260_Dorricott_Captain-Richards_Vancouver-Island-Survey.mp3

otter.ai

19.04.2023

no

Unknown Speaker 0:00
I'm just this is the cover of the journal. And it is not a book that we wrote is it is a reproduction of Captain Richards journal itself. So it is not our book we are the editors at his capture Richards book and I hope that over the course of the next hour or half, you will come to know a little bit more about Captain Richards a very important contributor to the colonial and in fact, the maritime history of Vancouver on the data of British Columbia. Just bear with me when I figure out where everything is this, the story of the journal began in 2006 for us when we made a Risha research trip to England. And we were working on behalf of three First Nations of Vancouver Island, just given sort of carte blanche to look around and see if we could find any documents that were held in, in England. And so we went to the called it's called the TNA now, which is the other National Archives. It used to be the Public Records Office. And from there, there we look for logs and ships logs. And that led us to the United Kingdom Hydrographic Office, which is in Taunton in Somerset, and there are held all of the original charts for Vancouver Island. So when I say the original charts there, many of them are the rough drafts. They're not the published versions, they're not the engravings. They're actually the charts that were made at the time that the surveys were being done. And while we were there, we realized that about 90% of them for Vancouver Island were done by Captain Richards who we we knew of it but we didn't know a lot about subsequently came to know quite a bit about him. And he he was stopped that before I get onto that let me go. Can I just see how this works? Alright, so this is the on the right you see guy Hannaford, who is the archivist at the Taunton archives, where all of the records for the Admiralty and now the Ministry of Defense are held. So when we were looking at the charts, we were talking to Guy Hannaford, and we asked him about capture Richards because we have actually we knew that was a journal, but we didn't know where it was. And we hadn't been able to find it. We hadn't been able to look at it. We knew someone who had it who wouldn't show it to us. And it was really had been kept a secret for quite some time amongst researchers. So a few people knew about it. A few people wanted to know about it. We just said okay, well, the only way to do this is going to pour it ourselves. So while we were there, Guy Hannaford said Oh, yes, of course we know where it is. It's belongs to the chanter family, and here's his phone number. And you can just call him up and go see it, which we did. A little bit, a little bit scary, but I found him to be a lovely man. And so the next day we took the train and we went to his house, where we had a wonderful lunch and met this very sweet man and his wife, Jill. This is Dima.

Unknown Speaker 3:49
He is built in March and not very far from Somerset from Toronto. And don't chanters. The great great grandson of capturing pictures and materials have been passed down. Through Richard Stoddard, roads, human factors. Two year interval. His wife is here. And she has a child that's been passed down for generations, so they hold it. And the original researchers that had found this journal had been dealing with adults father, who I think was the real reason that things were kept so quiet because he did not want the journal publicized or deposited in the archives. He considered it to be completely private, belonging to him. That was a really different kind of a person and was very easier for researchers to use it to have copies of it. So while we were there, he allowed us to photograph and photograph with close to 100 pages of the original journal He had many other journals. Richards, Richards was a journal keeper. So there's 10 to 12 different journals, different parts of the world, New Zealand the art two different expeditions that he was on in San Francisco, the coast to coast, there's a real treasure trove of general fare that nobody has ever seen. We started this one, and somebody else will get the rest published.

Unknown Speaker 5:36
I'm just getting a picture of D because this is d this is one of the hotels and so the cottages they live in to converted cottages and small hobby farm

Unknown Speaker 5:59
this is the journal this is what it looked like about 12 Journal pitcher, besides the JC on the cover of the book and Richard something very relaxed and kind of unusually relaxed, probably take an errand at 59 or 60 in Victoria. So the journal is not Rich's was was in Vancouver, from 1857 to 1862. But the journal only takes place from 1860 to 1863. So before that was a lot of correspondences, a lot of back and forth from the Admiralty, to communications with Governor Douglas. But there's no actual journal apart from belongs. So we will assume that Richard had just a lot more free time when he was doing this last part of the journals and he was at see quite a bit more unfortunately for us. Charming, informative channel

Unknown Speaker 7:15
this is a page of the journal because painstaking work to transcribe. The tender is not the worst, but it's not great either. And it was not a journal that he was waiting for anybody really to read. So a lot of cares not been taken. It took us hundreds of hours to actually do the transcription. Don't push that on myself. Someone else is going to have to do the other ones. So when we got at home, even though we had no intention of publishing it, we did read it. We just thought it was a really important document for the history of the colonial history of Vancouver Island. So we decided to ask Donald if we could publish it. And we found a publisher here in Knoxville press, and Cooper. And we were given permission by 2006 took us six years because this was the labor of love page. This is just the last May, in the final stages of our last visit to Dom here and the books you see our friends or our other journals.

Unknown Speaker 8:45
If you have questions in the meantime, go ahead. But otherwise, I don't normally do ask them at the end. This is Lieutenant Richard Charles main who was second lieutenant, First Lieutenant Captain Richard ship. And the 10 mean, wrote a book called four years of British Columbia on Vancouver Island. And that book was published in 1862. And it was the first account of these surveys. He was on the surveys and he wrote a book as soon as he returned back to England. And that's the main source for researchers today is this book written by name. He grew up in a team early in 1861. And so, Rich's general kind of picks up on the two years following that so we have quite a complete account of the journals, mainly talking about some of the early years which is journals for the second

Unknown Speaker 9:58
this is the second time Monster answer there, John Thomas. gallon was about 20 at the time on the ship, and he also wrote the luminous journals of the trip. So hundreds of pages of very small, tiny and cramped campaigning, which we also went through and we collected a number of excerpts of interest, very swift purchase journal in the book. So we also have a different quite a different perspective on events, by learning we've had to be kind of careful with some of the things that we've printed, because sometimes

Unknown Speaker 10:47
but the point is not to publish journals just to supplement Brown a few years later, his journals are kept in Sydney in Sydney, and there they are on microfilm at UBC. Another quite painful

Unknown Speaker 11:15
to work hard to. There's Captain Richard. So Richard Bitrix was born in 1819 in Cornwall, which is quite close to the son of a captain. And he went to see when he was 13 and started serving up when he was 16 and 1837. So about 18 He came to the west coast and that's the first catching the cleaner, cheaper, cleaner sound. So he was a young Midshipman traveling under the command of Edward Belcher, Captain at that time, went down in history as being the most detested Admiralty. So according to some of the biographies, quite a difficult person and almost impossible to, to work for, but she managed to get along very well and even received some praise from the auction. So he had already been to the coast have started to read a journal at that time in 1837. And then, for the next 20 years, he was on active military duty and active serving duty he was to add to the Falklands. He did all of the surveys of New Zealand, New Zealand pilot, he was commended for bravery and was generally seem to be an extremely competent brave men physically. And one of the journals that Richard wrote was during an expedition very popular now, his belt shoeless sense again, and Richie volunteered to go with him in search of the Franklin Expedition. So McClintock journals just come out again. It's one of the journals, the expedition searching for Franklin. So Richards also wrote a journal in that time, which is hidden away.

Unknown Speaker 13:34
Adults in Marsh the end of that trip, he was they all were court martialed, because for the ships were left behind.

Unknown Speaker 13:50
Gotcha, never worked again. He was exonerated speaking but that was pretty much his last assignment. So that's another interesting journal. Apparently. Richards wrote it so that in case they all got caught Marshall, who was another account of what actually happened, which published or ran. There's something exciting to do by the time Richard was 39, he was for me. He was assigned to the plumper, the HMS conqueror, and he was sent to the west coast of Vancouver Island as a boundary Commissioner. So at the time when the boundary between the British and American territories was being defined through parallel streets, so there was a lot of controversy at that time. The surveys have not been very well completed. So he did complete those surveys and made recommendations for more than boundaries. So while he was here, he had many kinds of tasks he was he had some policing duties, he had guns on his boat and was called up and down the Fraser River in particular to kind of keep things calm, but the Gold Rush was cipher. So 30,000 people into Victoria, about 700. So it was just an amazing change in the population structure of Vancouver Island at that time. Richard was responsible for keeping the peace and he wasn't a peacemaker, he was much more of a diplomat, firing the enemy, negotiate with and talk to people. And the whole time he was on set to police many matters. There was never one loss of life from him, not not typical of many of the captain captains of the time.

Unknown Speaker 16:04
He was also really also important because he made the first recommendations for the harpoons around Vancouver and for the life sciences, and he set up the void and he also did the boundary markers for the US. So he had a very big job to do.

Unknown Speaker 16:41
This is Mrs. Richards the captain. So he was joined here by his wife, which was a risk sometimes an unusual requires a special permission for his wife to cannot so she arrived in a scramble and spent I think two to three years and had two children while she was here. Rose, who was responsible for keeping the journals and passing them and Vancouver Captain Vancouver Of course, the most loving some of the most important charts that were guiding Richards explorations he admired greatly

Unknown Speaker 17:34
This is a watercolor Esquimalt at the time where he did his family and this is a photograph of the house that he in the sand the coffee this coffee

Unknown Speaker 17:55
though Richard doesn't talk very much about the style at the time he makes a few references. Captain main has a couple of things to say about the family like there. He writes one Christmas that we're going to catch up Iris smoked and sang songs until the late hours as usual on such occasions, and this is our fourth Christmas together and last of the portable plumper the last two for Mrs. Richards up here. The first one I remember we all died in the chart room, the second on the quarter. Mr. And Mrs. Kramer, the third as this one at the house where shall we all spend my home to be found. And Richard's wife and children return Princess Royal January 61. And after he leaves Galvin says the crew have gone to a squabble but I imagined they will not have long to enjoy the suites at that city as the great time that attracted us to that disappeared in the Princess Royal to England. And the captain is most anxious to get as greater quantity of coastline darkness, as possible toward expediting are returned to England in 1863. Please God disperse longing found to work pretty hard, but he was also considered to be one of Richard's best draftsman best

Unknown Speaker 19:28
this is the buffer. So the Plunker was on the serving survey data here from 57 until 1861 or 261 when it was replaced, and it was a 484 times 60 horsepower steam steam screws. According to me, it was armed with too long 32 pounders and 10 short ones

Unknown Speaker 20:04
I didn't know what it was. And it was a chart chart room onboard, but the ship was very small. And it was pretty much impossible to do chart work on the onboard. So in winter, they went to a swim and did the charts, small cuts that were built on the shore at the time. So by the end of 1859, before the journal began, surveys had been done on the Gulf Islands, the straits much in Georgia Strait, Vancouver, where are the Fraser north, up to the hidden side of the coma. So when he begins the journal, he's done a little bit of surveying. But he's found that it's going to be impossible to continue because the plumber will only do six and a half knots and the tides and waters are running up to eight knots as you go up into the farther north, so it was impossible to really use the Plunker to continue so he wrote back to everyone Washington, who was hydrographer requesting a larger, faster ship, eight to six to one reward.

Unknown Speaker 21:35
BHMS packet, which was an older ship from the bumper, but a much larger one that had it was an eight to 810 ton 240 horsepower paddle ship had a compliment in 125. And when they had that arrive, Garland garland wrote, she was rather an old crap built in 1839. But by no means ugly. She is the most roomy, comfortable ship and practically adapted to serving purposes. Our firing is quite a palace compared to the one we have just left and we can dine 12 The table without any inconvenience. Apparently on the plumper, which was a screw propeller. The ship was when the sales were up, they would screw the propeller back up into the ship and right into Richards cabin. So I think they were quite flat to get a bigger ship. And from then on, they did the charter right on board as they were doing the survey. So this is a painting of the pearl package just eight months after it arrived, hit the rocks off in the Strait of Juan de Fuca. And a lot of damage was done to the hole. So it was taken for two weeks, two months. At that time, the only driver on the Pacific coast was Cisco Mare Island. And so they took it and Richard spent two months there in which he has a really great count in his time in the wild west of San Francisco. It's very humorous, a little disdainful of American way of life. This is either the American Civil War or the British and the Americans are having very tense relationships anyway. So he was also doing a little looking around down there just to see how well the hardware could be defended, but it could be taken so there's a certain amount of correspondence so just that he was on a stagecoach drive and at one point he writes to give you an idea of the type of writing he does. He says I had a drunken man on each side of me he went to sleep with a head on either shoulder, rather well looking younger and opposite but very thick boots on. She composed herself to sleep with her head on her sweetheart shoulder and her boots on my lap. I was pretty comfortably

Unknown Speaker 24:27
so they came back and really got to work with the surveys and this is when Richard was doing most of really writing a fairly extensive Journal, the one that they have published. So this is the crew. This picture was taken in early 1859 with Mrs. Richards. And Richards is wrong for supporting his crew for keeping very easy discipline is very, very few cases of desertion just up one up here and a couple in San Francisco. And they decided to impose a harsh discipline. Whereas other ships, the time we're losing, sometimes 50 to 100 minutes, which is keeping everybody going. And he writes a letter to happen on Washington, saying, I should be doing injustice to the officers employed on this train service, where I'm not to bring before you the hearty and cheerful way in which they have worked. Under the circumstances which have demanded the exercise of skill and judgment in no ordinary degree. The weather has been far more boisterous. And then with a fair knowledge of the coast I have been prepared for the boats have constantly been detached for 10 or 14 days together entirely on our own resources frequently unable to find any place of shelter at night, they have always returned having accomplished more than their allotted tasks. And I'm thankful to say, accident. So Richard many, many features after his crew, some of the more important ones, you might recognize its main competitor Island, named features after Gao. After Blondo Moriarity Campbell Campbell River dropped and dropped, and these were all his crew members. And that, of course, he named a number of places and waterways after the Hacket. I think he was really running out of names after a while, but one thing he never did was name anything after himself. So he could have named Saltspring. Richards, I guess that would have been appropriate. He named all the scrutiny, he did not. So really, there's one very small channel called riches channel that was named the number of years later. And that's the only recognition which has someone who in fact, made most of the major features of the code. This is a shark, which was one of the detached boats in service. It was pretty hairy, especially when we went down the west coast and 1014 days and that doesn't look very good.

Unknown Speaker 27:39
But this is one of the charts that that we got Taunton. This is a question of sound and 1816. And while he was here in five years, he compiled 36 charts in the mainland, wrote the first bank pilot with the sailing directions for the island. So the charts are in great detail, it's hard to see. But they know hazards and they often have landscape sketches. Judge locations the survey work was done in the early spring and the late fall, and a lot of to and fro up and down the island, they have to continue to return to denial in order to my getting there, we're continually having to call at Nanaimo. So they would go somewhere to go back. It would have to go north, it would have to come back. That wasn't just some kind of simple circumnavigation around the island, back and forth. And plus he was continually going over to the Fraser River and back and setting up markers and working on the boundary. He grumbled a lot about the coal facilities and society were a bit appalled to hear how bad the conditions were. And he was, they were always last in line. really annoyed switches. So when we were looking at this type of charts, we're looking for something really quite specific. Because we were working for First Nations, we were looking for signs, made a presentation. On these original charts, this is a very small detail, a very large chart. You'll see Indian village. And when these charts were engraved and published, all that detail was lost on them. So when you look at a published version of the map we don't see, sometimes you might see village but you won't see the houses and all of those rectangles are Indian houses. So this is specifically why we were there, and what type of research we were doing

Unknown Speaker 30:33
this is, because in our religion photograph was taken in 1870, so about 10 years later, but it gives an idea of the people that were there. And garland writes quite a lot of accounts of the of the maintenance. One of them is about the consumer village. You the Indians who inhabit the inlet are divided into two tribes, namely, casino and Casino. The former by far the more numerous and both are very wild, savage looking chaps. Unlike any other tribes we have met, they allow their beard and mustache to grow, which adds considerably to the wildness of their appearance that are perfectly naked. The shape of the heads of the savages is the most curious of the article, when young abandoned being passed, taking rounded above the forehead, compressing that part so much that the greater portion of the skin is squeezed into the crown, and they take the form of the most perfect sugar. We measured round but one of the most remarkable was a little girl 12 years old, and burned. My eyebrow up to apex of her cranium was 18 inches, laid off on paper with the proper angles, etc. It was the most remarkable object. We traded for salmon, deer, etc. For me and nothing, it appear not to know the value of anything. And for a small because so could obtain three or four or five, weighing from 12 to 14 pounds each. And this is a drawing that was made of girls have they managers? Yes, because who was a 12 year old girl became very fond off at one point, there was a suggestion that should be taken to Victoria to be educated.

Unknown Speaker 32:19
Everyone, Craig fearfully. Richard was very interested in people. The letters that he had been in contact with Victorian Esquimalt were

Unknown Speaker 32:37
had been had been dealing with people up and down the coast for some time, since the beginning. It's around the age of 48. And Victorian was still but on the West Coast, there were people who Richard considered had never seen before. So there was quite a gap of familiarity with them, nominated, which was a good anthropologist, he wrote quite a bit about customs and the Potlatch and politics and the chieftain sheds, marriage and women he really did a very thorough job of describing the people encountered. And for that reason, as anthropologists, we were really very interested in this.

Unknown Speaker 33:37
This is Brenda Cole. And

Unknown Speaker 33:46
this is the only occasion that he talks about in the journal. He had left his chronometer on the beach, and to the mall, Mohler chatter, I'm not sure that picked it up and taken them off. And so there was a chase, and they were found. They were put in chains. But the way that Richard dealt with it was, rather than just putting James and leaving them there, he called them the chief had to come down to resolve the issue. And so the chief arrived and made a big to do and harangue them away, there was no consequence to their actions at the criminology was returned. Richards tended to allow the native law to prevail, if there was any way that he could have. That way he was also very unique. Law enforcement.

Unknown Speaker 34:50
There was a huge amount of change for the First Nations before four years that he was here versus the gold rush in the country. The changing population dynamic. When Richards arrived, there was many more First Nations people than Europeans. And by the time he left, there was a complete change in the dynamic to also wrote quite a bit about the small efforts at 62 Whiskey trade, the devastating effects that it had on the nations. Generally, he had a very positive attitude towards First Nations is general he says, the only ones among them

Unknown Speaker 35:48
Victoria, really

Unknown Speaker 35:55
his journal illustrates the genuine liking and respect for the tribes he encountered the only ones among them who seem to have the slightest idea of dishonesty, or those who have visited Victoria and become acquainted with European customs. At the same time, it is only fair to say that is scarcely right to judge by what happens to us, they naturally dread our force, and may be deterred from taking advantage from this cause. Still, our boats are constantly among them far removed from the ships and quite in their power. They have been always foremost to help them landing in a certain whole village has come down to holiday, or to launcher and they've always shown the most friendly feeling I can safely say haven't seen and had dealings with almost all native tribes in the world, I have never met a more friendly, harmless and well disposed set of people than the island

Unknown Speaker 36:51
hear comments like that?

Unknown Speaker 37:00
So Saltspring This is a detail from a chart that he made apparent Rosario straight at 58 and 1859. And I think the probably one of the biggest legacies for Saltspring Island were the names to the island. A lot of my information on John Roberts the Pacific coast. And so he means he says that Richards named after a line, which was later called Saltspring, which was actually consulted with before it was called out and called Saltspring. While it was later was officially called, named after Admiral

Unknown Speaker 38:03
show doesn't look very good. But apparently a very good Admiral and a good military man who spent three years on the Pacific coast was essentially responsible for moving the locus of the Pacific station fulfill for us to this one. And this is veins from which Admiral Island was named after this. And then I think there's now I'm not really that familiar. So I found these names but Admiral Island, beans mountain, and of course, Ganges harbor. This is these are a couple of photographs, paintings of the Ganges that I found that I didn't find it on your Historical Society website. We have a number of good ones. So that's the Ganges which was the flagship flagship. And Fulford Harbour was named after the captain of the Ganges for going Bay was named after the commander of the Ganges. So the point was named after the admirals secretary, not for himself to the previous commander in chief take TEFL after a friend of Admiral so nothing else. Teachers really ran out of things. But CVS Bay was named after the HMS the city marshal who has a whole story which have you presented your story as the HMS society, and pre Kamali channel named after the HLS family. And even myself, Belcher, who's named after this horrible, most detested man in the oven. I've got to still call him up in search results. What is it?

Unknown Speaker 40:14
Well

Unknown Speaker 40:17
Well, I'm not an authority on the plains of Salt Springs, so anything that you can add, that would be great. Everything else that you might know but

Unknown Speaker 40:33
that's pretty much it. I wanted to reach you with small accounts that Richard does right? Because early in the journal, he does arrive at the Saltspring settlement and respond response to a request from government that was to go and investigate a complaint by the Secretary. So this is April of 1860.

Unknown Speaker 41:20
Stop drinking on a channel through Ganges harbour and anchored in nine and a half off the east side of Admiral Island, three miles south, southeast third of a mile from the shore with shoals rather suddenly inside, landed to inquire into a complaint made by the Southern Saltspring settlement. Regarding the needs. There are about 20 settlers here, English, and Canadians six or eight houses. Each house with three to five acres of land fence and under cultivation. The soil appears a rich dark mom about two feet thick, and then clay saw the Salt Springs. They're not about 100 yards from the beach. Now, I'm not sure where this where that is. I think it's north of St. Mary's make it firmer, because I see it on a chart. So it looks like it's right in the middle of the island. Oh, because I couldn't figure out how anchor Saltspring settlement when it's on the chart somewhere in the middle of this is another chart that somebody can help me out with. So it was a large settlement. So that's the settlers have no complaint against the natives. They merely wish to keep them off the island which seems scarcely reasonable as the Indians have used that as a hunting grab from time immemorial and have received no compensation from government prior to suddenly seeing establish. The Indians always liked to have the whites near them for obvious reasons. They get paid for their labor and derive many advantages. But if they are excluded from the whiteness settlements, these advantages will cease as Europeans will become native. So the native promised treaties over their lands on Vancouver Island Salt Spring, but the Legislative Assembly appeared to have run out of money. They made 14 Small treaties with mostly groups around Vancouver, Victoria, one of them recruits and then they ran out of money so they don't have to do it which is why Goshi ation still today

Unknown Speaker 43:59
there's also an account invading here. There's an account Lieutenant man who wrote a book also really journal and get an account of the same the same visit in his journal. Also, seeing a barber about parallel straight and between promote and Admiral anchored up north Saltspring settlement. Some complaint had reached the governor that the Indians were traveling the settlers here but it appears altogether unfounded. They have built a very good law caught on the top of the bank and are a great use to the settlers there are only about a dozen there. There are three settlements on their side, making an all about 50 settlers. The claims are 200 acres each granted by the government and requiring no payment for two years. Some people have only taken 100 acres itself Saltspring settlements there are 24 men at Ganges Harbor 12 or 15, some of whom are Blacks, and four or five opposite maple. I'm not sure where the four or five opposite maple Bay would be. Masquerade was.

Unknown Speaker 45:28
Here, they appear to be getting on well, and to be contented and not only very anxious, of course, to know at what price the land is to be sold, the pre emptive bid slam, but they then eventually had to purchase it, I'm sure that we had a few of them out. They all have good long hearts, and most of them several acres and close the soil is a black vegetable Hemus, or mold about two feet deep, then a layer of two or three inches deep. And then clay, water is plentiful. We saw one of the largest salt sprays of which there are several. And they told us that they got out about 1/5 of pure salt from some of the water they had. It does not bubble up at all that looks like a small pool on top of an exaggerated molehill. The earth around it is so strongly impregnated estimate capital. The Indians here have given no trouble only occasionally informing them as the Indians everywhere do that the whites had no business there, and the land belongs to themselves. But again, just Harvard, they had brought some blacks. And they said, the southern said that the Indians nowhere respect to the blacks at the least, and would not consider them as the same as the white. They if you're anxious to see Mr. Douglas and to be paid for the land, this, I think is quite just that should be done by the Imperial government. The colonial government cannot appropriate the funds at the seats to have any for this purpose. And the surplus cannot be expected to pay for their claims at once. It will be as much as most of them will be able to do with the two years. But the Indians cannot be expected to take these considerations into their heads. So this was a big argument to the legislature that the money came from, from the Imperial government from London, but in fact, they just said not enough to find money yourselves to settle treaties and extinguish rights. There wasn't money and one other little bit

Unknown Speaker 47:44
they naturally do not see why they should be rejected. And the romish trees, put them up to it and prompt them to demand the high price for the land. The man here said that these Indians had only lately built there has not been in the habit of going there. I'm telling this to a young chief he kept to stop driven and close to us and told us that it was his father's grave that get buried three years ago. We remained off the settlement for the night reaching an island next about 11am. The anchorage of the Saltzman settlement is not very good.

Unknown Speaker 48:24
I don't know if you have those documents in your archives, you have looked at your website.

Unknown Speaker 48:47
Here we have Richards left in 1862, at the end of the year, and he was appointed the hydrographer of the Navy, which is the highest position survey position that there was in the Admiralty at the time. So he's a character he's much better known in England and he's here. This is in the National Portrait Gallery. And he ran the Hydrographic Office of the Hydrographic Office today for 10 years. Essentially bringing it into the modern world. He was considered to be one of the fathers of oceanography. He was a great proponent of scientific research at sea. And after 11 years, he retired quite this frontal department was being run and he became the managing director of the telegraph construction company and others direction 78,000 miles of cable underground cables were made. Do things in large numbers, though are just number for us being that he charted 5000 miles of coastline here and he provided a huge service to Colombia. And when he died, his obituary read he died while taking the waters for sciatica is a bit sure he described him as a man of great ability of sound, common sense and an untiring activity and his unfailing, good humor, general shrewdness, and kindness to all members of his profession caused him to be universally loved and respected.

Unknown Speaker 51:11
I'm interested to know in general, languages

Unknown Speaker 51:22
various people around us with languages he does talk about that, and a number of his men seem to be one of his own and became very proficient, shut up, which was kind of a universal language. But always it was also very quick to learn the language. But largely they used Indian interpreters from Fort Rupert who had grown up at corporate parents who spoke in the north of languages. And they would come with them, interpret for them. Generally, interpreters, but there will be languages

Unknown Speaker 52:13
get to metrics. Agent. Not so beautiful. It's funny, because this is the this is the one that's in the in the National Portrait Gallery, not visible in storage somewhere. As a selling book, here's the book. If you wanted to buy a copy, then I was outside. time off work to come and hear you today. Oh. What were you doing when you found something else? And then you found his journals while researching something else? What was it that you were doing? Well, we were researching. Largely we were looking for correspondence, colonial correspondence that had some relationship to the we were working for three specific clients. So working for groups around the Campbell River and some authorities, we've got seen along the coast. So we've got C number, but amazed by the journal, because it talks so much about them. But we were looking for the maps and the laws because most of the colonial correspondence is here and you can get it at the at the archives. Victoria so we were looking for any correspondence that hadn't been transferred but largely we wanted to look at the charts and see what was really on the charts. And it was just incidental that we came across my

Unknown Speaker 53:59
hair on the coast

Unknown Speaker 54:05
1958

Unknown Speaker 54:09
comes back to short because.

Unknown Speaker 54:28
And to appeal and have enjoyed it. Yes, it is in using charts as a guide for sure. The changes were not significant, but you look at the Bank of Britain in 1862 And then again, reprinted through basically unchanged there's a lot more More detail now, certainly this letter technology which provides more accuracy, but you could probably still say on its charts and not run into too much trouble

Unknown Speaker 55:20
survey

Unknown Speaker 55:25
Richards have access to Yes, he, he uses Vancouver but a lot of the Spanish charts I think have been recorded his captain Vancouver charts because they were they were serving at the same time. And so there had been a sort of a compilation of the Spanish information onto the British chart. So he was using, and he kept all the Spanish names that were that were there. That's why we have so many Spanish.

Unknown Speaker 55:56
was Richard then involved with the Challenger expedition?

Unknown Speaker 56:00
He was in fact, the promoter of the challenger. They called it the hope and dream of his life.

Unknown Speaker 56:11
Yes, that was really what he had very hard to to accomplish.

Unknown Speaker 56:20
You look to a number of journals

Unknown Speaker 56:27
that are held by a janitor

Unknown Speaker 56:30
or elsewhere, for that matter. This is much bigger question. But you're mentioned that point brings to mind. My question is simply, in your opinion, is there still a great deal more to learn?

Unknown Speaker 56:57
I don't know. I have no idea really. People are holding things all the time, there's been pressure put on the janitors to to put those journals into an archive and to make them available, which so far met resistance. Mostly because that was the mission was more than eager to get this published and to get it out. And that way, I guess he gets to keep his journal, which is kind of his heritage. His she feels is his inheritance. But still have the journal affair. So there's no reason why photocopies couldn't be made and deposited. I'm not quite sure what the relationship between the Hydrographic Office and the channels was in the past, possibly not the best. But yes, I mean, have you guys got things hidden away in your trunk so they could be out there, I looked in my own family letters, and I find things that should be deposited somewhere. So I'm sure there's a lot of things but really important documents like this. I don't expect there are a lot.

Unknown Speaker 58:26
We'll be responsible for ensuring the British history is somehow connected.

Unknown Speaker 58:36
To several documents, that would be a bad news.

Unknown Speaker 58:47
Agency.

Unknown Speaker 58:52
I don't think that at all owner, that original piece of material, it's under an obligation to, by law can't be forced to, to give it up. But in the case of you know, this is they own a really important journal that's about British Columbia that channel is other journals are about other parts of the world. We've got the Arctic there. So they're not relevant to this history, but they wouldn't be relevant to our peoples history. And we are in some conversation with him about preservation because he lets anybody who wants to see the materials even like anyone is welcome to go to his own and forgiven lunch and treated very well if they want to go and visit but there's a lot of degradation of the the materials through that and even the journal that we've been working with a few people look at him, it's starting to flake off and disappear. So we tried to say well, we need to preserve it. The one thing that happened As when an archive takes it is that they microfilm that and you never get to touch it again. If you go and do research at the VCR heads you're never touching an original document or very rarely in England you do you're given access to these charts are old and fragile but they bring them up for you and you get to look at archives and queue most of its original documents now it will be digitized

Unknown Speaker 1:00:42
I'm not sure if

Unknown Speaker 1:00:45
I was going to ask

Unknown Speaker 1:00:48
the archives now

Unknown Speaker 1:00:57
to preserve the archives are they in jeopardy? Well I'm not sure exactly I know they're coming to individual smaller archives. And I don't know to what extent I don't know if they're in jeopardy but I think access to them is in jeopardy I think it's going to be harder and harder to see the materials because they're cutting staff and the people that are around to make sure that you can see the documents so I don't think that it would destroy them but it will be become harder and harder to see them and they don't seem to have the funding to to digitize them and make them available online. So it's a bit of a tragedy but I mean I've been working with Department of Indian Affairs documents for from about well since the beginning in the 1870s and a lot all those materials have gone and the microphones and then they destroyed all the original so lots of damage has already been done. If you want to see the originals that are gone on there on these bad broken down unreadable microfilm no way to save the originals that is all

Unknown Speaker 1:02:27
soon did you have a question?

Unknown Speaker 1:02:34
I mean, no mystery source the best source is John Waldron. So come on BC Coast names is not in there. There is a website the BC government website or names that give some information but I noticed when I go up for historical information, it's almost all coming from all brands. So yeah, yeah, so I don't know. Isabella. Sounds like it could have been Isabella Spanish, but I just

Unknown Speaker 1:03:19
like any other questions before we wrap up. Thank you very much. That was really good, really enjoyable.