Grace Islet Burial Ground Controversy is same old, same old
UPDATE – May 24, 2019 Two recent news reports, 100 years late though they be, confirm a seismic shift in governmental and museum attitudes towards First Nations cultural treasures. In March The Canadian Press reported that the British Columbia government has introduced new legislation that will “require people to report the discovery of sites or objects of potential heritage value to the government’s archaeology branch. It [will] be mandatory in British Columbia to report the discovery of sites or objects of potential heritage value to the government’s archaeology branch under changes to legislation introduced Wednesday.” According to Forests Minister Doug Donaldson, ‘amendments to the Heritage Conservation Act [will] strengthen the protection of archaeological and historic sites and form part of the government’s commitment to implement the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.” He said the proposed...
Read MoreCanadian $10 bill kerfuffle recalls martyred nurse Edith Cavell
Oops. There was a mistake on our new plastic $10 bill. It only took the Royal Canadian Mint eight months to correct, if not admit, that they goofed on their photo of Mount Edith Cavell. According to the Canadian Press, mountain climber Hitesh Doshi spotted the mistake: a mountain that was identified on the RCM’s website as 3363-metre Mount Edith Cavell in Jasper National Park was actually Lectern Peak. After laying the blame on the Canadian Bank Note Co., the Mint assured us that all is now well. So who was Edith Cavell and why did they name a mountain after her? For answer, I’m going to quote myself from my 2005 book, A Place Called Cowichan: A century and a second global conflict have passed since the ‘war to end all wars’. [Duncan’s] Ypres, St. Julien and Festubert...
Read More150th Anniversary of Leech River Gold Rush
In July 2014, the Sooke Region Museum marked this epic anniversary of the discovery of gold in Vancouver Island’s Leech River. As did, the previous weekend, the Vancouver Island Placer Mining Association. It wasn’t a great gold rush so far as gold rushes go, certainly not on the scale of those of Australia, California or the Klondike. Not even, for that matter, others, before and after, here in British Columbia: the Fraser River and Cariboo, the Kootenays, the Big Bend or Atlin areas. But it was exciting enough to, for a time, all but depopulate Victoria, then capital of the Crown Colony of Vancouver Island. Amazingly, the search for placer gold in the Leech River and immediate area goes on a full century and a-half later. Probably no one’s getting rich but there’s still enough fine dust and nuggets...
Read MoreDr. Frances Kelsey grew up in the Cowichan Valley
If you don’t recognize Frank Trevor Oldham or his wife Katherine Booth Oldham, perhaps you know of their illustrious daughter, Dr. Frances Oldham Kelsey, who just celebrated her 100th birthday. The senior Oldhams take their rest in the little cemetery of St. John the Baptist, Cobble Hill, where Frances was born, July 24, 1914. A few miles away, at neighbouring Mill Bay, Frances Kelsey Secondary School takes its name from this locally born scientist who, as director of scientific research for the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in the early 1960s, blew the whistle on Thalidomide after linking the “morning sickness” medication with severe birth defects, world-wide. A tiny planet on the far side of the sun has also been named after her Lt.-Col. Frank T. Oldham, 1869-1960, didn’t quite make it to seeing his daughter Frances achieve international...
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