Helicopter sale awakens fond memory
A small headline on the business page of the Times-Colonist reporting the sale of VIH Aviation Ltd., the descendant of Vancouver Island Helicopters, brought to mind another headline that chose to coincide with–and almost subvert–one of the most memorable days of my life. I’d been writing and prowling about the historic gold-bearing Leech River country in the Sooke hills for several years, my articles appearing in The Daily Colonist’s weekly magazine section, The Islander. It was in response to one on the 1860s Leechtown gold rush that a Mr. Henson phoned me. Disabled in the First World War, he’d supplemented his disability pension and fed his family through the dirty ‘30s by prospecting in this historic area, some 16 air miles west of Victoria. The gold, up to 22 karats, is among the purest to be had, he told...
Read More‘Second Largest’ Douglas fir recalls Westholme giant
For years, environmental groups such as the Western Canada Wilderness Committee have been urging the provincial government to identify the 100 largest and oldest specimens of each of B.C.’s tree species and legislate protection for them. Sadly, even should they succeed, it will be a matter of closing the barn door after the horse has bolted. Other than a few notable exceptions, those trees which will qualify for this register are unlikely to be truly representative of the biggest and best of their species at this late date. Just those which have escaped the logger’s axe or Mother Nature’s tempests. There was a time within living memory when the Westholme Valley, between Duncan and Chemainus on the Island Highway, would have made such a list. Long before the arrival of the first white settlers, the ‘Old Guardsman’ was a...
Read MoreS.S. Delta King, King of the Riverboats
In February 2014 it was announced that a Baltic Sea cruise ship, the Silja Festival, was being converted in a Vancouver shipyard to provide living accommodations for as many as 600 construction workers in Kitimat. Shades of deja vu all over again In 1959 the old river boat Delta King called at Victoria during what many thought would be her last voyage before the scrapyard. Her (ships are feminine) days of splendour on California’s Sacramento River were distant memories by the time the filthy, paddle-less derelict crept into the Inner Harbour astern of a tugboat, that March evening. Her tall funnel, a proud standard in happier times, seemed ashamed of its nakedness atop a peeling superstructure which once had gleamed as white and saucy as Scarlett O’Hara’s petticoats. But more than 30 years had passed since Delta King and...
Read MoreSo, you think juvenile delinquency is new?
An editorial in the Nanaimo Free Press, November 1, 1884: The growing tendency of the age is the loosening of the restraint which parents and guardians impose upon their children or wards. That this greater freedom of motion to children ranging from 10 to 18 years is conducive of the most dire results must be apparent to the general reader. In the city of Nanaimo, the evil is a growing one and it should be checked. Several nights during this present week gangs of youths ranging from 12 to 18 years of age, and some of respectable parents, have been reeling through the streets of this city in a state of intoxication. It is but justice that we should state here that the intoxicating beverage was not procured by the boys themselves from any licensed house. We have been...
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