My Memories of Childhood Christmases Resonate Stronger Today
Is it just me or was Christmas really better in ‘the good old days’? Mind you, I was younger then, and more impressionable. They weren’t any whiter in Victoria (Saanich, really) than they are now, with the rarest of exceptions. It did happen though, before global warming and all that. One of the best photos my father ever took is of skaters on what we called the ‘Overflow,’ Swan Lake’s annual flooding of farmers’ fields. It was good enough that he made an enlargement and framed it; today it’s not only a family keepsake but, after our mostly mild winters of recent years, a collector’s item. But back to Christmas. Yes, the merchants still decorate their stores, people do up their homes, and there are colourful street lights. But nothing like the front windows of Eaton’s in Victoria. They...
Read MoreSecret of Christmas, 118 Years Ago, Still Rings True
This unusual editorial appeared in the Christmas Eve 1900 issue of The Daily Colonist. Although the Boer War was raging in South Africa the editor, one of a profession notorious for its cynicism, saw the birth of the new century as cause for hope, for peace, for progress for all humankind. That the 20th century, so recently our century, didn’t unfold as he predicted, speaks more against the frailty and failures of humankind than it does the unnamed editor’s idealism. He also alludes to a short-lived secular approach to Christmas by the leading American children’s periodicals of the day—a naysayer’s approach that we’ve seen repeated in modern times and which, too, now appears to be fading away. (i.e. ‘Christmas’ is back!) History has proved our unnamed editor to be a poor prophet but it hasn’t sullied the idealism of...
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T.W. Paterson’s latest: Treasure Lost & Found In British Columbia
29 exciting stories of lost treasure In British Columbia! Everyone likes to read stories about lost treasure. But how often do you read stories about found treasure? Well, here’s your chance! Duncan author/historian T.W. Paterson’s latest book (his 29th) is all about lost treasure—and treasure found—some of it almost underfoot. As proof, he offers numerous examples as encouragement to armchair enthusiasts who “confine their treasure hunting to television, movies and daydreams. …Few realize that, while there definitely is gold in some of ‘them thar hills,’ it can also exist, in various forms, much closer to home. “In fact, it might well be under your very nose, unsuspected, at this precise moment.” That said, he admits that, for all the great stories of treasures lost in British Columbia, the opportunities for striking it rich, at least in the monetary sense,...
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Proposed B.C. Ferry Service Drew Newspapers’ ‘Wrath’
Whoever heard of such a preposterous idea? Imagine it—a daily ferry service between Nanaimo and the lower Mainland! “…To put the whole in a few words, no ferry system could be made practicable…” wrote the Vancouver Advertiser. Today, British Columbians take such service for granted; 133 years ago, the concept met ridicule and downright hostility in some quarters. How times change! “The idea of connecting the Canadian Pacific and Island [Esquimalt & Nanaimo] Railways by means of a ferry does not find favour in the eyes of our New Westminster friends,” noted an editorial in the Nanaimo Free Press, “but we are afraid they will have to bow to the inevitable.” If the Nanaimo editor is to be lauded for his prescience, it must also be pointed out that he’d arrived at this conclusion through somewhat muddled reasoning: that...
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