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British Columbia Historical News British Columbia Historical Federation Journal of the 5254, STATIoN 4 P0 Box B., VIcT0IUA BC V8R 6N Columbia Historical Federation British A CHARITABLE SOCIETY UNDER THE INCOME TAX ACT Published Winter, Spring, Summer, and Fall. ExECuTIvE EDITOR: HONOsnY PATRON: HIS Fred Braches HONOUR, THE HoNosLE GARDE B. GARD0M, Q.C. P0 Box 130 HONoIatY PRESIDENT: LEONARD McCj’sN Whonnock BC, V2W 1V9 do VcoUvaR MARITIME MUsEUM Phone (604) 462-8942 1905 OGDEN Ava., VCoUvER BC V6J 1A3 [email protected] OFFICERs BOOK REVIEW EDITOR: PREsIDEr:WAYNE DESR0CHERS Anne Yandle #2- 6712 BAKER Ro.rs, DELTA BC V4E zV3 3450 West 20th Avenue PHONE (604) 599-4206 FAX. (604)507-4202 [email protected] Vancouver BC, V6S 1E4 FIRST VICE PRESHIENr: RoyJ.V PALI.ANT Phone (604) 733-6484 1541 MERLYNN CRESCENT, NoRm VCOuvER BC V7J 2X9 [email protected] PHONE (604) 986-8969 [email protected] SECOND VICE PRESIDENT: MELvA DwYER SUBSCRIPTION SEcREmRY: 2976 MCBRHIE AVE., SURREY BC V4.A 3G6 JoelVinge PHONE! 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MEMBER AT LARGE: RON HYDE Individual si5.oo per year #20 12880 RAILWAY RICHMOND 7E 6G2 AVE., BC V Institutional Subscription sao.oo per year PHONE: (604) 277-2627 FAX (604) 277-2675 [email protected] For addresses outside Canada add s6.oo per year PAST PRESIDENT: RON WELW00D Please send correspondence regarding R.R. # I,S-22 C-i, NELSON BC ViL 5P4 subscriptions to the subscription secretary in PHoNE (250) 825-4743 [email protected] Cranbrook. Some back issues of the journal are available—ask the editor in Whonnock. COMMITTEE OFFICERS Single copies of recent issues are for sale at ARCHIvIsT: MARGARET ST0NEBERG Books and Company, Prince George BC Box 687, PRINCEToN BC VoX iWo Coast Books, Gibsons BC PHoNE (250) 295-3362 Gray Creek Store, Gray Creek BC MEMBERSHIP SECRETARY:TERRY SIMPSON Royal Museum Shop,Victoria BC 193 BIRD SCruARY, NAIMO BC V9R 6G8 Tms PUBUCP,flON IS iNDEXED IN THE CBCA, pususiiso By PHONE (250) 754-5697 [email protected] MIclIoMwis. HISTORICAL TRAILS AND MARKERs:JOHN SPITTLE ISSN 1195-8294 1241 MOUNT CROWN ROAD, N0RTHVANCOuVER BC V7R 1R9 PHoNE (604) 988-4565 [email protected] PBODUCTION MAIL REGI5iasnoN NuMBE5 1245716 SCH0I.ARSHIP (ESSAY) COMMITTEE: FRANCEs GUNDitY PUBUcATI0NS MAIL REGISmArIoN No. 09835 255 NiGA1 STREET,VICT0RIA BC V8V 1G4 PHONE (250) 385-6353 [email protected] The British Columbia Heritage Trust has pro PuBuc1TIoNS AssIsTANCE: NANCY SnJART-STUBE5 vided financial assistance to this project to support 265IY0RKAvENUE,VANCOUvER BC V6K IE6 conservation of our heritage resources, gain further PHotE (604) 738-5132 [email protected] knowledge and increase public understanding of the WRITING C0MPETrnON—LIEUTENANT-GOVERNOR’S AwARD: complete history of British Columbia. SHIRLEY CUiiiBEETSON #306 - 225 BELLEvILLE STREET,VICT0RIA BC V8V 4T9 PHONE (250) 382-0288 BRITISH COLUMBt HISTOIUcAL NEWS PUBLISHING COMMITTEE see column on left side Visit our website: http://bchf/bc.ca BRITIsH CoLuMBIA Volume No. Summer 2000 $5.00 HIsToIuc NEWS ISSN 1195-8294 Journal of the British Columbia Historical Federation 2 The Life and Times of Robert Raglan Gosden: Writing British Columbia History Anarchist, Saboteur, Mystic, and Labour Spy AM CONCERNED about the present by Mark Lejer J upsurge of books being written and published about various aspects 8 Dr. Moss’s Second Bear Hunt of British Columbia history. It is not by Paul C. Appleton that I think that there should be less of such publications but I believe that 12 Phoenix — The Vanished City by NL. Barlee there are occasions when the books are not well enough researched or 15 Phoenix Remembers thought through to warrant publica by Earl Kelly (ed.Jim Glanville) tion. It is enjoyable to see a book about 16 William H. Bambury: Phoenix’s Last Resident one of our small communities that by Alice Glanville has not had its story told previously. Many of these stories are being writ- 18 Token History: The Hotel Brooklyn of Phoenix, BC ten by individuals who have arrived by Ron Greene in the area fairly recently and see that there is a need to record its history. 19 The Gold Rush Pack Trail of 1861 This is wonderful! However, what I by Marie Elliott am concerned about is that too often 23 Archives & Archivists the books are not well written and not even well researched. Those who by Bill Purver know many of the stories and have 24 Report: Pynelogs lived in the area for years are not al— by Winnfred Ariel Weir ways consulted.Archival materials, such as newspapers and other records, are either not used or not identified 25 LETTERS TO THE EDITOR properly. These omissions can lead to 27 BooK REVIEWS a somewhat slight publication and 33 NEWS AND NOTES sometimes an inaccurate one. 35 PORT ALBERNI 2000 by Roy] VPallant and Irene Alexander Therefore my plea for those wish- ing to write about our British Co 40 FEDERATIoN NEws lumbia history is: please do so, but be REPORT PREsIDENT’s ANNUAL aware of all the resources available ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING 1999/2000 MINums OF and use them as efficiently and accu 41 INDEx Volume 32 rately as possible. If care is taken by our authors to produce as accurate and well—researched work as possible we shall not only have a wealth oflit erature on the history of our prov Any country worthy of a future should be interested in its past. ince, but also a wonderful source of information for present and future W Kaye Lamb, 1937 students and scholars. Melva J. Dwyer Bibliographer, BC Studies BC HISTORICAL NEWS - SUMMER 2000 The Life andTimes ofRobert Raglan Gosden: Anarchist, Saboteur, Mystic, and Labour Spy by Mark Leier declared that Mark Leier, born in i-re 18TH of April 1961 was much like ardly and conservative, and boldly Ladner, BC, is a labour any other spring day inVancouver. It was capitalism was “a system based on theft” that historian at Simon T overcast and damp; the temperature, should be “sabotaged at every conceivable op Fraser University. His measured on the Fahrenheit scale in those years portunity” book, Rebel Life: The Life before Canada adopted the metric system, was Some at his funeral knew some of this, though ofRobert and Times about 50 degrees.There were, of course, weightier the details were sparse and confficting. None of Gosden, Revolutionary; concerns than the weather. Unemployment was them knew Gosden’s final secret.Yes, he had been Mystic, Labour Spy over 700,000 Canadians looking for a fiery radical. He had been a revolutionary, an (Vancouver: New Star high, with and threatened anarchist, even a saboteur. But the real secret of Books, 1999) is his third work. The Cold War simmered past was that he had been a labour spy for the one on BC labour to boil over.The Soviet Union had launched the his Police. However or history. first human into space six days before, and the Royal Canadian Mounted United States was still reeling from the shock. dinary his death, there was nothing ordinary about More alarming, the US had launched the ill-fated Bob Gosden’s life. In invasion of Cuba at the Bay of Pigs the day be Who was this contradictory, shadowy man? fore. Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev warned many ways, he was typical of the migrant work that Cuba would be defended from American ers who did much of the rough work on the aggression, and the world watched anxiously as industrial frontiers of North America. Robert in the two nuclear superpowers faced off. Raglan Gosden was born in Surrey, England Unnoticed by a world worried with larger is 1882 and left England around 1896. He travelled States. He sues, a small group ofmourners gathered at theT. throughout Canada and the United was a miner, log Edwards Chapel on Granville Street in Vancou worked at a variety ofjobs: he man, labourer, ver to mark the passing of a 78-year old man. ger, painter, seaman,janitor, garbage 1906, he later The death of Robert Raglan Gosden was just mason, and gardener. In BC by Jack London and one ofmany, and it did not warrant a story in the told people that he befriended north. metropolitan dailies, only a few short lines bur Robert Service in the Canadian was working in ied in the back page of the obituary column. No By December 1910, Gosden There he joined reporter bore witness, no crowd gathered to pay construction in Prince Rupert. (PRIA), respects on that damp, grey day. To those few at the Prince Rupert IndustrialAssociation construction labourers that the memorial service, Robert Raglan Gosden was a local organization of radical union, the Indus a husband, a friend, and a relative, remembered was affiliated with the World (IWW), or the warmly for his loyalty; his ideas, even his eccen trial Workers of the terrible conditions. Life tricities, but nothing more. Wobblies.The men faced cold and wet, the food But forty-five years before, he had shocked a in Prince Rupert was In March 1911, the PRIA province with his speeches and actions.