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BRITISH COLUMBIAHISTORICAL NEWSJournal of the British Columbia
Historical Federation
Volume 36, No. 2Spring2003
$5.00ISSN 1195-8294
Above: Port Essington on the Skeena. Page 6.
Cou
rtes
y E
ileen
Sut
herl
and
ENCLOSED: subscriptionforms for (1) the PrinceGeorge conference,
(2) freeworkshops prior to theconference, and (3) a free daytour to
Fort St. James followingthe conference.
Murdered by a scab
The British land claim at Nootka
Worries about BC’s archives
Summers on the Skeena
BC Tree Fruits challenged
A significant inspector of fisheries
The Orpheum celebrates 75 years
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BRITISH COLUMBIAHISTORICAL NEWS
Journal of the British Columbia Histor ical Federation
Volume 36, No. 2Spring 2003
$5.00ISSN 1195-8294
1BC HISTORICAL NEWS - SPRING 2003
“Any country worthy of a future should be interested in its
past.”W. Kaye Lamb, 1937
2 A Working Man’s Dream: The Life of Frank Rogersby Janet Mary
Nicol
6 My Skeena Childhoodby Eileen Sutherland
14 Was John Meares BC’s Most Successful Real Estate Agent?by
John Crosse
16 A Palace of Entertainment:Vancouver’s Orpheum turns
Seventy-Fiveby Chuck Davis
21 We Can’t Dispose of our Own Crop: Challenges to BCTree Fruits
and the Single Desk Marketing Systemby Christopher Garrish
26 The Demolition of the BC Archivesby Reuben Ware
28 Alexander Caulfield AndersonAn Ideal First Inspector of
Fisheriesby Rod N. Palmer
32 BOOK REVIEWS38 REPORTS
Peter Corley-Smith by Robert D. TurnerBC Sudies Conference by
R.A.J. (Bob) McDonaldLardo vs. Lardeau by Greg Nesteroff
40 ARCHIVES AND ARCHIVISTSSchool Archives Program in Mission BC
by Valerie Billesberger
41 STEAMBOAT ROUND THE BEND by Ted AffleckThe Saga of the
Sternwheeler Enterprise
42 TOKEN HISTORY by Ronald GreeneThe British Columbia $10 and
$20 Coins
43 WEB-SITE FORAYS by Christopher Garrish
44 FEDERATION NEWS
WANTED
The British Columbia Historical Federa-tion is looking for a
volunteer to takeover as editor of BC Historical News start-ing in
September.
Previous editing experience could helpbut more essential are
interest in localhistory, sustained dedication, and a lot ofenergy
and enthusiasm.
It’s the editor who creates the journal,sets its standards, and
decides its contents.The editor needs imagination,
judgement,vision, and the courage to make deci-sions.
This is a challenging task but also a re-warding and unique
learning opportunity.
Interested? Call Editor Fred Braches formore information at
604.462.8942, orsend an e-mail:
KEEP YOUR SUBMISSIONS COMING &YOUR SUBSCRIPTIONS UP TO
DATE
Yes, there are uncertainties around theeditorship but that
should not causeanyone to hesitate submitting manu-scr ipts for
future publication, norshould anyone hesitate to extend
theirsubscription.
We know that there will be a succesor.We only don’t know yet who
it willbe. I am confident that a new editorwill be selected long
before the fall,but I invite you, our readers, to helpfinding more
canditates.
If you think that someone would beinterested or could be the one
to dothe job, please let me know. Don’t bebashful submitting your
own name.
Suggestions, enquir ies, and applica-tions will be kept
confidential.
the editor
�
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BC HISTORICAL NEWS - VOL. 36 NO. 22
ON 18 April 1903, as a heavy rain fell, thelongshoremen’s union
led more thaneight hundred mourners to the old citycemetery above
the blue inlet and overlookingmountains around Vancouver. They came
to buryunion organizer Frank Rogers, placing an anchor-shaped
wreath with the word “martyr” inscribedat his grave. The funeral
was the largest gatheringof trade unionists the city had
experienced. Rogerswas only thirty years old when he was shot late
atnight on a waterfront picket line a few blocksfrom his rented
room. He died two days later inhospital. A strikebreaker hired by
the CanadianPacific Railway was arrested for his murder butlater
acquitted in court. Rogers’s murder remainsunsolved.
Many aspects of Frank Rogers’s life are a mys-tery. No photos
exist of him, and details of hispersonal life are sketchy though
his exploits as aunion organizer made the front pages of
localnewspapers. His next of kin are not recorded inofficial
documents and his funeral, which was paidfor by union members, was
not attended by fam-ily.
Rogers immigrated from Scotland to theUnited States as a young
man. He was a seamanin the American navy and merchant service.
In1897 he followed hundreds of eager male adven-turers to
Vancouver, most en route to the Klondikein the last great gold rush
of the continent’s his-tory. Rogers chose to stay in the city,
moving inand out of rented rooms in its oldest section,Gastown, and
working seasonally at the BurrardInlet docks. Over the next six
years Rogers helpedbuild the longshoremen, fishermen, and
railwayunions. He appeared like a shooting star to thecity’s labour
movement; his entrance coincidingwith a burst of new organizing and
his death fol-lowed by its temporary collapse.
The working port attracted a diverse and un-conventional group
of labourers: “all of that breedof men the world nails to its
crosses,” observed ananonymous writer in a March 1911 British
Co-lumbia Magazine article. These workers includingFrench, Swedes,
Punjabis, Asians, and First Na-tions, “knew the harbor and its
ships as a subur-
A Working Man’s Dream
This spring marks the100th anniversary of thedeath of labour
organizerFrank Rogers
by Janet Mary Nicol
Janet Mary Nicol is ateacher, writer, andformer union
organizer,living in Vancouver.
banite knows the houses on his own street.”Longshoremen formed a
union in 1888 and hadbeen on strike ten times by the century’s
turn, yettheir basic rights were far from assured. It was thisworld
Rogers first entered at age 24.
A fedora shading his eyes, Rogers walked towork, we can imagine,
along a wood-plankedsidewalk, dressed in grey pants with wide
suspend-ers and a long-sleeved white shirt. Passing hotelsaloons,
shooting galleries, and warehouses, heturned off Gore Street,
crossed the CPR tracksand joined a long queue of men standing on
thewharf beside a moored sailing ship. The head ste-vedore selected
men for the day’s work at 35 centsan hour. If Rogers made the cut,
he fell in withthe chosen gang, unloading cargo from the
ship’shold, ropes and pulleys creaking. A foreman’s whis-tle
directed the gang’s movements. The Alhambrahotel saloon, situated
in Gastown’s oldest brickstructure still known as the Byrnes Block,
was apopular place for waterfront workers after a ten-hour shift.
Surely Rogers would be there, leaningagainst its bar, holding a
beer, and talking union.
Longshoremen moved exotic, difficult, and dan-gerous cargo. They
unloaded bales of silk off shipsfrom Asia to train cars heading for
New York. Twoworkers were needed to lift a single sack of
sugar.“There were a lot of men who couldn’t stand upto that kind of
work,” according to retired steve-dore Harry Walter in an oral
account, “Man Alongthe Shore.” “[Sugar] was worse than lead and
leadwas tough too.” Handling sulphur could be haz-ardous and so was
exposure to dust from wheat.“A lot of grain boys died from that
wheat,” re-tired longshoremen Frank McKenzie remem-bered. “Used to
use handkerchiefs around theirmouths and nose[s].”
“At first we had nothing,” Axel Nymen recalledof his time in the
longshoremen’s union. “It was aship side pick.” The foremen
arbitrarily selectedmen for a day’s work and assigned tasks
unevenly.“We had a union with the general cargo people,”Alex said,
“but it all went haywire when they shotthe president of the
Fishermen’s Union [FrankRogers].”
SOURCESBOOKSArmitage, Doreen. Burrard
Inlet, a History. (MadeiraPark: Harbour Publishing,2001).
Bennett, William. Builders ofBritish Columbia.(Vancouver:
BroadwayPrinters, 1937)
Griffiths, Hal. The EarlyPeople’s History.(Vancouver:
TribunePublishing Company,1958).
Griffiths, Hal and G. North.A Ripple, a Wave: The Storyof Union
Organization inthe BC Fishing Industry.(Vancouver:
FishermenPublishing Society, 1974).
International Longshoremen’sand Warehousemen’sUnion, ILWU Local
500.Man Along the Shore: TheStory of the VancouverWaterfront, As
Told By theLongshoremen Themselves,1860s-1975. (Vancouver:n.p.,
1968).
The Life of Frank Rogers
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3BC HISTORICAL NEWS - SPRING 2003
Mike Vidulich was a young fisherman whenhe met Frank Rogers on
the picket line in 1900.He described him to labour historian Hal
Griffithsas “stocky” and “quite short but broad in the shoul-ders,
with a strong, open face and dark hair be-ginning to grey at the
sides.” “He was a goodspeaker, but quiet, not like Will MacClain
[an-other strike leader] who used to shout and stormwhen he spoke,”
Vidulich recalled. “Rogers wasan organizer, one of the best the
fishermen everhad. The canners could never buy him.” Vidulichsaid
Rogers wasn’t ambitious for himself but com-mitted to the rights of
the rank-and-file workers.“He believed in unions and socialism,” he
said.
Cannery employers took a different view, call-ing Rogers an
outside agitator and socialist fromthe United States who wasn’t
even a fishermanby trade. But their accusations were no match fora
socialist’s passion.
Rogers was hired by the Trades and Labor Con-gress of Canada in
the winter of 1899 to organizethe Vancouver local of the BC
Fishermen’s Un-ion. When the salmon season opened the follow-ing
July, fishermen voted to strike against can-nery owners for union
recognition and a uni-form price on fish at 25 cents each. Rogers
helpedunite more than four thousand immigrant Euro-pean and
Japanese as well as a few hundred FirstNations fishermen in seven
union lodges along
the rivers and inlets of BC. An old farmhouseserved as key union
headquarters in Steveston,then a distant village from Vancouver on
the FraserRiver.
Rogers sensed which groups would withholdtheir labour, as
reported in the Daily World: “Sec-retary Rogers said that there
would be 1000 whitefishermen and all the old-time Japanese whowould
not go out at all.” First Nations groupssupported the strike but
the vast majority of re-cent Japanese immigrants, organized
separately ina benevolent society, were less sure, knowing theyhad
few employment options in a racially antago-nistic province
dominated by citizens of Britishorigin. With the help of a
translator, Rogersworked hard to convince Japanese fishermen
towithdraw their labour.
During the first three weeks of picketing allwere united.
Strikers in patrol boats carrying awhite flag with the number “25”
in red, effec-tively cleared the Fraser River of strikebreakers.The
canners in turn threatened to evict strikersin Steveston bunkhouses
and withhold food. Theunion retaliated by organizing Vancouver
shop-keepers to donate bread, potatoes, and tents. Japa-nese
strikers were permitted limited fishing andthe union urged all
citizens to purchase their catchas a show of support.
Jamieson, Stuart Marshall.Times of Trouble: LabourUnrest and
IndustrialConflict in Canada, 1900-1966. (Ottawa:Information
Canada,1968).
Leier, Mark. Red Flags andRed Tape: The Making of aLabour
Bureaucracy.(Toronto: University ofToronto Press, 1995).
Marlatt, Daphne, ed.Steveston Recollected, AJapanese-Canadian
History.(Aural History, 1975).
McDonald, Robert A.J.Making Vancouver, 1863-1913. (Vancouver:
UBCPress, 1996).
Phillips, Paul. No PowerGreater: A Century ofLabour in British
Columbia.(Vancouver: BritishColumbia Federation ofLabour,
1967).
Working Lives Collective.Working Lives: Vancouver,1886-1986.
(Vancouver:New Star Books, 1985).Newspapers
Left: Salmon Fishing onthe Lower Fraser. Rogershelped unite more
thanfour thousand immigrantEuropean and Japanese aswell as a few
hundred FirstNations fishermen in sevenunion lodges along therivers
and inlets of BC.
BC
Arc
hive
s A-0
3941
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BC HISTORICAL NEWS - VOL. 36 NO. 24
But on 20 July Japanese fishermen broke fromthe strike, agreeing
to 20 cents a fish and return-ing to work. Asamatsu Murakami
defended thisaction in the book Steveston Recollected, A
Japa-nese-Canadian History. “We are settled fishermen,”he said,
“and if we are left without any link withthe company, each family
will be as helpless astroops without provisions.” Murakami said
thosewho defied the union had their nets cut, sails torn,and their
life threatened. “At 6 AM,” he recalled,“two white men came to the
wharf and spoke toK. Maeda on his boat. He could not speak
anyEnglish and they beat him up.”
The government agreed to call out the militiato protect the
returning Japanese fishermen sothe canneries could re-open. This
was the thirdtime in the province’s history the militia was usedin
a labour dispute. It was likely no coincidencethat Rogers was
arrested and jailed in Vancouverovernight on picket-related charges
just beforethe militia arrived in Steveston on 22 July. As
atestament to Rogers’s leadership, strikers were ata loss until he
was released on bail the next dayand travelled the fifteen miles to
Steveston by stagealong forest-lined Granville Street. The union
stub-bornly continued negotiating for another weekdespite the show
of force. They settled at 19 centsa fish and did not win union
recognition, return-ing to work 30 July. Though their gains were
in-tangible, for a short time a diverse group of workershad felt a
collective strength. The union mem-bership elected Frank Rogers
president.
No clues indicate a woman in Rogers’s life.Romance did find his
political ally, WilliamMacClain. With Rogers’s help, MacClain was
thefirst socialist to run (unsuccessfully) for office inBC in 1899.
He married local woman Mary EllenDupont the same year. She
volunteered byMacClain’s side as he helped lead the
fishermen’sstrike—a role that cost him his job as a machinistwith
the CPR. The couple left the province some-time after the dispute
ended, possibly moving toMacClain’s previous residence in
WashingtonState.
The next summer, union fishermen were readyto strike again. The
canners pounced, arrestingRogers 12 July with eight other fishermen
onpicket-related charges. The press noted with alarmsome of the
accused men were well known in thecity and had families. Justice
Drake was less sym-pathetic, calling all the strikers “thieves” and
“rob-bers”, making special reference to one black andtwo Chilean
strikers as “foreigners” not familiar
with “British ways.” While Rogers was in cus-tody the union
settled and its members were backfishing 19 July, still without
gaining union recog-nition.
Meanwhile, the Vancouver Trades and LabourCongress set up a
defence fund and faithfullybrought food to the nine strikers in the
NewWestminster county jail. Four months later all butRogers were
tried, acquitted, and released fromtheir prison ordeal. Rogers was
last to be let goon $10,000 bail with his trial held over to
thenext spring, at which time charges were dropped.“I am going off
for a week’s recreation now,” hetold a Daily World reporter after
his release. Thereporter observed Rogers was as keen as ever
inspeech but crunched up slightly in appearance. “Iam going to have
a little sport shooting and thenshall come back to work here for
the winter,”Rogers said.
Rogers returned to the rank and file of thelongshoremen’s union
and kept a low public pro-file until the winter of 1903 when
railway work-ers walked off the job 27 February after a clerkwas
fired for organizing employees into the UnitedBrotherhood of
Railway Employees. The CPRvowed to spend a million dollars to break
thepicketers, employing special police and spies. Alsoundermining
strikers were the railway craft un-ionists who refused to strike in
support of lessskilled workers. But across western Canada, work-ers
in other unions boycotted “scab” freight.Rogers helped organize a
sympathy strike oflongshoremen as the dispute moved into
spring.
The fateful night of 13 April began innocentlyenough. Rogers
finished eating a late supper atBilly Williams’ Social Oyster and
Coffee Houseand stepped out onto Cordova Street around 11:20PM,
breathing in fresh night air cleansed by anearlier rainfall.
Turning on Water Street, he metup with two acquaintances, also
labourers, AntonioSaborino and Larry O’Neill. All were heading
tonearby Gastown lodgings. As the trio approachedAbbott Street,
they saw figures in the darkeneddistance beyond the railway tracks.
Interested inthe CPR picket activity, the men decided to
in-vestigate.
Less than an hour earlier a fist fight had oc-curred between CPR
strikebreakers and strikers.The strikebreakers fled to the moored
steamship,Yosemite, a makeshift sleeping quarter provided bythe CPR
during the labour dispute. Two of thestrikebreakers had lost a hat
and umbrella and werereturning to the tracks just as Rogers,
O’Neill,
The British ColumbiaFederationist. VancouverTrade and Labor
Council.(1911-1915).
The Independent.(Vancouver, 1900 -1903).
The Province. (Vancouver,1899 to 1903).
Vancouver Daily NewsAdvertiser. (Vancouver,1899-1903).
Vancouver Sun. (Vancouver,1978).
The Voice. (Winnipeg Tradeand Labor Council.1903).
Vancouver World. (Vancouver,1899 to 1903).
ARTICLESAnonymous, Picturesque
Vancouver, TheBeachcombers,Vancouver: BritishColumbia
Magazine,March 1911, p. 206.
Griffin, Hal. The Story ofFrank Rogers, TheFisherman, 16
December1960, page 9.
Mouat, Jeremy. “FrankRogers”. (Directory ofCanadian Biography,
1901-1910, Vol. 13, pp. 889-890. University ofToronto Press,
1994).
-
5BC HISTORICAL NEWS - SPRING 2003
and Saborino appeared. The men were accompa-nied by a pair of
armed special police hired bythe CPR. Also in the vicinity was a
lone strike-breaker in a small office shed, who spotted
Rogersstanding near the tracks directly beneath a lightand pulled
his gun. As shots rang out in the dark,the two special policemen
responded by firingtheir guns several times.
Rogers was hit by a bullet almost immediatelyand fell to his
knees. O’Neill and Saborino ranfor cover, then seeing Rogers fall,
they rushed tohis aid and pulled him back to the street. Passersby
helped them carrythe wounded Rogers tothe Great Western Ho-tel on
Water Street.Rogers was laid out ona table until a hack ar-rived
and he was drivento the old city hospitalat 530 Cambie.
Rogers survived thenight bandaged withthe bullet still lodged in
his stomach. The nextmorning he told the police: “I did not have
anytrouble or row with anyone that night, neitherdid Larry O’Neill,
nor the other man who waswith me, that I know of. I do not know who
shotme, but I think it must have been someone offthe Yosemite or
some of the special police. I hadhad no trouble with anyone for
some time past. Idid not see anyone else going down on to thewharf
with us. When the shots were fired therewere others [people] who
came running to theend of the street. I do not know where they
camefrom.” Rogers told news reporters he would re-cover as he was
young and strong. The doctorlater disclosed the wound was
inoperable. Rogersdied the next afternoon, 15 April.
Members of the VTLC executive recognized“the high esteem in
which the late brother washeld by organized labour in this city and
that thecause has lost a useful and ardent worker and faith-ful
champion of unionism.” They arranged a fu-neral service at the
Labor Temple and burial atMountain View Cemetery. An anonymous
“inti-mate friend” of Rogers told a Daily World reporter:“His was a
daring soul, but he evidently was bornunder an ill-omened star, as
he seemed to get intotrouble very early—and on a number of cases
in-nocently.” And the editor of Winnipeg’s labournewspaper
characterized Rogers as a “warm un-ionist.”
Tuesday night following the funeral, unionmembers and
sympathizers crowded the old CityHall auditorium to protest Rogers’
murder. Speak-ers condemned the CPR and called on the gov-ernment
to forbid employers from arming strike-breakers. The VTLC posted a
$500 reward forRogers’ murderer.
Two CPR strikebreakers were charged. Onewas released and the
other, James MacGregor, astrikebreaker brought in from Montreal by
theCPR to work as a clerk, was tried three weeksafter the shooting
in a New Westminster court.
Conviction dependedon a key witness, strike-breaker William
F.Armstrong, who hadbeen one of the menreturning to the trackswith
two special police.At the preliminaryhearing Armstrong tes-tified
MacGregor ad-mitted to firing the fa-
tal shot from the office shed in the direction ofRogers. However
at the trial, Armstrong changedpart of his testimony, which cast
doubt on hisentire statement. MacGregor was acquitted by ajury 7
May, due to lack of evidence. A news re-porter observed the accused
had not been theleast anxious throughout the trial. The CPR
hadhired a top lawyer to defend MacGregor, and somesay the employer
paid MacGregor to leave townafter the trial. The coroner’s report
concludedRogers was “murdered by person or persons un-known.”
The union movement was outraged justice wasnot served. For a
time, employers in the city heldthe upper hand and when the UBRE
strike endedtwo months after Rogers’s death, the union failedto
achieve recognition or employer guarantees tohire back strikers.
Other unions involved in sym-pathy strikes were dismantled,
including the long-shoremen’s.
Trade unionists acknowledge Frank Rogers’scontribution, hopeful
the province’s first—but notlast—labour martyr will be remembered.
In 1978a local labour history group placed a commemo-rative stone
at Rogers’s grave. It reads, “FrankRogers / Murdered by a Scab / In
Strike againstCPR / Died April 15, 1903 / Union Organizerand
Socialist.” This epitaph tells us how Rogersdied. His life tells us
what he dreamed for work-ing people.�
OTHER SOURCESDeath Certificate (Frank
Rogers); 1903/04/15;Age - 30, Reg.# 1903-09-119361, Microfilm
#B13094 (GSU# 192712)
Henderson Directory ofVancouver. (1897-1903)
Marriage Certificate(William MacClain); 19August 1899,
Vancouver.B11372, GSU# 1983529,1899-09-04611.
Ralston, Keith. “The 1900Strike of Fraser RiverSockeye
SalmonFishermen.” (M.A. Thesis,University of BritishColumbia,
1965).
Vancouver Mountain ViewCemetery Records(Frank Rogers);
recordsstate that Rogers died at30 years old, single, unionleader,
American and that30 April 1978 acommemorative stonewas placed at
his grave at33rd and Cambie; Home1, Range 2, Block 2, Plot18, Lot
11.
Vancouver Trade and LaborCouncil Minutes. See: 16April 1903. And
18February, and 18 August1904 where membersrefer to unpaid
funeralbill.
Coroner’s Report, BCArchives, B2379, 46/03.Report by
W.J.McGuigan, Coroner,dated 16 April 1903 statesin part, “Body
wellnourished. Apparentlyaged thirty five.”
Jane
t M
ary
Nic
ol
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BC HISTORICAL NEWS - VOL. 36 NO. 26
THE Royal BC Museum in Victoria has aseries of displays
commemorating the im-portant industries in BC—forestry, min-ing,
and fishing. The fish cannery exhibit consistsof a small part of
the processing line of a cannery,where the cans of salmon jiggle
along on a con-veyor belt to have lids put on, and then go into
asteamer box to be cooked and vacuum-sealed.The walls of the
exhibit are rough boards, with afloor of planks. The designer could
not replicatethe fishy smell, the slime on the floors, the
colddraft that swept the whole building, and the con-stantly
dripping water everywhere in an operat-ing cannery. However, for a
visitor it is a goodindication of what an old cannery building
hadlooked like. One wall of the exhibit has a smallwindow, and the
painted “view” from it is of ariver, a couple of islands, and
wooded hills be-yond: this was exactly the view over the
SkeenaRiver from the windows of my childhood homein Port
Essington.
In the early 1860s, Robert Cunningham, aformer missionary and
Hudson’s Bay Companytrader, decided to start trading for himself.
Thesite he chose was a historic Native camp called
Spokeshute (“a fall camping place”), where theEcstall River
flows into the Skeena near its mouth.The upriver First Nations
people came downeach year to meet and trade with the coastal
tribes.Cunningham founded a settlement, which henamed Port
Essington. He granted a portion ofthe land as a reserve for the
First Nations people,in the hope they would stay and trade with
him.The rest was divided into lots and sold to settlers.He built a
store, and eventually a hotel and townhall, a cannery, a sawmill,
and a sternwheelersteamship to carry goods and passengers upriver.A
little town grew up with these structures at itscentre. In time,
there were four churches, otherstores built by Japanese owners, and
the cannerystores. Four canneries operated at one time, butonly one
of them lasted into my childhood. Thiswas the Anglo-British
Columbia Packing Com-pany (ABC), owned by the Bell-Irving
family,who purchased the Skeena Commercial cannerywhen its own
British American (BA) canneryburned down in 1926.
In its heyday, the turn of the century, Essingtonwas a lively,
booming place, nicknamed the “Me-tropolis of the North.” The town
stretched out a
My Skeena Childhoodby Eileen Sutherland
Right: At Port Essingtonthe Ecstall River (to theright) flows
into theSkeena River.
Eileen Sutherland wasborn in Prince Rupert.She is interested in
theauthor Jane Austen,social history, andarcheaology. From 1988to
1991 she waspresident of the JaneAusten Society ofNorth
America(JASNA) and for 18years she was regionalco-ordinator of
theVancouver group of theSociety.She has not been backto the Skeena
fortwenty years or more,but still thinks of theNorth Coast as
“home.”
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7BC HISTORICAL NEWS - SPRING 2003
couple of miles along the shores of the rivers.Since the land
was mostly rock or muskeg, thestreets were boardwalks following the
contoursof the land, built up on posts, sometimes ten totwenty feet
high, other times just above theground. The “streets” were given
pretentiousnames: Dufferin, Wellington, Lorne, and so on.There were
several hotels by that time, a restau-rant, a pool room, a small
hospital, and a perma-nent population of several hundred people.
Inthe fishing season, this number more than dou-bled as fishermen
and cannery crews arrived inearly spring.
It was in the winter, however, that most of thesocial events
took place, as the people made theirown entertainment. House
parties, dances at thetown hall, community concerts, a Christmas
partyfor the children, and other amusements occu-pied almost
everyone. At various times there werefour newspapers, but none
lasted very long. Thetown was not incorporated, but a mayor
andcouncil were elected (with great ceremony butno power); there
was a parks commissioner, butno parks.
The coming of the Grand Trunk Pacific Rail-way just before the
First World War was expectedto provide the final cap to Essington’s
good for-tune. However, the ultimate decision sited therailway on
the opposite side of the Skeena, andthe town’s prospects gradually
diminished, asPrince Rupert became the major city of the
northcoast.
By the time of my childhood, there was a var-ied ethnic
population in the town. About halfthe “Indians” lived in permanent
homes in thereserve area; the rest stayed in houses on the
hillbehind the cannery for the fishing season, andreturned upriver
to their home villages, Kispiox,Kitwanga, and Kitwancool, after
Labour Day, forthe children to start school. The Chinese can-nery
workers were contracted labour, with a“boss” who made all the
decisions. They lived ina big dormitory building behind the
cannery, withtheir own cook and mess hall. The Japanese weremainly
men with families who lived in severaldifferent sections of
town—around each store,and in neat rows of houses at our end of
town. Ina small settlement ten minutes or so walk alongthe Ecstall
River, a group of Finns had their homesand a steam bath hut. There
was one Swedishand one Norwegian family, both with
severalnear-grown up children, and quite a few familieswith British
backgrounds. The “white” popula-
tion was divided between “town” and “cannery”and lived at
opposite ends of the main street. Thesegroups did business with
each other but didn’tget together much otherwise. There were
nohousing restrictions in the town, but the groupskept distinctly
to themselves, with no social mix-ing. I never heard of any fights,
or racial slurs, orderogatory names. The segregation seemed to
bevoluntary and mutually acceptable.
A few years after their marriage in 1917, mymother and father
came to Essington, where Dadhad a job as bookkeeper at the ABC
Packing Co.’sBA Cannery. They remained for over twenty years,at
first year-round, when Dad had the job of care-taker during the
winter months, and later, fromaround 1928, spending the winter in
Vancouver,and the fishing season—about April to October—in
Essington. I never went to school in Essington.My older brother Don
was not doing well in thelocal one-room school. He and his special
friendsdidn’t pay much attention and the teacher lackedstrong
discipline. Mom and Dad decided to moveto Vancouver for good
schooling for all of us. Wespent most of the year in Vancouver and
the sum-mer in Essington—two entirely different waysof life. The
boat trip north, at the end of May—Dad had gone earlier when the
cannery opera-tions started—was like coming home, and wehappily
took up our Essington amusements again.
Our house was built on the top of a little hill—a big, square,
two-storey building made to seemeven larger by wide verandahs on
front and side,and attached sheds and out-buildings at the backof
one side. It looked down on the cannery prop-erty at the foot of
the hill and beyond. The househad been built in the 1880s or 1890s
for one ofthe cannery managers, and like the homes of allimportant
people in town it was above and iso-
Above: Donald, Charlie,and Eileen Moore.
All photographs arefrom the author’scollection.
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BC HISTORICAL NEWS - VOL. 36 NO. 28
lated from all the others as much as possible.In our time the
house was considered too big
and old-fashioned for the current manager, whochose instead the
largest and highest of threehouses built on a hill behind the
cannery build-ings. (The other two were occupied by the fore-man,
Stan Kendall and his family, whose daugh-ter Fredda was my constant
companion, and twobachelors, senior cannery employees). Our hillwas
covered with tall evergreens, cedars, firs,spruce and hemlock, and
densely overgrown withsalmonberry and blueberry bushes. A steep
trailled down behind the house to the rocky shore ofthe Ecstall
River, and one went down in anotherdirection to the Japanese houses
below, and sev-eral floats for their boats. Fifty-two steps led
upto the front entrance of the house. We went downthese stairs two
at a time whenever we went out,and came up as fast as we could, but
I could man-
age two at a time only part way up—and arrivedbreathless at the
top.
There was just enough flat land at the top ofthe hill around the
house for a small yard wherewe played—a bar for swinging and
chinning our-selves, a heavy rope hanging from a large sprucetree,
knotted at intervals for climbing and with abig loop at the end for
swinging. Down the bankbehind the house (we always spoke of “down
thebank” instead of “down the hill”), a long—30feet or more—rope
was fastened high up one ofthe big trees near the water. There was
a loop inthe end, and the boys could take the rope up thehill to a
place where they could put one foot inthe loop, hang on tightly,
push off, and swingaway out over the rock and the river,
gradually“dying down” until they came to a stop at thefoot of the
tree. It looked wonderful, but I wastoo scared to try it.
Right: Two “collectors”towing fishing boats to thefishing
grounds.
Below: Panoramic view ofPort Essington lookingaccross the
Skeena. TheABCP Co takes centrestage.
Path leading to the houses of the “Indians” Kishimoto store
Boiler house
ABCP Co. cannery building and wharf.
Cannery mess house
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9BC HISTORICAL NEWS - SPRING 2003
On rainy days—and there were lots of them—the wide verandahs
made excellent places to play.Mum had clothes lines strung on the
side veran-dah, but we could ride kiddie-cars and tricyclesback and
forth for hours, and play on swings hungfrom the ceiling.
Three bedrooms were upstairs, all with a mini-mum of furniture.
The walls were covered in old,faded, and in some places
water-stained papers,and the floors were a dark oiled wood, with
abraided rag rug beside each bed. Both the up-stairs and downstairs
hallways had wood-burn-ing stoves, but I don’t remember them ever
lit.What I remember is the downstairs rooms keptwarm, and the halls
and bedrooms cold. Dad hadcut a hole in the bathroom floor over the
kitchenstove and boxed it in with boards and wire screens,which
provided a constant source of warm air.
When the house had been built, it was thefashion to have a
fairly small parlour and a muchlarger dining-room. In one corner of
the living-room was a cast-iron stove with an open front,the metal
equivalent of a fireplace. Shortly aftermy parents moved to
Essington, they were vis-ited by Henry Bell-Irving, the head of the
can-nery firm. Somehow the conversation turned tostoves or heating,
and Mum happened to say howmuch she liked a real fireplace. In a
few weeks,this open stove was sent up to her by Mr. Bell-Irving. We
all enjoyed it. Almost every eveningwe sat around reading, watching
the flames, andsoaking up the heat. The room was furnished witha
small square table in the centre—great for pil-ing up books and
newspapers (we were all avidreaders) or playing crib or other card
games. Thetable was also necessary because it sat under thelow
hanging gas light and prevented anyone walk-ing into the lamp. We
had no electricity and thisgas light was our main light. We also
had half adozen coal-oil lamps that we could carry fromroom to
room, and upstairs to the bedrooms.
Essential repairs were done to the house, butnot much in the way
of decoration. It was anideal home for a family with children. We
didn’tdo any damage, but we didn’t have to be toocareful—there
wasn’t much that could be bro-ken or damaged. My earliest memories
are of pro-cessions around the house—my older brotherDon on a large
tricycle, my other brother Charlieon a scooter, and myself on a
small kiddy-car—around the table in the middle of the living
room,into the dining room and around the table there
Left: The company store atthe end of the wharf. Onthe hill to
the left is thehouse in which the authorlived with her family.
Bunkhouse for workers
BA netloft at the left wih the dark roof.
BA store and office
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BC HISTORICAL NEWS - VOL. 36 NO. 210
a couple of times, into the kitchen and to thepantry at the
back, in one door and out the other,and then back to start again,
with appropriateloud noises. All the time Mum was busy tryingto get
a meal, or clean up. As we grew older, wechanged to larger or more
complicated vehicles,but it was a delightful game that kept on for
years.Charlie was less than two years older than I, butDon was six
years older—he was soon off withhis own friends rather than playing
at home withCharlie and me.
The kitchen at the back of the house was longand narrow, with a
big black stove at the centre,literally and emotionally. Fuelled by
wood andcoal, and later by oil, the fire was kept going al-most all
the time, banked down at night. The fireheated the oven at one
side, the “warming oven”at the top, and a tank of water beside the
stove.When we came in cold and shivering, we stoodwith our backs
against this warm tank or sat infront of the oven with the door
open.
We had good meals, although the foods avail-able lacked variety.
Almost all fruits and vegeta-bles came from cans, except fresh root
vegeta-bles, and apples, oranges, and bananas. A coupleof times a
week we had a piece of salmon fromthe cannery, poached and served
with an eggsauce. Every Friday, a butcher from Rupertbrought meat
to sell in Essington. We had norefrigeration, but a “cooler”—a box
nailed to thenorth side of the house just outside one of thekitchen
windows—kept things fairly cool. Mumbaked bread, cookies,
gingerbread, and other
sweets; there was always dessert, often sliced or-anges and
bananas, or apple cobbler. I could pickenough blueberries from the
bushes on our hillin half an hour, whenever Mum asked for themand
blueberry pudding was always a favourite.
We drank evaporated milk mixed with waterand were quite
accustomed to its taste, until wemoved to Vancouver and tasted
fresh milk. Thatturned us against canned milk a bit. We
madedelicious cocoa with undiluted canned milk, andhad melted
butter and brown sugar on our break-fast porridge instead of milk.
For a year or two aJapanese farmer kept cows a short distance
downthe Skeena River. He brought milk into town tosell, in pails
hung from a yoke over his shoulders.But the cows grazed in a meadow
with skunkcabbage, and the milk had a strange taste, so wereally
preferred the canned.
Across the back end of the kitchen was thepantry, a long narrow
section with two doors usu-ally standing open. At one end were the
sink andwashtub; at the other was a wall of open shelvesfor dishes,
small staples, pots and pans, and all theother necessities for
cooking. In the middle wasa work table, and on the floor beside
this wereseveral sacks of sugar, flour, oatmeal, etc. It was inthe
pantry one day that a calamity occurred thatturned into a hilarious
story passed on to ourchildren and grandchildren. Mum was busy
withpreparations for the next meal. Charlie and I, inour pre-teens,
were hanging around, putting intime. He began to boast how strong
he was, howhe could lift…could lift…that sack of flour on
Right: The cannery end ofthe main street. Thewindows on the
right arefrom Kameda’s store. To theleft is the post office andthe
three buildings behindare probably bunkhousesfor Japanese
workers.
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11BC HISTORICAL NEWS - SPRING 2003
the pantry floor. It was probably 25 pounds, andI promptly said
he couldn’t do it. He marchedover, grabbed the sack firmly around
the middleand, giving a great heave, triumphantly put it overhis
shoulder.
What we didn’t know was that the flour sackhad been opened, and
the top edge folded backin place. There, before my eyes, Charlie
suddenlydisappeared in a cloud of white. We were horri-fied. Mum
took a deep breath, and very quietlyand firmly suggested we go and
play somewhereelse. We scuttled outside, and got rid of most ofthe
flour dust. It was a long time before we couldsee anything funny in
what had happened, and Idon’t think Mum ever did get any
amusementout of it. We knew it must have been a lot ofwork for her
to clean up, but it was years laterwhen I realized that not only
was there a pile offlour all over the floor, but on the open
shelvesevery dish and plate, every glass and bowl, everysmall
container and bag had to be washed cleanof dust—and without the
help of a vacuumcleaner. But now we think it’s a funny story.
As we grew older, Charlie played with twoboys his own age, and I
was with Fredda almostevery day. When the cannery was running,
weusually began the day with a tour around it tosee how things were
going. I can still remembermy child’s view of the cannery: very
cold andwet at one end, very hot and scary at the other.We were
surrounded by restrictions and cautions:“don’t get in anyone’s way,
watch where you aregoing, look out, don’t touch.” Older and
braver,we realized how fascinating it was.
We started at the far end of the wharf, lookingdown at a scow
filled with fish. The fishing boatsstayed out on the fishing
grounds for several days,and “collectors”—bigger boats with lots of
stor-age space—brought in their fish each day to thecannery. Men
with pike-poles (long poles with asharp, curved steel prong at the
end) poked theprong into the gills of each fish, and flipped itonto
a conveyor belt with mesh baskets. Wheneach basket got up to the
wharf level, just beforeit turned over to start down again, it
would tipthe fish onto the wharf floor. Often there wereso many
they formed a big slithering pile. Butusually another worker or two
with pikes liftedeach fish again by the gills and tossed it onto
abench or table where each fish was guided, headfirst, into a
noisy, powerful block of machinery,the “Smith Butchering Machine.”
When it wasintroduced about 1905, it was so efficient that it
took the place of doz-ens of Chinese work-ers (who were
givenother jobs in the can-nery), and was alwaysreferred to as the
“IronChink.” The machinecut off the head, tailand dorsal fin of
eachfish, slit up the belly,scraped out the entrails,and partially
cleanedthe cavity.
The fish next wentalong another movingbelt between two rowsof
“washers.” Thesewere mostly Nativewomen, wives of fish-ermen, who
stood infront of tables andsinks, with constantlyrunning cold
water, and thoroughly scrubbedeach fish inside and out. The women
wore rub-ber gloves, oil-cloth aprons, boots, and heavysweaters to
keep warm, and had their hair gath-ered up into caps or scarves.
The cleaned fish wereput back onto the moving belt, and went
throughanother machine, which cut them into sectionsthe same size
as the height of the can. The nextstop was at the “fillers,”
another group of women,mostly Japanese, again well wrapped up
againstcold, and with long aprons to try to keep theirclothes
clean. Since the fish were moving alongthe “line” at a steady rate,
both washers and fillershad to work fast to keep up. In front of
each fillerwas a stack of empty cans, replenished when theygot low,
several chunks of salmon, and a pile ofcut-up pieces. So quickly it
looked impossible,the filler picked up an empty can, jammed in
asection of salmon, filled any spaces with the smallpieces, and
pushed it all down firmly. Then thefilled can was put on a tray
beside her. When thetray was full, a man punched her card and
tookthe tray to the next stage. Washers were paid bythe hour, but
fillers were paid per tray of filledcans and had to be quick and
skilful to make agood wage.
The male worker, a “lineman”, took each trayand shook one row of
cans at a time onto an-other conveyor belt. Here the cans were
weighed,had a measured amount of salt added, and a coverplaced on
top—all by machine. The cans then
Above: The company store.
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BC HISTORICAL NEWS - VOL. 36 NO. 212
jiggled along the belt into steam ovens—“retorts”(which we
stayed well away from)—where theywere carried in a long sinuous
path that tookthem several hours to finish cooking. As they
werefinally spilled out at the far end, they went throughanother
machine that crimped and sealed theirlids on; then into a cold
water bath, and finallythe cans were labelled and packed in boxes.
Thelabelling was another job that looked impossi-ble—a wad of
glossy labels was fanned a bit toexpose the ends, which were
swabbed with abrush of glue; a Chinese worker picked up a canwith
one hand, a label with the other, and rolledthe can into the label,
smoothed it down, andput the can into the box, almost faster than I
cantell about it.
At the end of each day, the whole canneryarea, especially the
front where the fish wereworked on, was hosed down and all the
slimeand bits of fish were swept through cracks be-tween the
boards, or down a hole left for thepurpose, into the water below.
Flocks of scream-ing gulls snapped up each bit, and on the
beachcrows salvaged anything edible that had comeashore. Twice a
day tides came in and washedaway anything the birds missed. No
matter howmany times we saw it all, it was fascinating towatch, and
we spent a lot of time just wanderingthrough the cannery.
“Boat Day,” when the steamer arrived, was thehighlight of the
week. The Union Steamships wasthe company that serviced the coast,
callingweekly at logging camps, fish camps, private floats,and
canneries all the way from Vancouver toRupert, and on to Alaska.
The boat we knewbest was the Cardena. It was a challenge for
thecaptains to get into the Skeena River and estu-ary. The one or
two deep channels shifted as theriver changed course over the
years. Captains of-ten had to “feel” their way, listening to sand
scrap-ing against the hull; in fog they could judge theirposition
using the whistle and listening for theecho: if they could hear the
echo in three sec-onds, they were a quarter mile off shore. We
chil-dren were severe critics of the landings: a goodcaptain could
ease his boat (we never used theterm “ship”—all were boats)
alongside the wharf;others got close, had lines thrown ashore,
andpulled the vessel in. We were scornful of this, buthigh winds,
swift tidal currents, and fog couldmake difficult conditions.
Additional hazards werefishing boats and nets drifting in the
river.
The boat usually arrived sometime on Friday.
She would broadcast approximate times of ar-rival at the half a
dozen canneries in the Skeenaarea. The tides affected the order of
docking. Aheavily loaded boat could manoeuvre into somedocks only
at high tide, and had to get into theestuary, go to several
canneries in turn, and getout again before the tide dropped too
much. Ifthe boat arrived at night after we had gone tobed, it was a
bitter disappointment. Otherwisewe were on the watch for hours. The
first indica-tion would be the sight of the Cardena roundingthe
point at the river bend. Then the Unionwhistle sounded—one long
blast, two shorts, andanother long—and she would come steaming
inand tie up. It seemed as if the whole town camedown to the wharf.
Any man who was handytook the lines and fastened them to cleats at
theedge of the wharf. It was interesting and excitingto watch the
freight loaded on pallet-boards hungfrom the booms, winched out of
the hold, andswung ashore. Boxes and barrels and bales of allkinds
were sorted at once into piles—some forthe cannery store and the
other stores, and oddsand ends for individuals. Then some freight
wouldbe loaded on board. In no time, the whistle wouldblow, the
gangplank be hoisted on board, the linescast off, and the boat
would slowly and majesti-cally turn and sweep on her way. It was
over foranother week.
One day Fredda’s father borrowed a rowboatand she and I went for
a row. We sat side by sideon the middle seat, one oar each. We had
bothrowed before and we soon got accustomed againto the rhythm. All
went well and we were enjoy-ing ourselves, so we got ambitious and
decidedto row out into the river and go in front of thecannery
wharf before turning to shore again. Thetide was falling and we
misjudged the strength ofthe flow. Rowing at our full strength we
couldn’tmake any headway for several minutes, and if werelaxed for
a moment we drifted quickly back-wards. To make matters worse, we
had acquired asmall but fascinated audience at the end of thewharf,
who shouted encouragement and laughedat us. At that, pride came to
our aid, and with theutmost effort we got ahead, turned towards
shoreand out of the force of the current, sheltered bythe wharf.
Cheers from the group of spectators.We could then relax and take
our time makingour way to shore, to tie up the boat. It was quitea
little adventure—we had mixed feelings: wewere proud, but a little
scared.
During my childhood, badminton was a popu-
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13BC HISTORICAL NEWS - SPRING 2003
lar adult game, played in the net loft of one of theJapanese
boathouses. Young men connected withthe cannery, nurses from the
hospital, and othersenjoyed playing in the evenings several times
aweek. Mum and Dad played quite often and wewent to watch, and to
take a turn playing whenthe grown-ups wanted a rest. In my early
teens,we discovered badminton lines painted on theupper floor of
the cannery, now no longer inoperation. Over them were skylights
and the raft-ers in the centre had been raised. We were de-lighted
to find this old forgotten court, and Dadagreed to move the fishing
nets stored there. Ourgroup of five or six friends now played
almostevery day; the game was especially welcome assomething we
could do rain or shine. The ceil-ing was low, and we had to develop
fast low servesand volleys, and a new rule: “If it hits the
rafters,take the shot over.” Visitors had a hard time ad-justing to
the low ceiling, but we found we werethe ones at a disadvantage in
a regular court—the long high shots away over our heads were
achallenge we weren’t used to.
Dominion Day, the first of July, was a big cel-ebration. The
“Indian band” played rousing tunesas they marched from the centre
of town alongthe main street to the BA Cannery store. Herethey had
a rest and were treated to soft drinks,then played and marched back
again. After thatthere were all sorts of races and contests for
allages, a baseball game against a visiting team, andlater a dance
in the community hall. During thenight we occasionally heard a late
reveller hap-pily singing his way home.
Fishing was a favourite pastime for fine days.Our equipment was
simple: we had a line, woundaround a stick to keep it from
tangling, with ahook on a short piece of line tied to the end, anda
lead weight. Bait was usually a small piece ofsalmon begged from
the cannery. We fished fromthe big rocks behind our house, or from
the can-nery wharf. We didn’t always have luck in ourfishing, but
caught something just often enoughto keep us interested. The common
catch waseither bullheads (small ugly fish with a big headand
horns, no use to us and always thrown backimmediately), flounders
(also thrown back untilwe found we could sell them to the Chinese
cookfor a nickel apiece), and Dolly Varden trout. Wedidn’t catch
the trout often, but they brought greatexcitement, and we took them
triumphantlyhome. We learned early to clean and prepare
themourselves, and then Mum coated them with
cornmeal and fried them in butter—they weredelicious.
Rainy days did not deter us. Dressed in rain-coats and rubber
boots, we roamed around thetown, with five or six other teen-aged
friends.Many days, at one home or another, we playedcard games for
hours, with fierce competitionand great gales of laughter. There
was always some-thing to see or do.
In the early 1940s, the BA fish camp and storewere closed, my
family moved away, and our con-nection with Essington came to an
end. Disastercame many years later. 1961 had been an excep-tionally
dry year. Bright June sunshine glintingoff a broken piece of mirror
set fire to one of thehouses. Strong winds whipped up the flames
anddrove sparks to kindle new fires all through thetown, fed by
stores of gasoline and ammunition,racing down the dry wooden
sidewalks. Most ofthe men were away fishing and the women werebusy
with children and chores. By the time helparrived, it was too late
to save the town. In thelate evening it was all over—only a few
isolatedhouses remained. The town could never recover.
A few years ago my brother Charlie hired aboat to go and see
what remained. Buildings andboardwalks were gone. The site of the
town wascovered with bush and young hemlock trees,perhaps thirty
feet tall. The whole impression wasof lush growth, which had
completely taken over.There were still rotting piles in the long
curvedbay that had once held four canneries, but nosign of wharfs
or buildings. Essington was gone,but not our thoughts and memories
of lifethere.�
Above: After the fires.What was left of PortEssington.
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BC HISTORICAL NEWS - VOL. 36 NO. 214
IN THE spring of 1790 the fur trader JohnMeares landed from an
East Indiaman at Port-smouth and hotfooted it to London. He hadan
urgent mission to fulfil. Far on the other sideof the world a
Spanish naval officer had seizedfour of his ships. Notified in
Macau of this out-rage, he was determined to seek redress from
theBritish government. He had powerful friends.Through Richard
Cadman Etches he was soonpresenting his memorial to the British
House ofCommons. The then prime minister, William Pittthe younger,
in need of a campaign platform,called out the British fleet, and,
in what becameknown as the Spanish Armament, cowed theSpanish
government into submission.
Among the claims Meares made was that hehad been dispossessed of
some land and build-ings at Friendly Cove in Nootka Sound,
aMowachaht village now known as Yuquot. Mearesclaimed not only that
he had been deprived ofthis property, but also of two other pieces
of land,one at Tofino and the other at Neah Bay, on thesouth side
of the entrance to the Strait of Juan deFuca. He demanded
restitution.
Thus was concocted the Nootka Convention,signed in Madrid in
October of that year. In thisSpain agreed to restore to Britain the
buildingsand land so precipitously seized in l789.
But what was this land, and what were thebuildings? Nobody
really had time to check.Captain George Vancouver was dispatched
fromEngland to find out and take possession. AndSpain for its part
sent its commandant at San Blas,Juan Francisco de la Bodega y
Quadra, to makerestitution.
All this took time and it was not until the sum-mer of 1792 that
events started to unfold. Bodegay Quadra arrived early and had
plenty of time tosettle in and make himself comfortable
beforeturning his inquiries to the land claim. By thetime Vancouver
arrived he had uncovered suffi-cient information to present
Vancouver with someunpleasant evidence. To the best of his
determi-nation, Bodega y Quadra could find no recordof a land
purchase, and what building had beenerected was quickly demolished.
Chief Maquinnaemphatically denied ever having sold Meares any
land. Bodega had also the testimony of Vianna, aPortuguese
merchant and of two American furtraders, John Ingraham and Robert
Gray, whohad been present at the time.
Vancouver, only just arrived, had no counter,and contented
himself with affirming that he wasonly here to accept from Spain
whatever landMeares had acquired. In vain Bodega y Quadraargued
that Maquinna had never sold anythingto Meares. After a lengthy
exchange of letters thetwo agreed to refer the matter back to their
re-spective governments. Bodega y Quadra departed,and Vancouver
made ready to leave.
Just as he was about to do so, there arrived inthe bay a
Portuguese trader, the Felice Aventureyra,on board of which, as
supercargo, was a certainRobert Duffin, who had been with Meares
in1788 and also the mate on one of Meares’s shipsseized in 1789.
Duffin told Vancouver a very dif-ferent story.
He averred that Meares had bought the wholeof the land that
forms Friendly Cove for eight orten sheets of copper, and that the
building erectedthere was a substantial one, consisting of
threebedchambers, a mess room for the officers andproper quarters
for the men. The building wasraised some five feet above the
ground, the un-derpart serving as a warehouse and workshop.There
were also several outhouses and shops, andthe buildings had been in
good repair when theyleft. This building had been designed to
housethe workforce required to build the NorthwestAmerica, a small
schooner that Meares intendedto use locally.
Duffin made a sworn statement to this effect,but Vancouver
apparently made no attempt tonotify Bodega y Quadra of this new,
important,and conflicting bit of information. Had he doneso the
outcome of the Nootka Settlement mightwell have been very
different.
Both Vancouver and the British Governmentpooh-poohed Bodega y
Quadra’s evidence, say-ing it came from unreliable Native,
Portuguese,and American sources, and seized on Duffin’s evi-dence
as being far more trustworthy. But werethey correct? Spain never
had any opportunityto dispute Duffin’s claims. Bodega y Quadra
was
John Mearesby John Crosse
Marine Historian JohnCrosse presented thispaper at the
NorthwestCoast Fur TradeSymposium at FortLangley in August
2002.
Opposite page: JohnMeares. Detail of anengraving by C.
Bestland.
BC’s Most Successful Real Estate Agent?
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15BC HISTORICAL NEWS - SPRING 2003
never notified of Duffin’s last minute additions, and therefore
had no op-portunity to verify his statement. Bodega y Quadra, far
out of reach on theother side of the world, was left ignorant of
the new evidence being pre-sented by the British ambassador in
Madrid. Had he known, Bodega yQuadra would have been able to
counter Duffin’s assertions, for Duffinwas not quite such a
reliable witness as Vancouver had assumed.
Duffin, as I have said, had been First Mate of Colnett’s
Argonaut whenshe first arrived off Friendly Cove in 1789. Martinez
had lured the Argonautinto port, but Colnett, smelling a rat, had
given orders for Duffin to anchor.But Duffin did not do so, with
the result that both ship and crew werearrested. Martinez claimed
that under the Papal Bull of 1493 Spain hadexclusive right to all
territories of the Pacific. Colnett, Duffin and theArgonaut and her
crew were taken as prisoners to Mexico and only releasedafter
nearly a year. Colnett blamed Duffin for all his misfortunes and
neverafterwards had any use for the man. He refused to take him
aboard againwhen he regained possession of his ship, and Duffin was
left to find his ownway back to Macau via Acapulco and the Manila
Galleon to the Philip-pines, fortuitously reappearing at Nootka at
just the right moment, un-doubtedly well primed by Meares
beforehand.
Bodega y Quadra would certainly have known of Duffin’s
deficiencies,as they were readily apparent in his relationship with
Colnett while at SanBlas. Had he also known of Duffin’s sworn
deposition to Vancouver, hemost certainly would have forwarded his
own appraisal of Duffin’s charac-ter to his government in
Madrid.
In point of fact, all Duffin’s tale jibes ill with his boss’s
own descriptionof Friendly Cove, written in Meares’s account of his
voyages, published inNovember of 1790, i.e. only weeks after the
Nootka Agreement was signed.Ample time indeed for any minister of
state to read not only Meares’s verydifferent account from his
memorial, but also before Vancouver could re-port back with
Duffin’s wild tale more than two years later.
In his book Meares never says that he purchased any land from
Maquinna,let alone the whole cove. Only that he was granted a spot
of ground onwhich to build a house. This was in exchange for two
pistols—somewhatdifferent from Duffin’s 8 or 10 sheets of copper,
and very different fromDuffin’s “whole cove.” Duffin said Maquinna
wanted to move his peopleaway and leave Meares’s shipwrights to
build the little craft in peace. ButMeares specifically stated that
he hired Indians to fell the timber and cutthe planks and that he
paid them to do so. Maquinna must certainly haveagreed to this.
Meares’s description of his building is also different from
Duffin’s. Whilethe ground floor is similar, his upper floor had
only space for eating andchambers for the craftsmen. A breastwork
to protect the site, with a cannonfor defence, surrounded the
whole.
Ingraham and Gray’s evidence to Bodega y Quadra was that when
Mearesdeparted at the end of the 1788 season, the cedar planks of
the house wereloaded aboard one of Meares’s ships and the roof
given to the AmericanJohn Kendrick for firewood.
George Vancouver could not permit himself the indignity of
acceptingjust the tiny triangle of beach that was all that Bodega y
Quadra wouldoffer him. But Spain was in no position to bargain.
After a third round ofnegotiations the British flag was finally
hoisted over Nootka in 1795. Thuswe are here today.�
BIBLIOGRAPHYHoway, F.W. (ed.), The Journal of Capt James
Colnett
aboard the Argonaut, 1789-91, The Champlain So-ciety, Toronto,
1940. Facsimile edition, Green-wood Press, New York, 1968.
Ingram, Joseph, Joseph Ingraham’s Journal of the Brigan-tine
Hope…, 1790-92, Imprint Society, Barre,Massachusetts, 1791. (For
Robert Gray & JosephIngraham’s letter to Bodega y Quadra, 3
Augustl792, see pages 217 –222).
Lamb, W. Kaye (ed.), George Vancouver, A Voyage ofDiscovery …,
1791 – 1795, Hakluyt Society, Lon-don 1984. (Page 679 – Robert
Duffin’s sworntestimony; on pp. 107-109 – Grenville,
Dundas,Stephens correspondence 1793).
Manning, W.R., The Nootka Sound Controversy,American Historical
Association Annual Report 1904(1905): 279-478.
Martinez, Estevan, “Diary of 1789 Voyage toNootka,” translated
by William L. Schurz, unpub-lished typescript, Bancroft Library
(Two copiesexist of this document in BC Archives and UBCSpecial
Collections.
Meares, John, Voyages…, 1788-1789, Lographic Press,London 1790,
Israel/Da Capo reprint 1968.
Mears (sic), John, Authentic Copy of the Memorial toW.W.
Granville …, J. Debrett, London 1790, YeGalleon Press reprint
1986.
Norris, John, “The Policy of the British Cabinet inthe Nootka
Crisis,” English Historical Review, LXX,1955,pages 562-580.
Palau, Mercedes (ed.), Nutka 1792: Viaje a la CostaNoroeste de
la América Septentrional por Juan Fran-cisco de la Bodega y Quadra
… Año de 1792,Ministerio de Asuntos Exteriores de España, Ma-drid,
1998.
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BC HISTORICAL NEWS - VOL. 36 NO. 216
VAUDEVILLE was already dying whenOrpheum Circuit, based in New
YorkCity, opened the New Orpheum Thea-tre in Vancouver on 7
November 1927. The forty-year-old circuit controlled more than
fifty thea-tres across Canada and the United States, and hun-dreds,
even thousands, of vaudeville performers.But now movies had begun
to share the bill withthe singers, jugglers, magicians, acrobats,
and com-ics that had made vaudeville so popular in bothcountries
for more than fifty years. The advent ofsound in film, which had
been around for a fewmonths but first caught the public’s
imaginationin 1927—the same year the Orpheum openedwith Al Jolson’s
feature “The Jazz Singer”—,pounded another nail into vaudeville’s
coffin.
Vancouver’s New Orpheum, like thousands oftheatres around the
world, began a transition to“photoplays,” and by the mid-thirties
was virtu-ally vaudeville-free.1 The form hung on for a fewyears
more: on 8 November 1935 a stage show atthe Orpheum, a Major Bowes
Radio Amateursproduction, featured a group called “TheHoboken
Four,” one of whose members was a19-year-old Frank Sinatra.
The Orpheum Circuit, like its counterpart thePantages Circuit,
was known for the lavish styleof its theatres, but tickets into
these palaces ofshowbiz were cheap: some 1,800 of the
theatre’s3,000 seats were available to adults for 50 centsfor
evening admission, or you could reserve oneof the remaining 1,200
seats for 80 cents. Andfor your 50 cents—or 25 cents in the
afternoon—you got a movie and eight or nine vaudevilleperformances,
some with very large casts. Chil-dren’s tickets were cheaper
still.
Wages in 1927 were low, it’s true, but, to pickone example, the
“lathmill men” who were soughtin one advertisement for 40 cents an
hour “andbetter” that year could have attended an after-noon show
in the new theatre for the equivalentof 38 minutes’ work.
The Orpheum was the biggest theatre inCanada when it opened. It
was also one of themore opulent: paintings and hangings
adornedevery wall; imported chandeliers dazzled the
A Palace of EntertainmentVancouver’s Orpheum Turns 57by Chuck
Davis
crowds below. Ladies had their own lavish lounges,with
attendants, while men lolled about in smartlyoutfitted smoking
rooms.
Benjamin Marcus Priteca, the man who de-signed the theatre, was
born in Glasgow, Scot-land, on 23 December 1889. He took
architec-tural training in Edinburgh—beginning as anapprentice at
age 14 and earning the degree of“Master Architect” by age 20—and
received atravelling scholarship to study architectural formsin the
United States. He decided to stay there.By July 1909 he had settled
in Seattle, where heimmediately went to work as a draftsman
witharchitect E.W. Houghton. (Priteca’s drawings aresuperb.) Then,
in 1911, the 21-year-old Pritecamet Alexander Pantages, a Seattle
resident andtheatre owner. The young architect was deliver-ing some
illustrations he had made to a local ar-chitectural firm and met
Pantages there. Pantageswas fuming over a theatre design he
consideredto be inadequate, and that led to a discussion oftheatre
design with Priteca.
Pantages was impressed by the superior qual-ity of Priteca’s
drawings, and the stocky littleentrepreneur commissioned the young
architectto design his next theatre, the San FranciscoPantages. The
site presented challenges, but Pritecaovercame them, and the
theatre opened in De-cember 1911. Pantages was so pleased with
theresults he commissioned Priteca—now all of 22—to design all his
theatres from that time on.2 ButPantages wasn’t the only source for
Priteca’s thea-tre work. During his career he worked for
fourdifferent theatre chain clients, and designed morethan 150—some
say 200—theatres, includingVancouver’s Orpheum. When Priteca
designedthe Orpheum he had been engaged in similarwork for more
than fifteen years.3
Priteca referred to the elaborate style of Van-couver’s Orpheum
and other theatres as “con-servative Spanish Renaissance.” But he
borrowedfrom a dozen different places: the ornate ceilingof the
Orpheum lobby, for example, is appar-ently based on one he saw and
admired in India.The organ screens are Moorish North African;the
ceiling arches in the auditorium are Gothic;
1 By 1928 there were fourtheatres left in theUnited States
presentinglive variety only.
2 Oddly, Priteca venturedinto other design areas,too: he
designed a bodyfor the Locomobile car,and crafted a raked grilland
windshield for thePaige, forerunner of
theGraham-Paigeautomobile.)
3 In fact, Priteca had beenin Vancouver before. Thenow vanished
secondPantages Theatre onHastings Street wasPriteca’s first
ventureinto Vancouver. That1,800-seat theatre, whichopened 17 June
1917,was later called theMajestic, then theBeacon, and finally
theOdeon Hastings.Architectural writerMiriam Sutermeister saysit
“was considered at thetime to be the mostrichly embellished
andefficient theater of thePantages chain.” Itsdemolition in
1967outraged Vancouverites.The architect of theearlier 1907
Pantages,also on Hastings Street,which is still there andbeing
restored, wasEdward EvansBlackmore.
Chuck Davis has beenwriting on GreaterVancouver historicalevents
for 30 years. Heis the author of morethan a dozen books.
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17BC HISTORICAL NEWS - SPRING 2003
the ceiling itself and its dome and the chande-liers are
Baroque, and the wall coverings imitatethose of nineteenth-century
France.
The man who designed his theatres to bothdazzle and welcome was
not lavish with his cli-ents’ money. “When Mr. Pantages asked me
todesign him a theater,” Priteca once said, “he toldme that any
darn fool could design a million-dollar theater for a million
dollars, but that it tooka smart man to design a theater that looks
like amillion dollar theater and cost half that much.”
We know, thanks to the 5 December 1926 is-sue of the Journal of
Commerce, that Priteca was inVancouver on 3 December, with his
associatearchitect F.J. Peters and an Orpheum vice presi-dent, to
look at bids made by local constructionfirms. The winning bid was
put forth by North-ern Construction Co. Ltd. and J.W. Stewart,
theoldest construction firm in the city. We have alsolearned that
because the bids were so much higherthan had been anticipated for
that aspect of thework that Priteca and his associates decided
toscale back some of the more elaborate featureshe had planned.
The 1927 cost of the Orpheum is difficult topin down. I’ve seen
figures ranging from $500,000to $1.25 million. The man who put up
the money
was a German-born Vancouver entrepreneurnamed Joseph Langer.
Information on Langer isalso difficult to find. There’s nothing on
him inthe City of Vancouver Archives, nothing in theSpecial
Collections Division of the VancouverPublic Library, precious
little elsewhere. We knowhe came to Vancouver in the 1920s and
built sev-eral suburban theatres—the Victoria Road Thea-tre, the
Kitsilano, the Windsor, the Alma, and theKerrisdale, then sold them
to raise the money tobuild the Orpheum. The Orpheum Circuit, inits
usual practice, leased the theatre from its owner.Most of what we
know about Langer comes froma solid little booklet on the Orpheum’s
historywritten by Doug McCallum (not the mayor ofSurrey) and
published in 1986. Langer was, ap-parently, rather flamboyant and
liked being takenaround the city in a maroon limousine driven bya
chauffeur in maroon livery.
The magic of what Priteca created for thea-tre-goers in the
Orpheum was captured poign-antly in a Denny Boyd tribute to
long-timeOrpheum manager Ivan Ackery.4 In that columnBoyd paid
simultaneous tribute to the buildingover which Ackery had presided
for so many years.Boyd begins, with a comparison that would
havemightily pleased the architect, by remembering
4 Published in the Sun, 31October 1985, the dayafter Ackery
died.
Chuck Davis’s book TheOrpheum: A Palace ofEntertainment will be
apicture-rich history ofthe theatre, along withmany stories
con-nected with its 75years of actvity.The book will appearlater
this year.
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BC HISTORICAL NEWS - VOL. 36 NO. 218
his first view of India’s Taj Mahal and writes:I think the only
other time I felt such a ham-mer blow of awe, was when I was seven
and Iapproached the box office of the OrpheumTheatre for the first
time with a King GeorgeV dime in my sweaty little fist. If you grew
upin Vancouver through the mean, bleak ‘30s,movies were the common
escape and a dimewas the key. If you lived in a 2 ½-room flat,your
family on relief, that dime took you upthe lushly carpeted stairway
of the massiveOrpheum foyer into the world of imaginationwhere
animals spoke, Tarzan roared, childrensquealed with laughter and
bad guys alwaysgot it before the closing credits.... The
rose-redcarpeting led to the dramatic split stairway tothe upper
foyer, light cascading down from thechandeliers and the wall
sconces. There werebalustrades and ornate arches, pillars and
col-onnades, coffered and domed ceilings....
During the Great Depression, with soundmovies and radio adding
to its grief, the movieindustry had to redouble its efforts to fill
its hugetheatres. The Orpheum, like many theatres inNorth America,
was kept open by cutting staff,reducing ticket prices and bringing
in doublefeatures. It even closed its doors for a time in1931.
Then in 1935 the Orpheum got a new man-ager who gave it new
life. His name was IvanAckery. He was born “Ivor,” but said so
manypeople called him “Ivan” that he decided to goalong with them.
Movie theatre managers in the1930s were more than just
administrators. Theyfrequently chose the films they would show,
theywere expected to promote them—and, boy, didAckery promote
them—, and they devised spe-cial attractions to make their theatres
stand outand bring customers in. Ackery was so good atall of this,
and he was good for so long (35 years),that it’s fair to say he is
the single most influentialperson in the Orpheum’s history.
Bristol-born Ackery had his first taste of showbusiness 7 May
1921 as an usher in Calgary’sbrand-new Capitol Theatre. The Capitol
was onthe Pantages Circuit, and was, like the others, anelaborately
decorated and opulent show house.“The manager,” Ackery recalled in
his autobiog-raphy Fifty Years on Theatre Row, “wore a tuxedoand
the assistant manager a frock-tail coat; thecloakroom attendant
wore a white uniform asdid the matron of the ladies’ rest room.
Every-thing was spotless.”
The young Ivor was already beginning to be
influenced by the elements that would mark his later career:
spectacularevents, lavish surroundings, elegantly attired staff,
and personal attention.He had found his niche.
By 1923 he was the head usher at the Capitol Theatre in
Vancouver. Fiveyears later Famous Players bought several theatres
in Vancouver and Ackerywas made manager of one of them. “All the
big shots’ sons were promotedto the management of these new
theatres we owned,” he wrote in hisautobiography, “and I was the
only ‘little’ fellow promoted from the ranks.I had been made
doorman at the Capitol earlier in the year, but now was tomanage
the newly-acquired Victoria Road Theatre at Victoria and 43rd ata
salary of something in the neighborhood of $25 a week.” In 1930 he
waspromoted to be the manager of a more prestigious theatre, the
Dominionon Granville Street.
From the very beginning of his career as a theatre manager,
Ackeryshowed a flair—no, a genius—for promotion. When his theatre
was brokeninto and robbed one night, he dragged the little safe
that had held the
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19BC HISTORICAL NEWS - SPRING 2003
receipts onto the sidewalk, its door sagging open,and propped a
sign against it plugging the thea-tre’s current movie, a crime
picture.
By 1924 he was manager of the Strand, one ofthe city’s
showcases. “It was a grand theatre, thethird largest in the city,
and I was extremelyproud.” The first thing he did as manager of
theStrand was to get Scott’s Cafe to bake a hugecake, a gigantic
confection that stood as tall as aman, to celebrate the theatre’s
fourteenth birth-day. Every patron was given a slice of cake
dur-ing “Birthday Week.” The famed Fanchon andMarco shows, huge and
elaborate productionsfamous in their time, were brought in and
LilyLaverock booked the Ballet Russe de MonteCarlo into the
theatre.
Ivan was edging into the Big Time. And in1935 he stepped into
it. In the summer of thatyear he was informed he was to become
man-ager of the Orpheum Theatre. “It was such a thrillfor me, and I
can remember how excited mymother got.” His mom’s excitement was
justi-fied: the Orpheum was the largest theatre inCanada, and her
son was now running it. “I recallhow tickled I was because I’d be
getting a $10 aweek raise!”
Famous Players was getting a lot for that extraten bucks a week.
“At the Strand,” Ivan recalled,“I’d had to fill 1,600 seats and
deal with a staff ofabout 25. At the Orpheum I was looking at
al-most twice that number of seats and much morestaff, and I had
two important obstacles to over-come—the Depression and the
Competition.”
For the next 35 years Ivan Ackery was to provethat nothing could
dampen his promotional fer-vour and his love of the Orpheum
Theatre. Hewas the first Canadian to win the Quigley Award,given
annually to the North American theatremanager who did the most for
his theatre’s pro-motion. In one famous instance (of dozens)
heparaded a cow down Granville Street with a bigsign on its flanks,
marked with an arrow pointingto the cow’s udder. “There’s a great
show at theOrpheum Theatre,” the sign read, “and That’s
NoBull!”
In 1969 Famous Players, now controlled byGulf & Western
Industries, a United States cor-poration, introduced a policy of
compulsory re-tirement at 65. Ivan had turned 65 five years
ear-lier, on 30 October 1964.
Overnight, he was out. After 48 years in thebusiness, and an
unparalleled record in gettingcrowds into theatres, he was gone.
“For me,” he
reflected eleven years later, “it came as a sorryand sudden end
to the career I’d devoted my lifeto and expected to carry on in
until old age andill health rendered me incapable.... There’s no
jus-tice and little sense in putting a healthy, experi-enced
individual to pasture just because he’s hada birthday.... Still,
the company had been won-derfully good to me, and I was always
proud tobe associated with it and with the fine men Iworked with
over the years, who gave me so muchencouragement.” His last day was
28 December1969, two months past his 70th birthday. He diedat St.
Paul’s Hospital 30 October 1989, the daybefore his 90th
birthday.
He was still around, however, to take part inthe mid-1970s
campaign to save the Orpheum.5
Famous Players had announced that it intendedto either sell the
Orpheum or gut it and install amultiplex cinema as they had done
earlier withthe Capitol. By December 1973 Famous Playershad granted
the City an option to buy theOrpheum for $3.9 million. In return,
the Citywould give the company permission to redevelop(i.e.,
convert to a multiplex) the Capitol. The es-timated cost of
renovation of the Orpheum afterpurchase was $2 million.
A number of people, including RhonnaFleming of the Community
Arts Council, im-presario Hugh Pickett (who had, at 14, been atthe
very first show held at the Orpheum 7 No-vember 1927), and
Vancouver’s mayor Art Phillipswere involved in the campaign to
raise funds tobuy the theatre as a home for the Vancouver Sym-phony
Orchestra.
The VSO, which had often appeared at theOrpheum, was ensconced
in the Queen Eliza-beth Theatre, but had never been happy with
theacoustics there. “The worst seat in the Orpheum,”said one
musician, “is better than the best seat inthe QET [Queen Elizabeth
Theatre], acousticallyspeaking.”
Tours of the theatre were organized, lotterieswere held, and
benefit performances featurednotables such as Jack Benny and Buddy
Rogers.Most events were well attended, and $432,000was raised. The
campaign was successful, withfunds from the federal and provincial
govern-ments, the City of Vancouver, and private andcorporate
donors combining to buy the theatrefrom Famous Players.
The Orpheum remained closed for a year-and-a-half while
Thompson, Berwick, Pratt directedthe renovations. Architects Ron
Nelson and Paul
5 Priteca died at 81 inSeattle 1 October 1971,too soon to see
that oneof his greatest creations,Vancouver’s OrpheumTheatre,
would—unlikemany other of hiscreations—survive andthrive.
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BC HISTORICAL NEWS - VOL. 36 NO. 220
Merrick were in charge of the rehabilitation. Rec-ommendations
were made to extend the stageover the orchestra pit (which resulted
in the re-moval nearest the stage of more than 100 seats),remove
the proscenium arch and install a perma-nent orchestra shell.
Backstage, the stage loft (fromwhich backdrops could be lowered for
shows)was to be abandoned in favour of two additionalfloors for
rehearsal areas, dressing rooms, a loungeand a library. “It was
assumed,” said a study at thetime, “that shows requiring a large
stage, a stageloft or an orchestra pit could be accommodatedat the
QET.”
After half a century, the Grand Old Lady ofGranville Street
needed a lot of repairs. Therewas broken plaster to recast, gold
leaf to be re-newed, carpet to be replaced, lobbies and otherpublic
spaces to be repainted. The absorbentacoustic material that had
been installed for mov-ies was taken out, unsuitable for a concert
hall.New acoustic panels were installed over the stageto better
reflect the sound of the orchestra.6 Oneof the most delightful
stories associated with theredecoration of the theatre concerns an
artistnamed Tony Heinsbergen, who was an associateof the original
architect, Marcus Priteca. PaulMerrick had gone to Seattle to get
more infor-mation on the late Mr. Priteca, and discovered tohis
delight that Tony Heinsbergen, now in his
eighties, was still active as an artist in Los Ange-les. Merrick
went to Los Angeles and askedHeinsbergen to get involved in the
Orpheum’srehabilitation. He did. The next time you’re inthis
beautifully appointed palace of entertainmentlook up to the huge
mural surrounding the cen-tral chandelier. That’s Tony
Heinsbergen’s work.7
The first performance of the VSO in the newlyshaped Orpheum was
Saturday, 2 April 1977.8
But the orchestra is not the only user of the reno-vated
theatre. It’s busy more than 200 nights ayear with special events,
comics, speakers, andmore. The Vancouver Bach Choir, the
VancouverChamber Choir, and the Vancouver Cantata Sing-ers all make
their home there. And, in one of themore interesting of its
features, the theatre is alsothe site of the BC Entertainment Hall
of Fame.Photos of more than a hundred artists, impresa-rios,
management and the like are on display inthe StarWall, counterparts
of the stars in thesidewalks out on Granville Street, the
famousStarWalk.
Free tours of this gorgeous building are givenregularly. After
57 years the Orpheum is still busy,still beautiful and—most
important—stillhere.�
6 It had been discoveredthat in some areas of thetheatre,
particularlyunder the balcony,certain instrumentscouldn’t be
heard.Someone sitting heremight not hear the piano,while someone
overthere couldn’t hear thecellos.
7 That mural was painted,panel by panel, by TonyHeinsbergen in
his LosAngeles studio. Then thepanels were shipped toVancouver and
pastedonto the ceiling. Theorchestra conductorshown in the mural
isarchitect Ron Nelson;the little cherubs inanother corner are
PaulMerrick’s children (nowall in their 30s); and thetiger in the
mural is anaffectionate nod toHeinsbergen’s wife,whom he called
his“little tiger.” TheOrpheum’s largestchandelier, suspendedfrom
the auditoriumdome, is a dazzlingmasterwork importedfrom
Czechoslovakia forthe theatre’s opening. Alocal hotel
recentlyoffered $65,000 for it,but was turned down.
8 The orchestra appears tohave missed theopportunity April
2002to mark its 25thanniversary at theOrpheum.
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TO read the records of the Royal Com-mission on the British
Columbia Tree-Fruit Industry one must wade throughtwenty-two boxes
and literally hundreds of filesat the British Columbia Archives in
Victoria. Thesubject matter ranges from the mundane to thevery
useful, yet, it is the files that deal specifi-cally with the
upstart Canadian Fruit Growers’Association (CFGA), and its
un-elected leader,Alfred Beich, that are the most interesting. It
ishere that one is presented with some very can-did views from a
significant cross-section ofgrowers in which personalities come to
play asgreat a role as competing philosophies concern-ing
co-operative marketing. It is the transcriptsof these meetings, at
one time confidential, thatform the basis of this article and shed
light on aper iod of great soul searching within theOkanagan fruit
industry.
For Okanagan fruit growers, the first threedecades of the
twentieth century had been char-acterized by economic turmoil,
crises of pro-duction, and the paramountcy of the individualover
the collective health of the industry. Thedynamics of this
situation inevitably proved tobe both socially and financially
harmful, as wellas unsustainable over the long run. With the
wan-ing effectiveness of yet another marketingagency—Associated
Growers1—in 1925-1926,growers found themselves forced to seek
mar-ket stability in the form of provincial legisla-tion. It was
believed that only legislation couldensure fairer treatment as a
“single desk” and“orderly marketing” would check unnecessaryand
cutthroat competition amongst local grow-ers, while directing the
flow of produce to mar-kets in quantities that would avoid
unnecessarygluts.2 Only in 1939, after a decade of courtchallenges,
was BC Tree Fruits (BCTF) desig-nated as the sole selling agent for
the Okanaganfruit industry. Although BC Tree Fruits’ author-ity was
derived from the Tree Fruit MarketingScheme, an agreement
negotiated under theNatural Products Marketing Act, the reality
wasthat BC Tree Fruits was administered as a branchof the British
Columbia Fruit Growers’ Asso-
ciation (BCFGA). It was, after all, BCFGA mem-bers who