‘Big Frank’ Verdier Helped to Lay Out 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 existing and circuitous route via Sooke. And it was MacFarlane who’d badgered a reluctant provincial government into finally adopting the route he’d ‘surveyed’ with just an aneroid barometer for a transit level.

Which is where Big Frank Verdier enters the story. But I’m getting ahead of myself…

His saga begins in 1849 with brothers Alphonse and Etienne Verdier of Toulon, France joining in the great gold rush to California. Not striking it rich, Etienne travelled overland to B.C. and arrived in Fort Victoria in 1852 to find work driving a water cart for George Stelly, another pioneer name well known in Saanich.

Within two years Etienne owned the business of supplying potable water to city residents and he married Honorah Kilroy, an Irish lass who’d arrived by bride ship.

When he became tired of delivering water with wagon and bucket, Etienne and Honorah moved to Bazan Bay and settled on land near that of Alphonse who’d also found his way to the Saanich Peninsula by then.

Son Frank, the first of four children, was born in 1865 and became adept with a bow and arrow, the neighbouring Tsawout First Nations who were also his playmates also teaching him how to hunt deer, to trap bear, to mimic bird calls, to spear fish.

He was also invited to attend the secret dances and rituals of the medicine men that, once, included the tearing apart by human teeth of a small dog—much to the six year old’s horror.

He grew, as his nickname suggests, to be a “big man” despite a childhood bout with smallpox. His size and strength would serve him well as a logger. An article in a 1931 MacLean’s Magazine recounted how he “cut the big trees on Granville and Hastings streets, when the great city of Vancouver was in its birth throes”.

Vancouver hadn’t even been thought of then, he said. “There were only a few shanties along the sea front, a sawmill and a saloon. It looked a big business to clear that forest, but we had it cleared off in a season.”

Later, with 12 teams of oxen, he helped to clear the Sooke Road; in the off-season he and his oxen cleared his 180 acres of equally stout timber in Saanich and, on a northern ramble, almost snglehandedly, he cut the first trail from Forbes Landing to Campbell River and beyond.

In 1931 Frank Verdier was said to be the oldest timber cruiser on the B.C. coast, an accompanying photo showing him with a thatch of white hair and a walrus-style moustache. Then living on busy Verdier Avenue in the Brentwood ferry area, he recalled when “there were no roads at all…except the Indian trails, when he had no neighbours between him and old Fort Victoria except the Tsautup Indian tribe [sic]…”

Despite his years, he remained an erect six-foot-two, 250 pounds, broad and strong, his shoulders “as massive as a wall”. He had the easy stride of the outdoorsman, a “handsome, leonine head,” eyes crinkling with a ready smile, and a ready and infectious laugh. Even in retirement he continued to work hard with his orchard, cattle and poultry.

This was the remarkable man who was asked to verify Maj. MacFarlane’s proposed route over the Malahat.

According to a history of the Victoria Auto Club they, too, had lobbied for years for such a short-cut, but had encountered stiff resistance from Cowichan Valley farmers, among others, who, as taxpayers, didn’t want to help finance it. (Besides the E&N, as noted elsewhere, Cowichan was linked weekly to Victoria by steamship via Maple and Cowichan Bays, and this seemed to have sufficed for many.)

“At various times through 1906 deputations organized by the Club waited on the Provincial Government, and ever they went away with promises that the matter would be looked into. Every delegation was succeeded by a storm of written and oral protests from the farming elements on the Island. The opposition centred on two points: first, the taxpayers would not agree to wasting the public money on unnecessary roadways for the use of visitors and the wealthy who could afford motor cars, and even more urgently the farmers objected to noisy motors rushing along their rural roads, scaring their horses and tearing the gravel highways to pieces…”

Finally the VAC received a curt note from the govenment to the effect that the continual depuations were useless “as the roadway was unnecessary, impossible to construct, and if attempted would result in the loss of enormous sums of money to no purpose.”

No problem!
Rather than being discouraged, the Club’s directors “resort[ed] to strategy”. They invited MLAs, members of the Victoria Board of Trade and city council to join them on a Dominion Day weekend motorcade from Victoria to Albern”— and almost every person who had taken a strong attitude against the construction of the road”. (INSER)

Three days with two overnight stops were scheduled for the trip!
All this in the expectation that “the ride would cause a change of heart among the guests who accepted the invitation”. All expenses, including meals, gas and oil, were picked up by the Club and participants were insured “against breakdowns as far as possible”. (This is 1910, remember.)

All of this amounted to “large sums of money so [Club] members charged themselves a heavy per capita fee. This was paid without a murmur by every member approached by the finance committee.”

And they had to pay up front so that the necessary gasoline and oil could be purchased and arrangements made for their delivery along the route.

The Club’s generous offer was so tempting that, come the day of departure from Victoria, they had to hire extra touring cars ($105 apiece) from a rental company.

So, how did it go?

We again quote from the record: “Early on the morning of June 29 the cars got away, some of them taking the road over the Sooke Mountain, now disused. The guests who took that route vowed they would never agree to make the trip if any other practicable route could be discovered.

“Narrow hairpin turns, steep climbs which often reqired the passengers to walk while the cars laboured up the loose roadside hill surface, and storms of gritty dust as one car surged by another, all combined to convert many an opponent into an advocate for a better road.”

How did the others avoid the nasty Sooke route?
Why, they were ferried across Saanich Inlet by tug and scow, courtesy of limestone quarry owner R.P. Butchart.

So much for the VAC. Let’s get back to Maj. MacFarlane, the Irish, cantankerous and retired Royal Artillery officer in Mill Bay who wasn’t content with the circuitous route to Victoria via Sooke, a route that had its origins in the Leech River gold rush of the 1860s. A route with deep ruts and wash-outs that made travel difficult, sometimes impossible.

This didn’t sit well with the major on his 100 acres at Mill Bay, the Malahat’s northern terminus. So he began pestering officialdom in Victoria. And at pestering and persistence he seems to have been an expert, his feisty nature and quick temper more than once having gotten him into trouble with his neighbours and even the law.

“He talked to anyone who would listen, and on his occasional trips to Victoria,” Cecil Clark wrote in the Colonist more than 70 years ago.

“He would argue and wrangle around offices in the Parlilament Buildings. But no one seemed interested.” Undaunted, and armed with a map, an aneroid barometer and a compass, he set out one morning to blaze a viable route over the Hump, marking his progress with pegs.

All this to the scorn of his neighbours and those in Victoria who heard of his project.
It took him three years to work his way to Goldstream and, map in hand, stride into the office of the minister of lands and forests. The minister, upon MacFarlane’s admission that he was a former artilleryman and not a professional surveyor, dismissed him out of hand.

At a meeting of the farmers’ institute (all of four members), he acquired their unanimous consent and returned to Victoria with resolution in hand—this time to the president of the Victoria Board of Trade, who was at least sympathetic enough to suggest tha the continue to seek public support for such a road. Legend has it that he set out to acquire the signatures of “every adult between Oak Bay and Mill Bay.” It took him nine months to achieve a petition nine and a-half feet long!

But this is supposed to be about Frank Verdier.

Even when the politicians came onside, the bureaucrats dug in their heels and insisted upon a professional survey. Which is where the renowned logger and woodsman Big Frank Verdier enters the picture. He verified MacFarlane’s route.

But he wasn’t a professional surveyor, either. So, finally, the government dispatched a respected pro named Harris to check things out. He, of course, confirmed that both MacFarlane and Verdier were right.

Upon completion in 1911, the original winding, climbing ‘highway’ over the Malahat wasn’t a whole lot better than the original wagon road through Sooke. But it was shorter and quicker for which we can thank Maj. MacFarlane and Verdier. For the record, the Victoria Auto Club didn’t overlook Verdier’s contribution; it was they (at a time when most people still travelled by horse and wagon) who hired him to check MacFarlane’s string of pegs, and it was they who at last convinced the government that the 14-mile-long road could be built for $15,000.

As it happened, the road ended up being 17.5 miles long and costing more than $300,000 (a sizable sum in those days).

For Frank’s 80th birthday, five generations of Verdiers crowded into the fine log house he’d built with his own hands of wood and stone. One of the stories told of his colourful career was that he’d been one of the first settlers to use stumping powder. It still took him three hard years and several teams of oxen to clear his land. Somehow, he’d even found time to serve on Saanich Council for a term…

The next time you drive the Malahat, spare a thought—and a thank you—for those public-spirited members of the Victoria Auto Club who helped to make it possible.

In particular, acknowledge Maj. J.F.L. MacFarlane who roughed out a route over the ‘Hat then pressured the government to finally pay heed by collecting 100s of names of taxpayers to accept the cost on his petition.

And, finally, give thanks to Big Frank Verdier whose skills as a woodsman and surveyor proved that MacFarlane’s proposed route was feasible. With Verdier’s stamp of approval, the province had no choice but to finally bite the bullet, hire a real surveyor for confirmation, then build a short-cut over the dreaded Malahat.