An online information resource for Duncan, B.C. visitors and locals.
Are you and the family looking for something fun to do this weekend? Go check out the "Times They Are A-Changing Exhibit" at the Mill Bay Heritage Museum! From washboards to wifi, they have it all! Open Sunday's from 11:00am-3:00pm 2851 Church Way, Mill Bay.
Heritagemuseummillbay.com
Come by and check out The Mill Bay Heritage Museum on Sunday's from 11:00am-3:00pm! Their current "Times They Are-A Changing Exhibit" is fun for all ages! Located at 2851 Church Way.
Heritagemuseummillbay.com
The unique to Duncan 39-day festival celebrates 13 years of music, and community coming together
Countless local, and global votes led to CHS winning Next Great Save competition in February
The Cowichan Valley Museum is hosting a monthlong exhibit commemorating North Cowichan’s 150th anniversary of incorporation. Cowichan Historical Society’s Carolyn Prellwitz says they’ve been working […]
All of the upgrades from Canada’s Next Great Save have been installed at the Cowichan Valley Museum. The museum, which inhabits the old Duncan Train […]
Next week on The Chronicles...
Nathan Dougan, the Storyteller
This week, I introduced you to N.P. Nathan Dougan, Cobble Hill and area’s foremost historian, and his son, Bob, who carried the torch until his death in the 1990’s.
Both Dougans contributed greatly to the saving of Cowichan Valley history and, for a latecomer such as myself, it’s always a joy to acknowledge their contributions.
So, next week, a sample of Nathan’s writings from one of his many columns that appeared in the Cowichan Leader in the 1950’s and 1960’s.
PHOTO : Nathan Dougan, looking distinguished in Sunday suit and tie. —Family photo
Don't miss out on TW Paterson's weekly articles, editorials and more...
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BRUCE McKELVIE
Growing up as I did on a diet of American culture—American comic books, American magazines, American movies—because there didn’t seem to be anything comparable that was Canadian, it was with great joy that I ‘discovered’ B.A. McKelvie.
Long before Pierre Berton popularized Canadian history, Bruce Alistair ‘Pinkie’ McKelvie was on the job. A professional journalist who loved history, he wrote numerous newspaper and magazine articles, then several books. Not all of these are politically correct in this age of political correctness and Truth and Conciliation, but his writings were everything that I, a young teen, could ask for.
What a momentous discovery it was for me, that Canada, in particular my own province of British Columbia, had also had a wild west!
To hell with the southwestern American states with their tales of gunfighters and dance hall girls, stagecoach robberies and lost treasures, rootin’ tootin’ cowboys and grey-bearded prospectors.
We had them all, and sometimes more, right here in B.C.!
As one who has since made a lifetime career of researching, writing and publishing western Canadian, in particular B.C., history, I owe a great debt to Bruce McKelvie for introducing me to the likes of the fabled Lost Creek Mine, for teaching me that I lived within driving distance of the Graveyard of the Pacific, some stretches of which were known for “a shipwreck for every mile”.
Now that’s history that appeals to me and I’ve been writing about it
ever since.
There were a few other historians besides McKelvie but he was the first to turn me on to a subject that has become a lifetime passion that I’ve been blessed to share with many others.
More stories can be found at the Cowichan Chronicles website.
https://cowichanchronicles.com/
Boom boat operator captures video of incident in Menzies Bay north of Campbell River
The latest Mill Bay/Malahat display in the Mill Bay Library. Visit the Heritage Museum to play ‘Guess the Object’ and win prizes. Sundays 11-3.
In the The Chronicles…
'Return to Sender’ – Around the World, Museums Are Relinquishing Priceless Antiquities to Their Rightful Owners
After generations of resistance, the dominoes are falling almost weekly, it seems.
I’m referring to the sometimes reluctant return of artifacts to their creators, ancient and more modern, in this New Age of cultural awareness and ethnic sensitivity.
In Canada we’re driven by the tsunami that has resulted as one of the key consequences of Truth and Reconciliation—a belated admission that our colonial mindset and governance of two and a-half centuries must change.
You’re seeing this again and again in the news so I’ll not dwell on it here.
My intent in the Chronicles this week is to focus on the growing trend of museums to surrender the priceless antiquities of the ancient worlds—treasures often held by museums far from their creators and countries of origin—but also much closer to home, right here in British Columbia.
To set the stage, here are the latest news items by their headlines:
B.C. First Nation arrives in Scotland, asks museum to return totem pole taken in 1929
Royal B.C. Museum returning museum to remote First Nation
After 138 years, house post returning to Gitxaala Nation
Nuxalk Nation celebrates return of totem pole from Royal B.C. Museum
Farther from home, some of these returns, or repatriations as they’ve been termed, are momentous:
Mi’kmaq regalia to return home to Nova Scotia after 130 years in an Australian museum
Museum: London, Athens could share Parthenon Marbles in deal
Swiss museum returns Indigenous relics
Chief Poundmaker’s pipe, saddle bag returning from Royal Ontario Museum to descendants
Rare, centuries-old jewelry returns to Cambodia
With eye on Britain, Greece welcomes back artifacts
In short, we’ve come a long way from banning, seizing and looting.
That’s next week in the Chronicles.
* * * * *
PHOTO: ‘Coppers’ were among the most prized of B.C. First Nations. The Canadian government confiscated them under threat of criminal prosecution. —Author’s Collection
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DUNCAN’S KNIGHTS OF PYTHIAS HALL
Another of Duncan’s pioneer icons faces an uncertain future.
The ca 1931 Knights of Pythias Hall on Brae Road, long the home of the IWA-81, then the Mercury Theatre, has been closed because it needs serious roof repairs.
Maple Lodge, No. 14, the local chapter of the K. Of P. goes back to 1892 and first met upstairs in the W.P. Jaynes Store, opposite the E&N station (today’s Cowichan Valley Museum) until they outgrew these premises and moved to the upper floor of the H.W. Dickie real estate and insurance offices.
They finally had their own Knights’ Hall and Opera House, which they built on two adjoining lots (now occupied by the Elk’s Home). When it was destroyed by fire in January 1931, they moved to Brae Road..
Designed by noted architect Douglas James and built by the equally respected contractor, E.W. Lee, for $7000, the Hall was opened by the late Past Grand Chancellor J. Burton Slough on September 12 of that year.
A 1600-square-foot supper room downstairs could accommodate up to 150 people. Many other organizations besides the IWA and the Mercury Theatre utilized the Hall with the blue brick corners over the years of the Knights’ ownership.
Here’s hoping that it will be saved and repurposed rather than razed and redeveloped.
More stories can be found at the Cowichan Chronicles website https://cowichanchronicles.com/
Initiative will see significant improvements to downtown core
Two of Cowichan’s premier choirs have concerts coming up to delight Valley audiences
From Union Bay, just FYI...
Marking more than a century of mail in the Comox Valley community
Victoria-Tofino coach service and Vancouver Island Connector service, between Nanaimo and Campbell River, will be back up and running on May 4
NANAIMO - Just over three months out from one of the Island's largest music festivals, organizers have announc...
Historical society can now address historial building’s chronic inefficiencies
It's full-steam ahead for a historic Duncan train station-turned-museum that could get some needed TLC thanks to a Canada-wide competition.
It’s one of 10 sites across the country vying for a $50,000 prize in the National Trust for Canada’s Next Great Save competition
Husband and wife perform at Chemainus Feb. 19
Referred to as a puma, cougar, and a mountain lion, these wild cats cause a scare wherever they are found and are plentiful on this B.C. island.
Striding over moss and crackling branches, Larry Pynn and Bruce Coates hiked deep into a North Cowichan forest Sunday to show us their find.
An astonishing video of what appears to be a giant Pacific octopus in the waters of British Columbia has garnered millions of views on social media.
Pacific white-sided dolphins usually found in the open ocean
From all of us at The Raptors, we would like to wish everyone a wonderful holiday season! Happy Christmas.
Big news in the Cowichan Valley: https://gismondionwine.com/blog/next-generation-of-the-jackson-family-purchases-blue-grouse-estate-winery/ Kendall-Jackson Anthony Gismondi
Box 44
Duncan, BC
V9L3X1
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