International Women's Day

Today, March 8, 2011, is the 100th Anniversary of International Women’s Day. It is interesting to note that in March of 1911, the Revelstoke newspaper, The Mail-Herald announced that the suffragette movement in B.C. had sent letters to several Revelstoke women, asking for their support of the Vancouver Political Equality League. The president of the movement was Mrs. Lashley Hall. The newspaper commented on the letter: “Whether this appeal will get any cordial response from the Revelstoke ladies is doubtful as the women here do not take any working interest in either municipal, provincial or federal politics.”

I’m not sure how the newspaper writer reached this conclusion, especially after reading an account just two months previously, where it was noted that although very few citizens turned out to hear the annual municipal financial statement, “A few ladies graced the boxes and the gallery and added an air of respectability to the meeting.” I took this to mean that the men present felt that they were unable to swear and cuss. It also indicated to me that although they were disenfranchised, they still had an interest in local affairs.

Women in 1911 certainly didn’t have the opportunities that we do 100 years later. Women who were trained in a profession such as nursing or teaching had to give up their jobs once they got married, as it was expected that running a house and raising children was the greatest job to which a woman could aspire. Women’s obituaries often left out the given name of the woman and instead referred to her as “Mrs. John Smith,” for example. Quite often, the accomplishments of the husband would be listed, with little or no mention of what the woman herself had done during her lifetime.

World War I shifted the role of women in a significant way, with more women entering the work force, and carrying on the community war effort. In Revelstoke, the Red Cross Society and the Women’s Canadian Club were instrumental in supporting the soldiers through preparing and sending care packages, and fundraising for the war effort. B.C. women gained the vote in 1917, while women won the right to vote in federal elections in 1918. Locally, Mrs. Isabel Coursier became the first woman to be enter politics, becoming the first woman on the Revelstoke School Board in 1919. A few years later, her daughter, also named Isabel, was making a name for herself as the women’s ski-jumping champion. This photograph shows Miss Isabel Coursier around 1922.

King George VI in Revelstoke

King George VI in Revelstoke

Starting tonight, the movie The King’s Speech will begin playing at the Roxy Theatre in Revelstoke. I’m looking forward to seeing it. The movie focuses on King George VI and the way in which he overcame his stammer. King George VI made two visits to Revelstoke, one in 1927 as Duke of York, and then as king in 1939.

In August of 1927, the Duke of York was travelling with his older brother Edward, who was the Prince of Wales and the heir to the throne. Edward had made a previous trip to Revelstoke in 1919, when he unveiled a plaque to the fallen soldiers of the First World War, and a cairn part-way up Mount Revelstoke. When it was discovered that the two princes would be travelling through Revelstoke in1927, it was arranged to have them stop and officially open the newly completed road to the summit of Mount Revelstoke.

Before the opening ceremony, Prince Edward, Prince of Wales, and Prince Albert, Duke of York, inspected a line-up of over 60 returned soldiers. The Revelstoke Review of August 17, 1927 reported, “Both Princes shook hands with the veterans, asking each the name of his war-time unit. Prince George, due to an injury to his right hand occasioned by too much hand-shaking in the east, used his left hand when gripping the hands of the returned men.”

In December of 1936, Albert became King George VI when his brother Edward abdicated to marry the twice-divorced Wallis Simpson. In 1939, just prior to the outbreak of World War II, King George VI and Queen Elizabeth (later to be known as the Queen Mother) toured many of the colonies, including a cross-country tour of Canada. When their train pulled into Revelstoke at the end of May in 1939, over 9,000 people were in attendance, having waited for hours in the pouring rain. The Royal Tour was a major event for the people of Canada, and the Revelstoke Review reported on the feelings of the citizens. “And it didn’t matter that the people were drenched to the skin after several hours in an unprecedented downpour of rain. It was merely incidental that new hats and other finery were ruined and it made to difference to the playing of the National Anthem that the fifty odd bandsmen sputtered water after every note. Indeed, what did it matter. The King and Queen had come.”

Mary Jobe Akeley

Our new publication, "Reflections - 4 Decades of Photographs by Earle and Estelle Dickey" features approximately 100 images taken by this local couple. Their photography and research have helped to preserve so much of our local history.

One of my favourite photographs is on page 125. It shows Mary Jobe Akeley at Kinbasket Lake in September of 1937. This was a return trip for Mrs. Akeley, who first came to the area in 1905, as a young unmarried woman. She was with a botanical party from a college in Philadelphia who were here to collect plant specimens. The group camped on the Big Bend road, then just a rough trail, and spent some time in Ground Hog Basin. During that trip, Mary and others made a ten-day trip into the Selkirks from the Big Bend. She spent time at Glacier House, before going on to Banff, where she went on more climbs.

Mary Jobe was born in Ohio in 1878. She graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in Philosophy in 1897, and received her master’s degree in English and American History from Columbia University in 1909. Mary came back to the Selkirks in 1909, to join an expedition to the headwaters of the Gold River. She and fellow climber Bess McCarthy joined the expedition of Professor Hershel C. Parker (head of physics department at Columbia University) and Howard Palmer (a lawyer from Connecticut) who were heading the expedition for the Dominion Topographical Survey. As a result of this expedition, Palmer produced a 1915 Reconnaisance Map of the Big Bend.

During the expedition, Mary climbed Mount Sir Sandford. An account in the New York Times of September 25, 1909 gave details of her ascent. "Miss Mary L. Jobe, an instructor in history at the Normal College of this city, and in her student days an athletic Bryn Mawr girl, was a member of the recent Canadian Topographical Survey expedition exploring in the Big Bend of the Columbia at Mt. Sir Sandford, British Columbia, the highest of the Selkirks. The party traveled over uncharted rivers, cut through a primeval forest and explored dangerous glacier-clad mountains, bringing back scientific data and a picture history of a region never before penetrated by white men. While admitting that the trip was strenuous, Miss Jobe says that it was altogether delightful, and that she never felt overtaxed even after a twelve hours climb. She says it is not too difficult for any woman of courage used to outdoor sports and exercise."

Mary made other climbs in the Selkirks and Rockies, and Mount Jobe in the Rockies is named after her.

In 1924, Mary Jobe married Carl Akeley, explorer, scientist, sculptor and taxidermist. Carl Akeley was the African specialist at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City, collecting and exploring in Africa on behalf of the museum. Carl died of a tropical disease in the Belgian Congo two years after their marriage, and Mary succeeded him as adviser in the development of the African Hall of the museum, later renamed the Akeley African Hall. She held this position until 1938. The recent movie, "Night at the Museum" takes places in the American Museum of Natural History, and the African gallery shown in the movie is modelled after the Akeley African Hall.

In September of 1937, Mary Jobe Akeley returned to this area. In company with Miss Shella Dickey, (sister of Earle), she made a trip up the Big Bend Highway as far as Goldstream, camping overnight at Downie Creek. She rediscovered several spots which she had first visited in 1905, when she made the trip on foot and with pack-horse. Mrs. Akeley reminisced about her 1905 visit, recalling how she had walked from Revelstoke to the Ground Hog Basin, where the expedition leader, Dr. Charles Shaw, had his scientific camp.

During the 1937 trip, Mary Jobe Akeley, Shella Dickey, George Merkel and Earle Dickey travelled to Donald by train, from which point they went by car to Boat Encampment, Canoe River and other places on the east leg of the Big Bend Highway. It was during this trip that this photograph was taken.

Pioneer Revelstoke Brewer, Oliver Henry Allen

It looks as though one of my resolutions for 2011 should be to update the Museum blog more frequently! Sometimes the hardest part is trying to decide what to write about. I did have some requests last year to tell stories of some of our pioneer families, so I'll start there.

Seeing that we are very close to New Year's Eve, it's not hard to make a connection with the history of beer breweries in Revelstoke. For many years, Revelstoke was associated with brewing, and in fact when we purchased the latest version of the Encyclopedia Britannica in the early 1980s, the listing for Revelstoke focused on the presence of breweries. That was interesting, because at the time, there were no breweries in Revelstoke. The longest-running brewery, Enterprise Brewery, had shut down in the 1950s. The gap has now been nicely filled with the award-winning Mount Begbie Brewing Company.

The history of brewing in Revelstoke goes back to 1890, when Oliver Henry Allen came to Revelstoke. Allen came from Toronto, where his father was a brewer. Oliver Henry Allen became a lieutenant in the Canadian militia and was sent to the Riel Rebellion in 1885. In Regina, he met Mary McLean, originally from Kirkfield, Ontario, who was working at the Regina Star newspaper as the editorial writer. Oliver and Mary were eventually married, and in 1889 they came to Revelstoke. O.H. Allen erected a brewery at the base of Mount Revelstoke in the summer of 1890, in partnership with Thomas Righton. They used the water from nearby Brewery Creek to make their beer. In 1891, O.H. Allen left the partnership and built a new brewery approximately where the east abutment of the present Trans Canada Highway bridge is now. The Kootenay Mail newspaper of December 1, 1894 described the brewery as "...the largest of its kind in the Kootenay country. The buildings now present the appearance of a small village. There have recently been added to the lager beer brewery, a new ice house, with the capacity of 150 tons. The cellar is built entirely of stone, as are all the foundations of other buildings...the lager beer output is rapidly increasing and eastern and western brewers pronounce it as good as can be obtained anywhere."

The Allen brewery ceased operations in 1900, but Allen again went into business in 1903, in partnership with William Johnson, when they opened the Revelstoke Brewery, at the corner of Campbell Avenue and Fourth Street.

Oliver Henry Allen and his wife Mary had six children: Emma, Thomas, Marie, Dalton, Marjory and Jack. O.H. Allen died in Revelstoke in 1928, and Mary died in 1944. They are both buried in Revelstoke's Mountain View Cemetery.

November 7th and November 11th - What's the connection?

Sunday, November 7 was the 125th Anniversary of the Driving of the Last Spike to complete the Canadian Pacific Railway. I was privileged to ride the train to Craigellachie for the commemorative ceremony. As we arrived at the Railway Museum to board the train we were met by two members of Lord Strathcona’s Horse (Royal Canadians) Regiment in dress uniform.

Donald Smith, who drove the last spike to complete the transcontinental railway, was soon after given the title of Lord Strathcona and Mount Royal. In January of 1900, he offered to raise and equip a mounted regiment at his own expense to serve in the Boer War in South Africa. The reigiment was under the command of Sam Steele, the well-known early superintendent of the North-West Mounted Police. A sergeant in Lord Strathcona's Horse serving in South Africa was the first Canadian to receive the Victoria Cross. In 1909, the Regiment was reformed and named Lord Strathcona's Horse (Royal Canadians) and is still an active Regiment.

The significance of the presence of Lord Strathcona’s Horse at the ceremony yesterday made me think about the connection between the driving of the last spike, and Canada’s involvement in the Boer War, and World Wars I and II. It was the transcontinental railway that made it possible to move troops across Canada for active service overseas. The railway transported the thousands of parcels to the men overseas, including literally hundreds of pairs of socks knitted by the women of Revelstoke. Numerous photographs show troops coming and going from the station at Revelstoke, often with large crowds of residents and schoolchildren cheering them on their way.

One of Revelstoke’s casualties during World War I was Thomas Lewis, a long-time resident of Revelstoke. He came to Revelstoke in the late 1880s with his parents and siblings. He worked as a dairy farmer and teamster and in 1900 enlisted with Lord Strathcona’s Horse and served in South Africa. During World War I, he again enlisted for overseas service at the age of 43, making the difficult decision to leave his aging parents to serve his country. He was popular among the younger men, who saw him as a father figure. In a letter home to his parents, he wrote, “I know you would be glad that I am doing my duty, which as yet I have not failed in…Life or deathis not in our hands, but the manner of living or dying is.” Tom Lewis was killed in action on August 21, 1917, and at the age of 45, was Revelstoke’s oldest casualty.

As we approach Remembrance Day, we remember the 107 men from Revelstoke and district who died during World War I, and the 32 men who died during World War II.

The Farwell Police War

Brown Bag History is back for the fall at Revelstoke Museum and Archives. The series kicked off yesterday with a talk on the Farwell Police War, an interesting story going back 125 years to the beginnings of our community. Surveyor Arthur Stanhope Farwell applied for a provincial grant here and established a townsite, with the main business street on Front Street, next to the Columbia River. The town grew quickly, with Canadian Pacific Railway workers, entrepreneurs and miners flooding into the area. By the summer of 1885, it was estimated that there were over 6,000 people in the new townsite.

Several businessmen were opening hotels and saloons in the new community, and were eager to acquire liquor licenses. The provincial government, represented locally by Magistrate Gilbert Malcolm Sproat and Provincial Police Constable Jack Kirkup, was issuing licences and allowing for the sale of alcohol at licensed establishments. The problem arose because there was a prohibition on liquor sales in the railway construction belt, and this law was being enforced by the North-West Mounted Police, with their barracks at the top of Douglas Street hill. The legendary Colonel Sam Steele was in charge at the Farwell barracks, but in the spring of 1885 he was called away to the Riel Rebellion, leaving behind a less-experienced man, George Hope Johnston, and a staff of untrained special constables.

Johnston's federal constables were confiscating liquor from provincially licensed sellers without warrants, and as a result, one of the constables, Mr. Roddick, was brought before Provincial Magistrate Sproat on a charge of larceny. Roddick flouted the authority of Sproat and left the court without bail and without permission. Sproat then sent two constables to pick up Roddick, but they were assaulted by Johnston and his men. One of the constables escaped, and the other was thrown into the NWMP barracks jail. Sproat sent another provincial constable, John Miles, to re-arrest Roddick, but he was also assaulted and thrown into jail.

By this time, Sproat had had enough. He sent a large group of men to arrest Johnston and his staff. Once Johnston appeared before Sproat, he saw that he had no choice but to let the provincial constables out of the barracks jail. Johnston was charged with assault of a police officer and let out of jail. In the meantime, the rest of Johnston's special constables fled local jurisdiction, some of them even going to the states. The Daily Colonist newspaper at Victoria as good as accused the 'special constables' of stealing the liquor from the licensed establishments and selling it themselves.

The situation was finally resolved at the end of September 1885 when Johnston appeared before Magistrate Sproat and Colonel McLeod (of Fort McLeod fame). Johnston was convinced to plead guilty and make submission, after which Sproat could charge him with a lesser charge of common assault and let him off with a fine, as opposed to up to 6 months of hard labour. Johnston's actions were put down to lack of experience and bad legal advice. The North-West Mounted Police barracks remained active in Farwell until early in 1866, but there seemed to be an agreement that the federal police would only go after unlicensed liquor sellers, of which there were many.

Commemorating the 1910 Rogers Pass Snowslide

On March 4, 1910, a crew was working to clear the Canadian Pacific Railway mainline at Rogers Pass after a slide came off of Cheops Mountain, burying the line and stopping a passenger train east of the summit. Just before midnight, John Anderson, the roadmaster in charge of the clearing operations, went to the nearest phone to call Revelstoke to say that the line would soon be cleared. When he returned, he was met with an eerie silence. The crew had been buried under a second avalanche that came down from Avalanche Mountain. 58 men died, including John's younger brother Charles. Included in the crew were 32 Japanese laborers, all contract workers with the Canadian Nippon Supply Company, and men from Canada, Great Britain, Sweden, Denmark and Ukraine.

One hundred years later, this event is being commemorated in a number of ways. On the exact 100th anniversary, a community commemoration service was held in Grizzly Plaza in downtown Revelstoke. Buddhist and Christian services were held, along with reflections from relatives of John and Charles Anderson, and the Yamaji family of Japan, who had two ancestors lost in the slide. The plaza was decorated with over 10,000 origami cranes, folded by people from Revelstoke and beyond to carry the wish that should a tragedy would never happen again. The commemoration continued this past week with a ceremony at Mountain View Cemetery in Vancouver where all 32 Japanese men and two Caucasian men are buried. Back in Revelstoke, the Revelstoke Railway Museum opened an exhibit on the snowslide itself and on the railway's response to that slide and others over the years. On August 14th, Revelstoke Museum and Archives opened an exhibit on the slide entitled, "Overwhelmed" which looks at the lives of the men who died and on the families and community who were left to mourn.

The commemorative events culminated in Rogers Pass National Historic Site on August 15, which is a significant day of remembrance of the dead in Japan. Coincidentally, it was also the day, 125 years ago, that the rails reached Rogers Pass during the construction of the Canadian Pacific Railway. Parks Canada unveiled a beautiful memory garden, designed by the brilliant Rob Buchanan, honouring many aspects of the history of the Pass, including the victims of the 1910 snowslide and other tragic events. At the ceremony, we again remembered the dead, and again relatives of John and Charles Anderson were present, along with relatives of four of the Japanese victims. Many of the families had not known the fate of their relatives or their final resting places until Tomoaki Fujimura of Revelstoke was able to locate them in Japan and provide them with this information. It was thanks to Tomo's efforts that the families were able to come to Canada to pay their respects to their ancestors and to honour their memories.

A poignant feature of the services in March and August was the performance of the song, "The Ballad of William LaChance" by singer and songwriter Saskia Overbeek, accompanied by Darrel Delaronde. The haunting refrain, "and the headlines read, 58 dead," brought home the impact of the slide and helped all those present to remember them.

The day's events ended back in Revelstoke in the evening, when 58 small "spirit boats" were released into the Columbia River, each one bearing the name of one of the victims. A haunting melody, played by a flautist on the river bank, helped us to meditate on the events of 100 years ago, and how they continue to resonate now. Through my research on the snowslide and the people involved, I feel as though I have come to know them, and I truly felt that we were setting their spirits free and honouring them as they deserved.