My Bottle Digger’s and Treasure Hunter’s Lament
It’s a conspiracy, I tell you. From the age of 20 or so I’ve been a bottle digger, treasure hunter. (At least I find bottles.) But it’s getting harder and harder all the time. Right now, here on the lower mid-section of Vancouver Island, we’re in the grip of intense summer sunshine and heat. Meaning that the fire gates are down until an extended break in the weather which could well be two months away. (Then, before you know it, the weather will change and we’ll be barred from the higher elevations by snow. It has ever been thus…) The threat of forest fires and snow are seasonal things. But being locked out of backcounry is an increasing year-round threat to anyone wanting to hike, bike or ATV in the woods. (Those who abide by the signs, anyway.) Recreationists...
Read MoreThe SAINT and the SINNER (Part 3 – Conclusion)
On Christmas morning, Old Jackson turned his face to the wall and died. Tom O’Neil was bent on vengeance. Having followed ‘Judge’ Reynolds from California to Yale, he’d found him at a roadhouse where journalist D.W. Higgins, Reynolds and others had gathered to pass a stormy evening about a red-hot stove. “Curse ye,” he snarled to Reynolds’ pleas for mercy as he placed the muzzle of his Colt against the old man’s forehead. “Ye put me in prison and ruined my prospecks for life. I’ve followed you for a thousand mile and now I’ve got yer.” Time’s up! Reynolds wrapped his arms around the gunslinger’s feet and begged for one minute more. “You’d better hurry,” O’Neil, replied, “there’s only a quarter of a minute left.” Reynolds turned to the others who, paralyzed with fear and disbelief, had made no...
Read MoreThe Saint and the Sinner (Part 2)
‘What did I come for?… I come for a man.’ Old Jackson, they called him, although he was scarcely 30. Unlike many others who participated in the Cariboo gold rush, he didn’t drink, smoke, swear or gamble, and treated his employees and mules with gentleness and compassion. A queer duck, indeed. But there was something more to Old Jackson that intrigued journalist D.W. Higgins—the distinct impression that Jackson was not a man to be trifled with, that his brooding silences marked him as a dormant volcano. This hunch was put to the test one dismal evening in Barry’s saloon, where a number of men had sought refuge from a storm around a glowing sheet-iron stove. Among the refugees who warmed their exteriors by the stove, and their interiors at the bar, was a man known in camp as ‘Judge’...
Read MoreTHE SAINT and the SINNER (Part 1)
Old Jackson didn’t drink, gamble or swear: what kind of gold seeker was this? David Williams Higgins is one of my favourite British Columbia historical writers. As a journalist and politician he met all kinds in his 60 years in the province and it’s a great blessing that, in retirement, he set out to record some of them. Several of his reminiscences first appeared in the Daily Colonist in 1904 then, with other chapters, in two books which have become highly collectible classics: The Mystic Spring and The Passing of a Race. Some historians have disputed Higgins’ claims to the roles he personally played in some of his tales and fault him for his recreating dialogue half a century after the fact. Who cares? I say! Higgins really was there at the time of these events and his role...
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