Victoria’s Long Naval Connections The Royal Navy’s Colonial connection to British Columbia’s capital city, Victoria, goes back to the settlement days of the Puget Sound farming families in the 1850s. The Skinner Family Families such as the Langfords, the Skinners, and the McKenzies who had arrived in the colony to manage farms for the Puget […]
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Thomas Harris – Victoria’s First Mayor British Columbia’s capital City had one of the most colorful and controversial figures serving as the first Mayor. His name was Thomas Harris, and he served three terms in office between 1862 and 1865. A butcher by trade, he referred to himself as “just an ‘umble tradesman” who owned
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Flotsam and Jetsam (Early Characters in B.C.’s Capital City.) Many of the colourful transients who drifted into the capital city in the early days barely stayed long enough to guarantee themselves a place in the history books, but I recently discovered a few interesting examples. One was Polish-born, carriage driver Billy Barlow. In 1863, he
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A Christmas Miracle At least once in everyone’s life we need a miracle. The story of the one that happened over 180 years ago on a cold, crisp Christmas Eve in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada, has been told many times before but, in today’s world of unrest and uncertainty, it still bears repeating. It concerns
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Chloe’s Box This is a story about a toy box. It belongs to Chloe, and it always will. On Chloe’s first birthday, my husband (Grumps) made the box for her. We kept it at our house and filled it with toys. As she grew up and then her younger sister Aubrey came along, the two
New Beginnings To me, this time of year seems more like A New Year than January 1st does. It is a time for new beginnings—a new school year, starting university— and even if you are well past those years yourself, thinking about when your children were starting school. Now with grandchildren entering the world of
A Misnamed Islet off Cadboro Bay? There is a small islet off the north-east shore of Cadboro Bay in my hometown, Victoria, British Columbia, called Ellen Staines Isle. The story behind it is an interesting piece of historical trivia. For some unknown reason the small island was mis-named, because Ellen Staines Isle was named to
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The Birth of a Book Series! When I was about nine years old and still lived in England, an uncle gave me a very special book which I have treasured for years. It was called The Abridged Bible Catechism and was given to small children in Sunday school back in the 1840s. But it was
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The Year It All Began – 1858! “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness,
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When a Princess Came to Town Although Queen Victoria herself never visited British Columbia’s capital city named for her, one of her four daughters, Princess Louise, (her sixth child,) came to Victoria in September 1882, with her husband, the Marquis of Lorne. She loved the city so much that she urged her husband to prolong
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