16th-Century English Shilling Found in Gorge Waterway
The recent discovery of an English shilling, ca 1551-53, in Victoria’s Gorge waterway by treasure hunter Bruce Campbell brought back warm memories of my own metal detecting days. Not that I ever found anything of consequence let alone value. Ah, but the joy of the hunt, the hope that the next shovelful would yield, if not treasure in the form of gold, silver or gems, some historically significant find always kept me going. Mind you, if you saw what I had for a detector, made of plastic and plywood, you’d probably wonder how I found anything at all! I’m writing of the early 1960s when I sent away to Texas for a kit advertised in a western magazine, for about $35 that cost me half as much again to bring it through customs–as a Geiger counter, according to the...
Read MoreVictoria, B.C. Waterfront to Undergo Transformation
“Victoria’s Inner Harbour has come a long way since the days when it was surrounded by industrial operations that turned the water into an open sewer…” noted the Times–Colonist in a recent editorial. No doubt the editor’s reference to the harbour’s past commercial enterprises didn’t include its first major industry, the selling of ‘tanglefoot’–rotgut–whiskey and degenerative disease by the boatload. This was when Victoria was still a palisaded outpost of the Hudson’s Bay Co., in the days of, and following, the Fraser River gold rush. ‘Respectable’ Victoria merchants grew rich from illegal liquor sales to an estimated 20,000 white newcomers who joined several thousand local Songhees and other First Nations peoples from northern Vancouver and the Queen Charlotte (Haida Gwaii) islands. This unholy mix of nations, races, creeds and cultures created an overwhelming demand for liquor and some of...
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