Captain Edward Gillam and the Princess Norah

"Princess Norah with her dead master" 1929 photo by Ben Leeson

This historical North Island photograph, taken by Ben Leeson in 1929, is entitled "Princess Norah with her dead master." Her dead master was Captain Edward Gillam, who spent most of his career piloting CPR steamships along the West Coast of Vancouver Island route. Gillam worked on the Princess Maquinna and the steamship Tees before taking charge of the Princess Norah. He died while on the bridge of the ship, and is buried in the Ross Bay Cemetery in Victoria. While a Captain on the West Coast Gillam often came to the need of those in distress and provided a much needed lifeline to the outside world. Notably he made a heroic rescue attempt when the Carelmapu ran aground near Long Beach in a horrible storm, but only 5 of the crew of 24 survived. Gillam Channel in Esperanza and the Gillam Islands in Quatsino Sound are both named after him.

Captain Edward Gillam

Quatsino First Nations practice head binding tradition

Indigenous people living in Quatsino Sound in the 1800s undertook a unique practice of head binding female infants. This created an elongated shape in the skull, and was of much interest to ethnographers when they began studying the First Nations on the Northern Vancouver Island. This photo shows local women with bound heads undertaking the practice on a baby. By the early 1900s the practice seemed to be dying out. Lucy Moon, who married Quatsino character Ned Frigon, was said to have been known locally as the 'last of the long heads' in the early 1900s.

BC Archives E-01482

Frederick Dally, a visiting photographer, gave the following commentary on the practice in the late 1800s: "The Quatseeno Indian Village in Quatseeno Sound on the north west coast of Vancouver Island at which place the mode of flattening the skull is carried out to perfection one girl had her head so flattened that it appeared conical and half as high again as it ought to have done; as far as I know the mothers only flatten the skulls of their daughters as it is the fashion, commencing soon after the child is born, it is placed in a basket, or bark cradle and a splint of wood is held down with thongs over the head of the infant having a pad of pulled soft cedar bark which is placed on the forehead of the child and held there for the first year or eighteen months, or as long as the child remains in the cradle, it does not appear to imp[air] the mental faculties of the adult in the least ... The mode of building the lodges is different to that of the southern or eastern tribes of indians living on the island, their food consists principally of fish whic[h] they have in abundance, but deer, elk, grouse, ducks, berries and roots are also plentiful, the indians are stout, healthy and strong of a dark tan color. F. Dally."

Nimpkish Second Growth

BC Archives NA 05198

This photograph, from Forest Service Records, is undated. It is from a file in which the Forest Service was recording the growth of natural second growth regeneration in previously logged clearcut areas through photographs. The stump in the photo shows an old growth tree which features springboard notches. In order to elevate themselves to a position where the tree narrowed and was growing in a consistent manner, loggers would notch a wedge out of the bottom of the tree and slip in a narrow plank which they could stand on while they were cutting down a tree, a 'springboard.' You can still find these notches on most old growth stumps on the North Island.