British Columbia Chronicles (2025)

29/12/2024

These youngsters attending Victoria’s Glanford Kindergarten in 1972 appear to have brought their sand box into the classroom.

Neat!

It’s one of the 1000s of cool photos in the BC Archives that are now available online

www.BritishColumbiaChronicles.ca

27/12/2024

Now in the BC Archives, this great shot of the Hillcrest No. 1 Shay locomotive crossing the trestle beside Somenos Lake at the BC Forest Museum originally appeared in Beautiful British Columbia magazine in 1978.

The 104-year-old No. 1 Shay, one of only 21 of its kind in the world, is recently returned to service after an eight-year-long refit that totalled 14,400 labour hours by 24 volunteers. It took just over $200,000 raised by donations, and $485,000 in cash and in-kind support from 16 major sponsors, to do the job.

“While there are a few that have survived as exhibits, the Hillcrest Shay No. 1 is the only one of its kind in Canada that is operational,” Discovery Centre president Alf Carter told the press upon completion of the overhaul which included a new boiler and is described as a total rebuilding of engine and drive train.

In short, the No. 1 is back in service and expected to be one of the BCFDC’s most popular attractions for years to come.

All aboard!

www.BritishColumbiaChronicles.ca

25/12/2024

Most Christmas cards today are folded with the message inside and mailed in an envelope. Not so, originally. For many years, they were postcards, many of them printed in Germany until the First World War.

The attached cards from the author’s collection show how they evolved. The black background of the first card, which is only 2.5 inches by 4.5, gives it an almost funereal look.

The second, Dickensian-like card, is more what we accept as a Christmas Card today.

Speaking of which, Merry Christmas to one and all!

www.BritishColumbiaChronicles.ca

24/12/2024

Perhaps the greatest baseball player of all time, George Herman “Babe” Ruth (1895-1948), the “Sultan of Swat,” is seen in this City of Vancouver Archives photo as he passed through Vancouver, October 19-20,1934.

By then he was nearing the end of his career with one more season to go. He died from a rare form of cancer in 1948 but his memory lives on.

www.BritishColumbiaChronicles.ca

21/12/2024

The BC Archives identifies this 1972 photo as the ‘Mccorkindale’ Kindergarten.

Well, there’s the Dr. H.N. MacCorkindale Elementary School today at 6100 Battison Street, Vancouver, opened in 1967 as “the first open-area concept school in British Columbia”.

According to the school’s website it has a current enrolment of 290 students and 27 full-time, seven part-time and seven district staff who teach “a variety of linguistic backgrounds, including English, Chinese, and other languages,” including English Language Learners (ELL).

I wonder if anyone viewing this page will recognize themselves?

www.BritishColumbiaChronicles.ca

19/12/2024

Coming next week on The Chronicles…
Christmas is everywhere—even on our maps

It should come as no surprise that the yuletide spirit has influenced our mapmakers. In British Columbia it can be found, in variations, at least 18 times.

The Cassiar has its Christmas Creek, Lillooet region its Christmas Creek, Christmas and Tiny Tim lakes, and Revelstoke its Christmas Island. Up-coast, we have Yule Lake and Rock. Also scattered about the province are nine Noels, although few if any of these have any connection to the holiday as Noel is also a surname.

On Vancouver Island there’s Christmas Point on the west side of the Malahat’s Finlayson Arm, and Victoria’s Christmas Hill. And that’s pretty much it, B.C. mapmakers, alas, not having been moved by the festive season as have their counterparts in other provinces.
Mind you, we did come close at least once: St. Nicholas Peak. So-named by a surveyor around the turn of the last century because its profile reminded him of that jolly gentleman, it’s 25 miles north of Kicking Horse Pass—just over the B.C.-Alberta border. Our loss is the wild rose province’s gain.

A yuletide holiday look at our maps in next week’s Chronicles.

_________
Want to Read the Full Article…? Consider becoming a Chronicles subscriber: https://britishcolumbiachronicles.ca/join
A 1-year subscription fee of $24 for 52 weekly columns - that’s just $2 a month!

19/12/2024

Boys playing war in 1943, as captured by Vancouver photographer Donn Williams, then only 23 himself.

The poster is of British Gen. Bernard A. Montgomery, known to the troops as ‘Monty,’ and later made Viscount Montgomery of Alamein, KG, GCB, DSO, PC, DL.

Don’t you love the boy on the left’s homemade tommy gun? And the looks on their faces? These guys meant business!

www.BritishColumbiaChronicles.ca

17/12/2024

The centre of interest in this May 30, 1932 Vancouver City Archives photo isn’t the cargo on the trailer, a gold rocker about to be sent off from its makers, the A and A Machine Works on Main Street, but the towing vehicle.

That looks like a professionally installed canvas cover, one that likely would have worked well for camping on the road.

Which may have well been the case, the delivery driver having a long trip to the Cariboo ahead of him.

Plus the fact that 1932 was the third year of the Great Depression, the so-called Dirty ‘30s, when most of those British Columbians who camped out didn’t do so from choice but because they had no choice.

www.BritishColumbiaChronicles.ca

15/12/2024

At first glance it looks as though these Johnston Co. trucks have collided.

Not so. The load of lumber on the tilted truck has shifted too far to the back, lifting the cab into the air.

The trick to unloading would have been in not letting the truck suddenly regain its balance with a bang and possible injury to the workers trying to set things right.

Another window to the past courtesy of the Vancouver City Archives.

www.BritishColumbiaChronicles.ca

14/12/2024

In all my years of researching Canadian military photos to accompany newspaper, magazine and online articles, I’ve never seen one like this!

Dated 1917, it’s in the Vancouver City Archives photo collections and shows an unidentified soldier twirling a lasso.

That was when, of course, the army still used horses for real, not just in peacetime parades.

www.BritishColumbiaChronicles.ca

13/12/2024

Coming next week on The Chronicles…
Ancient Shipwreck Continues to Haunt Us

More than three-quarters of a century after she sank in B.C.’s remote Grenville Channel, an American army transport is back in the news.

Oil is leaking from the wreck of the S.S. Brigadier General M.G. Zalinski, posing an immediate environmental threat that must be dealt with, according to the Canadian Coast Guard. This, despite the fact that 44,000 litres of heavy oil and 319,000 litres of oily water were successfully extracted from the wreck nine years ago.

An estimated 27,000 litres of oil remain within the hulk which sits on a rocky ledge about six and-half fathoms (40 metres) below the surface.

It should come as no surprise that the underwater wreckage continues to deteriorate as the Zalinski was built way back in 1919. She’s one of several B.C. shipwrecks that continue to haunt us from the grave.

The story of the ill-starred Brigadier Zalinski in next week’s Chronicles.

*******

PHOTO: The Zalinski, in the foreground, has been underwater since 1946 and has been leaking oil for decades with more feared to come. —www.navsource.org/archives
_____________
Want to Read the Full Article…? Consider becoming a Chronicles subscribe: https://britishcolumbiachronicles.ca/join
A 1-year subscription fee of $24 for 52 weekly columns - that’s just $2 a month!

11/12/2024

Victoria still has its Tally-ho horses but it has been quite a while since the B.C. Electric Railway operated its famous open-air observation cars.

This City of Vancouver Archives photo shows one on the job in 1950. The man in the left foreground has turned the tables on the tourists by observing them.

www.BritishColumbiaChronicles.ca

09/12/2024

From the Walter E. Frost Collection in the City of Vancouver Archives, these ‘before and after’ shots of the Second Narrows Bridge.

The first, taken in May 1934, shows the partially rebuilt bridge without the draw span in the centre.

The second shot, taken several weeks later, shows it complete.

What became known as the “Bridge of Sighs” was the victim of repeated hits by ships large and small because of treacherous currents. The attached photos show it during reconstruction four years after it was struck and partially demolished by a log-carrier.

It took another five months of work before it officially reopened in November 1934.

www.BritishColumbiaChronicles.ca

08/12/2024

It is that time again...stop by and say hello (and maybe purchase a new book or two). We will be at the Girl Guide Hall on Sunday, December 15th. There are two new releases Cowichan Chronicles 6 and Mystery, Murder and Mayhem.

We look forward to seeing you there.

Just a reminder that this is our last craft market of the season. If you missed us but still want to purchase books (before Christmas or anytime) please contact us and local to the Cowichan Valley pick up arrangements can be made.

You can connect with us with the contact button at www.BritishColumbiaChronicles.ca

08/12/2024

A unusual view of the Georgia Street entrance to Stanley Park in 1919.

Another Walter E. Frost treasure in the City of Vancouver Archives.

www.BritishColumbiaChronicles.ca

05/12/2024

Coming next on The Chronicles…
In the Shadow of Greatness

From the man who brought us those memorable eccentrics, Messrs. David Copperfield, Oliver Twist, Barnaby Rudge, Mr. Pickwick and Company—there came to Victoria in 1868 the slight figure, in flesh and in fact, of one Acting Lieut. Sydney Smith Haldimand Dickens, RN.

For those unacquainted with the literary classics, this junior officer of Her Majesty’s Royal Navy was the fifth son of no less a personage than Charles Dickens, celebrated novelist. Or, as young Sydney became to Victorians, if ever so briefly, ‘Vindicator.’

As the son of the greatest novelist of the day, much was expected of young Sydney. Was he up to it?

You’ll find out in in next week’s Chronicle.

*******

PHOTO: A very young Sydney Dickens.—Wikipedia
_____________

Want to Read the Full Article...? Consider becoming a Chronicles subscriber: https://britishcolumbiachronicles.ca/join
A 1-year subscription fee of $24 for 52 weekly columns - that’s just 50c a week!

05/12/2024

“Car 53, where are you?”

Actually, the 1960s TV sitcom was Car 54.

This 1940s photo in the City of Vancouver Archives by Walter E. Frost shows B.C. Electric Railway Car #53 and two of her sisters.

By then, these were antiques and with the arrival of the much more mobile buses (no railway tracks), they were retired en masse. As most of their superstructure was made of wood, several of Victoria’s fleet, for example, were sold for use as chicken sheds, the others burned for their undercarriages and metalwork.

A heckuva way to treat history.

www.BritishColumbiaChronicles.ca

03/12/2024

Even when on manoeuvres, in this case Banff National Park in 1944, the company mascot got to tag along.

It’s one of many photos in the Vancouver City Archives’ Williams Brothers collection.

www.BritishColumbiaChronicles.ca

British Columbia Chronicles

29/12/2024

27/12/2024

25/12/2024

24/12/2024

21/12/2024

19/12/2024

19/12/2024

17/12/2024

15/12/2024

14/12/2024

13/12/2024

11/12/2024

09/12/2024

08/12/2024

08/12/2024

05/12/2024

05/12/2024

03/12/2024

Address

Website

Alerts

Contact The Business

Shortcuts

Share