Robert Dunsmuir's North Island Connection

The item appeared in the North Island Gazette on September 26, 2013.

North Islanders might not be aware that one of the richest and most well-known industrialists in the history of Vancouver Island was lured to Fort Rupert from Scotland, when he was hired by the Hudsons Bay Company (HBC) to mine coal.

Robert Dunsmuir was born in 1825.  His grandfather had success buying up coal mines in Scotland at the time of the advent of the steam engine and for a short while the family prospered, until most of Dunsmuir’s immediate family died in 1832, most likely of cholera.  Dunsmuir became a ward of his aunt in his youth, and went to school to train to carry on in the family occupation of coal mining.

In 1850 Dunsmuir was newly married, when his uncle, Boyd Gilmour, signed on with the HBC to manage mining operations at Fort Rupert.  When a number of the original miners backed out of their contracts following communication from Fort Rupert about the poor working conditions and hostile First Nations, Dunsmuir signed on at the last minute.  He took his wife and two young daughters with him on the voyage by ship around Cape Horn (the tip of South America), landing at Fort Rupert in August 1851.  Along the way a son had been born at Fort Vancouver along the Columbia River, who was named James Dunsmuir.

At this time miners were indentured to their employer for the cost of their passage, which meant that they were not free to leave employment with the HBC until their contract was complete.  The miners contracts were a combination of basic wages, and bonuses based on the amount of coal produced.

A previous group of miners, largely members of John Muir’s extended family, had previously staged a strike at Fort Rupert, deserted, were recaptured, and held in the bastion of the Fort after they complained about their working conditions.  They said they were unable to find any viable coal worth mining.  When the new Scottish employees arrived, they didn’t find much better prospects.

Aside from the challenges of mining coal, being the first white woman and children in the Fort excited much curiosity.  One afternoon Dunsmuir’s wife Joan had put her son James to sleep, and was at the baking oven with her two older children.  When she returned, the baby was gone.  He was found being gently passed around a group of interested Kwakiutl women at a campfire.  They were fascinated with the baby’s blond hair, and offered to buy him, thinking that he could one day make a great chief.  Joan convinced them to return the child, but the story became a part of the Dunsmuir family folklore.

By 1852, the HBC had started mining more lucrative coal deposits in Nanaimo.  Gilmour, Dunsmuir and their families moved down island.  Dunsmuir fulfilled his contract with the HBC, and then started working for private coal companies.  Eventually he discovered some new seams of coal and, with private investors, started his own coal mining company: Dunsmuir, Diggle, & Co.  It eventually became Robert Dunsmuir and Sons. 

Robert Dunsmuir

Dunsmuir was a shrewd businessman, and his empire grew rapidly.  He built the island’s E&N Railway, through which he negotiated a land grant which included the rights to 800,000 hectares: most of Southern Vancouver Island.  He fought vigorously against unions, and was accused of operating with unsafe working conditions in his mines.    Dunsmuir built Craigdarroch castle in Victoria, and eventually sat as a member of the provincial parliament.  His son James sat as Premier of BC from 1900 to 1902 and Lieutenant Governor from 1906 to 1909.

Ronning Garden - A Labour of Love to Reclaim Heritage Plants

This article originally appeared in the North Island Gazette August 29, 2013.

In 1910 Bernt Ronning, a young immigrant from Norway, established a homestead on the wagon road between Holberg and Cape Scott.

Bernt Ronning - 1944 - Photo from Dennis Newnham
http://www.c-and-e-museum.org/Pinetreeline/rds/photos/rds10-57.jpg 

Ronning cleared his five acres of forest.  An avid gardener, he obtained many plants and trees through mail order catalogues.  He became known around Northern Vancouver Island for his spectacular garden with botanical specimens from around the world. He promoted an agricultural fair in the San Josef area for many years.

 Ronning enjoyed socializing with his neighbours, and would hike out to Cape Scott to visit the military base there during the 1940s. The 10 minute walk from the parking area to Ronning’s Garden follows a restored section of the old Cape Scott wagon trail.

 The central location of his property on the Holberg- San Josef road made it a natural meeting place.  He had a pump organ and had a building with a hand-hewn floor that served as a dance hall.  As was the custom at the time, people would travel great distances, from Cape Scott to the areas around Quatsino Sound, to attend the dances at Ronning’s property.

 Ronning ran a trapline at Raft Cove.  At one time a shipwrecked crew stayed in his shack until they were rescued.
 Working as a fisherman, trapper, and camp cook, Ronning lived on his homestead until the 1960s, passing away in Vancouver in 1963.  When he left the rainforest began to encroach and take over the garden.

 One of the main features of the garden is an impressive monkey puzzle tree. Originally there were a breeding pair of mature trees (one male and one female), which marked the gate to Ronning’s property. Sadly, the female tree died about ten years ago. 

The offspring of these two trees were shipped around the world and can be found in many North Island gardens.  Between 1981-2003 over 15,000 seeds and trees were sold or given to visitors and shipped to nurseries and buyers around the world. There now are 17 younger trees, offspring from this pair, who are growing now in the garden. 

One of the truly incredible features of the garden is the mature specimen trees, some of which are almost a hundred years old, growing amidst the wilds of the Pacific Rainforest.   Incredibly, a number of smaller plants did survive for decades and have been revived through the vigilance of a dedicated group of local volunteers who wage a constant struggle to keep the natural environment from recapturing this landscape.

Though much of the original beauty of the garden has been lost, including many shrubs and flowering plants the garden is still one of the incredible gems of the North Island. The road to Ronning Garden is marked on forestry road maps and with road signs.  The garden is open year round, and many of the plants are labeled to help visitors appreciate the garden.

The Art of Hetty Fredrickson now accessible to all in Sayward Gallery

This article was originally published in the North Island Gazette June 25, 2013
On a recent trip down Island, I was pleasantly surprised to come across a new (to me) and exciting piece of North Island history.

During a routine stop at the Sayward coffee and ice cream bar (beside the gas station on the highway), we happened upon the small sign for the gallery located in the rear of the building.  Upon entry we were treated to numerous portraits and paintings, most of which were completed on round pieces of wood sawed off of the ends of logs - complete with bark attached.  These looked familiar to me, as I recognized the faces as the same style as those which used to be more plentiful on the sides of buildings we would see from the highway while travelling through Sayward.

When we dropped our donation in the gallery box the lady in the coffee shop commented how wonderful it is to now have a permanent home for so many of Hetty’s paintings.  Of course this triggered my curiosity, and I had to do a little bit more research!

Hetty Mulder – Fredrickson, the artist behind this prolific collection of paintings, is a familiar personality to many North Islanders.  For 25 years she ran the “Valley of 1000 Faces” in Sayward, which was a popular roadside attraction.

Hetty was born in Indonesia in 1921.  Her family was originally from the Netherlands, but lived for an extended period of time in South East Asia.During WWII Hetty was attending school in Europe when the Nazis occupied the Netherlands, and the Japanese occupied Indonesia.  For an extended period of time she had no contact with her parents. Eventually she married, and then divorced.  Perhaps impulsively, without any concrete plans, she decided to pack up her two young sons and move to Canada.
Initially settling in Montreal, Hetty accepted a housekeeping job in the remote BC interior, the pay being only room and board for her and her children. Unable to save any money she felt trapped and isolated. Hetty started looking through the want ads in the paper and found a job housekeeping and child-minding for widower logger named Douglas T. Fredrickson.
The two eventually fell in love and married. During this period Hetty resumed the painting which she had abandoned earlier in life.
After a brief stint in Chilliwack, where the Fredricksons had the unfortunate experience of living in a house which was widely believed to be haunted, they moved to Sayward. In order to keep busy in the small logging community, Hetty offered painting lessons for the local children.  
She was also a prolific painter herself. To save money, Hetty’s preferred canvases were slices of logs. She was known to use common house-paint as a medium, and when paintbrushes were not readily available she would paint with her fingers. After painting a number of portraits, Hetty decided to hang them alongside the road.  They caused a bit of a traffic jam as people stopped to look at them, and many were stolen under the cover of darkness.
Hetty and her husband then decided to forge a trail through their 4 acre property, and filled the forest with portraits.  Cars would pull off the road to visit the outdoor exhibit which took patrons through a rainforest trail. The attraction was called The Valley of 1000 Faces, and for the 25 years that it existed patrons were only charged $1 admission.

Hetty passed away in 1994, and we are lucky that when the property was sold residents of Sayward had the foresight to collect and save a large number of Hetty’s paintings.  They are now accessible to all in the little gallery behind the espresso and ice cream shop just off the highway.  
Please stop in and take a moment to view this lasting piece of North Island history – and don’t forget to leave a donation.
A wonderful short film has been made about Hetty Fredrickson's life and is available on-line here: https://vimeo.com/31637357.
  

Interesting facts about Malcolm Island

This article originally appeared in the North Island Gazette in June 2013.

One of the things that attracts me to the history of the North Island are the unbelievable stories.  Just when I think I’ve researched something fully, a new piece of information surprises me. 

I have published a previous article on the early history of Sointula, but I was recently contacted by the group who is putting on a conference September 20 – 22: Culture Shock: Utopian Dreams, Hard Realities: http://www.sointulan.ca/ .  The keynote speaker at the conference, Dr. Ed Dutton of Finland, will be outlining his theory that the modern sociological concept of culture-shock originated from the personal experiences of Dr. Kalervo Oberg,  a pioneer in the study of anthropology who grew up in the utopian settlement of Sointula.

This conference looks like a very interesting opportunity for anyone interested in the history of the North Island to learn a little more about our unique area.  It has also encouraged me to pull out my files find some other interesting historical tidbits about Malcolm Island.

Mink was the first inhabitant of the island.  When he arrived, he thought the island was too flat, so he collected many rocks and built a mountain that rose to the clouds.  Then Mink collected plants and bushes, but when he tried to plant them on the mountain they kept rolling down the sides.  Mink eventually became frustrated, and he kicked and pulled apart the mountain until nothing remained.  That is why Malcolm Island is so flat.

Some geologists postulate that Malcolm Island is actually a fluvial deposit from a once great river, perhaps the Nimpkish. In pre-history times the Kwakwaka'wakw peoples used the island extensively for seasonal food gathering, including the harvest of clams, berries, and halibut.  There are numerous petroglyphs on the island.

Sointula means “place of harmony” in Finnish.  Malcolm Island is named after Admiral Sir Pulteney Malcolm of the Royal Navy (1758-1838).

In the late 1800s the provincial government offered pre-emptions to settlers who would travel to the rural and remote parts of the BC coast and make improvements on the land.  Many travelled across Canada and the United States and boarded boats with all their worldly possessions to take on this challenge, never having seen the land or the coast where they would settle.

This was also the age of utopian communities in North America.  Numerous groups (many ethnic Scandanavian who had struggled with their home countries’ deep divisions related to communist ideas), frustrated with the economic downturn in the 1890s, sought out these pre-emptions looking for a better way of life.  On the North Island this included the Danish settlement at Cape Scott, the Norwegian colony at Quatsino, and the Finnish colony of Sointula.

The first utopian group to arrive on Malcolm Island was the Christian Temperance Commonwealth Society, who arrived in 1885.  They had disbanded many years before a group of Finnish settlers, many of which had grown disillusioned working in the Nanaimo coal mines, decided to move to the island under the auspices of the Kalevan Kansa Colonization Company, the group that founded Sointula.

History built with Haddington Island stone

Haddington Island quarry late 1890s

This story originally appeared in the North Island Gazette May 23, 2013

Haddington Island lies just offshore of Port McNeill.  If you have ever taken the ferry to Malcolm Island or Cormorant Island you will have travelled past this historic location. 

Haddington Island is within the traditional territory of the ‘Namgis First Nation.  It is named after Thomas Hamilton (1780-1858), the ninth Earl of Haddington, who also served as the First Lord of the British Admiralty.

The island is most well known for its quarry of andesite, similar to limestone. When the BC legislature buildings were being designed in the early 1890s, renown architect Francis Rattenbury selected the unique originally selected stone from the Koksilah Quarry, near Cobble Hill. 

The initial budget for the legislative buildings was $500,000, although the final costs exceeded $950,000. First, Rattenbury rejected deliveries of the Koksilah stone as unsuitable, and it was subsequently used to build the Royal Jubilee Hospital. 

The Haddington stone was preferred, in part due to its colour, as well as its ability to hold intricate carving, while withstanding frost and harsh weather.  It is noted to have a unique yellowish-grey appearance.

Challenges began almost immediately with the supply of the stone.  During construction, the contractor responsible for procuring the stone, Fredrick Adams, struggled to keep up.  At one point he and Rattenbury got into a shoving match, which ended in Adams being charged with assault, and fined $25.  Pushed to meet production deadlines, Adams was drowned when shipwrecked in bad weather while maneuvering the barge used to tow the stone to Victoria.

The project was completed one year behind schedule, largely due to issues procuring materials.

From 1895 to 1966, Haddington Island stone was a popular building material, and can still be seen in many buildings in downtown Vancouver.  Tonnes of the material were also used in less glamorous projects such as the Ogden Point breakwater in Victoria. 

Haddington Island stone quarry - 1903/04
BC Archives I-56378

Men working in the Haddington Island quarry during the WWI era would have made between $3.00 and $4.25 for an eight hour shift. Granite was, and still is, extracted using a drilling and blasting method, which separates the stone in large blocks.

One of the last major construction projects which used the stone in the mid 1900s was Vancouver City Hall.  After that, architects moved to favour steel and glass as building materials. In 1966 the quarry was closed.

In 1967 the brand new ferry, the Queen of Prince Rupert, ran aground in dense fog on Haddington Reef, while negotiating the Kelsey Bay – Prince Rupert run.    The ferry was refit and returned to service.

The Haddington Island stone quarry was reopened in 2004, and once again produced andesite to be used in buildings and monuments around the Northwest. It was used in the construction of the Air India monument in Stanley Park, hotels, and more modern buildings at UBC and SFU.

Tale of Desperation at Vernon Lake

Published in the North Island Gazette April 25, 2013
Vernon Lake is located in the top end of the Nimpkish watershed. In the traditional territory of the ‘Namgis First Nation, it was given its current English name in March 1924, named after the Honourable Forbes George Vernon, who served as Chief Commissioner of Lands and Works for British Columbia.

Today Vernon Lake is known for its small campsite and its fishing. Some also know it as the terminus area for the Englewood Logging Railway.

There is another, much more sad and desperate story linked to the history of this remote lake.

In July 1939 two trappers, James H. Ryckman (56) and Lloyd Coombs (27), chartered a plane to fly up to the Lake. They had a cabin, and brought in 1500 pounds of supplies and some personal gear. They planned to work their trap line for the summer, and then to hike down either to Nimpkish or Tahsis.

Unfortunately heavy rain and flooding in the fall prevented them from hiking out. On December 1 Coombs tried to hike out, but had to return after repeated effort to cross waist-deep and ice cold rushing streams frustrated his efforts.

The life of trappers was rough, and many died while working their traplines, but what is unique about the Vernon Lake story is that the trappers left a diary that chronicled, in detail, their last horrific months.

The pair’s food was critically low by Christmas, and they grew more and more desperate as they struggled to find enough to eat.

While they started off venturing from the cabin to hunt and fish, as they grew more and more weak they found it harder to catch any food. They resorted to luring warblers into their cabin with salt, shutting the door, and catching them. Eventually they were too weak to leave the cabin or even to split firewood.

On March 18 Coombs noted in the diary that Ryckman had died: “Dear mother, Jim died today at 2 pm. This might be the last I’ll have nerve enough to write so if I do anything wrong, please forgive me. I can’t stick it any longer.”

In March 1940 worried family members chartered a plane to look for the men. After struggling with low cloud cover, a plane finally did touch down on April 1, and found an SOS marker on the shore, and the bodies of the two men in their cabin.

When the Coroner arrived, he noted that the two men weighed only about fifty pounds each. One had ended his life with a gunshot.

In April 1940 newspapers across North America ran a syndicated story that quoted large portions of the diary.

The cabin at Vernon Lake where the trappers' bodies and the diary were found.  

It was later bulldozed by a roadbuilding crew.

https://archive.org/stream/dailycolonist0440uvic_3#page/n1/mode/1up/search/ryckman+coombs 

The Amazing Photographic Legacy of Ben Leeson

The North Island is very fortunate to be able to count Ben Leeson among its pioneers.  Many of the early photographs of this area, and most early photographs which are readily accessible today from the Quatsino Sound area were taken by Leeson in the late 1800s and early 1900s.

Leeson was born in Coventry, Warwickshire, England in 1866.  His family emigrated to North America in 1875, and moved to Vancouver in 1886 (briefly moving to Williams Lake). Leeson was given a camera for his twenty-first birthday, and he became an avid photographer.  He took many photographs of the BC gold rush.  

Unfortunately the family business, a side-wheeler paddleboat grist mill, Transient Mills, was destroyed in a fire in 1891.  Many of Leeson’s photos and almost all of his glass negatives were lost.

The family moved to Winter Harbour in Quatsino Sound in the 1890s, where Leeson’s father operated a store and later a cannery.  

In 1894 Ben Leeson purchased a new camera.  While working with his father at their store, and later operating their clam cannery, he took hundreds of photographs in the Quatsino Sound area.  He sold many of his photos and had numerous photographs registered under federal copyright protection.  

When steamships came into the Sound, Leeson and his family would offer his local photographs for sale to the passengers.  Leeson photographed industrial activities, First Nations, and the natural surroundings.  He experimented with artwork in which he merged or combined images in order to get certain special effects.  He also hand-coloured many of his prints.

Many of his photos provide evidence of the tradition of head-binding among women in theQuatsino First Nations.

Much of Leeson’s collection has ended up at the Vancouver Public Library.  Leeson also published an article entitled “A Quatsino Legend” in the Canadian Geographical Journal.

The Quatsino and Port Hardy Museums are interested in raising funds to bring a collection ofLeeson’s photographs home to the North Island.  If you are interested in helping the North Island obtain high quality scans of approximately 50 of these very special photographs please contact me at storeysbeach@gmail.com.