Tale of Two Margarets Recalls Infamous Shipwreck
“It seems that everything went against them that morning,” an eyewitness recalled 60 years later of the loss of sisters Edith and Ada Fenwick sisters and others. An otherwise dismal spring of 2011 was noteworthy for two events involving two Margarets: Duncan’s Queen Margaret’s School celebrated its 90th anniversary and Victoria’s St. Margaret’s School honoured the two sisters who founded it in 1908. At least the Misses Denny and Geoghegan, founders of Queen Margaret’s i Duncan, lived to advanced ages to die of natural causes. Not so the Misses Fenwick who were among those lost when the ill-fated inter-island steamship Iroquois foundered off Sidney in April 1911. Both were born in South Shields, Durham, Eng., Edith Mary in 1868 and Ada Isabel in 1871. In December 1907, Isabel accompanied Margaret Barton, whom they’d befriended while attending finishing school in Germany, to...
Read MoreSpring Alert: Forest Fires Kill
After what seems to have been a long and cold (it was a long and cold) winter, they’re already predicting a long, hot and dry summer. The new norm, we’re warned by environmental scientists. Darn. Which means that we’re coming up to that time of year when, years ago, the firefighting water bombers stationed at Pat Bay (Victoria International) Airport entered their working-up period in readiness for another fire season. How I loved listening to those multi-engine prop planes, many of them dating from the Second World War. Much like the difference between a steam whistle and a diesel locomotive, a purring multi-piston radial engine is music to the ear when compared with a jet’s shrieking exhaust. Having grown up beside the CNR tracks in Victoria and having lived for 20 years at Cherry Point, Cobble Hill, here in...
Read MoreBaronet’s noble title more curse than blessing
It would have been back about 1872 that Sir Philip Houghton Clarke purchased several hundred fertile acres on Lulu Island for the bargain price of a dollar an acre. Despite the fact that the lower Fraser was un-diked and untamed, he invested the whole of his fortune in erecting a house, outbuildings, purchasing equipment and stocking a large herd. Predictably, the river flooded during seasonal high water, and the baronet found that “with the limited means [left] at his command, combined with his ignorance of farming, there was nothing in the life for him”. Forced to sell his farm at a substantial loss, he and his “amiable lady” moved to Victoria with what little remained of their fortune. They became very popular although Clarke was unable to find a position and their finances steadily deteriorated. For two or three...
Read MoreTINY MIAMI ISLET HAS BLACK PAST
‘Whoever named Miami Islet had an odd sense of humour…’ Although identified on marine charts (the only maps in sufficient scale to show it) as Miami Islet, and acknowledged as a nesting place for cormorants, there’s nothing to indicate that this bald hump of rock just north of Thetis Island has a history of tragedy and notoriety. Only about 200 metres long at low tide, the barnacle-encrusted rock seldom boasts more than the usual litter of driftwood, drying seaweed and transient birds. However, if one were to look closer into the adjacent depths, the discerning eye might detect something more than shadows and sea bottom. Here, pretty much forgotten, lie the remains of the fine steam collier Miami, from which the islet takes its name. Victoria Colonist headlines of January 1900 tell the story: “Big collier on the rocks–Miami...
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