TW Paterson

Many more ships have died in this region. At Pedder Bay, east of Race Rocks, the tug Tyee, 1923, with three men. At Parry Bay, the American freighter Sutorpco grounded heavily, to be rescued by the powerful tug Salvage King, which had pulled the trapped Dutchman Eemdyk off Bentinck Island four years earlier.
Beechey Head has witnessed more than one casualty, the worst of which was the foundering of the little steamer Sechelt, which operated between Victoria and Sooke. There were at least 50 passengers on board, on the stormy afternoon of Mar. 24, 1911. The only known witnesses to her death were two Indians at Rocky Point who reported that the steamer’s captain had apparently decided to turn back to Victoria. In so doing, the Sechelt had to present her vulnerable beam to the wind. When a strong gust hit the ship, she turned turtle and, within minutes, was gone. There was not one survivor.
These dangerous waters have known even more casualties, perhaps the most famous of which is the stranding of the CPR’s 22,000-ton Empress of Canada while rounding Race Rocks in pea-soup-thick fog, Sunday, Oct. 13, 1929. Only a brilliant, week-long salvage operation saved her.
Perhaps the most unusual shipwreck to occur off Race Rocks took place in December 1961 when the hulk of the Second World War frigate HMCS Coaticook was scuttled. For years a member of the Powell River breakwater, the gutted frigate was bought by a Victoria scrap dealer. But, during the tow, it was discovered that she was structurally unsound and, fearing she would sink at her Inner Harbour berth, it was decided to blow out her bottom with explosives. Thus it was that Coaticook joined the list of lost ships in 100 fathoms off the Race.
Although known for its deadly tides, the greatest threat Race Rocks posed to shipping is fog–fog which can blanket the seas for days at a time. It was this danger which claimed the steamers Diamond Knot and Fenn Victory in 1947, not to mention so many others. In this encounter, the Victory escaped with minor damage but Diamond Knot, loaded with canned Alaskan salmon, went down at the end of a towline off Port Angeles, in 22 fathoms.
Fog has also inspired legends of a ‘Zone of Silence’ that surrounded Race Rocks from time to time. For some inexplicable reason, the fog horn at the lighthouse could not be heard on occasion–particularly when needed most. The mystery was solved in 1930 when it was found that a gully in line with the steeple housing the diaphone, positioned below the level of the tower base, funneled the sound in a single direction. When the diaphone was raised 30 feet, the ‘Zone of Silence’ was no more.
The list of losses at or near Race Rocks is long but incomplete because of lack of records. It has been estimated that at least 40 ships have come to grief here, however.
Which brings us to the present and possible crisis. Under the Heritage Lighthouse Protection Act, the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, which owns most of them, cannot demolish any historic lighthouses deemed to be surplus without public consultation. Interested parties have until May 29th to petition for, in this case, Race Rock’s preservation. But signatures are not enough–petitioners, it appears, must assume responsibility for their ongoing operation and maintenance!
Former senator Pat Carney who fought for the lights’ salvation has urged interest groups to “petition first’” and deal with the fine print once the government (Parks Canada) decides which lighthouses shall receive heritage designation over the next three years. Race Rocks underwent an expensive restoration in 2009 so it can hang in until then.
You can learn more about the heritage lighthouse program at www.pc.gc.ca/eng/progrs/lhn-nhs/pp-hl/index.aspx

Actually, the American ship Morning Glory, Valparaiso-bound with lumber, had struck 19 months before. But this merchantman can’t, technically, be included among Race Rock’s victims as her master, alarmed at his command’s leaking seams, had beached her on the nearest shore. Almost miraculously, his gamble paid off. Instead of leaving her bones, the Morning Glory was towed safely to Esquimalt for repairs.
Others have escaped the supreme penalty at Race Rocks, as the late George Nicholson recorded in Vancouver Island’s West Coast. The American vessel Lookout nudged the Rock in fog in January 1872. Damage was heavy and she leaked badly, but salvors succeeded in towing her to Port Townsend. Three years later, the collier Nicholas Biddle, bound for San Francisco, was pulled off with a bruising. In 1884 the American collier S.S. Umatilla piled ashore but managed to free herself. S.S. Idaho, five years after, proved to be the Race’s second fatality, becoming a total loss.
The list of casualties, minor and major, continues: In the autumn of 1918, the four-masted schooner Rosamond drifted up in fog. Stranding within 300 yards of the lighthouse, the schooner’s performance was repeated just 10 days later when the Harold, a British barque, thudded aground at almost the same spot. The Rosamond had, in the meantime, been freed by the CPR tug, Qualicum. Salvagers then liberated the Harold, both vessels having suffered greatly below the waterlines.
In the five-year period ranging from November 1928 to September 1933, three other vesels came to grief: the freighter S.S. Albion Star, the U.S. steamer James Griffiths and the Harriett E., a fish packer. These were followed by others over the years. The tug Storm King touched on March 19, 1939, the fish packer Nahmint less than three months later.
Maj. Nicholson continued the unhappy list: “The fish packer Western Ranger, Sept. 10, 1951, and the Western Pilot, also a fish packer, on Oct. 4, 1959. The steamer Robert Adamson and the ship Bylton Castle are both said to have run aground on Race Rocks, the former about 1898, but neither mishap can be confirmed. The freighter Atlantic City, grounded during fog two miles west of Race Rocks, Aug. 25, 1936, freed herself next high tide, but a bad leak put engines out of commission. Picked up later by Salvage King and Salvage Queen and towed to Esquimalt.
“On Oct. 28, 1936, the passenger liner Manunalei collided with the freighter Temple Moat in fog near Race Rocks. Temple Moat suffered extensive damage, tugs escorted her to Seattle; damage to Manunalei slight.”
So it went. Nearby Bentinck Island, once a leper colony, later used by the Canadian Armed Forces for demolition work, has known its share of victims, too. First was the collier S.S. Barnard Castle, driven ashore after hitting Rosedale Reef. Her cargo of coal proved to be a blessing for settlers who salvaged much of the fuel during the months the Castle took to break up. In the summer of 1923, the freighter S.S. Siberian Prince struck hard, being freed by tugs two weeks later.
The greatest tragedy to occur here is the capsizing of the small tug Hope. On October 17, 1925, while ferrying longshoremen between Victoria and the stranded Dutch freighter S.S. Eemdyk, which had grounded two days before, she became ensnared in one of the freighter’s mooring lines. Seconds later, the tug had tipped and was headed for the bottom–with 24 passengers and crew. The final toll stood at six men drowned.
Four years before, the S.S. Gogovale added her name to the growing list of vessels which have grounded here.
A Pacific Northwest maritime pioneer had ended her golden career on Bentinck 40 years before. The Hudson’s Bay Co.’s S.S. Otter, second in historical significance only to the S.S. Beaver, had been burned on the island for her metal. Otter’s career had spanned 38 busy years and made British Columbia history before her ignominious end at the hands of scrap metal dealers.
(To be continued)

The story of British Columbia’s ‘crown jewel’ of lighthouses began in 1842 when “this dangerous group,” as Royal Navy Capt. Kellett termed them in his journals, was christened by officers of the Hudson’s Bay Co. The choice of name was prompted by the terrific force of tides in the vicinity, the 8-to-10 knots being surpassed in violence only by the 14-knot race at Seymour Narrows.
In October 1858, Colonial Governor James Douglas wrote Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton in London of the desperate need for navigational aids in the young colony. With his letter, Douglas enclosed a report on the coasts of Vancouver Island and the B.C. mainland by Capt. George Richards, HMS Plumper, in which the officer noted that the American government had erected Cape Flattery Light on Tatoosh Island. It was Richards’ professional opinion that “the British, or Vancouver shore, should be lighted in a similar manner”. According to Richards, lighthouses should be erected at Bonilla Point, at Race Rocks and at Fisgard Island.
“I beg you will allow me to solicit your earnest attention to a subject which is of the highest importance to the progress and prosperity of the colonies of Vancouver Island and British Columbia,” Douglas, impatient over Lytton’s apparent disinterest, reiterated three months later, “I allude to the necessity which exists for the early construction of lighthouses upon some of the salient points of the approaches to the harbours and anchorages of these colonies.”
Then, apparently deciding that one lighthouse was better than none, Douglas merely emphasized the need for a light on Fisgard Island, that “even those familiar with [Esquimalt Harbour] dared not enter after sunset”.
The Colonial Office had decided, in fact, to go ahead with the construction of lighthouses at Fisgard and at Race Rocks, appropriating 17,000 pounds for the task, one-half of which was to be reimbursed by the crown colonies of V.I. and B.C. “within the earliest practicable period”. London made Douglas personally responsible for the placing and construction of the lights, a duty which was lifted from his shoulders by Rear-Admiral R.L. Baynes, C-I-C Pacific Squadron, who curtly informed him that such affairs were within naval jurisdiction, and named his own committee of experts. Although Douglas expressed some unhappiness at the admiral’s choice of military and civilian consultants, he had no complaint when the committee unanimously endorsed Capt. Richard’s original locations.
Work on both lighthouses got underway in August 1859, upon the arrival of the ship Grecian with the expensive lanterns. In following months, construction of Fisgard Light proceeded steadily, as did the excavation for the tower at Race Rocks, where temporary buildings and wharf were completed. By spring of 1860, work was well underway, although contractor John Wright had been dogged by poor weather. Finally, on the night of Dec. 26, 1860, six weeks after Fisgard Light began service, Race Rocks Light flashed for the first time.
Ironically, the warning light was three days too late for the good ship Nanette. 175 days out of London, bound for Victoria with a general cargo valued at $165,000, the three-year-old barque was within 11 miles of her destination when caught in the Race’s lethal grip. Despite every effort to beat away from the rocks, Mate William McCulloch was powerless. In command due to Capt. Main’s being confined to his berth with dysentery, McCulloch at last managed to arrest her drift in seven fathoms.
Rowing ashore, he sought the advice of the contractors, who advised him to up anchor and wear east by northeast. But as soon as the crewmen straining at the windlass yarded Nanette’s anchor free, she resumed her interrupted drift and immediately slammed into jagged rocks. Nanette became a total loss although her precious cargo of liquor sparked the wildest treasure hunt Victoria had ever witnessed before Chief Justice Cameron divided the spoils between underwriters and salvagers.
But, if hapless Nanette was Race Rock’s first victim, she certainly wasn’t the last.
(To be continued)

It’s official: As of March 22nd, the iconic Cowichan Sweater is recognized by the Historic Sites and Monuments Board of Canada. The legendary handiwork of Coast Salish knitters is a national treasure.
“Since the late 19th century, Coast Salish women have combined ancient wool-working techniques with European knitting to make Cowichan sweaters,” Lexi Bainas wrote in the Cowichan Valley Citizen. “These immediately recognizable pieces have contributed to Coast Salish identity and aided Coast Salish cultural continuity when faced with the challenges of the loss of traditional resources, government officials say.”
This unique partnership of tradition, artistry and technology is in part attributable to Jeremina Colvin, 1859-1937, a Scottish newcomer who taught Hul’qumi’num (Cowichan) women to knit a wool sweater that is warm, water-repellant, long-lasting, highly-prized, often copied, and never equalled. Queen Elizabeth, two Canadian and one British prime minister, and Bing Crosby, had them–despite a snobbish British fashion magazine having once dismissed them as hideously patterned tummy warmers!
Jeremina was 24, and apparently unaccompanied when she landed in Victoria in 1886. Her husband Robert Mouat Colvin had sailed ahead from the Shetland Islands and begun clearing land at Cowichan Station, 480-acre Rosedale Farm being literally plunked down in the middle of rainforest. This fact hadn’t deterred Robert, nor did the thought of living amongst people of a very different culture bother Jeremina. Rather, she learned to speak the Chinook trade jargon so as to be able to converse with Cowichans who soon accepted her as a friend. Initially, her only means of communicating with her nearest white neighbour, who lived across the Koksilah River, was a bullhorn.
Six children ultimately graced Rosedale which blossomed for all of Robert’s extended absences as a fisheries inspector. Despite the threats of cougars, wolves and bears, they succeeded in raising a breed of sheep with a long, fine fleece so that Jeremina could knit the family’s clothing. She’d learned to do so at her mother’s knee; Shetland women were said to be among the fastest and finest spinners and knitters in the world.
It’s thought that Jeremina began to trade knitted garments for fish and berries with Cowichan women, some of whom had been taught to knit socks and mittens by the Sisters of St. Ann. (The Coast Salish had a long established tradition of knitting articles of clothing with mountain goat hair and that of a now extinct breed of fluffy white dog indigenous to Vancouver Island. But the advent of the Hudson’s Bay Company’s famous Point blanket and cheap British textiles used by coastal traders, coupled with the culturally devastating effects of the European invasion had greatly diminished the demand for Native weaving by the turn of the last century.) None, however, could match her speed or skill, Jeremina being able to complete a man’s sweater, valued at $5–good wages–in two days.
First to ‘train’ under her were Mary Edwards who, according to Magnus Colvin, Jeremina’s son, regarded his mother as a sister, and Sophia Percy, of the Clemclemaluts Reserve. She taught them what’s called the ‘British Gansey style of sweater particular to her home in the British Isles,’ and the traditional Shetland Islands patterns. “I was a small boy then,” Magnus recalled in a 1976 interview, “but I remember seeing my mother patiently teaching Mary, Sophia and others to spin and knit.” Sometimes, he said, she’d demonstrated her weaving to groups of Cowichan women on the Reserves.
At first, contrast was achieved by the use of stitches rather than colours but by the 1920s  Cowichan women were innovating with traditional Thunderbird and Killer Whale designs, working with as many as three colours, and turning out such non-traditional but practical products as long underwear that was prized by fishermen and longshoremen. It was the sweater that evolved, with innovations, from those early Shetland patterns that really caught on and “represent[ed] both currency and cultural esteem, just as the woven blankets had before them,” according to a Cowichan Valley Museum news release. “I bought mine, a snowflake pattern, in 1942,” recalled the late Jack Fleetwood in 1995, “and it’s still going strong. I paid $4 in cash and a bottle of wine to a friend of mine, Mrs. William Tommy.
“They’re knitted in a different way from commercial knits and have the natural lanolin of sheep’s wool in them,” he explained. “That renders them almost impervious to rain. It can absorb a lot of moisture and still be reasonably dry. Replicas aren’t nearly so good; they don’t have the lanolin or Native touch to them. They’re [genuine Cowichan sweaters] a unique garment, no doubt about that.”
Cowichan sweaters, now a registered trademark after years of the generic ‘Indian sweaters’ attracted competition by inferior products, are knitted as one piece, including collar, sleeves and inside pockets, with a single seam across the shoulder. Only zippers are sewn on, also by hand. Knitting the distinctive Cowichan sweater has become a traditional cottage industry for some families who’ve developed their own salmon, whale, elk, wolf and loon designs from family crests. Today, Japanese and American markets generate the most demand for what some have dubbed, Jeremina Colvin’s ‘Cowichan Jerseys.’
Until within three years of her death, when heart trouble finally slowed her down, Jeremina had insisted upon helping with the milking. Even when no longer able to do so, she continued to rise at 6 a.m. milking time, to prepare and spin wool for her knitting. After breaking her leg, she turned to a new hobby, writing rhymes about her daily tasks while in the Duncan hospital where she died, much respected, in January 1937. A memorial bench honouring her memory has been placed near the Robert Service memorial at Cowichan Bay. Conversely, her contribution to what we know as the Cowichan Sweater has been downplayed by some historians in recent years.

Notwithstanding the fact that British Columbia was launched onto the road of province-hood by the discovery of gold, that gold has long been one of its primary natural resources, and that this most precious of metals recently soared to its highest price ever–more than $1600 an ounce–it’s somewhat surprising to know that, today, there’s only one producing gold mine in the province.
And Bralorne’s no spring chicken.
Although an 1859 government-sponsored reconnaissance of the Bridge River Valley, “that section of country lying between the Chilcoaten and Bridge Rivers,” yielded promising returns in Cadwallader Creek, greater rewards on the Fraser and in the Cariboo distracted attention from this region for another 32 years. That’s when Harry Atwood, grubstaked by Lillooet hotelkeeper William Allen, tried his luck on all but forgotten Cadwallader Creek.
Atwood named his claim the Pioneer, after Allen’s hotel. For a half-share, F.H. Kinder provided a stamp mill for crushing ore and assumed Atwood’s role. Not much larger than a coffee grinder, the mill was so small, in fact, that Kinder turned to an arrastra, a water-powered drag-stone mill built by Arthur Noel who seems to have assumed Allen’s share. One of the first arrastras to be used in Canada, it recovered but a fraction of the gold. Fortunately, that proved to be so free-milling that the persistent partners still made a living.
A hard living. For $10 a day, they had to pack the ore from their claim to the mill on their backs. Perhaps that’s why Noel, too, dropped out, leaving Kinder to work the claim and pack the gold by himself.
But Noel wasn’t done with the Pioneer. In 1911, he, Peter and Andrew Ferguson, Adolphus Williams and Frank Holten purchased the property for $26,000. When, four years later, Pioneer Gold Mines Ltd. was incorporated, only the Fergusons and Williams remained of the syndicate. This, no doubt, because, for all of the efforts made to date, the mine had yet to prove itself.
Not even new ownership and more money spent in development, in the 1920s, managed to kick-start the operation. In spite of this, mining engineer David M. Sloan, hired to head development, became so convinced of its potential that he acquired his employers’ option. With only $8000 that he and new partner J.I. Babe were able to rustle up, the Pioneer, after a quarter-century struggle, entered production.
The rest, as they say, is history, although not without a tragic legal sideshow. In 1932, Andrew Ferguson who, with brother Peter and partners had bought the Pioneer from Fred Kinder, sued the succeeding owners for “fraudulently conspir[ing] to refrain from mining and producing gold so as to bankrupt” their partnership. He’d been promised $50,000 for his share of the $1.5 million sale price. He lost his first suit but successfully appealed to the B.C. Supreme Court. His was a Pyrrhic victory, alas, that court ruling that the defendants were guilty of a breach of faith but faulting Ferguson for not having sued earlier to have the 1924 sale set aside. Not until the Privy Court, the highest court in the Commonwealth, ordered a new trial did Ferguson, who by this time had had to sell off his real estate holdings and was living in a tiny upstairs apartment in Vancouver, finally reach a settlement, never publicly disclosed, with the Pioneer owners.
According to one of his lawyers who was anonymously quoted by the Vancouver Province, Ferguson, for all of his years of litigation, realized little for his troubles and paid dearly on a human scale: “When I knew him during the case, he was a little man, meek and mild. The life had been squeezed out of him. He was not bitter, though there had been a battle, and he hadn’t won it. It was the 1924 option and sale to the new company (headed by Vancouver businessmen A.H. Wallbridge and A.E. Bull) that squeezed out the original investors.”
Ferguson became a recluse until his death in 1981, having had to live not just with his settlement, likely modest, but with the bitter pill that in 1934–in the midst of his courtroom battles–the Pioneer–his Pioneer–had yielded more than $1 million in profits in a single six-month period.
In the meantime, Pioneer Townsite, 200 miles north of Vancouver, had come into being with all the amenities of a city, even a 4000-square-foot dancehall. Not even patriarch Sloan’s death in a plane crash, in 1934, slowed development. In 1959 the Pioneer and the neighbouring Bralorne Mine, composed of the Lorne, Marquis and Golden King claims, were merged as Bralorne Mines Ltd.–just in time for the pioneering Pioneer to be phased out of operation the following year.
In 1971, with gold still pegged at $35 an ounce, Bralorne, the province’s last producing gold mine, was shut down and sealed, the company townsites sold for development as year-round recreation resorts. Not even the rising price of gold in the 1980s sparked re-opening because of new mineral royalties imposed by the provincial government.
But, with today’s record breaking gold prices, it’s back to business according to Bralorne Gold Mines’ website: “Recent discoveries between the Bralorne and King mines have opened up significant new mineralization. Phase III development, now underway, is focussed on expanding new zones and continuously stockpiling reserves for the 100 (ton per day) gold mill. The current Bralorne mill is permitted to operate at a capacity of 500 tpd, so this will provide ample room for expansion. Bulk testing is complete and with all permits in place the mine is now gold producing once again.”
In May, the Vancouver Sun reported that Bralorne Mining Camp, which reaches as much as 5000 feet below the surface, has yielded 4.15 million ounces of gold–$4.5 billion U.S.–over the past 40 years

It was a double-header this weekend: The Diggers’ annual antique show and sale in Chemainus and a gig as a guest speaker at Sunridge Place Residential Care, Duncan. Both were outstanding in their own way.
This collectors club has been going strong since 1971 and its annual show and sale in the Chemainus Elementary School is always sold out, with a waiting list. That says something, in today’s world of drifting, if not declining interest in antiques and collectibles. There’s sure to be something for everyone at this sale. Although I had a table, I’m a collector and I found five great items for my archives and museum: photos and books for reference and a small crucible for my mining collection. That’s a win-win, in my book.
And so was the event staged by staff at Sunridge to celebrate Duncan’s 100th anniversary as a city, which was, officially, Sunday, March 4th. My invitation from Andy McCormack in no way prepared me for the wonderful event that he and fellow staff members had prepared for their residents. There was great singing that included a song written especially for Duncan’s Centennial, slapstick comedy and refreshments. Tough acts for Duncan Councillor Sharon Jackson and me to compete with when we spoke briefly on the city’s founding and history.
Which is this: Originally there was W.C. Duncan’s farm, Alderlea, and a smattering of homes and businesses. With the completion of the E&N Railway in 1886, Trunk Road became Trunk Crossing then Duncan’s Crossing then, as a town began to grow, Duncan’s and, finally, Duncan. None of this had been on E&N owner/coal baron Robert Dunsmuir’s agenda. He’d already commissioned stations at Koksilah, a mile and a-half south of ‘Alderlea,’ and at Somenos, several miles to the north. But Alderlea residents had other ideas.
Alerted that a special train with Dunsmuir and his guest Sir John A. Macdonald was going to Nanaimo to celebrate the railway’s completion, Cowichan Valley residents determined to get Dunsmuir’s attention by ambushing the train. It’s Valley lore that as many as 2,000 men, women and children, white and First Nations, stopped the train at Trunk/Duncan’s Crossing to appeal for a station of their own. After hearing them out, and likely impatient to be off to Nanaimo where he and the hard drinking Macdonald had a date with a bottle of good Scotch, Dunsmuir reputedly shouted, as the train pulled out, “You’ll have your station, boys!” (So much for the women and children.)
That, as I said, was in 1886. A quarter of a century later, Mar. 4, 1912, Duncan seceded from North Cowichan Municipality by incorporating as the City of Duncan. There were less than 1000 residents in those days (there are 4932 as of the latest census) on one square mile. The population has grown but, despite several attempts over the past century to expand beyond its original borders, Duncan remains one square mile.

It’s been a busy week, historically speaking. Thursday evening, I spoke to the Duncan-Ladysmith-Nanaimo Labour Council on a subject dear to my heart, Morden Colliery Provincial Heritage Park. Who better to support a Miners’ Memorial than Labour? It was the coal miners, after all, who brought trade unionism to Vancouver Island–at great cost to themselves when you remember the Great Strike of 1912-14.
Last evening, at a fundraising dinner for Cowichan Valley MLA Bill Routley, NDP, I got in another plug for Morden by speaking on Vancouver Island coal mining generally, and about six heroes that we apathetic Canadians have allowed to be forgotten. To wit:
Frank Alderson. In 1910 this Hosmer, B.C. miner, a member of a trained mine rescue team, volunteered to help rescue miners trapped by an explosion in a Bellevue, AB coal mine. Tragically, his extremely primitive breathing apparatus failed and, overcome by gas, he became another casualty. Are there any memorials for Frank Alderson? Not to my knowledge.
Joseph Foy, manager; Thomas Watson, miner; William Anderson, miner. These three were victims of a flood in the PCC Mine in South Wellington in February 1915. Watson and Anderson escaped the initial water that poured in but returned below to help their workmates and were drowned. Man. Foy, on the surface when his men inadvertently punched through into the abandoned Southfield Mine coal workings, rushed below to help and was drowned.
William McGregor, manager of the No. 1 Mine, Nanaimo. After an underground blast in 1898 he entered the burning and gas-filled mine and helped to carry an injured miner to safety, when a second blast burned him over most of his body. Despite excruciating pain, he returned below until he was overcome by his injuries and had to be hospitalized. He died days later. His was the largest funeral held in Nanaimo up to that time, the cortege more than a mile long. But who remembers William McGregor, hero, today?
Sam Hudson, miner. He led a rescue effort, May 3, 1887, when 149 miners were killed in the same No. 1 Mine by a monstrous explosion. He, too, perished. He, at least, has a prominent headstone in the Nanaimo cemetery.
Again, I ask, who remembers Frank Alderson, Joseph Foy, Thomas Watson, William Anderson, William McGregor or Sam Hudson? If they had been in the military, each of them would have been awarded the Victoria Cross! Instead, they’re as unknown today as the names of the 640-plus miners who were killed on the job in Nanaimo-area coal mines.
All the more reason that Morden Colliery Provincial Park should be restored as a memorial to these pioneers.By failing to honour and to remember the sacrifices of our forefathers and foremothers, we are failing our children by not instilling the values on which to build the Canada of tomorrow.
What bitter irony, then, that I was followed by an eloquent young spokesman for Cowichan Tribes who pointed out that, unlike non-natives who show little regard for their cultural heritage, First Tribes people have always honoured their elders. That’s how customs and traditions were passed down through the ages.
The irony? As he noted, younger members of Cowichan Tribes have suffered a dis-connect with their past thanks to the devastating effects of the residential schools system that, for three-quarters of a century, literally and by the full force of the law, yanked children from their parents’ homes. To put them into church and state-run institutions where they were forbidden to speak their indigenous language, to practice their own customs. This break in the cultural chain continues to curse many young native people throughout British Columbia.
What a sad commentary: We who don’t pay adequate homage to our own predecessors, grievously wounded a culture that does place a high value on its heritage.
That’s enough preaching for today. But the week is young… –TW

The bottom of the sea is a funny place for a piece of the Canadian prairies, but there you have it since the sinking of HMCS Saskatchewan as an artificial reef, in 1997.
Our second Mackenzie class destroyer escort, she was commissioned at Esquimalt’s Yarrows Ltd., Feb. 16, 1963. At 366 feet long, with a 42-foot beam and a displacement of 2,900 tons (fully loaded) she had a top speed of 28 knots and a complement of 230 officers and men.
Built when Canada’s destroyers were internationally renowned as ‘Cadillacs,’ Saskatchewan honoured the river of that name, rather than the province, and was the second ship of this name to serve the Royal Canadian Navy. Her ship’s badge shows a sheaf of wheat imposed on a green field, with a wavy white and red diagonal stripe denoting a river. All colours are derived from the province of Saskatchewan’s coat of arms.
Her predecessor was commissioned in the Royal Navy in 1935 as HMS Fortune, of the Fearless destroyer class. During the first 3½ years of the Second World War she steamed more than 200,000 miles (that’s eight times ‘round the world), participated in the Norwegian campaign and the occupation of Iceland, and helped sink the U-27, U-24 and the Vichy French submarine Ajax. While serving out of Malta in May 1941, she was badly damaged by bombs that required six months to repair.
In 1943, after two years with the Eastern Fleet, Fortune was renamed Saskatchewan and transferred to the RCN at London. She joined Escort Group C-3 after refit, trials and work-ups, for convoy escort duty in the North Atlantic. Saskatchewan and her sisters escorted no fewer than 14 convoys in nine months until withdrawn in May 1944 to begin special training off Londonderry, North Ireland in preparation for the invasion of Europe.
In June she helped to patrol the English Channel “as part of a barrier” that prevented U-boats from attacking the invasion route to the Normandy beaches. During an offensive patrol in the Bay of Biscay, the Canadians managed to destroy three enemy ships and complete further patrols in British waters before Saskatchewan was ordered back to Canada for refit in August 1944. She spent the last five months of the war as an escort vessel, returned to Canada after V-E Day, and rounded out an outstanding career as a troop transport.
Paid off for disposal on Jan. 28, 1946, the weary destroyer was sold for scrap after having earned three hard-won battle honours: Atlantic–1943-44, Normandy–1944, Biscay–1944.
There’s even more naval history behind ‘Saskatchewan’ than this.  The only naval engagement of the Riel Rebellion was fought on the South Saskatchewan River (Kisikatchewan–‘rapid river’ in Cree), in 1885, when government forces requisitioned the sternwheel steamer Northcote, armed her with a Gatling gun and 50 soldiers, armour-plated her with planks and sandbags, and sent her against the rebels at Batoche. They riddled her in a small-arms crossfire and launched another riverboat into her path, damaging the Northcote and forcing her withdrawal.
In 1968 the latest HMCS Saskatchewan sustained extensive damage from striking a rock at the eastern entrance to Active Pass and again, two years later, off Roberts Bank. Both accidents resulted in courts martial and severe reprimands for her respective captains.
In 1997 HMCS Saskatchewan touched sea-bottom for the last time, albeit intentionally this time, in 40 metres and just three km from Nanaimo where she, several sister destroyers and the repair ship HMCS Cape Breton will serve indefinitely as artificial reefs and tourist attractions for divers. Tragically, in July 2010, a Nanaimo Mountie died in a scuba-diving accident while exploring the Saskatchewan’s hulk.

Looking down into Richard III. Mine

Topographically, Big Sicker Mountain, so as to distinguish it from its immediate neighbour Little Sicker Mountain, is a 1700-foot peak between Duncan and Chemainus. It was the site of Vancouver Island’s greatest copper mining boom town at the turn of the last century. Although the excitement lasted only 10 years, a phenomenally rich mineral pocket yielded millions of dollars in copper, silver and gold, and spawned the development of three towns, two smelters, a railway, a tramway and the deep-sea port of Crofton.
You’d scarce know it today, however. But for its massive ore dump and the brick foundations of its powerhouse, Tyee Mine, the richest producer, has all but vanished. As has the Lenora Mine just down the hill to the west although you can still walk a short distance into a surviving shaft. Of the Richard III. up the mountain, a deep hole in the rock is all that shows, so fleeting is history.
It’s believed that at its height, about 1901-07, Mount Sicker’s two townships boasted a population of 2000 souls. There’s not a living soul there today. The mountain has been repeatedly logged over the past century and it’s highly popular with ATV-ers and target shooters, few of whom, it seems, have much interest in its colourful past.
They don’t know what they’re missing. I’ve been exploring Mount Sicker since 1978 because, despite those Cowichan Valley residents who insist “there’s nothing there,” I’m always finding something of interest and learning more about the mines’ and towns’ layouts. With the help of archival photos Jennifer and I have pinpointed the sites of numerous buildings at the Tyee and Lenora townsites, the most prominent of which is that of the Mount Sicker Hotel. Photos show it to have been a handsome two-storey structure with a hip roof. All that remains now, alas, are some rotting beams, broken bricks and galvanized flashings although some of its furnishings, such as its bar and bannister, were salvaged for use elsewhere and I have a chair from the dining room courtesy of George Compton, who lives immediately below the mountain. He and his brother “rescued” truckloads of rusty bits and other artifacts, back in the ‘50s.
The hotel’s where love-crazed miner Fred Beech tried to kill Mrs. Campbell, the widow who’d spurned his attentions, after he gunned down hotel Mount Brenton hotel proprietor Joe Bibeau. Why? Because Bibeau, his friend, tried to talk him out of it. After evading a posse for two days, Beech circled back to the hotel where Mrs. Campbell had been taken for safekeeping.  Beech drew her to an upstairs window by firing two shots with his Winchester from a distance of about 300 feet, then fired again, this time at her. She fainted and he, thinking he’d killed her, and seeing police charging from the hotel, turned his rifle on himself.
From the reports of the day and knowing the exact position of the hotel, I know where Fred Beech made his last stand. This, for me, is what gives history flesh and blood!
Back at the Tyee, you can stand directly atop the shaft that went down 1200 feet but which has been filled-in. This is where mine foreman Charlie Melrose plunged 300 feet to his death; when they recovered his body they found almost every bone to be broken but his face unmarked.
This is why we keep going back, why we keep looking, keep scratching, keep metal detecting. Treasure, to me, is finding an artifact with a story to tell. Last year, by the hotel, I found a prospector’s tool stash in a stump hole. Now, when I crack rock samples looking for signs of promising minerals, I use his small pick (repaired with a hammer handle) for the purpose it was intended.
Just 20 minutes from downtown Duncan by generally good gravel roads, Mount Sicker is on home turf. It’s like having one of Vancouver Island’s greatest ‘ghost towns’ for a backyard.

Well, Santa Claus (aka Peter Roosen and Guy Henry) may have been a week late but he (they) more than made up for it with the delivery, last week, of my ‘1911′ coal car. I put 1911 in quotes because it’s a hybrid of original parts salvaged from various Vancouver Island coal mines that, give or take, are of this vintage. They range from the Wellington Colliery to the Vancouver Slope to Extension and the rails are from the Canadian Northern Pacific Railway construction grade in the Alberni area.
I can’t thank Peter and Guy enough. They built it from scratch as a gift in recognition, they say, of my years of writing about and trying to preserve our mining and railway history in word and in photos. I’m truly humbled at their generosity–and absolutely delighted with what has to be one of the more unique yard ornaments on display in the Cowichan Valley.
Built to factory specs, the car’s eight feet long, four feet wide, weighs 1400 pounds and has a capacity of five tons. I do intend to ‘load’ it with coal but I’ll cheat with a false bottom, about a foot deep. I mean, really, five tons… So, should you see someone in a cowboy hat gathering chunks of coal at the South Wellington No. 10 or one of the other coal dumps in the Nanaimo area, you’ll know it’s me–and why!
And, this week, Jennifer and I squeezed in our first bushwhacking of the year with a four-hour visit to Mount Sicker’s Tyee and Richard III. mines. We’ve been to both so many, many times but we’re always drawn back. Because time was limited and our efforts with the metal detector unrewarding, we contented ourselves with–again–scouring the Tyee’s tailings pile in search of ore samples containing visible evidence of copper (chalco pyrite) and silver (galena). I don’t know how many rocks I’ve lugged home from Mount Sicker over the years. They’re in my museum room, the mud room and in the garden. They actually show best outdoors as, when wet, the various shades of green and turquoise literally leap out at you. Cool.