CL CowchanLeadex
KSMC Kaatza Station Museum Collection
“The timber was however…,” John Hayman, ed., Robert Brown, and the Vancouver Island Exploring Expedition, p. 61.
Green family: Brian and Trevor Green interview; Trevor and Yvonne Green interview with Roger Wiles; Trevor and Yvonne Green interview with author; Trevor Green interview; Memories Never Lost, p. 282.
Angus Fraser and family: 1901 census; CL.
Log drives: CL; “Memoirs of Mathias Hetnmingsen”; Fiddick interview.
Remittance men: CL; 1901 census; “History of Mrs. Cassie Beech,” KSMC.
Wardroper family: CL; KSMC file; 1901 census; Oliver files; Lake News.
March family: CL; 1901 census; KSMC file; Hutchison, The Far Side of the Street; Brian and Trevor Green interview; Trevor Green interview with McCormick; Marcia Merston interview; Nancy Merston interview.
“her manners unchanged …,” Hutchison, Far Side, p. 44.
“the most successful…,” Ibid.
“That [cabin] was just one room …,” Brian and Trevor Green interview.
The village that grew at the foot of the lake was named Lake Cowichan. Since this is often confused with the lake itself, many people refer to it as the Foot.
“Everyone used to go …,” “History of Mrs. Cassie Beech.”
“The blasting up here…,” Oliver correspondence, Girdwood to Oliver, May 21, 1912, KSMC.
Lukin Johnston and the Cowichan Lake Road: Johnston correspondence, D. Lukin Johnston to author, Feb. 5, 1992.
“There were a few people…,” Lucille Hemmingsen interview.
Ashburnham and Farrer families: Ashburnham-Ruffner interview; London Times, Oct. 17, 1991, with editor’s comments; CL; Green interview with author; Negley Farson, The Way of a Transgressor, Trevor Green letter to author, Oct. 27, 1993; Green interview with author; Lucille Hemmingsen interview; The Goodwood News Letter, 1991; Burke’s; Oliver correspondence; Memories’, Marcia Merston interview; Nancy Merston interview; KSMC file.
“horses, hounds, and pheasants,” Farson, Transgressor.
“500 acres of rolling lands…,” Marcia Merston interview.
“[W]e were never allowed…,” Ibid.
Haggard family: Higgins, The Private Diaries of Sir H. Rider Haggard 1914-1925; Who Was Who; Haggard, “Describes Fishing on the Cowichan,” Cofonist, Jan. 18, 1907; “Eminent Imperialist Here,” Colonist, June 30 and July 2, 1916; KSMC file; Haggard, Women of the Revolutionary Era; Green interview with author; CL.
Fishing and the hatchery: Oliver correspondence; CL; Neave, Game Fish Populations of the Cowichan River; Green interview with McCormick.
“no self-respecting salmon…,” CL, April 18, 1912.
“put up an uncommon good fight…,” Haggard, “Fishing.”
Lengnick family: CL; Marcia Merston interview; Oliver correspondence; Green interview with author; Hutchison, Far Side; “The History of Mrs. Cassie Beech”; Ashburnham-Ruffher interview; Farson, Transgressor; “Mr. and Mrs. Carl Swanson” as told to Myrtle Bergren, 1965, KSMC.
“Am I a dog…,” Ashburnham-Ruffner interview.
“What do you suppose …,” Negley Farson, The Story of a Lake.
Tidrington family: CL; Brian and Trevor Green interview; Oliver correspondence; Green interview with author; Scholey interview.
Sydney Scholey was the son of Sidney Scholey. No explanation for the difference in spelling has been found.
Until 1937, it was necessary for Cowichan Lake children who wished to go to high school to go to Duncan.
“associations with loggers…,” CL, Mar. 10, 1927.
Dunsmuir family: Reksten, The Dunsmuir Saga; Audain, My Borrowed Ufe; Green interview with author; Ashburnham-Ruffner interview.
The Dunsmuirs’ caretakers were Jack and Edith Hatter, he a former fishmonger from Sussex, she the former Twitty Page, nanny to the Farrer children and cause of all the excitement when she arrived at the lake in uniform.
“I used to think nothing…,” Ashburnham-Ruffner interview.
“Oh yes, she was quite a gal…,” Lucille Hemmingsen interview.
“So I jumped on his back…,” Ashburnham-Ruffner interview.
“And then the most fantastic…,” Ibid.
“Taking all this into consideration…,” Hemmingsen memoir.
Hemmingsen family: John and Robert Hemmingsen interview; Cameron, “Pioneer Logger Matt Hemmingsen Brought New Ideas,” Colonist, Oct. 2, 1966; “Logged Cream of Lake Timber,” CL, Apr. 16 and 24, May 1, 1963; “Woods Pioneer Dies,” Colonist, Apr. 12, 1967; Hemmingsen memoir; CL; KSMC file; Garner interview; McKay, Empire of Wood; Copley interview; Saywell, Kaatza; “The History of Mrs. Cassie Beech”; Green interview with author.
Overhead yarding was first used in Michigan in about 1886, a few years before Matt went to work in the Wisconsin woods.
“There was the IWW…,” Copley interview.
“I have known the logger…,” Gordon Hak, “On the Fringes,” p. 167.
“I offered once …,” Hemmingsen memoir.
“I had for associates…,” Marston interview. “Before the [OBU]…,” Ibid.
“Just by lookin’…,” Atkinson interview.
“A considerable number…,” CL, May 24, 1923.
Jesse James: KSMC file; CL, May 1, 1963; Whittingham interview; Farson, Lake, pp. 368-9.
“This was because he had cut…,” Hemmingsen memoir.
“Pompous little king…,” Farson, Lake, pp. 368-9.
Yap Alley: Whittingham interview; Gold interview; Green interview with author.
“[D]ownstairs they had pool tables…,” Whittingham interview.
“It is the direct result…,” CL, Apr. 13, 1922.
On Christmas Day the mill provided power so radio owners could listen to the king’s speech and the All-Canada broadcast.
“She laughed at him…,” Lucille Smith interview.
“[The companyl’d hired the Japanese …,” Ibid.
“[Mother] couldn’t get down…,” Ibid.
“We had burning chunks…,” Ibid.
“Relief, as far as this neighbourhood …/’CL, Apr. 27, 1933.
“The only relief I had …,” Hemmingsen memoir.
“It shot me thirty feet…,” Gisborne interview.
“catching them in coils…,” CL, Sept. 15, 1927.
“The safety was as good…,” Ibid.
“And it was quite a messed up operation …,” Hemmingsen interview.
“get rich quick projects…,” Hemmingsen memoir.
“My dad wasn’t a big private …,” Hemmingsen interview. “
He was a leader…,” Ibid.
“Notice: Sportsmen are …,” sign found in KSMC.
Building of the Canadian Northern/Canadian National Railway: CL; Kaatza; Green interview with McCormick; Groskleg interview; Whittingham interview; Ministry of Mines Report; Gillespie interview; Marston interview.
Mining: CL; Lake News; Kaatza; Ministry of Mines Report.
Consultation with pathologist Dr. John Whitelaw reveals that a submerged body sinks first, then rises to the surface due to the production of gas by microbes in the large and small intestine (not the stomach), then sinks again as the microbes die and the gas dissipates. It is possible, but highly improbable, that a knife wound into the bowel would be sufficient to allow for the escape of the gases.
“Their voice will change …,” Holman interview.
“Oh, the dogs like the meat….,” Ibid.
“He would like to have…,” Lucille Hemmingsen interview.
Robert Service: Carl F. Klinck, Robert Service: A Biography; Canadian Encyclopedia, Second Edition; Blanche E.
Norcross, The Warm Land; Gillespie interview.
“Robert W. Service made a lot…,” Gillespie interview.
Sitka spruce: CL; Marston interview; Encyclopedia.
“In those days all the wing…,” Marston interview.
“The case in point…,” CL, June 18, 1914.
The Noxious Bird Act encouraged the murder in 1922 of 1, 323 eagles, 43 owls, 12, 933 crows and 1 magpie in the Alberni district alone, which included Cowichan Lake and the Clo-ose area.
“[W]e’d meet once in a while …,” Gillespie interview.
“most dangerous poker…,” Farson, Transgressor.
“Poker doesn’t owe me…,” Gillespie interview.
“We’d travel up on the speeder…,” Murray Smith interview.
Kissinger was named after John D. Kissinger, resident manager of Island Logging, a subsidiary of Canadian Puget Sound.
“You had to be a pretty skookum guy,” Atkinson interview.
“Now I’m gonna tell you…,” Gisborne interview.
“The first speeder I hear…,” Ralph Godfrey interview.
“like a hot eye …,” CL, Aug. 25, 1938.
“The big timbers on fire…,” Tenney interview.
“This is a very interesting school…,” B.C. Department of Education, School Inspectors’ Reports, 1918-57. Nixon Creek, Jan. 18, 1928.
“It’s a little bit of Venice …,” CL, Mar. 17, 1928.
Mabel Jones affair: CL; Teachers’ Certificate Register 1919-1932 inclusive;
School Inspectors’ Reports; Cumberland Islander, Nov. 23, 1928; School District Information Forms, 1928; Lucille Hemmingsen interview; Pelto interview; Lucille Smith interview; Green interview with McCormick; J. Donald Wilson, “Lottie Bowron and Rural Women Teachers in British Columbia.”
“I acted on hearsay,” CL, Nov. 22, 1928.
“I know this is a coward’s…,” Ibid.
“the Finnish women stuck together…,” Pelto interview.
“If one Finn quit…,” Ibid.
“I’d been a musician …,” Anderson interview.
“One Sunday morning Gladys says to me …,” Ibid.
“Before I got to Youbou…,” Ibid.
“You pack that crib…,” Ibid.
“He had suitcases and samples…,” Ibid.
“You never did anything…,” Sue Baptie, First Growth, p. 56.
“A flunky is a man of all work,” Whiskin interview.
“Mum couldn’t see me staying …,” Lil Godfrey interview.
“You can’t mention anything…,” Percival Clements interview.
“a true blood…,” Archibald Greenwell interview with author.
A third Bowater/Greenwell marriage occurred later.
Early union activity: Hak, “On the Fringes”; Bergren interview; Myrtle Bergren, Tough Timber; Greenwell interview with author; Jerry Lembcke and William M. Tattam, One Union in Wood.
Bergren stayed as close to his real name as he could. As a baby he had carried his mother’s name, Olson, until his parents married sometime after his birth.
“I was one of a crew…,” Peck interview.
“They had a habit of trying to break records…,” George Majer interview.
Safety: McKay, Empire; Hak, “On the Fringes”; Garner interview; Bergren interview; Price interview; Hemmingsen memoir; CL; Baptie, First Growth.
Blacklist: Atkinson interview; Bergren interview; Hak, “On The Fringes”;
Anderson interview; Donald McKay, The Lumberjacks; CL; Greenwell interview with author.
“The blacklist was very effective…,” Bergren interview.
“If he was militant…,” Atkinson interview.
Despite his sinister name, Mr. Black had nothing to do with naming the blacklist.
“They had special fellows…,” Bergren interview.
“invariably very good men…,” Atkinson interview.
1936 strike: Greenwell interview with author; Hak, “On the Fringes”; Bergren, Tough; CL; Greenwell interview with Simkins; Anderson interview; Peck interview; Godfrey interview; Price interview; Whittingham interview; Sara Diamond, “A Union Man’s Wife.”
“We were told that we had to go on strike …,” Anderson interview.
“I was on the stand for about three …,” Ibid.
“The loggers and the millmen never mixed…,” Beline in Diamond interview.
“Well, years and years ago…, “
Greenwell in Diamond interview.
“They all belong to the same…,” Olson in Diamond interview.
“when they came over the mountain …,” Diamond, “A Union Man’s Wife.”
“What happened was, a big group…,” Price interview.
“We told ‘em…,” Ibid.
“The company said, ‘Okay…,” Whittingham interview.
“Some of the women in Youbou…,” Ibid.
“So the cops were earning …,” Ibid.
“It is too bad for us…,” “Curly” Taylor quoted in CL, May 21, 1936.
“He is a good citizen…,” J. W. Auchinachie quoted in Ibid.
“Greenwell, you’re a real sea lawyer,” Greenwell interview with author.
“They got to like me…,” Ibid.
“It was sort of cash money…,” Karm Manak interview.
“plucky little Gurkhas …,” CL, May 27, 1915.
“You sort of understood…,” Dedar Singh Sihota quoted in Sargeet Singh, “An Oral History of the Sikhs in British Columbia, 1920-1947,” p. 58.
“We did not come across racism…,” Sangha interview.
“He was a more progressive type…,” Manak interview.
“[It was] an offering given…,” Singh, “History of the Sikhs.”
“The barber took no time …,” Sangha interview.
“There are plenty waiting for such a chance…,” CL, June 30, 1906.
“Find out if Yee will stop for $55,” Oliver to Gadd. Jan. 22, 1918.
“[T]ry to get that stubborn blockhead …,” Oliver correspondence, Oliver to Green, Feb. 7, 1920.
“If there was a poker game …,” Watson interview.
“You couldn’t find more honest…,” Baptie, First Growth, p. 108.
“We always played tricks on him,” Watson interview.
“It was very confusing,” Sangha interview.
“No one felt any sympathy for the Japanese …,” Ibid.
“It seemed to me this was another way …,” Singh, “History of the Sikhs,” p. 64.
“That they had heard the unions talk …,” Sangha interview.
“You can tell by a person’s…,” Ibid.
“I had worked my best years here…,” Sangha interview.
“when you think of Hjalmar…,” Lil Godfrey interview in Diamond.
“Fred was workin’ on the loading deck,” Eva Wilson in Diamond interview.
“My first dance at Lake Cowichan…,” Ibid.
“I could hardly remember my own…,” Ibid.
“I was only sixteen years old…,” Stan Clarke interview.
“At that time… you couldn’t quit…,” Ibid.
“She really enjoyed it,” June Olson in Diamond interview.
Youbou and the union: CL, Sept. 13, 1945; Clements interview.
“You’d go to a meeting and listen to them…,” Clements interview.
Communists: Gregory S. Kealey and Reg Whitaker, R.C.M.P. Security Bulletins: The War Series, Parts I and II; Tough; Sangha interview; Clements interview; Brown interview; Godfrey in Diamond interview.
“To see Communists at work wherever …,” Harry Ferns in Kealey, Security Bulletins, p. 13.
“Communists have turned their coats …,” Ibid., p. 16.
“We became a material force. A mass movement…,” Bergren interview.
“There was no such thing as ‘Please boss, …, ‘“ Ibid.
The United Organizations was a unique group that combined all village organizations, regardless of political philosophy, into an effective tool for community improvement.
The 1946 strike and trek: Sangha interview; CL; Tough; Clements interview; Diamond interviews; Vancouver Sun; Atkinson interview; Victoria Colonist.
“They thought sure we were going…,” Godfrey in Diamond interview.
“He spoke pretty bad English…,” Atkinson interview.
The earthquake: CL; Watson interview; Irwin interview; Lingren interview; Price interview; Clarke interview.
“My mother was screamin’ to get in a doorway,” Clarke interview.
“It was being shaken…,” Watson interview.
“I think someone is trying to start…,” Irwin interview.
“And the house went out…,” Ibid.
“the most modern logging camp…,” CL, Aug. 28, 1947.
“That suggestion of ruggedness…,” Ibid.
“You bounced up and climbed back…,” Clarke interview.
“I always figured if you couldn’t roll…,” Garner interview.
“comprised all members of the population …,” CL, Feb. 13, 1947.
“fired three or four [men] every morning …,” Garner interview.
“At one time it must have been very beautiful…,” Jasper H. Stembridge, A Portrait of Canada, p. 98.
“[N]ow only mature trees are cut…,” Ibid.
“Hard hats were just like wearin’…,” David Glenn interview.
“Hard hats made men careless,” Garner interview.
“They don’t stop widow makers,” Ibid.
“The brims didn’t stop…,” Glenn interview.
“[M]any of the larger companies have been …,” Lome Atchison in B.C. Lumber Worker, quoted in CL, May 6, 1948.
“They used to log quite close right down here …,” Greenwell in Diamond interview.
“I know I used to come up to where Scholey’s…,” Beline in Diamond interview.
The closest Cowichan Lake came to having a hospital was in the 1920s when McDonald and Murphy and Dr. E. Garner led a group hoping to build one. Although their efforts were frustrated, M&M equipped their Robertson River camp with an emergency surgery, and Dr. Garner supplied an emergency facility that contained a cot and equipment for treating wounds. Dr. Garner left the community and the M&.M facility was destroyed in a fire.
The Big Split: Atkinson interview; Clements interview; CL; Sun; Greenwell interview with author; Lembcke, One Union; Diamond, “A Union Man’s Wife”; Lake Cowichan Bulletin; Lil Godfrey interview with author; Greenwell interview with author; Gerarda Carlin, “Breakdown in Relations”; June Olson, Eva Wilson and Lil Godfrey in Diamond interview; Tough; Colonist; Pritchett interview; Bergren interview.
“the first trade union people…,” Lembcke, One Union, p. 127.
“You can’t go around for six or seven years …,” Clements interview.
“Over the years I found myself working …,” Greenwell interview with author,
“because of the way the Party demanded …,” Ibid.
“[S]o it was at our house, and it was in Nanaimo…,” Wilson in Diamond interview.
“It sort of fizzled out…,” Greenwell interview with author.
“[T]here was quite a lot of bad feelings …,” Olson in Diamond interview.
“[T]he judge said that Fred and Owen …,” Wilson in Diamond interview.
“Don’t you think this is the first label …,” Godfrey in Diamond interview.
“Well if they were…,” Greenwell in Diamond interview.
“Whether they were reds …,” Godfrey in Diamond interview.
“The reason that it came about actually …,” Bergren interview.
“That was one thing he wanted to do …,” Wilson in Diamond interview.
“To pass unremembered…,” The Simpson Letters, 1967-73, Simpson to Fairclough, Sept. 25, 1966.
The Stokers had moved to the lake at about the same time as the Haggards.
“of gala teas in the narrow high ceilinged …,” Green interview with Wiles.
“were all either trying to run away…,” Farson, Lake, p. 26.
In an interesting example of literary inbreeding, the 1975 biography of Bram Stoker, The Man Who Wrote DracuL·, was written by Negley Farson’s son Daniel.
The game warden’s job was a formidable one. In 1930, an estimated 1, 000 deer were killed illegally in the Cowichan Lake area through pit’lamping, doe shooting and exceeding of limits.
“turns one sick…,” CL, Feb. 23, 1933.
“[T]he privations of a childhood…,” Green interview with Wiles.
“a violent modernity of scarlet doors …,” Ibid.
“If you want to be happy for an hour …,” Ibid.
The Count spent his last days living in a Roman Catholic hospital, as a patient when his arthritis flared up and as a part-time gardener when he was able.
“to travel under the seat,” Simpson Letters, Simpson to Fairclough, Sept. 22, 1967.
“I am picking at the road at present…,” Ibid.
“As for Mr. Fairclough I suspect…,” Ibid.
“the heathen who came to the lake in hordes…,” Simpson to Fairclough, Aug. 5, 1970.
“[You] can’t destroy the livelihood…,” Jean Brown interview.
“because he used to holler at the men …,” Ibid.
“And lots of people, including my parents …,” Ibid.
“That meant the bed was in the corner …/’Ibid.
“We had to save enough to do when there was shutdowns…,” Ibid.
“Even now I regret the fact…,” Green interview with Wiles.
“That door goes into the meat department …,” Ibid.
“It was most extraordinary that with every step…,” Ibid.
“That’s the first time I remember our evening meal…,” Garnett interview.
“We used to halve the chicken …,” Pedersen interview.
“A lot of the boys went to Port Renfrew …,” Godfrey interview.
“stooges or stoolies or whatever you want to call them…,” Greenwell interview with author.
“that shrieking giant, steam…,” CL, Nov. 17, 1910.
The presence of four native bands on the Cowichan Community Resource Board reflects the interest that local native people have had in the lake for thousands of years.