‘Island idyll Just Minutes from Nanaimo’
So read the headline in the Vancouver Island Free Daily of the idyllic Newcastle Island, immediately off Nanaimo. And make no mistake, Newcastle truly is a treasure island of natural beauty. It also comes with a fabulous pedigree of industrial and dramatic history. There’s something for everyone including summer camps for kids. For me, of course, it’s the historical provenance that has been the draw to Newcastle (and its immediate southern neighbour, Protection Island) numerous times. What’s now Newcastle Island Marine Provincial Park owes its christening to officers of the Hudson’s Bay Co. who named it for the Northumberland, Eng., coal city, Newcastle-upon-Tyne. On maps, Newcastle Island and Channel date back only to 1853; their namesake was thriving in the days of the Roman occupation. HBC officials obviously coined Newcastle because of its long history as a coal port—surely...
Read MoreMorden Colliery Park’s New Memorial Crowns 12-Year Campaign
Yesterday’s doubleheader began with 90 minutes of taking over 100 pictures in Nanaimo’s Bowen Road cemetery before the unveiling of Morden Colliery Park’s new memorial. I was waiting to join an hour-long tour of Masonic graves led by fellow Duncanite and Mason historian Mark Anderson. His tour was part of the day-long 150th anniversary celebration of Nanaimo’s Ashlar Lodge No. 3. In purely historic (and storytelling) terms, this is a really great cemetery: headstone after headstone bears the sad epitaph, “Killed in the explosion of…” Or: “Killed in Extension Mine…” Or some other industrial tragedy. This isn’t surprising for a city that was founded on coal mining What was unexpected was the extent of vandalism as evidenced by broken and missing headstones and columns. A story in itself, I’m sorry to say. Not all of the markers are for...
Read MoreTypewriters are still with us–who cares?
According to an item by the Associated Press, typewriters are still with us; at least for those nostalgians who prefer to continue to pound out letters and manuscripts on a Smith Corona or an old Underwood or a Remington or… Me? Never again! I can well remember, as a kid, dreaming of the day that I’d be a professional writer—an author!—which would also mean my having a typewriter of my own. Access to a portable Smith Corona, which belonged to my father’s union of which he was secretary, came first. The first one that I owned, a large, clunky black office-sized Underwood that I sent away for with one of my first pay cheques from my new job at The Daily Colonist, served me well for several years. But, by then, newer typewriters were smaller, even portable, and much...
Read MoreRemembering Terry Fox, Old Trains, the Galloping Goose
Almost 20 years ago, when I began writing my twice-weekly historical column in the Cowichan Valley Citizen and (for 10 years) a once-weekly retrospective in the Nanaimo Daily News/Harbour City Star, a friend predicted that I’d “be starved for material in four months”. “Not a chance,” I replied. “In four months I’ll have more to work with than when I started.” This wasn’t idle bragging but based upon years of experience. You see, and to give but one example, every time I go to an archives to research, say, one, two or three specific subjects, I come home with a half-dozen—or more—new leads. Without exception! Quite simply, historical research is like digging a hole. The more you dig the bigger it gets. If my friend saw me, today, with red pen in hand while I read a newspaper he’d...
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