Explore an abandoned coal mine? Me? Never!
I swore I’d never explore an abandoned coal mine. A so-called ‘hard-rock’ mine gouged from solid stone, maybe. But long abandoned coal mines with their legendary terrors of cave-ins, flood and gas—never! But, well, sometimes a man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do. For me, that sometime came 14 years ago when I heard that loggers working southwest of Nanaimo had exposed a fan shaft for one of the area’s leading coal mines of the last century. My bushwhacking companions and I already knew of, and had visited, the ruins of another fan-house in the same general area. But this one sounded more intriguing as our informants mentioned concrete cribbing and a steel ladder descending into the shaft. They said a timber cruiser had successfully descended and, without a light, could see that the shaft ran for some...
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Remembrance Day – Remembering S.S. Beaverford’s Sacrifice
The epic story of the good ship Beaverford should be known to every Canadian. Instead—typically—she has been all but forgotten. By the same stroke of irony, the British armed merchantman S.S. Jervis Bay, which fought and died with her in the same action, became, at least for a time, one of the most famous ships of the Second World War. Convoy HX-84 cleared Halifax late Oct. 28, 1940: 38 ships with only two destroyers, which would turn back shortly, and the armed merchant cruiser Jervis Bay for protection—steamed at an agonizingly slow eight knots for faraway Liverpool. Commanding the 10,052-ton Beaverford was a short, stocky Scotsman, Capt. Hugh Pettigrew. According to the official record of Canadian Pacific Steamships, the ship’s owners, the veteran master felt something would happen this voyage. It had been his custom to invite “one or...
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October 25, 1918: Canada’s ‘Titanic,’ Princess Sophia, Sank 100 Years Ago
Canadian Pacific Steamships’ coastal liner Princess Sophia has been compared to the Titanic because of the appalling loss of life, 343 men, women and children. Unlike the Titanic, not a single soul survived. The Titanic struck an iceberg in the North Atlantic, the Sophia grounded on a reef in Alaska’s Lynn Canal. Even though she sank in American waters, the Victoria-based coastal passenger liner is recognized as British Columbia’s worst shipwreck ever… “Just time to say goodbye. We are foundering.” This postcard shows S.S Princess Sophia in Victoria’s Inner Harbour, loading new recruits who are about to leave for Vancouver then cross Canada by train to Halifax where they would embark for Britain and, finally, the frontlines of France and Belgium during the First World War. This pathetic farewell of 343 passengers and crew was flashed through the night...
Read More‘Big Frank’ Verdier Helped to Lay Out Malahat Highway
The story of pioneer Frank Veridier is the fourth and final instalment of my history of lower Vancouver Island’s Malahat Highway. Some years ago I received a letter from a lady who wrote that her grandfather Francis Edward ‘Big Frank’ Verdier’s contribution to the laying out of the Malahat Highway has been all but overlooked by historians, myself included. In fact, Edna Slater flat out said I hadn’t been “fair to the old boy—his descendants protest!” She was sure that, as “a respected historian,” I’d read the attached photocopies. Which, of course, I did, and they convincingly supported her claim that, while accrediting Mill Bay’s J.F.L. MacFarlane, I’d given poor Frank short shrift. The eccentric Mr. MacFarlane had indeed played a key role in the selection of a direct link to Victoria via the Malahat in place of the...
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