Tofino Chapter 16 notes

Boat Days - Notes on Sources

Ronald MacLeod’s unpublished memoirs have been a vital source of information for this chapter, also the interviews he and Bob Wingen did with the authors.

Many details concerning the various steamships on the west coast come from technical reports, correspondence, memos, schedules and publicity brochures located in the unsorted and uncatalogued Earl Marsh papers in the BC Archives. Accession 93-7330.

Neil Robertson’s The Good Ship Maquinna, privately published, provides a wealth of information about the ship.

Innumerable articles have been written about coastal steamers on the west coast of Vancouver Island. They are far too numerous to list. A selection follows.

Ray Gardner, “The Salty Princesses of the Pacific Coast,” Macleans, May 10, 1958.

Captain H.G. Halkett “The Good Ship Maquinna,” The Islander. May 18, 1980.

Frank Kelley “Coast Trip Pleasant in Old Days,” Daily Colonist, October 9, 1955.

Mary MacLeod, “Boat Day in Tofino in the 1930s” The Sound, February 21 – March 5, 1992.

Cecil Maiden, Maquinna Makes Coast History (twentieth and last in his series “On the Other Side of the Island”), Daily Colonist, March 24 1951.

Don Murray, “BC’s Old Faithful” CP Coasters newsletter, Summer 2000.

James Nesbitt, “Jim Nesbitt Goes to Sea in Ships,” Daily Colonist, June 14 , 1970;

James Nesbitt, “Princess Norah’s Maiden Voyage Like Miniature Ocean Cruise,” Daily Colonist, August 31, 1975.

“‘Old-Timer’ recalls the Maquinna,” West Coast Advocate, July 7, 1955.

“She rides the water like a duck” Ruth Greene, Personality Ships of British Columbia.

Details of Maquinna’s schedule and time for unloading freight in 1918, from CPR Inspector Brodie’s papers, UBC Special Collections.

The citation from the Maquinna’s logbook was found in the Longstaff papers, BC Archives. Longstaff transcribed various logbook entries by hand into his own notebook.. The location of most of the original logbooks of the Maquinna is not known, although a few from her later years are held at Library and Archives Canada.

“She had two large iron doors...,” Bill Moore, “The Forest Around us,” BC Lumberman, June 1977.

“There wasn’t anywhere else to go...,” Greene, Personality Ships.

“a hundred or more Indians…” Major J.S. Matthews, cited by Greene, Personality Ships.

Violet George described steamer travel to Christie School in her testimony to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, Port Alberni hearings, April 13, 2012. For further details on this and other TRC testimony, see below in the notes to Chapter 22.

Details of the Alaska tourist traffic, see Douglas Cole, Captured Heritage: The Scramble for Northwest Coast Artifacts.

“danced around…,” Dorothy Abraham, Lone Cone.

“all able to…,” Bob Wingen’s description of Norwegian craftsmen, quoted by Andrew Struthers, “As the Lady Vanishes: Tales of the MV Loch Ryan,” Victoria Times Colonist, September 2001.

Information about early fishing vessels and other boats in Clayoquot Sound comes largely from Ronald MacLeod’s unpublished memoirs and from many conversations and emails with the authors. See also contemporary articles in the West Coast Advocate, and Dorothy Arnet, “Early Clayoquot Sound Fishing Vessels,” Western Mariner, October 2009.

Jim Merrix quotation, from Eric Sismey’s article “Jim Merrix had Salt Water in his Veins” Colonist, November 7, 1971.

Accounts of the wreck of the Carelmapu vary considerably. We draw on contemporary newspaper accounts; also Archie Wills, “Broken by Graveyard Reefs: Last of the Windjammer Era,” Daily Colonist, December 12, 1976; Mike Hamilton’s unpublished memoirs; Nicholson’s Vancouver Island’s West Coast; John Cooper’s letter to Mrs. A. Murray, 1946.

“Come on, old boat…” Anthony Guppy recalling George Maltby, Tofino Kid.

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