KnowBC

Titanic Centennial

Wed, 28 Mar 2012 21:23:17 GMT

It is impossible to ignore the upcoming 100th anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic in the North Atlantic on April 15, 1912. Global is in the middle of airing a multi-episode television drama about the catastrophe and James Cameron's film epic of a few years ago is being re-issued in 3D. And I myself am in the middle of reading a fascinating new book, How to Survive the Titanic, by Frances Wilson, about the owner and survivor of the fated ship, J. Bruce Ismay.

What these other sources won't tell you is that there were nine BC-bound passengers on the ship, six of whom died following the mid-ocean collision with the iceberg. But the most famous victim with a local connection was Montreal resident Charles Melville Hays. Hays was president of the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway, which in 1912 was in the midst of laying a main line west from Winnipeg via Edmonton and Prince George to its Pacific terminus at Prince Rupert. Indeed, it is to Hays and the GTP that Prince Rupert owes its creation.

Hays had been in London trying to raise money for his troubled railway and was on his way home to preside at the official opening of the company's Chateau Laurier hotel in Ottawa when the supposedly unsinkable ship sank. On April 25, ten days after the disaster, work stopped all along the rail line in his memory. The next day his body was found floating at sea and was returned to Canada for burial in Montreal's Mount Royal Cemetery.

The Grand Trunk Pacific was a financial disaster, thanks in part to some of Hays's decisions, and in 1919 it went bankrupt. Ultimately it was folded into the publicly-owned Canadian National system.

For information about the other BC related passengers on board the Titanic, see an article by Michael Dupuis here.

New Book Assesses Olympics Legacy

Sat, 10 Mar 2012 17:54:38 GMT

It has been two years since Vancouver hosted the Winter Olympics. For many people it lives on in the memory as a special time when the city hosted the world. For others it remains a bit of a boondoggle.

Now a new book takes a look at the Olympics episode and tries to take stock of what it all meant.

Red Mittens & Red Ink is an e-book written by local reporter Bob Mackin. It is available for purchase here.

Vancouver Sun Turns 100

Sat, 11 Feb 2012 21:13:46 GMT

Happy birthday to The Vancouver Sun which is celebrating its centennial this weekend.

First published on February 12, 1912, The Sun was founded by John McConnell and Richard Ford, owners of a local magazine called the BC Saturday Sunset. In those days it was usual for political parties to bankroll newspapers as a way of getting their message out to the public. Objectivity was not valued as highly as it is today. For years the federal Liberal Party had helped to finance The World, owned by the on-again off-again mayor of the city, Louis D. Taylor. But Taylor's allegiance to the Liberals seemed to be weakening so party back-roomers decided to set up McConnell and Ford in business.

The launch of the Sun brought to four the number of daily papers in the city: two in the evening, the World and the Province, and two in the morning, the Sun and the News-Advertiser.

The World was located in its own building, the World Tower, still standing at the corner of Beatty and Pender. In 1915 Louis Taylor had to sell the paper. Having lost the financial support of the Liberal Party, the paper was hit hard by the economic recession that swamped the city in 1913. Advertising revenue plummetted and Taylor was unable to hold onto the business. He went on to have a successful political career as the city's longest-serving mayor. His paper survived under different ownership until 1924 when it was absorbed by, who else, the Sun.

In 1937 the Sun moved its operations into the World Tower and remained there until the end of 1965, which explains why the heritage building is more commonly known as the Sun Tower. The Sun had usually opposed Louis Taylor when he was in office and it must have irked the old politician (who died in 1946) to lose first his newspaper and then his building to his hated rival.

Long Ago Person Found

Fri, 27 Jan 2012 21:39:53 GMT

In 1999 hunters found human remains frozen in a glacier near the Yukon-BC border. The body, which turned out to be a young man, was christened Kwaday Dan Sinchi ("Long Ago Person Found" in the Tutchone language).

A team of scientists set about examining the remains and their findings have been collected in a well-illustrated document which has been posted at the website of the Royal BC Museum here.

Burgess Shale Website

Wed, 25 Jan 2012 21:32:53 GMT

Another website alert.

The Burgess Shale is a quarry located in Yoho National Park high above the community of Field. It is one of the most important fossil finds anywhere in the world, a status attested to in 1980 when UNESCO declared it a world heritage site.

Discovered in 1909, the shale contains fossils of fantastic sea creatures dating back half a billion years when these mountaintops were actually the floor of an ancient sea. To help wrap your head around this strange phenomenon, the Royal Ontario Museum and Parks Canada have partnered to build this site describing the shale.

Visit it here.

Chinese Canadian Stories

Tue, 24 Jan 2012 15:43:37 GMT

A fabulous new website devoted to Chinese Canadian history is under development by the libraries at UBC and SFU.

The site is not yet complete but it already contains lots of material about the Chinese in BC. You can find it here.

Did War of 1812 Happen Here?

Sun, 22 Jan 2012 23:19:39 GMT

This year the federal government is beginning a three-year commemoration of the War of 1812. The war, argues Ottawa, was "a defining moment in the history of our nation". But does the war have any meaning for British Columbia?

In 1812 what is now BC was occupied by the First Nations and a smattering of North West Company fur-trading posts. The only events of the war to take place on the Northwest Coast occurred at the mouth of the Columbia River, hundreds of kilometres to the south. There a group of American fur traders had established Fort Astoria in 1811. Two years later, in 1813, a party of North West Company traders from Montreal arrived at Astoria with the news that war had broken out between Britain and the US. A British warship was on the way, they warned the Astorians, so before anyone got hurt, why didn't the Americans just surrender?

Fearing a possible bombardment the resident traders agreed and sold the post to the North West Company. When the promised ship arrived, prepared for combat, it found the post already in British hands and renamed Fort George.

The war ended with the Treaty of Ghent at the end of 1814. One of the terms of the treaty stipulated that any possessions taken during the war should revert to the original owner. Had Astoria been sold or was it a fortune of war? The question was in dispute between British and Americans for several years. In 1818 the two sides sat down at the negotiating table to resolve the issue, and failed. West of the Rockies, the Americans wanted to set the boundary between their territory and the Brits at the 49th parallel of latitude. The British wanted the border to be the Columbia River. And so the matter dragged on until the Oregon Treaty of 1846 settled on the 49th parallel.

All of which suggests that no matter how important the War of 1812 was to the history of eastern Canada, as far as BC is concerned it was a non-event.

Rogues Gallery

Mon, 09 Jan 2012 23:14:06 GMT

If you've strolled past the corner of Robson and Granville lately in downtown Vancouver you've seen this installation of historic photographs entitled "Rogues Gallery Circa 1900".

It is the work of Cameron Andrews and Jessica Bushey who discovered the mug shots among the police records at the City of Vancouver Archives. Each photo tells a hard luck story of prejudice and deprivation.

For example, one of the women pictured is 40-year-old Julia LeBrun. The caption tells us that in 1903 she kept a brothel at 130 Dupont Street (now East Pender at the entrance to Chinatown), which was the city's first red light district. She was arrested during one of the periodic police crackdowns and rather than pay a fine of $35 she took 30 days in the New Westminster jail.

The installation is a wonderful fusion of public history and public art.

On the Waterfront

Thu, 05 Jan 2012 16:20:52 GMT

Fans of the television show The Wire (and I am one) will know that at the end of the first season homicide detective Jimmy McNulty is busted down to the marine unit of the Baltimore police to spend his days trolling the riverfront in a battered old police boat. We are led to believe that it is the police equivalent of being put out to pasture, at least in Baltimore.

Not so in Vancouver however, where our own police marine unit is being celebrated at the Vancouver Maritime Museum with an exhibit titled A Century of Service, 1911-2011. You can check it out until February 19.

Holiday Greetings!

Fri, 23 Dec 2011 17:52:34 GMT

Have a merry West Coast Christmas.

We'll be back here at the beginning of 2012 to answer the question everyone is asking: what does the centennial celebration of the War of 1812 have to do with British Columbia?

For Your Christmas List

Tue, 06 Dec 2011 17:10:12 GMT

Despite what you may have heard, books are not dead. At least if they are, no one has told BC's book publishers, who have turned out another bumper crop this year.

To help you with that certain someone on your seasonal gift list, here are ten of my favourite recent BC reads, listed in no particular order.

The Chuck Davis History of Metropolitan Vancouver (Harbour). Did you know that there was a mayor of Coquitlam named Jimmy Christmas? Just the kind of factoid Chuck Davis loved and included in this huge volume, compiled by friends and admirers after Chuck's death based on years of his accumulated research.

The Drive (The Drive Press). Local historian Jak King as written a detailed and entertaining history of Vancouver's hippest neighbourhood, Commercial Drive, between 1935 and 1956.

Vancouver Noir (Anvil Press). A terrific history, by John Belshaw and Diane Purvey, of the seamy side of the city in the age before Kodak invented colour, 1930-1960. Lots of gunplay, mobsters and leggy broads, all displayed in glossy black and white.

The Sacred Headwaters (Greystone Books). Wade Davis recounts the struggle to preserve three of BC's northern rivers from destructive development.

Who Killed Janet Smith? (Anvil Press). An unsolved murder mystery from the 1920s morphs into one of the best social histories of Vancouver ever written. A re-issued classic by Ed Starkins.

Something Fierce (Douglas & McIntyre). Local playwright and actress Carmen Aguirre describes her life in the Chilean resistance during the Pinochet regime.

Whaling People of the West Coast (Royal BC Museum). BC's first whale hunters were the First Nations of the west coast of Vancouver Island. Eugene Arima and Alan Hoover tell their story in this handsomely illustrated volume.

Fred Herzog: Photographs (Douglas & McIntyre). Seems like Vancouver's history is now in the hands of its photographers. A collection of lush streetscapes from the 1950s and 1960s from the master of kodachrome.

Stan Douglas: Abbott & Cordova, 7 August 1971 (Arsenal Pulp Press). More photography. Billed as "an art book on the politics of urban conflict", it focusses on Douglas's stunning photo mural in the Woodward's complex, a depiction of the infamous Gastown Riot.

Texada Tapestry (Harbour). A long-awaited history of Texada Island, one of the largest yet least known of the Gulf Islands. By Heather Harbord.

Occupy Vancouver Has Long History

Wed, 30 Nov 2011 02:21:02 GMT

The Occupiers have packed up their tents but before they disappear from memory it is worth recalling that street protest, and its repression, have a long history in Vancouver, beginning back in the pre-World War One era when early Occupiers also tried to put economic inequality on the public agenda.

The first round of what became known as the Free Speech fights occurred in the spring of 1909. Public outdoor meetings were much more common in those days before radio and television but when the meetings were held by socialists and members of the Industrial Workers of the World (the Wobblies) the authorities took a special interest. On April 4, 1909, Vancouver police dispersed a gathering of these "revolutionists" on Carrall Street, ostensibly to clear the sidewalks for pedestrians. Six of the orators were charged and one went to jail, which only increased the ire of the labour movement who sponsored a series of further protests in support of free speech. Finally the police were told to withdraw, charges were dropped and for the time being the sidewalks belonged to the militants.

Round two began in January 1912 on the eve of a mayoralty election when one of the candidates, James Findlay, took a hard stand against layabouts and agitators occupying the streets. (Sound familiar?) Findlay won the election and his new council passed a bylaw banning outdoor meetings. "The gang of thugs and thieves who have made life a burden here for weeks should be run out of town without delay," advised the Province newspaper.

The IWW and its supporters began holding meetings in defiance of the ban, some of which attracted as many as 10,000 people. At one meeting, at Oppenheimer Park, police attacked the crowd with whips and clubs and arrested more than two dozen people. Little wonder the police became known as "Findlay's Cossacks".

Subsequently protestors got around the ban by taking to boats off Stanley Park and speaking to the crowd through a megaphone. After more arrests, and more protests, politicians and labour leaders brokered a peace and once again street meetings were held without police interference.

Some commentators have painted our modern Occupiers simply as copycats, jumping on a protest bandwagon that originated in the US. But actually Occupy Vancouver, and Victoria, can claim a long local lineage of taking protest to the streets.

Blogging Bertrand Sinclair

Tue, 29 Nov 2011 02:16:57 GMT

My pal Brian Busby has a couple of posts about the BC writer Bertrand Sinclair (that's him above) at his always interesting blog, The Dusty Bookcase.

One of Sinclair's novels, The Inverted Pyramid, has just been re-published as part of the Vancouver125 Legacy Books project that I have mentioned here before.

Sinclair spent most of his life (1881-1972) in BC where he wrote fifteen novels and hundreds of stories for pulp magazines. His own story is told in Betty Keller's biography, Pender Harbour Cowboy (2000).

New Vancouver Phone App

Wed, 23 Nov 2011 17:55:07 GMT

The Canadian Encyclopedia has developed its first phone app and its all about Vancouver.

Called Vancouver in Time, the app allows users to discover the stories behind a series of historic places around the city.

You need an iPhone or iPad to download the app, but anyone can check it out at the Encyclopedia's blog here.

Two Whales, Two Stories

Sat, 19 Nov 2011 21:13:52 GMT

There is a new film out about Luna, the "orphan" killer whale from Nootka Sound. Well, not new exactly. The documentary originally came out a couple of years ago but its makers, Michael Parfit and Suzanne Chisholm, went back into the studio to reshape the film and have re-released it with narration by Hollywood heartthrob (and BC boy) Ryan Reynolds. (This is no knock on Parfit and Chisholm; they've made a very nice film and if hitching it to a celebrity's star is the way to attract attention, bless them.)

I have not seen the new version but I certainly saw the original and it was stunning. What interests me, though, is why the story of Luna has such legs -- this is at least the third movie version of the story -- while the story of Springer is all but forgotten. I suppose I should not be surprised. The Luna story is full of drama, includes lots of conflict, and in the end (spoiler alert!) the whale dies, while Springer was a success story with a happy ending and we all know how boring that can be.

Still....

To review. Luna was a one-year-old male orca discovered all alone in 2001 in Nootka Sound on the west side of Vancouver Island. Orcas, or killer whales, are almost never separated from their family group, certainly not ones as young as Luna, so there was concern for the animal's safety. (Confession: I co-wrote a book about these events with Gil Hewlett called Operation Orca: Springer, Luna and the Struggle to Save West Coast Killer Whales, published in 2007 by Harbour Publishing.) As time passed Luna's interactions with humans became more common and, to scientists, more worrisome and the federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans eventually asked the Vancouver Aquarium to attempt a live capture and relocation of the whale. But the situation was fraught with politics, the capture failed and further attempts were suspended in the midst of a media circus. Two years later, as feared, Luna swam into the propeller of a large tug and was killed.

As I say, the story of Springer had a happier outcome though not, apparently, a Hollywood one. Like Luna, Springer was also a very young orca who appeared, alone, in Puget Sound near Seattle toward the end of 2001. Concerned for her health, scientists decided to try to capture Springer and relocate her back with her own family in Johnstone Strait on the east coast of Vancouver. This had never been done before. The people involved really had no idea whether it was possible and how the absent whale would be treated by her relatives if she returned.

In the event, things turned out well. In July 2002 Springer was transported by boat to a netpen at Hanson Island in Johnstone Strait. Almost immediately her family happened along and Springer was released. After some initial standoffishness, a reunion took place and Springer continues to thrive, reappearing in the Strait each summer.

So, the life of a whale is saved, history is made, and science learns a lot it didn't know about the behaviour of orcas. But this is hard to translate into drama so it is the story of Luna -- the whale dies, feelings are bruised, and science learns very little -- that attracts the attention of Hollywood.

As I say, not surprising. Still...

New History of Vancouver

Thu, 17 Nov 2011 16:57:08 GMT

When Chuck Davis, Vancouver broadcaster, historian and raconteur, passed away last year, he left unfinished the great project of his later years, his history of the city he chronicled so relentlessly.

But Chuck's last work was not allowed to die with him. A few of his friends got together and decided to finish the job, to fill in the missing pieces that Chuck had not had time to complete himself. The result has now been published by Harbour Publishing as The Chuck Davis History of Metropolitan Vancouver.

Arranged in chronological format, the book bills itself as being, like Chuck himself, "fun, fat and filled with facts". At 575 pages it is surely that. It is also beautifully illustrated with hundreds of historic photographs from the collections of the Vancouver Public Library, the Vancouver City Archives and the Pacific News Group.

Chuck's book appears in Vancouver's 125th anniversary year, his gift to the city he loved. There will be a celebration of the book on Tuesday, December 6, at 7 p.m. at the downtown branch of the Vancouver Public Library, featuring Dal Richards, Red Robinson and other Vancouver legends.

Theytus Books Turns 30

Wed, 16 Nov 2011 18:06:13 GMT

Nice to see our pal Randy Fred being honored last week at the 30th anniversary party for Theytus Books, the publishing company he founded.

When Randy got the operation up and running in Nanaimo back in 1980 it was the only Aboriginal-owned publisher in Canada. Theytus is a Salishan word meaning "preserving for the sake of handing down". The company has been located at the En'owkin Centre in Penticton for many years.

Randy is legally blind due to retinitis pigmentosa but he has never let that slow him down. He has had a varied career in magazines and other publishing ventures. In 2005 he received the Gray Campbell Distinguished Service Award, handed out each year to someone who has made a special contribution to the literary world in BC.

Congratulations to Randy on this new milestone.

Self Promotion

Wed, 09 Nov 2011 18:37:00 GMT

I am presenting an illustrated talk about my recent book, Seeing Reds: The Red Scare of 1918-19, Canada's First War on Terror, at the downtown branch of the Vancouver Public Library, next Monday evening, Nov. 14, at 7 pm.

The book is about the wave of paranoia that swept across Canada in the wake of World War One when the government, the press and many members of the public believed that the country was on the verge of our very own Bolshevik revolution.

Sound improbable? If you are in the area, come on down and find out all about it.

A Day That Changed Canada

Tue, 08 Nov 2011 04:43:44 GMT

It is autumn book season and the new volumes are arriving like colourful leaves tumbling from the trees.

This morning's post brought a copy of a fetching new title from the folks at Canada's History magazine, 100 Days That Changed Canada (HarperCollins). A gaggle of the country's writers/historians -- I confess to being one of the geese -- have contributed brief essays on a particular event in Canadian history, illustrated with some lovely photographs.

My own contribution/day is September 3, 1962, when Prime Minister John Diefenbaker officially opened the Trans-Canada Highway at a ceremony in Rogers Pass. The celebration had a bit of the Keystone Kops about it. The band that was driving up from Calgary to play O Canada got lost. One speaker from Saskatchewan declared how pleased he was to be in Quebec (?). And just as Dief the Chief declared the road open, the sound system failed and no one heard him.

Meanwhile, BC premier W.A.C. Bennett failed to show up. As usual he had a feud on with the federal government and had no intention of dignifying the event with his presence. In fact he tried to steal Ottawa's thunder by staging his own "official" opening a month earlier, on July 30, when he snipped a ribbon down the road at Revelstoke. Ever since there has been confusion about when the Trans-Canada actually opened; during the production of this book, editors contacted me twice to suggest that perhaps I'd gotten the date wrong. But I think it is fair to say that September 3 is the right day.

Anyway, it is a handsome book and I'm pleased to be a part of it.

Rivers Inlet Revealed

Sun, 06 Nov 2011 00:39:08 GMT

The first time I recall hearing about Rivers Inlet was sometime in the 1950s when my older brother got a summer job at the Goose Bay fish cannery. The name, Goose Bay, sounded so improbable to my young ears that it awakened a curiosity about the place, and the inlet in which it was located.

Over the years I've never managed to make it to the inlet, unless you count twice passing by the mouth aboard a BC ferry, which I don't. It remains terra incognita. It's not easy to get to if you lack the resources to afford one of those fancy fishing lodges. Neither is it that easy to find out about. Rivers Inlet remains sadly underwritten, something I suppose you'd have to say about most places on our coast.

So it was with a great deal of pleasure that I just discovered a new book from Caitlin Press. The Good Hope Cannery: life and death at a salmon cannery, by Bruce MacDonald, is a terrific history of one of the fourteen canneries that operated in the Inlet between 1882 and 1957. The book, based on a variety of barely rescued archival records and oral interviews, contains many stunning photographs to supplement its lively text.

Will I ever get to Rivers Inlet? With each passing year it seems less likely. But now at least I have this little gem to give me some idea what I've missed.