1 Harriet Cooper, “History of the Harris Family at Calne, 1775 to 1907,” typescript, Harris family papers, p. 23.
2 John, Tom, and Henry Harris were all children by Thomas Harris’s second wife, Sophia Mitchell, who died in 1864. The second bed seems to have begot business people, the third, with Elizabeth Colebrook, doctors, church people, and impractical intellectuals.
3 I have found little information about my great-grandmother, Elizabeth Colebrook. These fragments about her family come from The Family of William Colebrook, 1801–1869, a book prepared by Gladys Stanford and Peter Layng, printed by the Courtney Press Ltd., Castle Street, Brighton, and circulated among the extended Colebrook family.
4 Harriet Cooper, “History of the Harris Family,” p. 27.
5 Unless otherwise indicated, all the quotes in this chapter attributed to J. C. Harris are taken from the recollections of his early years in Canada that, over a period of years from December 1943 to February 1951, he wrote in response to a request from my mother. All are in the J. C. Harris fonds, Royal British Columbia Archives, Victoria. This quote is from J. C. Harris to Ellen Harris, Dec. 1, 1943, JCH fonds, RBCA.
6 Harriet Cooper, “History of the Harris Family,” p. 38.
7 J. C. Harris to Ellen Harris, Dec. 1, 1943, JCH fonds, RBCA.
8 After graduating from Mill Hill, he played briefly for the Harlequin Rugby Football Club, a North London club, including in a game against the French national side, which the Harlequins won.
9 J. C. Harris to Ellen Harris, Dec. 1, 1943, JCH fonds, RBCA.
10 “Fulford Harbour,” June 25, 1945, JCH fonds, RBCA.
11 “Saltspring Island,” JCH fonds, RBCA. Captain Barkley was the grandson of Captain Charles William Barkley, after whom Barkley Sound, on the west coast of Vancouver Island, is named. See J. F. Bosher, Imperial Vancouver Island: Who was Who, 1850–1900, self-published, 2010, pp. 111–12.
12 “Saltspring Island,” JCH fonds, RBCA.
13 “Life at Hall’s Crossing,” JCH fonds, RBCA.
14 Ibid.
15 Alexander C. Harris and Joseph C. Harris, “Our Diary in America from June 17–Oct. 1,1891,” RBCA, pp. 49–50.
16 “Life at Hall’s Crossing,” JCH fonds, RBCA.
17 Ibid.
18 Ibid.
19 “Cowichan Remembrances,” JCH fonds, RBCA.
20 “None of us,” Joe wrote later, “could see any sense in Bess and Mary going out to China as missionaries, and thought that they were throwing their lives way.” He, Willie, and Alec were of this opinion, as was their father.
21 “Cowichan Remembrances,” JCH fonds, RBCA.
22 “Last Years in Cowichan,” JCH fonds, RBCA.
23 Ibid.
24 Ibid.
25 Ibid.
1 For a longer version that includes comments about a later Slocan, accounts of his off-farm work, and longer descriptions of particular individuals, see Joseph Colebrook Harris, Beginnings of the Bosun Ranch, booklet no. 2, Slocan History Series, New Denver, Chameleon Fire Editions, 2015.
2 The longer but much easier route was down the Slocan River to the junction with the Little Slocan, then up it to the meadows in question. The route taken required bushwhacking through mountains.
3 Joe’s description of this sleigh road: “Of course the sleigh road that we managed to build with the first effort [spring of 1897] was very poor. We chopped the trees to fall along the roadway on the lower side, and then as much dirt as possible was shovelled onto the brush pile. It made a quite passable road for the first winter as long as the dirt was frozen, but it was only the beginning of a real road; the next winter when I did a great deal of heavy hauling on it (ice and wood) it was in far worse condition, and the outside had sunk down and on several occasions, the sleigh went over the bank, luckily without much damage. It was often a terrific job to pass another sleigh.”
4 This log building, quickly built in the fall of 1897, remains and has been restored. See chapter 11.
5 The market problems, which would always bedevil the Bosun Ranch, were emerging as early as 1898.
1 A decade later he told the Farmers’ Institute in Nakusp that the first step in planting an orchard should be to get married. For a man to “plant an orchard without a wife to help and advise him, and some boys and girls to work for… [was] an absurdity. This was the first mistake I made and it was a very serious one, but I soon saw the error of my ways…” J. C. Harris, “Common Mistakes Made in Setting Out Orchards by One Who Has Made Them,” Farmers’ Institute Report, Sessional Papers of British Columbia, 1909, p. K 26.
2 According to my grandfather, the problem would be lessened were the government to provide telephones to all farm houses. J. C. Harris, “Common Mistakes,” p. K 27.
3 Ellen Harris to Dick Harris, Bosun Ranch, September 1941, Harris family papers.
1 My grandfather’s writings about the Bosun Mine are published in J. C. Harris, Beginnings of the Bosun Ranch, booklet no. 2, Slocan History Series, Chameleon Fire Editions, New Denver, 2015.
2 Wildcats were claims, acquired as pure speculations, on which no exploratory work had been done.
3 According to an article in the British Columbia Mining Record (vol. 5, no. 8, Aug. 1899), Delayney would have had trouble substantiating his right to these claims had it been called into question. “Peace at any price, however, appears to be the motto of the rancher, and so having disposed of likely complications he proceeded with his task of cultivating the soil, a wiser though apparently poorer man.”
4 Prospectors were frequently “grubstaked” by local merchants who supplied provisions in return for a half share in any discoveries.
5 According to The Paystreak (Sandon, July 28, 1897), “The strike consists of a six or eight inch strata of solid galena running at 160 odd ounces of silver and 77% lead.”
6 The British Columbia Mining Record (vol. 5, no. 8, Aug. 1899) provided additional details: “He [W. H. Sandiford] agreed to keep two men continuously at work on the property for 30 days, at the expiration of which he had the privilege of either relinquishing all title, paying 10 per cent down on a year’s bond at $15,000, or purchasing at a cash consideration of $7,500.” Forty feet down, there was ore across almost the full width of an experimental shaft. “It is not to be wondered at that Mr. Sandiford accepted the latter alternative in the terms of the agreement, and Mr. Harris, the owner of the ranch, who had been deluded into paying $700 for two worthless claims, found himself the richer by $7,500.”
7 British Columbia Mining Record, vol. 5, no. 8, Aug. 1899.
8 The building that would later become the log core of the ranch house.
9 Arthur Cleverley, a lad from Calne, was still at the ranch with my grandfather at this point.
10 British Columbia Mining Record, vol. 5, no. 8, Aug. 1899.
11 Charlie must have arrived in the summer of 1899. He appears in the 1901 Canadian census, then twenty-one years of age and identified as a mining engineer.
12 British Columbia Mining Record, vol. 9, no. 10, Oct. 1902.
13 British Columbia Mining Record, vol. 12, no. 9, Sept. 1905.
14 Ibid.
15 British Columbia Mining Record, vol. 13, no. 9, Sept. 1906.
16 Report, Minister of Mines, 1929, British Columbia Sessional Papers, 1931, vol. 1, section C, p. 316.
17 Sandy Harris to Nancy and John Anderson, Oct. 20, 1956, Harris family papers.
18 Richard White, Railroaded: The Transcontinentals and the Making of Modern America, New York, W. W. Norton, 2011.
1 This picture of the ranch economy is amply borne out by the ranch account books, which have surfaced since I wrote this section. They show a great variety of sales (fruit, vegetables, meat, eggs, milk, butter, wood, ice), none of which was very large. A quarter to a third were not paid for. The monthly return after expenses was in the vicinity of one hundred dollars. Expenses did not include family labour, of which the ranch consumed huge quantities.
2 Joe thought that the local Farmers’ Institute should investigate the possibility of hiring an agent to market Slocan fruit, but nothing came of the idea, probably because the Slocan’s fruit production was too small to warrant the expense. J. C. Harris, “A Talk on the Work of Farmers’ Institutes,” Sessional Papers of British Columbia, 1911, pp. L 152–53.
1 Dick Harris to Ellen Code, Vancouver, March 7, 1930, Harris family papers.
2 R. C. Harris, draft of an account of his father and of the ranch, p. 7, Harris family papers.
3 My grandfather claimed that he could get two hay crops a year without irrigation, and three or four with irrigation and silage. He had added a silo adjacent to the main barn. J. C. Harris, “Alfalfa Possibilities in West Kootenay,” unpublished typescript, ca. 1940, Harris family papers.
4 J. C. Harris, “Alfafa Possibilities,” p. 2.
5 Dick Harris to Ellen Harris, Aug. 29, 1930, UBC Special Collections, Ellen Harris fonds, Box 41, file 7; Ellen Harris to Dick Harris, Aug. 3, 1932, UBC Special Collections, Box 39, file 5.
6 J. C. Harris, British Columbian Problems, Thomas Stationery Co., Vancouver, BC, 1909.
7 J. C. Harris, British Columbian Problems, p. 30.
8 Henry Drummond, Natural Law in the Spiritual World, New York, William L. Allison Company, 1889.
9 At the very end of his life, he acknowledged Drummond’s influence and sketched his religious beliefs in a letter to a former Sunday School pupil who was questioning her own faith. J. C. Harris to Emma Clever, New Denver, March 27, 1951, Harris family papers.
10 See Natural Law in the Spiritual World, particularly the preface and introduction.
11 J. C. Harris, Conscription for Peace, Harris fonds, RBCA; also Harris family papers, p. 16.
12 This phrase is from a letter to the Nelson Daily News, submitted Jan. 20, 1932, Harris family papers.
13 In 1946 alone, twenty-six letters from my grandfather appeared in the Nelson Daily News.
14 “Kerr Called Down,” The Prospector, Kaslo, July 25, 1895.
1 Ellen Harris to Dick Harris, Bosun Ranch, Sept. 20, 1941, Harris family papers.
2 Ibid.
1 Frances Clemmow, Days of Sorrow; Times of Joy. The Story of a Victorian Family and Its Love Affair with China, Kibworth Beauchamp, Leicestershire, Matador Publishing, 2012, p. 166.
2 J. C. Harris to progeny, New Denver, May 27, 1942, Harris family papers. Sandy, his son, and Mollie, Sandy’s wife, had been spending their winters at the ranch house.
3 Ibid.
4 Margaret Harris to Ellen Harris, undated, but included in a letter from J. C. Harris to progeny, May 27, 1942, Harris family papers.
5 A. C. Taylor to E. L. Boultbee, Aug. 14, 1942, NAC, RG 36/27, box 15, file 1020, 1942. Also Department of Labour, Japanese Division, NAC, RG, 36/37, box 26, file 1020, 1946. The “north forty acres” is the Far Field, where the Japanese houses were located.
6 R. C. Harris, “Joseph Colebrook Harris,” handwritten draft manuscript, no date, Harris family papers.
7 J. C. Harris, “Notes and Memories of the Coming of the Japanese to the Slocan Lake Country, 1942,” written in late 1944 or early 1945, RBCA, Add. MSS 807 Box 3, file 3. The quotations and interpretations in this paragraph are all from this source.
8 Here J. C. Harris refers to an incident in 1914 when most of the 376 passengers—all of them British subjects and the large majority Sikhs from India—on a Japanese ship, the Komagata Maru, were detained in Vancouver harbour and denied entry to Canada.
9 Here J. C. Harris underestimated the pervasive reach, much wider than the working class, of racism throughout the late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Anglo-American world.
10 Anti-Japanese sentiment, further whetted by news of Japanese atrocities in Hong Kong and the Philippines, was as virulent as my grandfather suggests, even on the political left. See Werner Cohn, “The Persecution of Japanese Canadians and the Political Left in British Columbia, December 1941–March 1942,” BC Studies 68, winter 1985–86, pp. 3–22.
11 See also J. C. Harris, “Our New Canadians’ Problems,” no date but probably 1945, RBCA, Add. MSS 807, box, 3, file 12.
12 The quotations and interpretations in this paragraph are all derived from Harris, “Notes and Memories,” and “Our New Canadians’ Problems.”
13 J. C. Harris, “Notes and Memories.” The other quotation in this paragraph is also from this source.
14 Patricia E. Roy, “If the Cedars Could Speak: Japanese and Caucasians Meet at New Denver,” BC Studies 131, autumn 2001, p. 84.
15 Kaslo, like New Denver, had accepted Japanese evacuees, and Japanese community relations probably unfolded there much as they did in New Denver. See Patricia E. Roy, “A Tale of Two Cities: The Reception of Japanese Evacuees in Kelowna and Kaslo, BC,” BC Studies 87, autumn 1990, pp. 23–47.
16 Frank Moritsugu, Teaching in Canadian Exile: A History of the Schools for Japanese Children in British Columbia Detention Camps during the Second World War, Toronto, Ghost-Town Teachers Historical Society, 2001, p. 73.
17 Sandon Hotel Old Men to Mr. George Collins, Commissioner, BC Securities Commission, Sandon, May 9, 1944, Sandon Museum Collection.
18 I have not found a reliable figure for the number of evacuees on the Far Field. In the Orchard in New Denver in 1945 there were 1,277 Japanese Canadians in 200 houses, an average of 6.4 people per house. In the camps in and around New Denver at the end of 1942 there were 1,505 evacuees in 293 houses, an average of 5.2 people per house. At 6 people per house there would have been 150 people on the Far Field.
19 J. C. Harris, “Notes and Memories.”
20 Margaret Raeper Harris to Ellen Harris, Bosun Ranch, July 5, 1943, Harris family papers. Uncle Sandy said that the garden went downhill until the Japanese Canadians came. “Then it was so beautiful it made you gasp.” Notes of a conversation with Sandy, Aug. 1985, Harris family papers.
21 In the summer of 1943 my grandmother, debilitated by Parkinson’s disease, was near the end of her life. On Christmas Eve, 1943, my grandfather wrote to tell my parents that “Granny” was in the hospital and very weak. “My dears it is awfully sad, but we have had such wonderful times and been so happy and united. I do not think that we can wish for her suffering and weakness to continue long. We are in God’s hands and He is very merciful.” J. C. Harris to Ellen and Dick Harris, New Denver, Dec. 24, 1943, Harris family papers. “Granny” died a few weeks later.
22 Basil Izumi’s memories of the ranch, where he lived from ages six to eight, may be fairly typical. For him there was a lot to do on the ranch, summer and winter, and life there was fun. Basil Izumi, personal communication.
23 Patricia E. Roy, “If the Cedars Could Speak: Japanese and Caucasians Meet at New Denver,” BC Studies 131, autumn 2001, p. 87.
24 This information is from Sachi Manuel, a young teenager on the Bosun Ranch during the war, now living in Olympia, Washington.
25 Notes from a conversation with Sandy, Aug. 5, 1985, Harris family papers.
26 Sandy told these stories over and over, and particularly relished the symbolism of Tak’s encounter with the Canadian flag. Tak was born in Canada, and Sandy considered him a Canadian through and through. My wife, Muriel, noted down these accounts in the old ranch house on Aug. 5, 1985.
27 Debates, House of Commons, 19th Parliament, Fifth Session, Vol. 6, Aug. 4, 1944, pp. 5915–17.
28 J. C. Harris to ed., Nelson Daily News, Sept. 3, 1943; cited in Roy, “If Cedars Could Speak,” p. 89.
29 J. C. Harris, “Notes and Memories.”
30 J. C. Harris to Mackenzie King, Feb. 23, 1946, NAC, King Papers, no. 365411.
31 J. C. Harris to Mrs. Hoshino, June 22, 1949, RBCA, Add. MSS 807, box 1, file 28.
32 For a detailed published account of the events described in this and the following two paragraphs, see the chapters on Yangchow in Greg Leck, Captives of Empire: The Japanese Internment of Allied Civilians in China 1941–1945 (Shandy Press: SAN 257-0181, 2006). My remarks, however, are largely derived from the recollections of my second cousin Walford Gillison—the boy identified here—now living in Somerset, England.
33 I am indebted for most of the points in this paragraph to conversations and correspondence with Jordan Stanger-Ross, associate professor in the Department of History at the University of Victoria, and to a draft of his paper “Suspect Properties: The Decision to Dispossess Japanese Canadians,” which he has kindly allowed me to read.
34 As late as 1947 the premier of British Columbia was urging the federal government to make the ban on “Japanese” permanent. For a good discussion of attitudes in BC and Ottawa toward resettlement and “repatriation,” see Greg Robinson, A Tragedy of Democracy: Japanese Confinement in North America (New York: Columbia University Press, 2009), especially pp. 261–74.
35 Debates, House of Commons.
36 For an example of the racism experienced on Saltspring Island both before and after the war by a family that lived in the Rosebery Camp, see Rose Murakami, Ganbaru: The Murakami Family of Salt Spring Island (Saltspring: Japanese Garden Society of Salt Spring Island, 2005).
37 Quoted by Frank Moritsugu, Teaching in Canadian Exile, p. 220.
1 Two days before, he ended a long letter about Darwin and God with the following: “My life is pretty precarious, as my old heart is worn out and may quit at any time. I also want new eyes, legs, and ears.” J. C. Harris to Emma Clever, Victoria, March 27, 1951, Harris family papers.
2 Heather Rose to Sandy Harris (draft) and note to my father, Harris family papers.
3 Nancy to Heather (carbon copy), New Denver, June 19, 1959, Harris family papers.
4 Sandy acquired all of the Bosun Ranch (almost three hundred acres, most of them mountainside) except the land around my parents’ cabin (some fifteen acres) and the parcel (some ten acres) belonging to the Bosun Mine.
5 Dick Harris to Sandy Harris, Vancouver, March 12, 1961, Harris family papers.
1 Sandy’s letters are held by the family. Specific letters are referenced by date.
2 Draft of a letter from A. L. Harris to Mr. G. A. MacMillan, New Denver, Aug. 16, 1952, Harris family papers.
3 These people, among the key founding figures of the CCF, came to the West Kootenay because they thought it a winnable seat, and stayed at the ranch because the ranch house provided a warm welcome, comfortable quarters, and no end of congenial political talk.
4 My account of Lilly’s recollections of her time on the Bosun Ranch are based on two interviews with her, one on July 30, 2014, the other on Oct. 25, 2015, both at the old ranch house.
5 Gretchen’s recollections of her time in the Ranch House are derived from two interviews with her in Vancouver, one in 2014, the other in 2016.
6 When Mollie arrived at the nursing home in Vernon, Sandy was asked to transfer her old age pension to the home in partial payment for her care. But neither Sandy nor Mollie had taken their pension on the grounds that they had enough to get by, and did not want to make unnecessary claims on the state. The matter was rectified; Mollie’s pension was claimed and made over to the nursing home, and Sandy may finally have taken his pension as well.
7 The last ten years of Sandy’s life are best remembered by Ralph Wilson, who arrived on the ranch as a foster child in 1975–76 and lived there for most of the next ten years. He reports that Sandy was always working in the garden, or walking with his dog, or feeding fish, and that he had no mean bone in his body. Interview with Ralph Wilson, Bosun Ranch, Oct. 25, 2015.
8 Rupert Brooke, Letters from America, London, 1916, chapter 13.
1 Thomas now lives in Point Roberts, and much of this biographical information comes from conversations there with him in the spring of 2014.
2 Lilly, who now lives in Hawaii, returned to New Denver in the summer of 2014, and I talked with her then about her Slocan years.
3 Thomas Wright to Cole Harris, Sandon, Sept. 8, 1972, Harris family papers.
4 Thomas Carlyle, Chartism, London, 1840.
5 Sam Tichenor still lives in the Slocan, and in September 2014, we talked about his life and his work on the ranch.
6 Thomas Wright to Cole Harris, November 1973, Harris family papers.
7 Gretchen now lives in Vancouver where, in February 2015, I talked with her about her time in the old ranch house.
8 David Lehton now lives in North Saanich, Vancouver Island, and I talked with him there in March 2015 about his time on the ranch.
9 Bob McKay, now a wood turner, lives on Saltspring Island, and in February 2015, I talked with him there about his background, his Slocan years, and his work on the ranch house.
10 Glenn Jordan still lives in the Slocan. I have frequently talked with him about his past, most recently in September 2014.