Ltd. by Lake Cowichan 50th Anniversary Book 7. Blakey Smith, D. The Reminiscences of Doctor John Committee CHRISTINA Sebastian Helmcken, University of B.C. Press, 1975, p.8l, LAKE: AN ILLUSTRATED 120,121. HISTORY BECOMING CANADIANS: PIONEER SIKHS 8. Helmcken Family Papers, BCARS, Add Mss. 505 Folder by Lincoln Sander: Sonotek Publishing IN THEIR OWN WORDS 51. by Sarjeet Singh Jagpal: Harbour Publishing # THE SKYLINE LIMITED 9. Blakey Smith, D. “Lady Franklin visits the Pacific Northwest” in PABC Memoir No. xl, 1974. by Robert Turner & David Wilkie: BELLA COOLA MAN 10. Dallas, Jane; letters contained in the Helmcken Sono Nis Press by Clayton Mack: Harbour Publishing Collection, BCARS, Add Mss. 505. HOME FROM THE HILL GOOD COMPANY: AN AFFECTION- 11. Harris, Martha Douglas, History and Folklore of the Cowichian Indians (Folklore of the Cree Indians), Colonist by Peter Murray: Horsdahl and Sehubaut ATE HISTORY OF THE UNION STEAMSHIPS Printing and Publishing Company, 1901 p.57. Publishers by Tom Henry: Harbour Publishing 12. Bushby, A; diary held at the BCARS. SEVEN-KNOT SUMMERS RAINCOAST CHRONICLES ELEVEN UP 13. Martha Harris, BCARS Add Mss 2789, file 12. 14. Helmcken Family Papers, Add Mss 505. by Beth Hill: Horsdahl and Schubart edited by Howard White; Harbour 15. Blakey Smith, D. The Reminiscences of Doctor John Publishers Publishing Sebastian Helmcken, University of B.C. Press, 1975, p.8I, KHOT-LA-CKA: CHIEF SIMON BAKER # THE ROAD RUNS WEST: A CENTURY 120. 121. by VernaJ. Kirkness: Douglas & McIntyre ALONG THE BELL.A COOLA/CHILCOTIN 16, Colonist Newspaper, February 9, 1865, p.3 ‘Funeral of ROAD Mrs. Helmcken’. THE FRONT PAGE STORY OF WORLD 17. Martha Harris, BCARS Add Mss 2789, file 12. by Diana French: Harbour Publishing WAR II 18. Douglas, Sir James Papers, BCAR,S. by Robert Reid: Douglas & Maclntyre SALMONPILlS: THE STEVESTON STORY by Duncan & Susan Stacey: Harbour DEELEY: MOTORCYCLE MILLIONAIRE BIBLIOGRAPHY Publishing by Frank Hilliard: Orca Book Publishers Helmcken papers, BCARS Add Mss. 505. COLUMBIA JOURNALS: DAVID THOMPSON Blakey-Smith, D, “Dr. Helmcken Wife” (A talk to the ST ANNE’S ALDERMERE by Barbara Belyea: McGill-Queen’s University Rotary Club), Nov. 4, 1976, Add Mss 84-30, File 6/15, by Valentine Uric: Rifrswood Press, Articles Talks. Press & Parille Blakey.Smith, D., The Reminiscences of Doctor John 55A CANDLE ON THE COAST Sebastian Helmcken, U.B.C. Press, 1975. GOLD AT FORTYMILE CREEK: YUKON by AlfBayne; Camp Homewood, Heriot Bushby, Arthur, Diary held at the BCARS. by Michael Gates: U.B.C. Press Cresse & Strong-Boag, eds. British Columbia Reconsidered, Bay, B.C. VOP 1HO Press Gang Publishers, Vancouver, B.C., 1992. HOUSES FOR ALL: THE STRUGGLE FOR Douglas Family Papers, BCARS. SOCIAL HOUSING IN VANCOUVER Filbee, M.AWoman’s Place; an Illustrated History of by Jill Wade: U.B.C. Press Winning Book; # Review has been published in Women at Home, The National Magazine Company, this magazine. Cambridge, U.K., 1980. T’SHAlvIA Harris, Martha, BCARS Add Mss 2789, file 12. by Ron Purvis: Heritage House Publishing Husse> John, “Fort Vancouver Farm”, National Parks Service, Co. unpublished. Husses John, “The Women of Fort Vancouver”, National CARIBOO-CHILCOTIN: PIONEER Parks Service, unpublished. PEOPLE & PLACES Johnston,Jean,W’ildcenessWomen, p. 155-177. by Irene Stangoe: Heritage House Lamb, WK. ed., “The Census of Vancouver Island, 1855”, B.C.H.Q,VolIV#1. THE STORY OF ERNA Lugrin, N. de, Pioneer Women ofVancouver Island, 1843- by Phylis Bowman: Port Edward, B.C. 1866, Women’s Canadian Club of Victoria, Vancouver Island, 1928, page 77. # REFLECTIONS: THOMPSON VALLEY Mouat A.N., “Notes on the Norman Morison”, B.C.H.Q., HISTORIES Vol 3, #?). by Wayne Norton and Wilf Schmidt: Schlissel, Gibbens & Hampsten. Far From Homes Families Plateau Press B( hISTORICAL of the WestwardJourney, Schocken Books, New York, 1989. Van Kirk, S. Many Tender ‘lien Women in Fur Trade TWIN CITIES: ALBERNI - PORT FEDERATION Society 1670-1870, Watson & Dwyer Publishing Ltd, ALBERNI Winnipeg, Manitoba, 1980. by Jan Peterson: Oolichan Books VRITING COMPETITION Waters,. A Centennial Anthology, “The Lady Nobody Knows”.

B.C. Historical News - Fall 1995 30 Disappearing Highway by Tom WParkin

Discovery of a 1930 Provincial Govern been replaced by a truly spectacular short transportation connection around the Co ment Hzhway and Travel Map showing an cut across the Selkirk Mountains which sepa lumbia River. Meadows at this location pro un-named road as “among the scenic high rate the parallel portions of the Columbia vided sustenance for the animals. More ways of B.C.” piqued this writer’s historical Valley. recently, widely-spaced lodges provided trav interest. The road was a trans-provincial This faster route, the Trans-Canada High ellers with food, fuel and lodging. Northern route, yet couldn’t have been driven at the way over Roger’s Pass, officially opened in most was Boat Encampment, once a camping time. In reality; the highway hadn’t been built, 1962. Those wanting to visit points East no place for voyageurs paddling the Canoe River. and wouldn’t be - for another ten years! longer needed to grit their teeth over 300 The 1929/30 annual report of B.C.’s De

Old Blue Water Bridge on the BigBend Highway - Black Water Creekflows into Blue

Waterjust below this bridge - to the right. The photographer stood on an upper loop ofroad - a very steep, twisty road which was later replaced to make log hauling easie, Bridge at Boat Encampment, Big BernL June 1956: BCARS #HP6361 8 Selkirk District Archives - MOTH It was 1923 when the Province of B.C. and kilometres of gravel, washboard, and S partment of Public Works tells how provin the Dominion Government signed a cost- curves. cial crews were working up the old trail from sharing agreement to construct a road be In that hinterland, the best way to mark Revelstoke to Boat Encampment, and of the tween Revelstoke and Golden around the progress was by creek crossings and mile Feds building toward them from Golden. northerly bend ofthe Columbia River.’ This posts. Not far out of Revelstoke was Silvertip The senior government was participating “Big Bend” was a hairpin curve in the water Creek, a double-drop falls through a rocky through crews of the National Park Service course, which flowed north past Golden to notch above the road. The perspective from because the road was viewed as a way to en meet the Canoe River, then bent south past a wooden bridge near its spray-soaked foot hance development of the Rocky Mountain Revelstoke. The road was to follow the river emphasized the ‘round the inside of its turn. cascade. Growing up in Revelstoke, I travelled that Near 17-mile, road annually to visit the East Kootenays. Few the highway parts were scenic - its roadside evergreens passed a subsist hung pale with dust. No more pleasant was ence farm belong my back seat monotony and force-feedings ing to family of green Gravol® for the five to six hour trip. friends. The Yes, the Big Bend Highway did exist, but Grants began oddly, you won’t find it on modern road maps homesteading either. therein 1941,but Over 140 kilometres of the Big Bend river the original lease and road were submerged when the reservoir dated to 1887, at ofMica Creek dam rose in 1973. But by then, a time when a Camp at 46Mik Big Bend Highway, B.C., Octobe, 1936: the highway had fallen into disuse. It had packtrail was the Selkirk District - W.V. Ring, photographer

31 B.C. Historical News - Fall 1995 parks. with Plasticine®, makingfigures. So, Igot this B.C. wanted to increase tourist traffic from idea ofemphasizing what I saw in the wood that direction into the central interior. Work with an axe, It wazn meant to be classic ari, was expected to be finished in a year or two, just a pass-time. It took me a day to make each and that was probably why the route was eai The hat was built ofa sawed-offhollow shown on the early road map before it was log, with a brim of1-inch lumber The whole complete. thing stood close to 10feet high.” Suddenly, the Depression came. Construc “When the brass came overfrom Banfffer a tion continued, but was now done by relief pre-opening inspection, I thought theyd tell me funding; a sort ofwork-to-survive effort pro to get rid ofit, but instead this M Walkergave vided for “single homeless men”. Public works instructions to cut it offand move it to Boat camps were seen as a way to keep unemployed Encampmentfor the opening ceremony.” drifters out of urban areas where they might C.M. Walker was a Banff engineer who cause problems. Progress on the road slowed. represented the Federal Government. Also in After several years the Province bowed out, attendance were a great number of MLAs. allowing the Department of National C.S. Leary, Minister of Public Works, handed Defense to supervise the camps. Then, a dip the scissors to Premier Partullo to cut the rib lomatic notation in the 1936 annual report: bon. Mrs. Fred Fraser, first “respectable” After some six years’ experience of carry white woman to come to Revelstoke, was also ing out work purely as a relief measure, on the dais.3 though considerable progress was made, Thus ‘Wooden head’ became a roadside naturally from the point of view of “getting attraction, and possibly B.C.’s earliest re results,” this method is not so satisfactory as minder to drive defensively. When the Mica the normal way of letting the work by con Creek flooding began, it was trucked to tract or by using day-labour experienced in — Revelstoke. Wooden head now sits on the highway construction.2 Collapsed Bailey bridge, Waitabit Creek, Mile 18 of bank of the Columbia beside the Trans the Big Be,uL December1959. Though continuing to provide 50 percent Canada Highway - one of the oddest pieces Selkirk District funding, the Federal Government allowed of highway heritage in B.C. B.C. to resume normal administration ofthe Boat Encampment, and other scenes of my job. The Big Bend Highway was wrapped up childhood now lie under many metres of four years later, primarily with professional water. Mica Dam, and later, Reveistoke Dam, contractors. flooded virtually all of the valley between Boat Encamp Reveistoke and Donald. This activity under ment was site of the the Columbia River Treaty required re-con highway opening struction of the current Nakusp-Mica Creek ceremony on June Highway 23 on higher ground. 29, 1940. Peter Today, a concrete span zips vehicles past Fuoco was there at Silvertip Falls at a higher level, and this pretty the time. He retired piece of nature is lost to most drivers. Few in 1975 as office realize they’re following a route previously fol manager with the lowed by canoes, pack trains and a highway Ministry of Trans which disappeared. portation and High ways in Penticton. In 1940, he was time Tom Parkin is an infbrmation officer with the keeper/first aid man Ministry of Transportation and Highways. He on the Bend, and frequently writes about B.C. transportation started an interesting history. person project: “I was working at FOOTNOTES 80-mile, when re 1. Harvey, R.G. The Coast Connection: A History of die Building of Trails and Roads Between British turning to my tent one Columbia’s Interior and its Lower Mainland From the evening, this cedar Cariboo Road to the Coquihalla Highway. Lantzville: Oolichan Books, 1994. stump on the edge of 2. Report of the Minister of Public Works of the Province This is a picture of Wooden Head taken at Boat Encampment on the old Big the right-of-way of British Columbia for the Fiscal Year 1936-37. Bend Highway. Peter Fuoco, an employee of what was then called the seemed to Victoria, King’s Printer. Department ofPublic W4rks, carved this in 1940 out ofa cedar stump. it was have facial 3. Nobbs Ruby. ‘Relief camp workers help build Big Bend a notable landmarkfor those driving between Golden and Reveistoke. It was features. As a youth, I Highway’, Reveistoke Review, July 17, 1992. moved to Reveistoke in the early 1960c and may still be viewed today close to liked to horse around the bridge on Trans-Canasta Highway #1. BCARS #HP27277

B.C. Historical News - Fall 1995 32 The Man Who Lived With Indians by Esther Darlington

Many a young man set sail from “the the native population. Diseases such old country” with the high hope of ad as measles, diphtheria and whooping venture in his heart. Many also had the cough, as well as tuberculosis had deci hope for fortune, and if not a fortune, at mated Indian communities for dec least a prosperous new life in a new land ades. Native chiefs lamented the that seemed there for the taking. A few barrenness (infertility) of their women, came because they were romantics, intent as food sources diminished along with on experiencing and learning as much the traditional hunting and fishing ar from the new life as was humanly possi eas. For example, the Indian commu ble for them. Once arriving, they were nity at Spences Bridge had been captivated by the untamed beauty of the attempting to farm traditional land, land, the endless plateaus of forest and using age old springs and creeks flow meadows, distant mountains, where few ing into the Thompson, but as these men had walked, except the native Indi water sources diminished, with the fil ans. Such a romantic was James Alexan ing of water rights by white and Chi der Teit. nese farmers, farming sizeable crops The fair haired Scot with eyes the col became extremely difficult for native our of clouds arrived in British Columbia people. Nevertheless, a number of na in 1884. He was bound for the tiny ham tive families farmed on benches along let ofSpences Bridge, a collection of rough the Thompson River from Pokhaist to wooden buildings buried deep in the clay Spences Bridge with great success. and gravel mountains at the head of the Though Teit’s translation of the Fraser River Canyon. He was 17. Thompson language has given rise to Teit’s uncle, John Murray, had left Scot dispute in recent years and Teit’s lin land some years before, and had prospered guistic abilities have come under criti in Spences Bridge. He owned land, a farm, ThisportraitofanthropologistJames Teit was taken in his lateryears. The picture was copledfrom afamily ailnim by his son Sigurd Thit cism by some natives, the fact that he and a general store. Teit came to help his Photo courtesy of Ashoroft Museum. preserved their language and records uncle run the store. Teit’s own family were of their customs cannot be contested. prosperous merchants in Scotland, but the so intrinsically part of their culture, learning Much of the material presently used by vari boy did not wish to settle down into the mid their language and meticulously recording the ous tribes such as the Thompson and dle class lifestyle ofhis family. Before leaving details of every aspect of it, that he all but Shuswap, to educate their people to the old Scotland, he signed over his birth right to became Indian. He championed their cause way of life and return pride in native cul his brothers. for land claims, and was appointed by them ture, was the product of James Alexander In Liverpool, waiting for the sailing ship to be their spokesman in Ottawa. Teit’s scholarly pen and dedication. Unfor that would take him to a new life, Teit met a As traditional hunting and fishing grounds, tunately, the source of the material is some young, newly married, Scottish couple, John water sources, became alienated from the times not noted when sections of it are and Jessie Smith. Remarkably, they too, were native Indians with the influx of new settlers reprinted by native communities for their bound for British Columbia, and even more and farmers, native communities became people. remarkably coincidental, their destination alarmed. In 1910, 24 chiefs from the Famous anthropologists such as Franz Boas too, was Spences Bridge. Thus began a friend Thompson, Okanagan and Shuswap tribes, and Diamond Jenness, who used Teit’s work ship that lasted for many years between the met to discuss their concerns. Meetings were freely in publishing their own papers on na man destined to become one of the world’s ongoing into 1911, assemblies gathering in tive cultures always meticulously noted their foremost anthropologists, and the couple that both Spences Bridge and Kamloops. Teit at source. Indeed, Teit became a respected col would produce some of the finest fruit that tended every meeting, and was probably in league and friend of these great scholars. ever competed in British Commonwealth strumental in calling the meetings together. But why Teit’s work, remarkable and far- competitions. Jessie Smith’s Golden Grimes These meetings culminated in a lengthy list reaching as it has become, was unknown to apple became world famous. ofgrievances that was presented to Sir Wilfrid the Canadian people, and forgotten in the Teit’s fascination for the native Indians was Laurier in Ottawa. But as early as 1900, Teit decades following his death in 1922, remains immediate and compelling. Indeed, he be had been writing about the plight of the a mystery He had captured the character and came obsessed with knowing all that he could Thompson Indians. He sent a monograph dignity of Thompson Indians in scores of about the Thompson Indians of Spences outlining their extreme difficulties to Ottawa, photographs which he took himself, and Bridge. In the years that followed, he became in which he noted with alarm the decline in which, together with voluminous books and

33 B.C. Historical News - Fall 1995 papers, form the basis ofa massive bibliogra Josephine Morens whose parents had a live Merritt during James iéit’s illness. He died phy in Ottawa. stock farm near Spences Bridge. The family at the age of 55 on October 30, 1922. Upon Teit’s lifestyle in those early years in Spences was related to the Guichon family of Nicola hearing of his death, his widow was deluged

Bridge, - accompanying native Indians on Valley. The couple had five children, all given with a flood of letters and telegrams from all hunting and fishing trips, living with them Nordic names. Sigurd, now the only living over the world. Josephine Teit seems to have for months at a time, raised suspicion in the offspring who resides in Merritt, B.C., Eric, had only a little realization of the extent and nearby white communities. When a stage Inga, Magnus and Thorvald. importance of her husband’s anthropologist coach was robbed north ofCache Creek, Teit According to Sigurd Teit, who was only 7 career. was considered a suspect, merely because he when his father died, James Teit spent a good Recognition of this great Canadian has spent so much time with the Indians. In her deal of time away from the family home. He been formally sought through requests for a personal journal, orchardist Jessie Smith would be gone for 3, 4 or 5 months at a memorial postage stamp honouringTeit and noted, “People could not understand his stretch, travelling with hunting parties, some his invaluable contribution to the preserva (Teit’s) great interest in the Indians”. from Norway and Germany, in the northern tion and promotion ofthe cultures of several Teit married a Thompson Indian woman, wilds of British Columbia. Teit never missed native tribes of British Columbia. Antko, in 1892. She was several years older an opportunity to continue collecting data than Teit. She undoubtedly gave him price among the native peoples he met en route. The author attended the opening of the Thit less information about her people and their Teit’s interests were not limited to anthro Gallery in Merritt on July 31, 1995. She bad culture and marriage to her must have greatly pology; His library was vast and included done extensive research at Spences Bridge. aided him to establish the bonds oftrust that books on history, poetry and botany. After SOURCES were essential in researching her people. But his death, Josephine stored many ofher hus The Jesup North Pacific Expeditions (edited by Franz Brag) she died in 1899, and the couple were child band’s books and documents at the General Memoirs of the American Museum of Natural History, New York-vol. 1. byJames A. Teit, 1900. less. Antko is buried in the graveyard at Store in Spences Bridge. They were destroyed Various documents on Specific Claims from Cook Ferry Spences Bridge, in. full view of spectacular in a fIre. Sigurd Teit remembers that a good Band files. it Nicola Valley Historical Quarterly Vol. 2, No. 2. J.A. Thit - Murray Falls as descends a rocky escarp part ofthe charred and damaged material was April 1979. ment across the Thompson from the town. “thrown into the Thompson River”! Interview with Sigurd Teit in Merritt, 1992. In 1904, Teit remarried. His bride was The family moved from Spences Bridge to The Hedley Entrance Beauti:flcation Project Last summer, 1994, the Department his crew started hauling gravel and soil. of Highways did repaving in and They also brought in huge rocks to around Hedley. For safety reasons new build a wall around our garden and put pylons were placed along the highway our ore car in place. and the entrance roads to Hedley. The On May 20th we were ready to be Museum Society had a small triangle gin. The men built “the Wall” and the of flowers planted with a sign adver rest of us constructed the pathway and tising our Museum. When the pylons began planting. Paul said it will take 3 were in place, we had a large semi-cir or 4 years to get everything established cle and no way of seeing our sign. Bill but it looks great already! The garden Coates, our contact person for the De probably measures about 80 feet by 30 partment of Highways in Penticton feet (I asked my husband for help with gave us permission to create a garden. Wrkers at the Hedley Entrance BeautUication Project are Bob Holtn those figures) and we have a beautiful This spring we began planning and Helen Marten, Joe Eithen Chuck Caspersen, Sam Hofei Curtis Hofer in rock wall around it about 2 feet high. the Ore Ca, Nicole Mock, Helen Moore and Paul Van Haist. fundraising. Every time we looked at Photo courtesy Wayne Desrochers We’d like to thank the people who the site it grew bigger! Our original helped us with this project. The Com triangle had three sides about 6 feet each and maintenance work order for $1,500.00. We munity Club gave us a very generous dona now we had 100 feet by 50 feet to plant! We couldn’t believe our good fortune! tion for hoses, sprinklers, peat moss, etc. have a small town with probably 15 active We held a flea market at our Museum in Candorado Mines saw what we were doing volunteers in our Museum and the task was March and we sold lots of items and made and gave generously. Linda Anderson did a mind-boggling. over $500.00! Paul Van Halst came to our wonderful watercolour painting depicting the

We contacted a local contractor, Benny flea market - he had just moved into our area site so we were able to promote it. Many in Nendick, and he gave us a cost estimate for and he was a landscaper by trade. We couldn’t dividuals gave money, plants and especially materials and equipment of$ 1,500.00. A ter believe it! He volunteered to help us! their time for planting, wall building, weed rific price but he may as well have asked for a Bill Coates came to look over the site and ing and watering. We thank them all so very, million! We had no idea of where to get this told us where things should be for drainage, very much! kind ofmoney! We contacted the Department visibility; etc. Chuck Caspersen and his crew Helen Martens President ofThe Hedley Herit of Highways and they were able to give us a cemented in a large sign post and Bennie and age Arts é Crafts Socie

B.C. Historical News - Fall 1995 34 NEWS & NOTES Librarian Honored consultant of Toronto. Laird Rankin is General Manager and Secretary of the Society, Restoration of St. Ann’s Ron Welwood of Nelson been awarded the has responsible for non-magazine activities. 1995 Micromedia Award of Merit for his work Academy Christopher Dafoe is a Society Vice-President as a librarian who has made a significant St. Ann’s Academy in Victoria contains and Editor of The Beaver. Carol Preston contribution to the design or delivery of library buildings that were constructed between 1856 continues as Managing Editor of The Beaver. service or to the profile of library issues in a and 1910. Now the decision to retain this college. He has worked not only as librarian at The Hudson’s Bay Company History Founda complex and rehabilitate the buildings for Selkirk College in Castlegar but has been very tion was established by the company to another 100 years of safe occupancy has been active with many community projects such as support Canada’s National History Society with made and funding promised, an advisory board saving the library of Notre Dame/David funds received as tax savings when the has been appointed. One of the directors on Thompson College when it was disbanded. Corporate archives and museum collection this new board is Dr. Lloyd Bailey, historian and Weiwood, a BCHF Vice-President, has were given to the Province of Manitoba. The teacher. Persons with information on, memo published books, prepared the pamphlets for Society has authorized funding to be given to ries of, or family pictures or memorabilia please self-guided tours of Nelson’s heritage buildings, the PRIMARY Historical Society in each contact Bailey at 303A - 2250 Manor Place, and has started planning for our 1997 confer province. President Alice Glanville and a Comox, B.C. V9N 7T2 or phone: (604) 339- ence in Nelson. Ron also received City subcommittee planning workshops to be held 5082. Council’s nomination for a Certificate of Merit in conjunction with the 1996 Annual Confer from Heritage Trust. ence have been promised $5000 to implement the new program. Women’s History Month If you are interested in subscribing to The 1995 marks the fourth time that October has Museum Management Beaver and becoming a member of Canada’s been designated/celebrated as Women’s National History Society mail your cheque to: History Month. Researchers will quickly realize

Programs The Beaver, #478 - 167 Lombard Avenue, that only a small percentage of archival records The University of Victoria is offering a series of Winnipeg, Manitoba, R3B 0T6. Cost 1 year (six refer to pioneer women. The earliest European courses in their “Cultural Resource Manage issues) $25; 2 years $45; 3 years (18 issues) explorers, prospectors and ranchers were ment Program” within the Division of Continu $60. male. When camps became settlements ing Studies. The Fall series will be almost records acknowledge the presence of “families” finished when you read this but there are but rarely specify who and how many females sessions in January 1996 on Preserving participated in the life of the new community. A Natural History Collections; Jan/Feb. Maritime release from the Status of Women in Ottawa Heritage etc. For further details contact Joy Funding Provincial Historical states, “The goal of Women’s History Month is Davis at the University of Victoria phone (604) Societies to write women back into Canadian history.” 721-8462 or fax (604) 721-8774. And, “the theme for this year is Leaders, In a study done in late 1994 information was Scholars, Mentors: the History of Women and gathered from the four western provinces. The Education.” Historical Society of Alberta receives $51 000 Canada’s National History annually from the government Alberta Commu This magazine aims to present stories from nity Development Branch. B.C. history of au pioneers. There is hopefully Society enough female content in this Fall 1995 issue Manitoba Historical Society receives $25,200 The Beaver was founded in 1920 by the to emphasize women’s achievements from the provincial government Ministry of at this Hudson’s Bay Company. Recently this season. magazine was acquired by Canada’s National Culture, Heritage & Citizenship. History Society, an organization formed to The Saskatchewan History & Folklore Society We point out to local program planners that promote interest in and knowledge about derived $1 18,200 from lotteries licensed under Women’s History Month can be tied in with Canadian history. Subscribers to The Beaver the Saskatchewan government. projected museum displays or guest speakers will now automatically become members of this during October. new society with full membership privileges The British Columbia Historical Federation ranging from special entry discounts at major serves a larger number of members/subscrib Canadian museums (including our own RBC ers with a grant of $5000 from B.C. Heritage Museum) and the opportunity to buy books on Trust (previously $3000). Other organizations Index 1988-1992 Canadian history at discounts through The have an office with paid staff and membership There are a few copies of the Index for B.C. Beaver Book Club. dues of $24, $25, and $33 per person. Your Historical News still available for $5 each. Mail BCHF operates with volunteer effort and gives your order with a cheque to: B.C. Historical Rolph Huband of Toronto continues as members their subscription virtually at cost. News, (Index) Box 105, Wasa, B.C. VOB 2K0. publisher as well as becoming the first Dues for members of member societies are still Vancouver members contact Melva Dwyer. President of the new society. Other members of $1 per person per year. Think about the the Board of Directors include Joseph E. contrast, folks, and pass your opinions and/or Martin, a senior partner of Delitte &Touche, appreciation along to the nearest member of Toronto; Michael Bliss, Professor of History, the BCHF executive. (See addresses and Great Cattle Drive 1995 University of Toronto; Joseph A. Ghiz, Dean of phone numbers inside the back cover.) This annual Trail Ride attracted 209 guest the Law Faculty, Dalhousie University, Halifax; riders and 100 wranglers. Registration and N.B. The British Columbia Historical Federation Paul-Andre Linteau, Professor of History, preparation were made at Historic Hat Creek issues a receipt for tax purposes for donations University of Quebec, Montreal; Tina Loo, Ranch on Sunday, July 16. Hostesses in to either their Scholarship fund or the Writing Associate Professor of History, Simon Fraser historical dresses added colour to the scene. A Competition. These are projects which foster University, Burnaby, B.C.; Desmond Morton, Cowboy Olympic was staged for entertainment preservation of B.C. history. Increasing the Director, Institute for the Study of Canada, and local families honored those with reserve for each will enable us to give more pioneer McGill University, Montreal; Shirlee A. Smith, roots in the South Cariboo. Riders left Hat financial assistance to a student and/or larger historical consultant and former Keeper, Creek at 8am sharp on July 17 prizes to authors. and rode for a Hudson’s Bay Company Archives, Winnipeg; day and a half before commencing to herd the and William Nobleman, a magazine publishing cattle to Kamloops. A farrier, Tony Smith,

35 B.C. Historical News - Fall 1995 NEWS & NOTES

travelled with the group to tend to the feet of horses which shed a shoe during the day. Louis Nanaimo’s Volunteer of the Saur of Kamloops drove a replica of a BX Year stagecoach to give visitors a sample of old We in the B.C. Historical Federation thank fashioned transportation on the Cariboo Road. Pamela Mar for the efficient managing of all the Every horse registered was examined by a duties involved with the Competition for Writers veterinarian to ensure that each was in good of B.C. History. It should also be known that j condition to face the six day procession to Pamela works at diverse tasks for the Nanaimo !l./ Kamloops. Great meals were served along the Museum plus conducting walking tours for way and many riders predict they will be back locals or visitors plus lobbying for place names again next year. plus assisting her husband to research and A special thanks goes to Dwane Scott, record the Chinese presence. Pamela received manager of Hat Creek Historic Ranch, and the the Mayor’s nomination for “Heritage Volunteef’ many volunteers who staged the send off or to receive a Certificate of Merit from Heritage ;fr serviced riders enroute. Trust in April. Later Mrs. Mar was recognized at a Community Awards event, was named “Volunteer of the Year.” Congratulations!!

Canadian Historical RBCM Ghengis Khan School Association Competition Certificates of Merit for Regional History The Royal British Columbia Museum enlisted Every year the Regional History Committee of corporate sponsorship for a province-wide the Canadian Historical Association solicits competition to publicize the very special exhibit nominations for its “Certificate of Merit” Awards. Empires Beyond the Great Wall: The The British Columbia and Yukon Region will Julia Bullock-Webster left paintings of Heritage of Ghengis Khan. Guidelines were issue two awards: (1) for an outstanding scenery, beautlly executed illustrations distributed for four age/class groups. Grades K- publication or video on some aspect of regional ofwildflowers and at least one portrait. 3 and Grades 4-6 were challenged to draw and history; (2) one for individuals, societies, or She signed theseJBW1895 with the month colour a dragon. Each contest participant was institutions who have demonstrated excellence when each was completed issued a button saying “I drew the Dragon”; the in regional history. winning class entry won a CD-ROM equipped Nominations, accompanied by supporting Macintosh computer for their school; the scribe the diary into computerised form, material, must be submitted by 15 December to winning class plus teacher and one chaperone making it more accessible for research. were to be transported to Victoria and accom John Douglas Belshaw, Department of modated in the Empress Hotel where there Philosophy, History & Politics, University The Art Gallery of the South Okanagan and would be a luncheon, photo session and College of the Cariboo, Kamloops, B.C. V2C The Grist Mill have been collaborating to create awards ceremony plus, of course, a special 5N3. the current exhibit celebrating the creation of these works exactly a century and tour of the exhibit. The K-3 winners were Bella The 1994 Certificates of Merit were awarded ago, attempting Yu’s class at St. Patrick’s Elementary School in to: to illustrate the life and art of this Maple Ridge. Keating Elementary on Central Victorian lady during the pioneer settlement Saanich Road, Victoria took the Grades 4-6 Tina Loo, Making Law, Order, and Authority days of the Province. Diary references to prize for Louise Jovanich’s class. The Grade 7- in British Columbia, 1821-1 871 (University of specific paintings have been discovered, 9 winner was Greg Dingle of Bayside Middle Toronto Press, 1994). and Naomi Miller, Wasa, providing provocative text material to accom School in Brentwood Bay. There were so many British Columbia pany the water-colours. Artifacts mentioned in good essays that 17 runners-up received a the text have been located in museums, and certificate of merit. Grade 7 student Haley will add authentic three dimensional elements Merkeley of Cranbrook was among those Penticton/Keremeos Exhibit to the display. An example is a scorpion, the honored for her story of Ghengis Khan and the first ever discovered in B.C., which was sent to Art, literature and artifacts are being combined green vase. The Grade 10-12 contest re the Provincial Museum by the Bullock-Webster to create a unique and timely exhibit this Fall at quested an essay, approximately 1200 words, boys in 1894. the Art Gallery at the South Okanagan in on the contributions of Chinese immigrants to Penticton. Featured will be three dozen original To accompany the exhibit, Roger Boulet, British Columbia. The five judges have water-colour paintings created in Keremeos Director and Curator of the Art Gallery has impressive credentials. The winner, Nicole during 1894 and 1895 by Julia Bullock- prepared World Wide Web pages about the Cardinal a Grade 12 student at Belmont Senior Webster. For two years, while this Victorian paintings for the Internet. For a first hand Secondary School in Victoria, receives a $2500 gentlewoman visited her sons who were experience, visit the Penticton Gallery between scholarship plus a special tour of the exhibit. homesteading in the Similkameen, she September 9 and November 5, 1995. Minister of Culture & Heritage, Bill Barlee was recorded the native wildflowers in exquisite very impressed with the response (19,000 botanical illustrations and celebrated the entries from across the province). This seasons in landscape paintings. A keen challenge to explore another culture, and observer, she also meticulously noted daily promote awareness of the Empires Beyond events in a journal, providing well phrased and Alberni District Archives the Great Wall exhibit which was shown in picturesque commentaries on the pioneer life Due to budget constraints hours of opening for Victoria from March 31 to September 10, 1995, the Alberni Valley Museum of that time. Her Keremeos diary, now in the have been cut. The shows that our provincial museum is keeping in archives within collection of the Provincial Archives, amounts the Museum at Echo Centre are touch with the rest of the province. to 100,000 words; and for several summers, manned by volunteers from the Alberni District staff and volunteers at the Grist Mill at Historical Society on Tuesday and Thursday Keremeos have worked to accurately tran 10:00 a.m.to 3:00 p.m. (or by appointment).

B.C. Historical News - Fall 1995 36 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

From Maps To Metaphors; The Pacific World surveys came so soon after those of his famous that provide the reader with focused new infor Of George Vancouver. predecessor. How can Vancouver compete with mation. For instance, Kaye Lamb’s fascinating Robin Fisher and Hugh Johnston, eds. Vancou the scope of Cook, the sweep of his explora and lively look at three personalities in conflict, ver, U.B.C. Press, 1993. 365 p., illus. $39.95. tions? Cook is the progenitor of all 19th century Vancouver, Banks and Menzies. This is not new In Robin Fisher’s and Hugh Johnston’s in maritime exploration; it is he who opened the material, most of it appears in his Hakluyt edi troduction to their earlier volume Captain Pacific to generations of European naval sur tion of Vancouver, but in this chapter he iso James Cook and His Times which included veyors and Vancouver was just the first to fall lates the protagonists and demonstrates that he some of the papers given at the Cook Confer into Cook’s shadow. is a historian with a novelist’s intuition for narra ence at Simon Fraser University in 1978, they Vancouver’s achievements though not as tive and conflict. Then, just as Sir James Watt touch on a subject that would strongly influence spectacular as Cook’s, not as well known in his produced one of the most informed papers at the choice of papers for the Vancouver confer time or in ours, need to be acknowledged, need the Cook conference by focusing his medical ence of 1992. The editors state optimistically the same kind of focus as Cook’s, for Vancou expertise on Cook’s supposed success in com that two points of view on Cook’s presence in ver is the true mentor for generations of nauti bating scurvy, so chapters in From Maps to the Pacific, that of the European and the Indig cal surveyors who followed; he is the one who Metaphors by Andrew David and Alun Davies enous Peoples, were manifested but that it was discovered what Cook had missed, who sepa provide the reader with solid technical informa a ‘reciprocal relationship, which neither group rated, for instance, Vancouver Island from the tion with which to make informed judgments dominated and both benefited from...’ Then, mainland, who painstakingly surveyed count about Vancouver’s surveys. These papers, like fifteen years later that somewhat naive hope is less bays and inlets, to finally disprove some of Admiral Ritchie’s 1978 paper on Cook’s more cautiously expressed: ‘Today the impact the mythic theories of speculative geographers. hydrographic surveying methods, illuminate of European explorers on the Pacific and its peo From Maps to Metaphors does focus on Van Vancouver’s exploration, make the voyages and ple is a matter of conflicting interpretation, with couver but not as comprehensively as the ear the men on the ships more real; the reading more negative views gaining currency’ In view lier volume did on Cook. becomes almost tactile, not at all cerebral or dis of the latter, it’s not surprising to see much more For those who attended the Vancouver con tancing. One feels in reading these chapters that emphasis given in From Maps to Metaphors ference, and other readers, there are many re one is in touch with what mattered to these ex to papers discussing contact with natives than wards in From Maps to Metaphors. There are plorers: lunar distances, running surveys, accu in the Cook Volume, not to mention the refresh a number of chapters written by scholars who rate timepieces, all the skills and technology ing metaphorical account of the Squamish’s first appeared in the Cook text, sometimes examin needed to produce Vancouver’s superlative encounter with Vancouver that prefaces the Van ing the subject anew from the perspective of the charts. couver text. The balance between papers on last decade in the 18th century: Glyndwr Maurice Hodgson European and Indigenous Peoples at the con Williams extends his examination of Cook and Maurice Hodgson isa member of the English ference and those chosen for publication seems the theoretical geographers to Vancouver’s sur Department at Douglas College to be a healthy approach to the problem that veys; Alan Frost moves from his earlier study of was acknowledged but hardly addressed in the Romantic poets and their fascination with Gold at Fortymile Creek: Early Days in the 1978. Cook and other explorers’ journals to a close Yukon If the approach to native peoples at the two examination of the Nootka Sound crisis and its Michael Gates. Vancouver, UBC Press, 1994. conferences differed in emphasis, there was relation to British Imperial policy; David Mackay, 200 p., illus. $39.95 cloth; $19.95 paper. agreement in another area: the debt all research biographer of Banks in the Cook volume, here The quest for gold in the Yukon basin began ers of either Cook or Vancouver owe to J.C. speculates on the impact of Terra Australia on years before 17 August 1896, the day George Beaglehole and Kaye Lamb. There is scarcely a the European imagination and Christon Archer Carmack staked his claim on what is now Bo paper in either publication that does not ac focuses again on Spain, this time noting Spain’s nanza Creek. The argonauts, unlike fur traders knowledge the seminal work done by these two reduced activity on the west coast compared to and explorers, were there to stay, certain a new exceptional scholars. The name that came into Cook’s time. Eldorado must lie somewhere in the vast wil discussion almost as frequently as Cook was Perhaps the evolution of the two conferences derness round them. Their story rates brief men Beaglehole, wrote the editors in 1979, and, in is demonstrated in the titles of the two volumes: tions in the many books on the Klondike Rush 1993, “Like Vancouver, Lamb set out detailed in the first Cook is featured while the second but they deserve much more, and this book fills directions for others to sail by.” more ambiguous title seems to relegate Vancou the gap. The author, Michael Gates, is Curator We are indebted to the editors and UBC Press ver to a subsidiary role. Indeed, the chapters in of Collections for Kiondike National Historic Sites for publishing these excellent papers from the From Maps to Metaphors seem to refer as in Dawson, Yukon. Vancouver conference for the conference much to Cook as Vancouver, and the world that In 1873, Arthur Harper, Frederick Hart, Jack brought together superlative scholars on Van the book examines is as much that of 1770’s as McQuesten and Al Mayo, all major players in couver which attracted conference participants the 1790’s. Also, by the nature of the book there what would follow, entered the Yukon drainage from all over the world. It must have been diffi is a fair amount of overlapping which is irritat travelling by way of Mackenzie River, the pass cult to choose the papers that make up this vol ing, for each paper has to establish its historical to the Porcupine River and down that river to ume. Though they adequately represent the perspective; consequently, it’s a book to be Fort Yukon. The following year McQuesten built range of papers at the conference, one realizes dipped into, chapter by chapter, not to be read Fort Reliance, the main trading centre until aban in reading them that it is not only the Indigenous at one sitting. The gems seem to be - as they doned in 1886, at a site some six miles down

Peoples who underrate the value of Vancouver’s were in the earlier volume - the thoroughly re stream from today’s Dawson. Travel to and from work. Perhaps it is unfortunate that Vancouver’s searched and finely written chapters and those the Yukon basin increased slowly after 1880

37 B.C. Historical News - FaIl 1995 BOOKSH ELF when an accord with the Chilkat Indians opened spent years encouraging and grubstaking pros Echoes. Yet Henry has brought a fresh view the Chilkoot Pass route from Lynn Canal to the pectors but as yet no one had made the great which complements rather than competes. headwaters of the Yukon River. Joe Ladue, discovery they anticipated. Ironically, that would Rushton, Henry notes, gives “primarily a busi staker of the Dawson townsite, was one of fifty be made by George Carmack, Skookum Jim ness history”, - he “was not intimately versed in arriving by this route in 1882. In addition, small and Tagish Charlie, not one of them considered life aboard Union ships.” For his part Henry has steamers were operating from St Michael to a bona fide prospector, on a creek so close at depended extensively on the materials of Art locations on the lower Yukon River and, in 1883 hand that it must have been written off as worth Twigg who provided “an insider’s position in the Harper, McQuesten and Mayo acquired the less years before. The trio, invited by prospec company... from the vantage of the ships.” New Racket, from an unsuccessful prospect tor Robert Henderson to visit his ground on Gold Clearly, in large part, thanks to the efforts of ing venture. Bottom Creek, had left from their fish camp at people such as Rushton and Twigg, consider Prospectors spread throughout the Yukon the mouth of the Klondike River and on the re able written and photographic records for the drainage and in the summer of 1886, when turn journey Skookum Jim or perhaps one of company have been preserved. These have about 100 men were testing and mining the bars the others had spotted gold while taking a drink been consulted thoroughly for this book; the se along the Stewart River, Fort Nelson, built at from Rabbit Creek, today’s Bonanza. What lected material has been chosen well and is pre the mouth of the Stewart became the trading seems unique is that gold was in surface gravels sented to good effect One appendix lists the post In turn this was abandoned when coarse rather than at depth in a frozen paystreak on personnel who served in the company from gold was found on the bars of Fortymile River bedrock. Possibly the gold they found had been 1920 until 1958 (compiled from ships’ registers and the new settlement of Forty Mile built at its transported by erosion from the gold-bearing and oral history sources) and a second provides mouth. White Channel gravels found higher on the some details for 53 of the Union ships. A repro Until now the miners had been ignored by Bonanza hillsides. duction of the company’s “Sailing Guide to Ports both Canadian and United States governments For the old-timers the Klondike, probably big of Call”, issued in 1933, lists a total of 159 places, although the Hudson’s Bay Company’s trespass ger than even their dreams, turned the Yukon in addition to Vancouver, at which the ships into Russian and later American territory at Fort they knew on its end. McQuesten, Harper and stopped. The price for calling at so many places, Yukon had been dealt with in 1869 and the min Ladue, all well to do, left the Yukon, the latter often with inadequate docking facilities, or none ers must have been aware that the boundary two dying of tuberculosis soon after. Hart died at all, was that the company found it impossible lay a few miles to the west of Forty Mile. Gov in Dawson in 1897 and only Al Mayo remained to keep to a strict schedule. ernment, such as it was, depended on the min in the north. The Good Company bears the hall marks of ers’ committee to set mining rules, appoint a Lewis Green Harbour Publishing. It is a beautifully designed mining recorder and to deal with both criminal Lew Green is a member of the and produced book. The photographs are clear, and civil matters. Change came in 1888 when Vancouver Historical Society the captions meaningful. I do wish Mr. Henry, surveyor William Ogilvie marked the boundary or his editors, could have settled on whether on Fortymile River and on the Canadian side the ships were “shes” or “its”. However. One again in 1894 with the arrival of the North-West The Good Company: an Affectionate History comes from the book feeling that this was a Mounted Police and the establishment of a per of the Union Steamships “good” company for the inhabitants of the coast, manent post the following year. Tom Henry. Madeira Park, Harbour Publishing, deserving of an “affectionate” history. Bar placers are the indicators but most of the 1994. 152 p., illus. $32.95 George Newell North’s placer gold has been won from bed For seventy years, from 1889 until 1959, the George Newell is a member of the rock paystreaks lying beneath permanently fro Union Steamship Company of BC. served the Victoria Historical Society zen creek gravels and by the 1890s underground communities of British Columbia’s coast. Dur mining was employed in the search for these ing those years the company became something Roaring Days: Rossland ‘s Mines and the deposits. Working in winter, shafts were sunk more than an impersonal business enterprise - History of British Columbia using fires to thaw a few feet, excavating and the commercial needs were cared for, they were Jerry Mouat. Vancouver, UBC Press, 1995.236 repeating the process. On reaching bedrock the ‘raison d’etre’, but as Henry writes, the com p., illus. $39.95 drifts were run beneath the creek and, if the pany “was such an integral part of the coast that In British Columbia the flurry of mineral ex paystreak was there, the gravels mined in gal its black hulls, its imported Scottish pound cake ploration and extraction around the turn of the leries, hoisted to surface and stockpiled in dumps and its signature whistle - one long, two short, century had a significant impact on the fortunes for sluicing in the summer months. one long - became viscerally embedded in those of many individuals. At that time, mining was Forty Mile, entry point for the Fortymile and who rode and worked aboard the ships.” For on the leading edge of applied science and tech later the Sixtymile goldfields, became the main the communities along the coast, “boat day was nology, and it dictated the rhythm of develop centre, at its peak serving a population of about the seminal event in their weekly calendar.” ment in southeastern British Columbia. Thus the six hundred, although numbers could change Since the demise of the company in 1959, its history of this industry is one that reflects the quickly with a new rush such as the one to the history has elicited several books. Gerald history of the entire province. Birch Creek diggings and Circle that began in Rushton, a manager with the company, wrote The rich copper-gold deposits of Rossland, 1892. By now the area was becoming better Whistle Up the Inlet (Vancouver, 1974) and staked in 1890 were quickly exploited. How known and writings by government officials, Echoes of the Whistle (Vancouver, 1980), and, ever, the events that unfolded in Rossland dur ministers, priests and venturesome travellers in the Provincial Archives’ Sound Heritage se ing the late nineteenth and early twentieth record life in the river communities. ries, there is Navigating the Coast (ed. Peter centuries were not isolated. The development By 1896 McQuesten, formerly based at Forty Chapman, Victoria, 1977). With its extensive of railway networks both in Canada and the Mile and now Circle, Ladue at Ogilvie, Harper use of photographs, The Good Company United States, the impact of American and Brit at Fort Selkirk and Mayo on the riverboats had somewhat duplicates the approach of Rushton’s ish investment, the evolution of industrial rela

B.C. Historical News - Fall 1995 38 BOOKSH ELF lions and unionism, the struggle over the eight bour Publishing. Trower’s no-nonsense poems about one day at hour workday, the growth of the Consolidated The west coast of B.C. has long been a source work in the woods. “The Sinking of the Arlene Mining and Smelling Company of Canada lim of romantic fascination to city slickers and land- is lighthouse keeper Julia Moe’s gripping ited (Cominco) are all interwoven into the fab lubbers. We are intrigued by the cultural rich account of a marine mishap. Alan Haig-Brown’s ric of Kootenay history. ness and exoticism of the west coast first nations “The By-Pass Valve” is an instructive tale of Jeremy Mouat, formerly from British Colum people. We are attracted to the virility and rug human killy, derived from one of his experi bia, teaches history at Athabasca University in gedness of west coast loggers (even as we de ences as a ship’s engineer. The entire Issue No. Alberta. This book grew out of a dissertation he cry the dwindling of the forests). We admire the 14 consists of Rorence Tickner’s reminiscences completed at the University of British Columbia risk-taking and heroism of west coast fishers and of life in the float camps of the mid-coast, valu in 1988. Although it is a scholarly work that tack other seafarers. We envy the independence and able as a depiction of the 1930s gyppo world les a very complicated topic, the text, which is resourcefulness of the west coast’s independ from the perspective of women and children. only 166 pages in length, is so well written that ent (“gyppo”) loggers and other entrepreneurs. The 99 articles, essays, reminiscences, sto the complexities of the subject are clearly pre The romantic appeal of the west coast was ries, and poems in Raincoast Chronicles sented and, more importantly, interconnected. well-known to writers and publishers, even prior Eleven Up provide more than a dozen evenings To this reviewer, the extensive use of annotated to the publication of M. Allerdale Grainger’s of rich, exciting reading. It’s the kind of book endnotes is the academic thread that binds this Woodsmen of the West (1908). It has taken on you pick up again and again, always discover masterpiece together (a total of 600 citations in a life of its own, and has become a major motif ing fascinating things you’d missed in previous 49 pages). Mouat’s expertise as a B.C. mining of the tourist industry that is beginning to re readings. historian is well documented in a thorough list place the declining forest, fishing, and marine Jim Bowman of bibliographic references (13 pages) that in transportation industries. A romantic approach, Jim Bowman is a Calgary archivist cludes an extensive variety of primary and sec of course, neglects the less pleasant aspects of ondary sources. The book also has a five page the coast’s history: the deliberate suppression Legacy: History o.f Nursing Education at the index. of native cultures, for example; or the boredom, University of British Columbia, 1919-1994 As Mouat so correctly points out... “the work isolation, and ceaseless toil experienced by many Glennis ZiIn and Ethel Warbinek. University of ing people, the politicians, the managers, and forestry and fishery workers. British Columbia School of Nursing. 1994. the engineers played meaningful roles in the his To his credit, Howard White is not some ro 314p., illus. $29.95 (distributed by UBC Press). tory of British Columbia, yet major historical mantic ex-urbanite yuppie. He grew up in the “In May 1919 the Senate of the University of works on the province contain almost no dis isolated floating logging camps of the coast and British Columbia proposed to the Board of Gov cussion of Rossland or the broader Kootenay in Pender Harbour, where his father was em ernors that a Department of Nursing be estab region, a curious omission... My emphasis on ployed in gyppo logging operations. He is old lished in connection with the Faculty of Science, the mining industry of Rossland seeks to redress enough to remember Pender Harbour when it leading to a degree of B. Sc. The Board accepted the imbalance in the province’s historiography.” was known as the “Venice of the North”, before this recommendation at its May 26th meeting Roaring Days certainly does that. there was a highway connecting it to Vancou and the stage was set for the first baccalaureate Ron Welwood ver and before there was TV reception. nursing degree in Canada to open in the fall of Ron Weiwood, resident in Nelson, is first Vice- White believes that the west coast of B.C. has 1919.” Legacy p.22. President of the B.C.H.F its own distinctive culture, and he founded From today’s standpoint the creation of a bac Raincoast Chronicles to celebrate and perpetu calaureate degree in nursing may not appear to Raincoast Chronicles Eleven Up ate it He wanted his magazine to reach an au be a momentous occurrence, but in its time and Howard White, ed. Madeira Park, B.C.: Har dience of west coast residents, and he was very place the proposal for such a degree by the UBC bour Publishing, 1994. 408 p., illus., $39.95 gratified when circulation figures and reader re Senate was a bold one. Back in the sixties when Keynesianism was sponse indicated that this goal was achieved. The wheels of University curriculum commit still alive I’d gotten an Opportunities for Youth Now that it is over twenty years old, tees usually go round with the maddening pace grant to employ seven young people taping Raincoast Chronicles has reached a certain of slow snails, but, happily for the prospective oldtimers, and since then had turned that fledg level of maturity. Its book design is not as dis Department of Nursing in 1919, the wheels of ling effort into a pretty respectable little book tinctive as it used to be, but it still features artistic their committees had been lubricated by a for publishing company. (Howard White, layout and dramatic illustrations. The writing tunate confluence of people and events. The Raincoast Chronicles Eleven Up, p. 179). continues to be of outstanding quality, empha UBC president, Frank Wesbrook, a physician, Most readers of British Columbia Histori sizing the personalities, the life experiences, and had helped develop the first full university nurs cal News are familiar with award-winning au the landscapes of the coast. ing program in the United States, at the Univer thor Howard White, and his successful There were several items I particularly en sity of Minnesota; the Chancellor of the enterprise, Harbour Publishing. Raincoast joyed. “Minstrel Island” is Howard White’s ac University, Robert E. McKechnie, also a physi Chronicles, an irregular journal published since count of his visit to a legendary beer parlour in cian who supported the program, presided over 1972, is the heart and soul of Harbour Publish- the remote maze of islands and ords east of the UBC Board; and Dr. Henry Esson Young Alert Bay. “They Don’t Make ‘Em Anymore who was Minister of Education and responsible The volume under review here is a reprinted Department Frank Osbourne” isJim Spilsbury’s for the provincial board of health, held key purse compilation of Raincoast Chronicles, no. 11 appreciative portrait of his boyhood mentor, an strings, and had made it clear that he wanted through no. 15, originally published from 1987 inventive and laconic machine-shop proprietor better educated nurses who could provide im to 1993. The previous compilations, Raincoast in Lund. Howard White’s “Turning Our Backs proved public health care. Chronicles First Five and Raincoast Chroni on the Sea” is an essay lamenting a declining Furthermore, the times were ripe. British Co cles SixiTen, are also still available from Har way of life. “Mexican Standoff” is one of Peter lombians had been deeply shaken by the influ

39 B.C. Historical News - FaLl 1995 BOOKSHELF enza epidemic of 1918-19 and impressed by sources must have been, as the authors point the heroic actions of nurses both at that time out in their preface, a daunting task, for UBC and during World War I. A growing feminism in lacked an Archives until 1970 and many origi Conference Plus British Columbia had given women the vote and nal records were destroyed before that date. This many women’s organisations had formed to de reviewer spent some time in the eighties exam mand better conditions for women. The Uni ining with mounting dismay the enormous col Seminars 1996 versity Women’s Club was particularly lection of records, files, photographs, tapes etc. determined that there should be equality of op which had been lovingly gathered for this his The 1996 B.C. Historical portunity for women at UBC and one of their tory of nursing education project by Elizabeth Federation Conference will members, the formidable Evlyn Farris, was an McCann. The collection was, at that time, unor elected member of Senate and the first woman ganized, lacking in provenance and coherence start in Williams Lake on named to the Board of Governors in 1917. And of any kind. That the authors have brought or Friday, April 26 with two semi finally, there was an increasing professionalism der out of the chaos of sources they have faced nars: “Researching and Writ in nursing. Leaders of the profession felt strongly is quite an achievement. ing Local History” with a panel that nursing education should not be controlled Legacy, in spite of the many charming anec of presenters and “Managing by hospitals which often exploited students, but dotes and its background of social history is not that it should be controlled by educational insti exactly an easy read. In some ways, its very am Gifts to Museums and Histori tutions, preferably universities. bitious scope has made it less accessible to the cal Societies” by the Education With the support therefore of a few powerful ordinary reader. The attempt to cover the so Officer of the B.C. Museums physicians, a strong economy and favourable cial, political, economic and scientific issues of Association. social conditions, UBC was able to put a crea each period, in addition to the educational and The annual conference of the tive and progressive program into place - the cultural aspects of the School has somewhat first of its kind in the British Empire. overshadowed the stories of the Directors and BCHF will commence on the Legacy chronicles events surrounding the students. Like Tuum Est, the 1958 history of Friday evening, April 26 and UBC School of Nursing from the time when it UBC, it is crammed with facts which sometimes go through to Sunday, April 28. was first proposed until 1994, when the School obscure the clarity of the narrative, It is, how A tour to B.C.’s newest desig celebrated its 75th anniversary. The achieve ever, an admirable reference book. It is full of nated historic site, Quesnel ments have been quite spectacular. Starting with interesting information and has an excellent bib only four women students in 1919 the program liography and index. Minor slips (Frank Forks, and the village of Likely presently has more than 500 men and women Wesbrook died of a kidney disease, not the will be a highlight of this con students and now offers both undergraduate and Spanish flu, Walter Gage was Dean of ference. A warm welcome graduate degrees. Many of its graduates have Interfaculty Affairs, not Dean of Arts) seem to awaits members and non-mem distinguished themselves in nursing, both in Brit be few in number and relatively insignificant. In bers alike. Registration forms ish Columbia and elsewhere. But all this has not general the research has been extremely care been without a struggle. Budgets have frequently ful and painstakingly verified. will be available by March 1st been restrained. Political agendas have occasion A shift in attitudes toward health care is oc from: ally caused frictions. In the early years support curring right now in Canada making many citi The Cariboo - Chilcotin from the College of Physicians and Surgeons zens uneasy about what the future will bring. Museum Society was almost non-existent and the nursing direc The profession of nursing is evolving in many 113 North 4th Avenue, tors, because they did not have academic de ways. Legacy provides an overview of the po grees, were faced with carrying the sition of women, nursing as a profession, and Williams Lake, B.C. responsibilities but not the title or salary of Head our beliefs about health care during this cen V2G 2C8 of the Department. Then, as now, the Univer tury. By contributing to the knowledge and un or phone Lori Hudson-Fish at sity did not recognize the Department of Nurs derstanding of the history of nursing education (604) 398-5825. ing (later the School) as a Faculty. it may well be of assistance to those who are The book is organized chronologically accord planning its future. . ing to the terms of the six women who were The University of British Columbia has re directors of the UBC nursing program from its cently been under fire for its attitudes towards A Christmas Gift Idea inception to the present day. It is clear from the women, both faculty members and students. Send a subscription to a friend Legacy makes clear that UBC once showed narrative that these remarkable, dedicated it - only $12 to any address women faced many obstacles. They and their leadership and vision in this area. Ethel Johns, within Canada, $17 outside students rejoiced in their successes with grace the first director of the program, said “We are the countiy and modesty and faced the many challenges building here for the future.., we earnestly hope Send your cheque today with with great determination. The authors have the foundation will be well and truly laid”. All drawn their information from a variety of who read Legacy will agree that the foundation your giftee’s name and address sources, the most charming of them being the has indeed been well and truly laid and that the to: B.C. Historical News memories of graduates and the vivid stories of School of Nursing has a proud heritage. Subscription Secretary student life. A wealth of interesting illustrations Laurenda Dan lells 6985 Canada Way accompany the text Archivist Emerita, Burnaby,B.C. V5E3R6 Retrieving the information from primary University of British Columbia

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BC HISTORICAL FEDERATION WRITING COMPETITION

The British Columbia Historical Federation invites submissions of books for the thirteenth annual Corn- petition for Wnters of B C History Any book presenting any facet of B.C. history, published in 1995, is eligible. This may be a community history, biography, record of a project or an organization, or personal recollections giving a glimpse of the past Names dates and places with relevant maps or pictures turn a story into history The judges are looking for quality presentations, especially if fresh material is included, with appropriate illustrations, careful proofreading, an adequate index, table of contents and bibliography, from first-time writ ers as well as established authors. NOTE: Reprints or revisions of books are not eligible. The Lieutenant Governor’s Medal for Historical Writing will be awarded to an individual writer whose book contributes significantly to the recorded history of British Columbia. Other awards will be made as recommended by thejudges to valuable books prepared by groups or individuals. All entries receive considerable publicity. Winners will receive a Certificate of Merit, a monetary award and an invitation to the BCHF annual conference to be held in Williams Lake in April 1996. SUBMISSION REQUIREMENTS: All books must have been published in 1995and should be submit ted as soon as possible after publication. Two copies of each book should be submitted. Books entered be come property of the B.C. Historical Federation. Please state name, address and telephone number of sender, the selling price of all editions of the book, and the address from which it may be purchased, if the reader has to shop by mail. If by mail, please include shipping and handling costs if applicable. SEND TO: B.C. Historical Writing Competition do P. McGeachie - 7953 Rosewood Street, Burnaby, B.C. V5E 2H4 DEADLINE: December 15, 1995. LATE ENTRIES: Three copies of each book must be submitted and must arrive before January 15, 1996. Please phone (604) 522-2062 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. (Pho tographs should be accompanied with information re: the source, permission to publish, archival number if applicable, and a brief caption. Photos will be returned to the writer.) Word-processed manuscripts may also be submitted on 3.5” disk (DOS or Macintosh) but please include a hard copy as well. Please send articles directly to: The Editor, B.C. Historical News, RO. Box 105, Wasa, B.C. VOB2K0