The 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 come to British Columbia all but dismissed native history–that’s what they meant by terming them legends–because it’s oral. Does writing it down guarantee authenticity?
Psychological research has shown that several people witnessing the same traumatic event, say a bank robbery, will often give varying, even conflicting, descriptions of the robber. Most will agree on general points but vary greatly on others. Who’s right?
So, how do I research my Cowichan and British Columbia Chronicles and books blogs and who do I trust? Can you trust me?
Sources vary, of course. My personal archives and library, begun at age 14, has grown exponentially over the years. I began by reading other writers such as B.A. McKelvie, Cecil Clark and several others who specialized in British Columbia history. I did what they did by visiting the B.C. Archives and the public library, spending countless hours hunched in front of microfilm machines before moving up to interviewing actual participants of, or witnesses to, historic events, and reading almost everything I could on British Columbia.
We’re fortunate, you know. Hundreds, probably thousands, of books that we term ‘regional history,’ many of them one-shots by authors whose names you don’t recognize but whose credentials are 24-carat, are available to researchers who know how to seek them out. (Today’s internet generally makes it much easier.)
One of my best-ever sources over the years have been the Annual Reports published since 1874 by the B.C. Department of Mines. Up until the 1950s they were a priceless treasure trove of information, much of it detailed and in the very words of the regional mining inspectors.
One in particular stands out for me.
An inspector investigating a coal mine disaster in the Similkameen in the 1930s was describing the effects of the explosion and the unsuccessful attempts to rescue more than 30 trapped miners. Remarkably, he’d been on-site (on the surface, fortunately for him) when an explosion ripped through the underground workings. Thus his report, although written with the knowledge that it was to be filed with his superiors and ultimately published for posterity, has an immediacy that is neither clinical nor matter-of-fact.
There, in the midst of his report–and as tightly abbreviated as it is, his conflict of professional reserve and his personal sense of shock at what he’d witnessed and of the even greater horrors that followed, ring loud and clear–is a most unusual observation. Almost in mid-paragraph, he addresses something that had intrigued him for years. It was just a little thing.
How was it possible, he marvelled, that white mules working underground never got dirty, whereas miners returned topside as black as the coal they mined?
Perhaps as remarkable is, how did this nebulous query so innocently and so incongruously expressed by a man who’d seen tragedy in the collieries before, although always after the immediate fact, make it past an editor?
No amount of research on my part could answer that question–I’m just glad that the anonymous editor let it pass.
But I’ve strayed somewhat from my ramble on veracity. No one would question the mine inspector’s credibility and his example helps to make the point that firsthand sources are always highly desirable. But referring exclusively to one person’s version of what happened is like examining something through a microscope; to get a clearer picture of what happened, we generally must step back and look at it from a greater distance and from other angles.
Human memory, after all, isn’t infallible even when it’s untainted by personal biases and egocentric viewpoints.
Sometimes, when all’s said and done, and a researcher ends up with several versions, he or she splits the difference. Sometimes one has to draw one’s own conclusions as to what really did happen. This can be an arbitrary judgment of a particular source, or instinct honed on experience.
One thing is certain: Never, never trust to memory if it’s a critical fact. (And, unless there’s a valid reason not to be, try to be objective.)
I’ve never forgotten the day that, young and impressionable, I complimented one of my favourite historical writers with the remark that he must have a fantastic file system. With the self-satisfied smile of a senior statesman, he pointed to his file system–his forehead. I was impressed!
Until years later when I found myself following in his footsteps and researching some of the same events. Problem was, my version didn’t always match his on some of the critical facts. What divine source of information did he have that I didn’t? I agonised.
Then it struck me. I was trusting to the written records before me–the “facts”. He was drawing from his “files”.
Probably an appropriate place to bring this up as in this case the facts are probably more interesting than the story.
In your May 21,2014 article in the Cowichan Valley
Citizen concerning rehab programs for Polio, you mention that Henry Esson Young was B.C.’s second health Minister between 1916-1937.
My understanding was that Esson Young was forced to resign from politics as Provincial Secretary and Minister of Education in Richard McBrides cabinet after 1915 in disgrace due to the public outcry that arose concerning shares he held in Pacific Coast Coal Mines through his friendship with John Arbuthnot, former Winnipeg mayor and founder of PCCM . This friendship began when both were youngsters working for the CPR on the line around the north end of Lake Superior in the 1880’s and was renewed when Arbuthnot arrived in Victoria from Winnipeg in 1907 following his term as mayor and already a millionaire through his lumber and land dealings on the prairies.
The matter of the shares came up in the famous “Pacific Coast Coal Mines vs John Arbuthnot” provincial court case leading up to the famous Privy Council Appeal of 1917 which reversed the original decision of the provincial court and is now referred to world wide as a stated case.
In 1916 Henry Esson Young became secretary of the Provincial Board of Health and Provincial Health officer (in other words, a civil servant) where he remained for 20 years. He died in 1939. According to Peter Grant, the host of Oak Bay Chronicles, Esson Young is considered the founder of B.C.’s public health system and it was under his direction that the province became the first jurisdiction in the British Empire to offer nursing degrees in public health. (Grant provides an interesting two part series on Henry Esson Young and his wife Rosalind on his website Oak Bay Chronicles: Beyond the Tweed Curtain especially his comments on why someone with Esson Youngs medical training would end up in an isolated location like Atlin. He first went there and engaged in placer mining before becoming pioneer doctor for the new settlement and MLA after 1903). Henry Esson Young, his wife Rosalind, daughter Fyvie and son also named Henry have all left their mark on BC History.
Now that, Rick, is an outstanding comment!
When writing that three-part series on polio for my ‘Cowichan Chronicles’ series in the Cowichan Valley Citizen, I was pretty much focused on the subject at hand. And in my previous researches that involved Henry Esson Young who’s best remembered, I imagine, for Essondale Mental Institute, my primary interest was in his role with the provincial government, both in the health and education ministries, where he made his mark.
So you took me by surprise with your reference to his being caught out in the PCCM shares scandal simply because I’d come to view him only in these areas, for all my research on Morden. (I should explain that my mind works like a Rolodex–like a giant index. It’s easier to remember where to look for something than to try to carry it around upstairs like an encyclopedia!
Speaking of Morden, I haven’t even touched upon the campaign to save the last surviving headframe/tipple from Vancouver Island’s coal mining past to date, for various reasons. But I intend to set that right when I can. Ditto the Cowichan Valley’s world-famous Kinsol Trestle.
So much to do, so little energy at the end of a 12-14-hour days………………. Thanks again for your detailed comment. Please feel free to comment/critique/add again. –TW