150th Anniversary of Leech River Gold Rush
In July 2014, the Sooke Region Museum marked this epic anniversary of the discovery of gold in Vancouver Island’s Leech River. As did, the previous weekend, the Vancouver Island Placer Mining Association. It wasn’t a great gold rush so far as gold rushes go, certainly not on the scale of those of Australia, California or the Klondike. Not even, for that matter, others, before and after, here in British Columbia: the Fraser River and Cariboo, the Kootenays, the Big Bend or Atlin areas. But it was exciting enough to, for a time, all but depopulate Victoria, then capital of the Crown Colony of Vancouver Island. Amazingly, the search for placer gold in the Leech River and immediate area goes on a full century and a-half later. Probably no one’s getting rich but there’s still enough fine dust and nuggets...
Read MoreDr. Frances Kelsey grew up in the Cowichan Valley
If you don’t recognize Frank Trevor Oldham or his wife Katherine Booth Oldham, perhaps you know of their illustrious daughter, Dr. Frances Oldham Kelsey, who just celebrated her 100th birthday. The senior Oldhams take their rest in the little cemetery of St. John the Baptist, Cobble Hill, where Frances was born, July 24, 1914. A few miles away, at neighbouring Mill Bay, Frances Kelsey Secondary School takes its name from this locally born scientist who, as director of scientific research for the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in the early 1960s, blew the whistle on Thalidomide after linking the “morning sickness” medication with severe birth defects, world-wide. A tiny planet on the far side of the sun has also been named after her Lt.-Col. Frank T. Oldham, 1869-1960, didn’t quite make it to seeing his daughter Frances achieve international...
Read MoreFor Rent: Craigflower, the oldest school in British Columbia
The province, having given up on Craigflower School, ca 1854, as a pay-its-own-way museum, has stripped it of its historical furniture and artifacts and is making it available for lease as an office building or the like. A request for proposals has gone out to find an organization interested in utilizing the two-storey ‘Georgian Revival’ structure built beside the Gorge waterway by the Hudson’s Bay Company for the children of their employees at nearby Craigflower Farm: “Successful proponents will offer a strong business case for a long-term use that provides community benefits, with a focus on financial independence from government,” according to a government statement. “The candidate with the strongest proposal will be invited to make a formal application for tenure. This proposed arrangement doesn’t include the spacious grounds surrounding what was originally known as the Maple Point School...
Read MoreThe facts and nothing but the facts
Never let the facts get in the way of a good story! I was reminded of this alleged quote by Farley Mowat when a lady suggested that, perhaps, I should change my initials to B.S. Paterson. She was joking, of course. Wasn’t she? She came to mind when a friend e-mailed to ask about the shooting of Joe Dougan at Cobble Hill in 1890. After he told me what he knew of the tragedy, I had to inform him that his previous informant was so far off the mark that he could probably find a job as a Hollywood script writer. Which brings up the difficult question, how much of history is truth? Has much of it been written, as one sceptic has accused, by the winners of wars or of succeeding civilizations and cultures? The first Europeans to...
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