11B_RobertAkerman_2.mp3

otter.ai

18.01.2023

yes, 11.03.2024

Molly Akerman

Margaret Simons 0:00
This is April the 28th, 1977. And we're in Fulford visiting Bob Akeman. Bob's Family has quite a history in this area. In fact, how far back does your family history go Bob?

Bob Akerman 0:17
Well, my family history would go back a good many years. My grandmother, Gyves was the daughter of the chief of the Cowichan Indians. She was born about 1840 and she she married my grandfather Gyves who came here in ab out 1860. My grandfather Gyves was an officer in the American army. And his last duties were being with the [indiscernible] and his men when they were stationed on San Juan Islands, the time of the dispute over the line and something to do with the Pig War too and he was discharged from American army. While he was in the army, he used to get a canoe and just roam around the Gulf Islands on his time off and he found Fulford harbour and thought it was very nice. So, when he got a discharge from the American army, he went to the Victoria to see if he could find some land on Saltspring. So Douglas told him that he could come anywhere at all on Saltspring any given land for $1 an acre.

MS 2:17
Would that be around 1850? 1860?

BA 2:21
That would be 1860, early sixties.

MS 2:31
So he would be among the first settlers?

BA 2:34
Yes, he would be one tof the first. He looked over Fulford and found the creek, the little creek that's still going through the valley and he wandered up there and he found this big cedar forest. That used to be in the valley and he thought that's the place that he liked, with these big cedar trees. Because he used to cut shakes. And so he picked up this piece of land about 100 acres and he started in the shake business. He split shakes, and he got a large canoe and he used to carry them from his farm down to the bay and paddle them into round Victoria for selling. And he’d sell them to the to the village in those days in Victoria to build their their houses.

Ms 3:46
Where would that property be today?

BA 3:49
Well, that is the the Gyves property. It's right about the center of the valley. Gyves and the Brentons. The Gyves had Michael, who was one of the sons. He got half the farm and Mrs. Brenton sister got the other half of the farm so they're still there. The Mr. And Mrs. Gyves and Mrs. Brenton are still on the old place.

MS 4:15
Mrs. Brenton and Mrs.Gyves would be your aunts?

BA 4:20
Mrs. Brenton is my aunt. Yes, Mrs. Gyves was the wife of my uncle.

MS 4:35
You mentioned your grandmother, was she born on Vancouver Island?

BA 4:43
She was born at Cowichan Bay. That is where her father and grandfather and so on, that was their main camp.

MS 5:02
She was an Indian?

BA 5:05
She was the daughter of the chief of the Cowichans, yes. In those days, they were all hereditary chiefs. They weren't elected in those days. They just took him from the Father to the Son all the way down, and they remain chiefs. So her people were Chiefs all the way back.

MSr 5:25
So you'd really be able to trace your family history on your mother's side quite far.

BA 5:29
All the way back. Yes. My grandmother used to tell me a lot of stories about the early days, raiding parties that used to come down from the north and raid the different villages here in the south. The main object was to capture some of the younger people to bring them back and they would bring them into their own tribes and strengthen their own tribes. Maybe the people thought of them as slaves, they weren't actually slaves. They were treated very well, according to my grandmother.The younger people that were captured and brought back to the different tribes were treated very well and were brought up just like their own children.

BA 6:42
I remember my grandmother telling me one time about when her her father, no, her grandfather was away on a fishing party over to the Fraser River. Used to run the Fraser river and get salmon and dry them for the winter time. And they were away in the North Indians came down and... MS 7:17 What tribe?

BA 7:21
The Haidis, from the Queen Charlotte's. They landed, they came in early in the morning just at daybreak. They captured a lot of the younger boys and girls and they took them back north again. And when my great grandfather got back, he thought that he'd have to go back and get them. So he went around to the Saanich Indians, who had their main camp inSaanich. He went to the Songhees in Victoria and Lummi Island, and he gathered several of the tribes together and they were going to make a raiding party and see if they could get some other young people back again. So this took time because in those days, they had lots of time, and they were gone all going to meet and Cowichan Bay at a certain time. And the journey had a Potlatch and few dances before they left.

BA 9:00
They were pretty well all together at Cowichan Bay, getting ready to go north and some scouts they had ahead, the journey sent scouts ahead to see if there's any danger on the way. They came back and said there's a raiding party of Haidi's at Maple Bay. And they watched them for a while. There were camps up the Cowichan river towards Duncan, and they use these poles for pulling their way up the the river is too too shallow at that time to paddle. So they're cutting these poles so they can pull everybody way up. And so the reported to my great grandfather and he got everybody together and says we’ll raid them tonight before they have a chance to raid us. So that night they got all ready, according to my grandmother, they waited until daylight in the morning because everybody was pretty sleepy. So, at daylight they went around and they raided the Haidi's who were on the beach of Maple Bay. And this sounds kind of bad but I think there was only one Haidi left after they had their battle. And he escaped but later on he was caught I think at Comox according to my grandmother he was caught at Comox. But anyway, they got the Haidi canoes and brought them back to Cowichan and then thought “well we might as well go, now we pretty well had our revenge but we haven't got our children back. So we might as well go away already”.

BA 11:37
So they started out and they use the Haidi canoes. They left most of their own home and they took the Haidi canoes because they were maybe better canoes. And they took them and they paddled up the coast. And I don’t know how long it takes them, it takes them quite a while. And they knew the village that these Haidi's were from and it's one of the main villages on the Queen Charlotte's. They had to figure it out so they'd get in there just in the evening at dark, just at dark. And so they went into the village and they had two men that were former that they'd captured a few years back from the Queen Charlotte's, and they knew the the Haidi's victory song, they could sing it and they had them up in the front of the canoes as they went in this night. And up on the bow the main canoes, the front ones, and they were singing the the Haidi victory song. So when the people in the village heard them, they were thinking that their people were coming back. They could see the outline of the canoes. They were Haidi canoes. So they all came down to the beach and when they got in there just at dark the all the canoes come up on a beach and they were all Cowichans. So they just surrounded the whole village. They had the whole village there. So they found as many of their sons and daughters that the Haidi’s had previously captured. It was a quite a reunion I guess when they got together with their fathers.

BA 14:06
They also captured a good number of the younger Haidi's and they brought them back down again to the Cowichan reserve, not the reserve, there was no reserve in those days, that was their own land in those days. And they were really satisfied that, you know, they got all their young people back again. We also got a quite a good number of the Haidi's, the young people back from the Haidi village. These young people grew up in the Cowichan , with the Cowichans, you see and when Douglas came in, the governor, he ordered any tribe that had any slaves that they would have to go back to their own own tribe. And these people, the all of the young people that my grandmother's people captured wouldn't go back.

MS 15:32
Really? They liked the way of the Cowichans?

BA 15:35
And that seemed to be the last of the main battles that they had with the with the Haidi's, that’s it, they just didn't come down again. They did have a little skrimage in Ganges, but that was more or less a few of the Haidi's coming down to trade with the whites in Victoria. It wasn't organized battle like this one that...

MS 16:02
Well, now were there Indians living on Saltspring Island?

BA 16:07
The Saanich Indians owned, before the white man came, the Saanich Indians owned Fulford Harbour. My grandmother's people owned half the valley and Burgoyne, and that would be the Cowichans and they had the camps there. My grandmother and her father had a camp at Burgoyne bay or out of the bay. They had their camp there.

MS 6:49
Well when you say camp do you mean they would be here for part?

BA 16:53
Well, it was here yes. They came for hunting and fishing. There was a creek there at Burgoyne where the salmon used to go up.

MS 17:00
And so they would just come over from Cowichan at certain times a year?

BA 17:05
Yes, dig clams and dry them for the wintertime. And get the salmon and they used to sun dry it and keep all winter and then they go back to Cowichan for the winter, that's their main camp. That's where they had their buildings, the main buildings in Cowichan bay.

MS 17:33
Now in Fulford harbour itself, there was an Indian Summer Camp too?

BA 17:43
In fulford the Saanich Indians had more of a permanent camp at Fulford. They stayed there pretty well all winter, all year. All year they stayed there.

MS 17:59
Indication seems to be that there was a burial there. I remember when they were putting in the dock a couple of years ago, they did find quite a few bones.

BA 18:09
Right. Yes, yes. It looks to me like there was a permanent camp there because you do find a lot of artifacts there along the beach, where they've been washed out of the beach. And a lot of them are very good ones.

MS 18:27
You've got quite a collection yourself.

BA 18:29
I have about 1000 pieces of authentic artifacts. And my grandmother used to tell me about walking down the creek to visit the Saanich Indians when they lived at Fulford, that is before the white man came. She just a little girl and she used to come down and visit them. She told me quite an interesting story one time about when she was a little girl, just before the white man came. She and her father and mother were coming down this evening to visit the Saanich Indians, they used to come down stay overnight. They were very friendly. They were just a neighboring tribe and they were very friendly. And on their way down, that would be about halfway down the valley, my grandma my grandmother's father said I know where there's a wolf, under this big cedar, big fallen cedar. There might be some pups there, so my grandmother and her brother were very interested as kids, they wanted to see these pups so they went up and sure enough there were three little pups in this nest. But, the wolves were away, I guess they were away on a hunting trip. And so, just like children they wanted them, they wanted to take them. So he said we can't take them but if you want to take them down to show your little friends down at Fulford you can take them down, but we'll bring them back tomorrow morning, when we come back, we'll bring them back, put them back in the nest. So they carry them all the way down to show the Saanich children and and they were playing with them just like pups. And they had quite a big fire on the beach, close to the beach, and they were sitting around the fire.

BA 20:55
And pretty soon they heard these wolves. They were howling like they were chasing something, you know, like you hear them howling. And they listened and they're coming right down along the creek just where they walked a couple hours before. And so they came right on right on the beach, this small pack watched them and they watched the fire, but they wouldn't come too close to the fire. But they watched them, and my granny's Father said well, he says that it looks like they've found out where their pups are. And so they said, Well, we'll see what they do. So they were watching them for a while and they circled the fire for a few minutes but they wouldn't come too close, they would just circle around it. And then they left and they crossed the creek and went up into the onto the hill above where the little Catholic Church, now its the stone church. And they heard them start howling again like they're on the run. And pretty soon, just not too far from where they were camping at the head of the bay, there was a quite a splash just down along the beach and this deer came in into the water with the wolves right behind it [indiscernible] drove right in the water and it was standing out there. And the wolves were just around the beach, wouldn't let it go back on the beach again. And my granny's Father said well, it looks as though we have to give the babies back now because according to him, it meant that they brought that deer in to trade for their for their pups.

MS 23:00
Oh, what a wonderful story.

BA 23:02
My granny said it's a true story. And she said that they were very very close to nature in those days because they just lived with the animals and they could pretty well talk each other's language. So they kind of had to give them back now. So he took them down the beach and went back to the camp and the wolves came along and picedk them up and away they went, that was they had seen of them.

MS 23:33
We haven't heard of wolves on Saltspring for a long time, when did you last hear of a wolf?

BA 23:39
There was one here in 1930 but it swam over from Vancouver Island. But, when my grandparents came there was a quite a number of them. My mother said that she used to hear them calling, you know, or barking I guess. They would call from one mountain to the other in the valley or that one wouldn't howl on one side and then the others would howl on the other side to answer them. I guess it shows you how close they were to nature in those days, to their understanding what the wolves meant. My mothers people lost quite a treasure up on under Maxwell mountain with their their words never found. Now this is a...I guess, I don't know what they called it in those days, but it was made up of made up of a lot of their valuables in those days like Jade tools and and shells that they valued. It was in a cedar box. And they'd gone out fishing and there was one young fella, and his help wasn't too good so he stayed home. He wasn't feeling good and there was a raiding party coming down. They saw this raiding party coming down through the Samsun narrows. I'm not quite sure if it was the Haidis or one of the other, there was numerous tribes north of Comox. They were friendly to Comox. That was an enemy territory. But they saw them coming so this fellow he picked up this box with all their treasures in it and he took it up somewhere into that area of what we call the boulders below Maxwellls peak. And he hid it, he buried it up there. All the rest of the the people hid, they used to hide up in there too. But after the raiding party left they went back to their their camp again.

BA 26:11
I guess there was a little time before they went up to look for this treasure and in the meantime this young fella died. So, my grandmother's people, they went up to look for it. But they never did find it and she said it's still there somewhere in that in that area. But it's all grown over now, but it's still there and she said its in a cedar chest.

MS 26:46
Have you ever gotten an treasure hunted?

BA 26:49
I've looked, but I have never come across it. But I have found artifacts looking up there, found artifacts under in some of the caves under the Maxwells peak.

MS 27:04
So you know that that the story is true?

BA 27:07
The story is true.I'm sure that it's still there somewhere but it could be buried under a slide or something now, it's hard to say. I sure would like to find it because there's things that they valued you know in those days

MS 27:22
Maxwells owned the valley. The Burgoyne Valley after 1860 and the government sold it to them is that right?

BA 27:36
Yeah, they bought it from the government. All this land was going for $1 An acre here in those days.

MS 27:45
Well now your grandfather Akerman came around that time didn't he?

BA 27:49
Yes, my grandfather Akerman. He left England in 1955. 17 years old and he sailed around the horn into Victoria on the Tynemouth or something like that. And he landed inVictoria and worked for some of the merchants there for a year or two. Then he liked gardening so he rented some land just back of the where the parliament buildings are today. And he grew vegetables and supplied the village there with vegetables. That'd be in the late 50s. And he planted a lot of the trees, there's still some trees back around the back of the parliament building, I think the ones that he planted in late 50s. And then he heard about land on Salt Spring so he came out here about 1862. And he took up land in the valley.

MS 29:16
Would that be right where your house is now?

BA 29:20
No that was up a little further up the valley, up in the French property now. Where the french property is now.

MS 29:33
And this would be across from the Gyves property?

BA 29:38
Yeah, so he actually took up both sides of the road there just up towards Burgoyne, like from the Gyves property. They were neighbors in those days. And he built a log cabin more under Mt. Bruce, and he lived there for two years. But, he found out in the wintertime it was quite shady there. So he moved across the valley then to where the French property is now.

MS 30:14
Was that his original home?

BA 30:18
The original home was up the valley, the log cabin.

MS 30:20
I mean the French’s house today was his home?

BA 30:24
Oh, yes, yes, yes. He moved across then, and he built quite a large log house and with quite a number of rooms in it. And they had a hotel, I called it the “Traveler's Rest”.

MS 30:47
Were they married at that time, or was he by himself?

BA 30:51
No, no, I guess I'm getting ahead of myself. No, he went back to Victoria in 1863. And he married my grandmother, her name was Martha Clay. She came out in the Robert Lowe, the bride ship.

BA 31:13
Yes. And she worked for the... she came out the same time as Mrs. Spencer. Spencer brothers had a large department store in Victoria in the early days. And she came out with her, she knew Mrs. Spencer very well. And they were married in 1863.
[silence for 15 seconds]

BA 32:05
[Indiscernible] I think that fall [indiscernible] and they built this big log house. And he had kind of like a hotel and a store.

BA 32:24
It was known as the Traveler's Rest and a lot of the people in those days used to just come to looking for land you see, and they wanted a place to stay overnight. So,he let them stay overnight. And they'd buy their meals there. So he did pretty well with the store in early days. And he was a great gardener and he brought in a lot of the trees we now have like the holly trees and a lot of the fruit trees, he brought in a lot of them, all the trees he brought all those in.

MS 33:04
And when you say he brought them in, he would bring them in and sell them to other people or he planted?

BA 33:09
No he planted them, he planted them. He had a real show place in the early days. They old Akerman farm. And he had brought in quail, the little quail we have here now, they're not native to Saltspring. He brought them and had them in cages. And then he let them out and they spread all over the island.

BA 33:31
And then he had quite a family. There was five boys and three girls, and they all grew up on the island. My son has just made arrangements to buy the old original Akerman farm from the French’s. So there'll be an Akerman back there after quite a number of years. It's been out of the family now for I imagine 35 years or so.

MS 34:12
Which son is this?

BA 34:14
Ted.

MS 34:18
Well now with sheep breeding, when did that start? Was that in your grandfather's day?

BA 34:25
Yes, my grandfather brought the sheep, I guess the first sheep in the early days, he had a small flock of sheep and an old ranch. And then his sons all raised sheep they had flocks of their own. But after the turn of the century, Salt Spring turned into a quite a sheep raising island. A lot of the people settling in the cranberry, the musgrave mountain area all pretty well raised sheep.

MS 35:10
Did they all have the same type of sheep?

BA 35:14
No, normally there were different types like the Hampshire, the Oxford, the Suffolk. Then they would cross them too.

MS 35:28
They had them mostly for meat, not for spinning?

BA 35:33
Mostly for meat, yes. They used to put them in their wagons and take them down to Burgoyne or Fulford, catch the old steamboat that used to come in those days and ship them into Victoria to Burns company. I think there must have been over 2000 sheep on the island, over 2000, around 1912- 1935. Most of the sheep were were raised up the Mount Bruce area. We don't hear about them now, but there was a quite a settlement there at one time. They all raised sheep.

MS 36:34
In the Mount Bruce area? Not in Musgraves?

BA 36:38
Well, taking in Musgraves landing. All the way up to the top of the mountain. Yes, I had jotted down a few names if you wanted to hear the names of the early settlers. I could tell you who they are. Might surprise you just how many people were in there from say from 1912 to 1935. There were the Laundrys, the Garden brothers, Julius and Axel, there was Helen Brantford. The Simpson brothers.

MS 37:22
Are they the Simpsons that are up Sunset drive now?

BA 37:25
No, no, they're not. There were two boys from Washington that came and settled in that area. And then there was the Cowards, Sylvester, Mrs. Roach, Mauldin, Joe Ogden and the Blainies, the Gunns, the Patterson's, the Fullers, Bill Smith. The Trench brothers, they own the Kellogg estate now and they had a they owned most of the mountain at one time, the trench brothers. And then there were the Frank and Arnold Smith, they raised goats and they made cheese and shipped it to Duncan to sell.

MS 38:18
Are they the ones that also had was at a post office?

BA 38:21
Yes, they had the post office there at Musgraves landing.The Trench brothers as they own most of the island, they had they had a lot of their property up for sale and during the 30s and they wanted to $2.50 an acre but they didn't get any buyers. MS 38:39 Oh imagine.

BA 38:43
I remember Mr. Trench coming down to see my uncle here. And he had two sections right back at my uncle's place and he wanted to sell that to him for $2.50 an acre but in 1930 the money was pretty hard to get. So it shows you that there was a lot of settlement here in those days and they pretty well all had sheep, that was their their living.

MS 39:14
Now, would a boat come from Victoria to pick them up or how would they get the the sheep off the island?

BA 39:23
They did, there was the old Otter and the Island Princess. The boat came in to either Burgoyne or Fulford or Beaver Point.

MS 39:37
They’d know when they were coming. I guess it was a regular service was it?

BA 39:42
Right, right. And the Iriquois went down off of Sydney just after the turn of the century, and quite a few people drowned. And they were all waiting at Fulford for it to come in, they were all waiting there for it and it didn't turn up so they found out later it sank off of Sydney. It was blowing quite a heavy and they had a load of hay on, had a load of hay on the top deck and I think the hay shifted in the storm and capsized it. My grandmother Gyves told me her two brothers and father were camping on the beach just out of Sydney, somewhere, one of the small islands. And they saw it go down, and it was blowing quite heavy but they went out and they rescued a quite a number of people in their canoes. I don't know how many they rescued but they rescued quite a number and brought them to shore in their canoes.

BA 40:56
It must have been quite rough because for the Iroquois to go down. I guess they could handle their canoes, you know, they rescued a quite a few. My grandmother saying that one girl quite young, she was a schoolteacher going to one of the islands to teach school. And her brother said that he saw her go down, and they went as fast as they could over there to were she was. She had quite long hair and he looked down he could see the hair, you know, under the surface of water. So he reached down and grabbed a handful of her and he brought her up and brought her into the canoe and they got her breathing again and saved her life. If it wasn't for that long hair, he said he didn't think he'd be able to get her because of the water was very rough.

MS 41:54
So he was her hero.

BA 41:56
Yeah, well, I guess so. Quite a tragedy. I have a letter that was my dad's, I think it was when he was appointed road foreman here, that would be in the early 1800s. And that letter actually went down on the Iroquois and the mailbags were found on Piers Island and they were brought back to the post office to get them sorted and my dad didn't get the letter. It was his appointment for the road foreman position on the South end of the island.

MS 42:41
Where would the road go when you say the south end of the island? It would go through Fulford harbor, through the valley and then...?

BA 42:51
It went right though into Ganges. It went over the Old Divide, in those days what they called the Old Divide, it went into Blackburn's Lake and then over the ridge there. It was quite steep and it wasn't till later, quite a ways later on where they they built it around towards Cusheon Lake and then around that way

MS 43:11
And would the south end of the island be from say Blackburn road down?

BA 43:18
The south end of the island? Yeah, the South End of the island is still, Fulford district is still just pass Cusheon Lake, there's a line. There's a line crosses there. You'll see it on a Saltspring map. And it goes and takes in Maxwell's Lake, Maxwell's Lake is actually in Fulford district. Better subdivision now, thats in Fulford district?

MS 43:45
Is there anything else we should know about the sheep breeding?

BA 43:50
Well no, the only thing I say about the sheep business, it was the biggest industry on Saltspring for years. And I don't know how a lot of the old timers would have survived but wasn't for the sheep business.

MS 44:14
Did your father then have sheep too? When he was road foreman.

BA 44:19
Yes, he did. Yes. He had sheep too. He was road foreman for 45 years here. I took them over. I took his flock over about it 1930 I guess. I ran sheep for quite a number of years. Up till this day, a year or two ago my son's two sons taking them over now.

ES 44:53
Would that be Ted and Pat?

ES 44:56
Yes. They're quite interested in farming and they'd like to be able to stay on the farm if they could. They don't have the buyers coming in and and cutting them down. Like we used to have that trouble, the buyers used to come in from Victoria and they are pretty fast talkers and I know they used to get away with quite a bit, some of the old farmers they weren't quite so sure. Like myself, I sold a load in the 30s for $2 apiece and I went to cash my check and it bounced. So I lost just about all my years profit there.

MS 45:42
And you don't forget that kind of thing.

BA 45:44
No, I don't forget. I went to school in the 20s. Where'd I go to school? Right in the middle of the valley here. We had our old schoolhouse just in the middle of Valley. We walked. We walked about a mile to school. A lot of the children in those days like the Maxwells from Morningside road. They had quite a walk, you know, to school. This school that I went through is the second school actually. My dad and mother both went to the first school here. That would be in 1870. The first schoolhouse was on the same site as the old originals, the old school is a house now. It's just across the road from the little church. The gray house there.

MS 46:45
I believe the Harrisons are in it now.

BA 46:48
Right. Right. Right. Well, before that there was a school there and then it was taken down and this one was built. But when I was going to school, there were around 30 going to school from the valley here, children.

BA 47:10
That'd be one room school. I can show you a picture here of the second school around 1880. I have a picture of all the children here, all the old timers and they're all gone now. But it must have been about 20 some odd children.

MS 47:34
Would they come from the village of Fulford too then?

BA 47:38
Mostly around the valley. Mostly around the valley. The [indiscernible], the Furnesses and...

MS 47:45
You mentioned the Maxwells, where were they living then?

BA 47:49
The Maxwell's, well the Dave Maxwells lived down on Morningside road, just you know on the point. They had a quite a family, they had a family of 6.

MS 48:02
And then they would have quite a walk to school to then too?

BA 48:06
Quite a walk. But the farthest that I know used to live at the Trages. They lived out on the other side of Trage mountain. What do you call the mountain back of Fulford? We call it Trage mountain, thatt's the old name. Reginald Hill. It was known as Trage mountain in those days.

MS 48:33
And they lived at the summer resort there, you know the summers resort, used to be some resort there on the other side. What's the name of that resort out there? I can't remember. But the Mannhenicks lived out there. And Dawn Fraser lived there. Well, they walked from there over the mountain to the school here and walked back at night. In the wintertime, they would come over with the lantern, over the trail overtop Reginald Hill. And they’d leave the lantern down at the bottom of the hill.

BA 49:15
I went to work for 25 cents an hour in the 30s. The highest wages I ever made was $6 a day. I worked for BC Power Commission and I made $6 a day. But family was getting bigger, and that just wasn't enough to keep us so I thought well, I might as well starve, not working instead of working so I just quit! And I spoke to a fellow Mr. Lottman. I don't know if you know Mr. Lottman or not. He was quite a successful logger here on the Island. Talked to him one day and he asked me what I was doing and I wasn’t doing anything, i didn't know what I was gonna do. I said you got any advice for me? And he said sure, he said you go up on the hills, take a compass nd go up and and if you see some good timber just go up and find out who owns it, run the lines. So he showed me how to use a compass and so I did. I went out and I started looking around and found some pretty good timber, just in the back of Ganges. The mountain back of Ganges, theres some nice timber in there.

BA 50:40
So I went to the land office, found out who owned the land and went to them. They were willing to sell it, so I paid what I could down on it, didn't much money down on it. But when we started to log, you know, take logs out. And while we were taking the logs out, I was paying them for it. So we ended up with about 550 acres, the land came right down into Ganges.

MS 51:12
Would that be Mount Belcher area?

BA 51:15
That area. Yes, it ran from Ganges back to where the little Catholic churche is now. It went right back to Cranbrook road. And up to the light line, where the light line crosses. So, I was doing a little better than $6 a day. So I saved my money and put it in property. What I wanted to get was when the timber ran out, I wanted to have enough land where I could run sheep. So I bought land on the Musgrave side and which was a good sheep country, facing south, southwest which is the best sheep grazing area.

BA 52:17
After our timber was pretty well running out up there we sold the land. And I put my full time into sheep. I was running 1000 sheep at that time, mostly in the Musgraves area. And then I bought out the Rogers, [Indiscernible]. They wanted to sell out in the Cranberry and so I bought theirs too. So we were running sheep there. So, about 800 lambs a year, which can be a good living. But as I went along I found the hills getting steeper every year, and I thought it was the time to give it up. So I gave it over to my son's. But we did have fun, it was a lot of fun. When I look back at it, it was pretty hard at the time. But it was a lot of fun doing it, we used to make it fun.

MS 53:34
I find more and more with this grant, that as we're talking to people, they have things in their house, they'd like to put in a museum. So many people are just interested in the history of the island, it'd be really interesting to be able to see it and be able to share it.

BA 53:54
Yeah, right. Yeah, well, I have both my collection of artifacts, and I have the Sophie King collection of driftwood. She’s quite famous. And I'd be glad to give it to a museum if they build one. I know of several other real good collections of artifacts that would go into museums. So we could start a good museum with just artifacts alone.

MS 54:32
The trophies and the little history of sports, the early ships that came into the island. Just so many things.

BA 54:41
Oh, yes. Like the Phillips Cup dates back to 1910, which is quite a ways back. People today wouldn't know anything about soccer in1910 but they had some good teams here.

MS 54:59
Well, this has been interesting.

BA 55:02
Well, I’m just rambling.