The Story of Four Sisters of St. Ann’s On Saturday, June 5th, 1858, the SS Seabird arrived in Victoria harbor with a very special cargo aboard. Among the passengers were four Sisters of St. Ann who had travelled to Fort Victoria from Montreal at the request of Bishop Modeste Demers. The bishop, the first Catholic […]
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Politics! Some Trivia There has been a great deal of political chit-chat lately, both North and South of the border between Canada and the United States. We are inundated with it on the daily news. Some true and some fake. What do we believe? So, I thought it might be a good idea to get
Adelaide Simpson – The Baker’s Wife When the Norman Morison arrived in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada, in a snowstorm in January 1853, Henry and Adelaide Simpson were among the many passengers aboard. Other families such as the Skinners and the McKenzies were also aboard to take up positions as farm managers for the Puget Sound
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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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