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Old Timers and Newcomers to Eleanor Point

Brenda Guiled, 2016

Brenda Guiled portrait

286_Guiled_Old-Timers-Newcomers-Eleanor-Point.mp3

otter.ai

19.04.2023

no

Speaker 1 0:00
Now, we're going to get going on this pretty quick. We're going to time travel here. And we're going to time travel pretty fast, pretty tight presentation, as Julian says, I pack a lot in. I did want to start, however, since I seem to have come out of the blue, and why am I writing history now? Well, my first history books that I wrote. And I just dropped them to wave them, because it'll be the quickest way to do it is a biography of Captain Vancouver that Marlon horse stole, published in 1992 on stormy seas, and I did 10 years of research before I started to write. So that's where I really cut my teeth on how you do the research and do the writing. Ask me anything about the late 18th century world, I got up to speed on it. The next thing that I did, because I teach karate, is I've written a book, about a third of which is the history of the karate away from Okinawa. So that one, and I've been busy doing family history, this is the first of two books. So this is why I got into the format that my, my new book is, so I'm doing these as book form just just for family, obviously. So I've been immersed in that sort of family history telling, which is what a good deal of this is. And then as Jillian has says, We have ruffles World History of southeast Saltspring Island, and it was the monk farmhouse that got me going. So let's get buzzing along on this talk. Because here we are in the Deep South, and we're going to hell on a point right here. And I live in this neighborhood Harry Burton as some of the others of you do. So impacts of old timers and newcomers on to l&r point. So at the Salt Spring Island, I guess it's my environmental background that makes me interested in the impacts of human beings on on landscapes Plus, there's people there carving out living so First Nations to first settlers now, the first nations were called nomads, even though they've been here for 1000s of years. But they happen to go to where the fish were when they were gathering fish. And they happen to go where you get deer when you're gathering deer, and they traveled to where they have their cameras field. So they were nomads. And then the settlers came along and unsettled absolutely everything and it hasn't stopped. So I take exception to that backwards to my thinking. So we start with the Saanich, or Saanich. First Nation and Saanich means islands and people rising from the sea. And this is their home that I should explain that I worked on a book project with the sail First Nation who have the reserve on island for a year and a house, I volunteered nearly full time to help them pull together a book of all things sail, much of which I can't speak about, but there's bits that I can. And so in working with those elders, I am sitting at the table with them, the two elders I was working with have died, I learned a great deal about their culture. And we'll get back to that project. Sometime soon, you have to wait a certain number of years after the elders have died before you can pick up the work again. But what this what this map shows you is their home territory. And what they mean by that is that that they can well, they were in families who owned certain beaches and could harvest from certain areas and their in laws could as well. Although if you've married into their families, you still had to get permission from the main family to go and gather from a place. But when we get outside of this seems like there's when you get outside of the circle. You didn't go and gather stuff from those beaches in those places. If you did, you had to send a delegation ahead to say, I would like to come and gather something from your beaches. Then when you arrived, they had to have a set time they had to have a ceremony. So that's what home territory needs its families and in laws that have primary rights. To on we know means mountains. Well, it's the their native name for their son Chausson name for Saltspring. And you can see from where they sit there, their home territory. Why do I keep losing the arrow? Where is it? Isn't that funny? Anyway, their home territory that winter villages were in the Saanich Peninsula, though they had long houses and villages, all little villages throughout the island. Chuan meaning mountains each and you can see from where they were looking from Saanich that they could see the mountains on the south stand and they could see motor skin or skin and they didn't go in the territory above there. So the name makes perfect sense from their point of view. So moving in on the this is all pristine. We figured that when the native people were here that they hadn't really touched very much there were these lovely meadows and lovely forests and somehow they just wandered around and pick berries and ate but they had had a profound impact on the landscape. And of course they had their names for everything. So the report was Sesno and that the people who speak cinch off and laugh at me every time I tried to say their language, it's very difficult. Obviously. funniness just means facing sandwich and this whole load of Salt Spring was called winning, which they now call their reserve, which is that the I get down this way. From this angle, I can't see my arrow. Oh, well, no matter. The reserve is down on that. This this tip down here, but I won't point too much. It's okay. I don't need it. Yeah, I was saying that the trouble with this is there we go. Yeah, so their reserve is down here 17 hectares. And then we have Whitlam I'm not sure what whistle the meat is a means. And Isabella point was Taylan, meaning salt. And I don't know why they meant why they use salt for their. So the Saanich impacts of shores and inland. First of all, I want to say that we everything, of course had to do with how they operated through the year. But what's unusual about them in one way, in many ways, but what is their language since shorten, and 10 to 15% of languages only in the world are similar to theirs in that they put their verbs first. It makes it difficult to learn to speak it and understand it to speak always with action first, but they lived by the sea. They lived by the winds and the tides and the currents. And they didn't have a homeland that had a river. So they were the saltwater people so that the cycle of the year, as with all peoples was was important. But the main impact that we see these days is we're the only thing that's really left for the midterms. And we of course all know these up until about 1500 years ago, they really mostly found muscles in the stratigraphy. So obviously they were eating mostly mussels. And there were fewer people, they accretions were slower. But when you get to, particularly by 1000 years ago, there's clams, clams, clam shells, and that's mostly what we see are the clam shells. And that wasn't from them, just you know, having family lunches and sufferers and tossing the shells over their shoulders. That was their industry. That was their business. They gathered the shell, the shell fishes to in particular, preserve that by steaming, and then smoking and drying to sell up the Fraser River. So it was big business. And that's why the mittens are so deep, some of them up to 18 feet. How did they do that? Well, clam gardens. I think we've all heard of clam gardens. Now, though. 20 years ago, we certainly hadn't. It was the work of a geologist pilot guy named John Harper that I've had the good fun of getting to know he's just a great soul. He figured out and rediscovered the clam gardens and now they now know that there's more than 1000 of them that they found up in refound up and down the coast. And there's more all the time. So there's one off Russell Island and there's I saw John Harper recently and he said that there's at least eight around Saltspring that they know off for sure. They enhance their eelgrass beds. So this is the islands trust. Yeah, I was just fun eelgrass bed mapping survey, the different colors and shapes so just the extent to which they're eelgrass beds so you can see on Fulford harbor in particular, they were very much enhancing them to capture the herring row.

Speaker 1 8:50
They also built fish traps I don't have a picture of a fish trap. They're kind of like a clam garden. That with bigger boulders and rocks at the shore that is building a big tide pool to catch fish. Octopus gardens this was new to me. They built them mountain rebels just below the low tide. So the octopus would settle in and make it home and didn't realize that they were going to turn into a meal ceiling of course, Fulford Harbour was was the Saanich people's really big ceiling place as we know from the seal rocket Drummond Park, it used to be at the entrance to Fulford harbour near where the ferry terminal is. So this is this guy that the sanit peoples have a good deal of difficulty with the rock being moved in the way it was being the way it was moved. But anyway, there it is. It does remember, Thomas has a huge impact on the landscape. They they for their food value. It's most commonly written that they gathered them by the many because they didn't have any other carbohydrates in their diet. They didn't have names such as we do, but there's not a stitch of carbohydrate in these bulbs. They're an onion, and their onions are a sugar. That's why we carmelize them their sugar called insulin. And these are bitter little, little guys. I guess I haven't tried some they have to be picked cooked from 12 to 18 hours before the insulin karma license and is sweet. Now, the trouble with them is their identification because every so often this is late in the season, but all of us know that one and 1000 are some numbers white, which is all very nice. They're a wild hyacinths they're, they're beautiful. They're purple, occasional white. Yay. But we have the death cameras. And when they were harvesting these bulbs, they would pick them after the flowers were gone. So how would you know if there was a death? Camus one bulb would kill you for sure. So how would they know that you shouldn't be picking that one? Well, the only way to know is to cultivate them. I have a lot of cameras going around my place. And Gary, I poke nose and I said to my husband a couple of days ago, I'm gonna I'm gonna pick some and roast them for 12 hours and see what they taste like. And then I thought, you know, what, if just by chance, I missed seeing a Deaf Camus, I tell you, you'd be really careful about harvesting. So what did they do? Well, they cleared the forest and it was mostly the coastal Douglas fir and they burned it off. Well, that talk about a huge impact. And they also did other diggin and enhancement of the cedar groves. And we all know that culturally modified trees if you go to the sale reserve, bless them for allowing us to walk on their lab. You can see that they're harvesting again from there in a way to save the cedar. So when the first white guys came, they said woohoo, look at all these cedar we can get these chopped down and made into shingles and shakes and salmon casts in no time they did it in about 510 years. Those cedar had been at been closeted, and carefully looked after. For hundreds of years. They weren't. I mean, they started there by chance because it was a good place to grow. But they were such glorious groves. Because the First Nations people were making sure that they were and so they of course, both their clothing, their hats, they made baskets, they had to canoes, they had a paddle. The shelter shown here is actually made from CAP tails, it said, a temporary summer shelter. And this is the sale reserved for those of you who go into all the wonderful archive photos that they have here. I was just floored. I love it. This is the sale reserve, you can be sure that the longhouse was there until the 1920s with cedar xpect that fence was cedar. On the left, we have Mary salt. And on the right is her husband Charlie with an unidentified visitor and between Mary and Charlie salt lived on that the reserve until 1923. There's a story that they were murdered. And that's why they left I think there's a different story going on in 1920, the federal government forced all First Nations people off all of the Gulf Islands can even including their reserves, and they had to live on the Saanich Peninsula in 1920, and 21. They were rounded up, they were forced away. They were not allowed to live on the Gulf Islands by 1923. My bet is that the government agent can Indian agent came around and said, You've been defying me for three years you are so gone from here. So another story is they went back to her home reserve, which is the couch and so what about fishing technology and human population? Well, I've heard in 1492 when Columbus sailed the ocean blue that about one quarter of North America's population were in the Pacific Northwest. It was because they had all of these harvesting. They were farmers, they were you know, they were managing the land that had huge impact on it. And the really biggest impact that they think they have looking to the middens the population about 1000 years ago just went crazy. Well what happened, and that's when they figured the reef net was invented. And it's a truly clever way of catching fish. And you can see at the front of the reef net, that there's a fish escaping so that they were careful not to take them all, but because they didn't have a river to fish from. It was explained to me by the elders. I was working with the reef net turned the channels where the salmon came home into rivers. And they they had a very rich society their population was up they did live differently than we do. This is 110 foot long house from the package and family that the sandwich First Nation was all one people until 1920 When they were forced to form four baths So one of the families became the packaging packaging band. So this is from the 1930s, one of the remaining longhouses extremely rich culture. So they had time for to develop their culture. This is the same artists from 1936 and it's the same dance. What was the beginning of the end? What happened with the First Nations people? Well, smallpox, measles, influenza, sexually transmitted diseases, dengue fever. Zika is a form of dengue fever, the egg, which is malaria, tuberculosis. This is a child with smallpox. They often were blinded if if they lived, they were blinded smallpox to about three different waves wiped out more than 90% of them what number we don't know. So in the cloud, they'd been John Harper and his crew have been dating clam jar gardens, stratigraphy, they've gone down the layers and levels and about 300 years ago, they're finding these huge clam shells, which tells them that the clams grew to be old, and they died of old age and they weren't harvested. Well, why were they not harvest harvested is because there weren't people to harvest them what happened. And that tells them that the disease preceded by a few generations, the newcomers arriving because, you know, their disease came up from Mexico, the native people trade with the next and the next, the disease came across the continent. And then in the early the late 1700s, we get the first written reports about what was going on. And because I wrote a biography of Captain Vancouver, I'm quite aware of what he wrote about the First Nations people. One of the reasons I really pursued studying him is he never wants an anything he wrote in his, you know, six volume journal, he never denigrated the native people, nor did he denigrate women in their work, and that really stood out to me. So there were explorers and they just came to finish the world map and fight for the spoils. There were the saviors, the missionaries and the in the particularly the Spanish who were out to reap souls, and the exploiters that were here to create markets, and to sell goods and get rich. So Captain Vancouver wrote this deplorable disease. Smallpox is not only common, but it's greatly to be apprehended, as very fatal amongst them indelible marks, several lost the sight in one eye, sometimes to eyes if they lived at all. And it's just the virulent effects of this painful disease. He found villages in the Puget Sound area, where there were young children running amok doing anything amongst their bodies, and there was no one to look after them. It was really distressing.

Speaker 1 18:01
So the 1780s to the 1800s, they exploiters were here to get the sea otter, which they extirpated from our coast, which we know 1843 We get fort Victoria. And this is a little bit later when it built up. It's just a few years later, that fort, the Hudson's Bay Company had its for at Fort Vancouver and up the Columbia River and Oregon, and to what was going on between Great Britain and the US, they had to get out of dodge. So the Hudson's Bay Company set up in Victoria, this is all stuff I'm sure, you know, but we'll stitch it all together. I really liked looking at this particular print, because behind them are the native cameras fields. And I'm sure the white guys just looked and said, Oh, look at the pretty wild flowers. I wonder what the native people do to eat. So the native people would come and try to gather their bulbs there and probably be told to get lost. So 1847 This is a pole cane painting. It's called return to the war party, and it's the Sony's people from Esquimalt, coming back from warring and if you look on the stern of the two war canoes, there's heads on pikes. What was going on? So they say, well, those native people, they were just always out there killing each other and fighting all the time and, you know, taking slaves and cannibalizing know what happened when the white guys came and set up their forests. The northern tribes came down to trade and they come down in the spring, and they trade all summer and then they go back in the fall. Well, that's a big long canoe trip. So where would they stop to eat? They stopped to eat on a beach where they didn't have permission. And that this was so contrary to the to the whole ethic of the whole Coast Salish peoples. So this is a quote that I just love about what these forts were these look ticketed enclosures appearing at intervals of two or 300 Miles like secluded foxholes and the boundless prairies and on our coasts, what are they to the Redman they are magazines of celestial comforts woven wool, glittering trinkets, tobacco and drink, which places the body for a time beyond pain to their builders into the white race everywhere, they are depots of compressed power, dominating the land and all that is there in they are germs of the highest human type, which will shortly spring up and overspread the wilderness, causing it to wither beneath its fatal shape. This man was here a white guy in 1887, he got it, that we were doing something to the native people. So to the topic of this, they were changing the landscape. The next the newcomers said, this is completely wild. There's nothing here. marks on paper or the way that they want it. So they had firearms they had firewater. That's true. But our law is based on scribbles and scriptures on pieces of paper. And you can have been someplace for 1000s of years but I've I come along and stick some put some stakes in the ground and I show you a piece of paper that I own it you know what I when it trumps everything, this is Captain Vancouver's chart. And here we have the little Saanich Peninsula and Saltspring above it is to the left and the tenders didn't take time to he was to map the mainland coast, not the islands. So 1792 the little sketches on paper are starting to take over 1854 I've had to redo these maps they are owned by archives that charge an arm and a leg to use them and I'm doing this project completely the book project completely as a donation to save in the old monk farmhouse. So I don't want to be spending 50 And $100 Every time I turn around for an image and bless the Saltspring archives times over for the use of so many of them, you know and everyone who's contributed it's just the most amazing resource. So Chuan was the name of our little island as you mostly most people would know. Only briefly 1856 It showed up the Salt Spring Island, we're starting to get the shape of it much better. Two words for Salt Spring it looks more like a bunny than a pterodactyl. They left out long harbor. But soon enough, they got that working. So 1859. Before 1859 It was named Salt Spring, one word and Salt Spring two words is matched with both so they solved the problem for us. Wouldn't it be nice in a way if it was still? No, it wouldn't be nice. We need to maybe give it a native name if we're going to rename it. So this was from the Thumper Captain Richards under animal beings when they came around and did their survey in the close up of beaver point LNR point I just love because you can see the names that have been going since 1859, Channel Island beaver point, Eleanor point, Isabella point, et cetera. Isabella and Eleanor were apparently the daughters of two officers aboard one of the several surveying ships and I mean, I, I suppose I could devote a month's defining of who they were there's record somewhere but I really haven't delved into that one. But nice that they're named after girls and women. There's not that many. So traffic you're standing we're getting we're getting back to Eleanor point. So if you're standing at Eleanor point, since time immemorial, you're going to be seeing these canoes going by and when the newcomers moved in the canoes and the native people were really useful. They ferried people around, they were very helpful they did their trade from and then in 1836, the Hudson's Bay Company got the steamship dever built in England brought around the car to be it sort of floating for trade factory working out of Fort Vancouver. And so the standing on Eleanor point you'd have certainly seen this chugging and puffing by and when they found coal in an IMO, it meant that it could really open this area up. That was really key because it was it belts a lot. This is the plumper Captain Richards doing it survey. But you haven't seen anything yet standing on l&r Point seeing what's going by, because this is what's coming. This was the gold rush. And within about two years, less than two years 30,000 Guys, mostly guys who can't follow or women. Mostly white, some Chinese came up from San Francisco. So in 1857, you'd be standing at l&r Point seeing the little beaver chugging back and forth now and then two and three years later, you'd see shift after shift after shift before these 30,000 people came in. There were a couple 100 white guys I am about 7000 Native people on Southern Vancouver Island. That changed everything. This is what I call the grid on Turtle Island. And yes, it's the prairies. But this is what, what they did when they did their marks on paper. They the Turtle Island is the native peoples name for all of North America. And the grid just came down to hell with watersheds. We don't care where villages are, and hills and swamps and whatever, we're just going to divide it into a whole pile of little squares, and we're going to give it away as cheaply as possible and my family was in on this. They were caught up in this great tide of history. And when you're living it up close, and you're trying to carve out a living and you're having more kids, and you know what to do, if you got to feed him, you go where you need to go. So this is what we did. So that was Yeah, pardon me, I didn't get rid of this slide before I meant to do that. So ignore them that behind this map is said to be circa 1870 of Saltspring. But I'm pretty sure that it's before them. And it's just the map that the the guys who were allowed to preempt land or to get Crown land for the price of working and living up to building a house putting a fence around clearing some acreage, blah, blah. So this is what they would use to start staking their claims. By 1874 We have a surveyor ass down green lovely guy wrote a diary that is very, extremely valuable. This map is a treasure. We're getting we're honing in on on l&r point, actually, you know, getting on the map in terms of ownership. So, surveyor green, verified the lots on the false Burgoyne Valley. And he did the cadastral lines with the main section lines on the rest. So he was cutting through the woods and Lane chain and putting down the grid that still exists. And if you look at the modern map, you'll still see a number of roads and properties that are discernible. Okay, so this is where I started on my researches. I did this filled in this map of the Crown land preemptions this was really key to who was who and what was doing there. So the book that I've written covers all of these first newcomers and some of them the second preceptors boldness, one one purchase, it's there. And this is all backed up with the paperwork with the preemption papers. If they bought the Crown land papers, there have been maps before preemptions thank you I'm very thankful to the people that have done them but they're a little willy nilly this this is for sure. This is who lived there.

Speaker 1 27:48
So meet the l&r point, neighbors here we are Ashdown greens map of Eleanor point proper. That's a close up zoomed in on his larger map that you just saw. Point open rocks but Katelyn well I live down here. Let's not open rocks now. Let's forest. There are clearings for fruit trees. But this is what it was like when the first free after he said how Mara. That's how may I William how may a Hawaiian Salah Hawaiians were treated as British subjects, particularly if they had served the Hudson's Bay Company and make it three out loud, but otherwise only British subjects plus the lions and that's why I say newcomers because it wasn't all white guys. Why was it open rocks? Well, I think it's obvious there were countless fields. Probably extensive Camus fields is perfect for that. So he didn't have a lot of clearing to do. And then we have Abel Douglas, who was from New England. He was on Main Seafarer he was a whaling captain. He had Scottish roots. He liked to spell it with the two S's and I will check my manuscript to make sure that I consistently have because I think we need to honor people's names and what they want to be called. So na t 77. This is the map of l&r point where we got How may I fill that in and then we have Douglas on the right and then it was John or Joseph King who was actually a Greek so that's just a completely anglicized name. Oh, and then did you see Did you see the little little colored spots that came up? That's where they have their their cabinets. Their little preempting cabins were to be 18 feet by 24 feet minimum. Well, I don't think all that many of them actually complied. I think there were smaller home sweet home. Some of them had no windows. So let's go meet William William Howe math. I don't have any pictures of him, but this was a later cabin that was further back behind his part of his orchard. This is a 1908 photograph taken by Sal Simons who was the beaver point school now a little red teacher. And that building's long gone. There was a William Han there. And it would be this guy who worked for the Hudson's Bay Company in the Nymo. In 1853. He was a coal miner and in May of 1853, he got in his canoe and he thumbed his nose and he paddled away and he said, you can take your job and do something with it. The coal mining was absolutely brutal, and it was killing people. They were all getting sick from doing all the work. So we're in Palmyra disappears from the official record regarding the Hudson's Bay Company at that time, but he was known as connectable by his friends. He was also I believe we have any direct proof yet although there's more and more records being put up on the internet. I think he was William Mahoney, and there was a William Malloy and the Hudson's Bay records. We started in 1837 at Fort Vancouver, and the Hawaiians were hired mainly flooding refrigerators and helping with that, but they were growing food. So they were they had come they were farmers on Hawaii, they serve the aristocrats they were serfs. They were peasants from Hawaii, that knew very well the power structure of the Europeans and how to be a good pianist essentially, and crafters. And then he moved up to Vancouver Island. He was at Port port Rupert, which is no fort Rupert fort Rupert, which is port Hardy now 1853 He's out of service. I think he was this one in Mojave. Assuming he saw me I was borrowed from Fort Rupert to go down to Tim and IMO. The Hamilton wrote that he wasn't very big, bald headed fringe dark hair circle. This had the wild look. That story circulated that he was a cannibal. I find Yeah, I find when I'm reading stuff, and this is where I really love Captain Vancouver stuff. He never even passed on stuff that is jocular and kind of funny. But, but you can tell the attitude in a way of society at that time toward the brown skinned people. Ashdown green that said that he had picked a hard place for a ranch because it was rocky there wasn't for us like it was well for us to fairly well for us to now four acres, Indian corn potatoes, and he thought he could get seven more of agricultural acres out of the open rocky ground. Who was he in the community? Well, Greene very kindly put together a table of the man that he met who had preempted. So these are the south vendors from her going through the beaver point. So in here we have Henry rock. Well, he'd only been there a couple of years. But we've got how math and the x's for the women are the first nation wise well, you can see that more than half of them have First Nation wives. And I've written about them. But in my book I've also made I've pulled them out of the general chapters that are headed up with the man's family names and I've given them their own chapter. So there's just little summaries of these First Nation wives. There's a lot of birth and death dates. There's a lot of photos that that section is really dear to my heart. You can see that they grew a lot of pigs. Well, why did they grow a lot of pigs? Because the pigs ate Camus bulbs. So hundreds of years of cultivating and farming. The cameras all went up and a few good years of pork eating homemade Canac a bill spoke little English. His wife First Nations not don't know where she came from. But she spoke either since shopping or help a minimum likely or how can I help him elm up the freezer. So what would they communicate him? They spoke they spoke the dialect if the area they'll have Mayor was a was a good citizen. He was on one of them. He was on the earliest voters list that we have directory listings every year every year until he died. I just took this photo and because it's the only photo I know a lot of the ants from 1908 of the inside of his little cabin. This is the wife of several Simon's they lived there for a year and the baby was was not born there but came home and spent part of his first year there. They were dinky little dank, dark places. And you know the women operated out of there more than the man did. But boy, not the way we live. So there were easy pigs, thanks to the cameras bulbs and all that land alteration that had gone and they were harder fruit. And they were harder and they were apples but they were also harder. It took longer for the up to seven to 10 years for the craft to become productive. And Bill Howe may have put in a considerable number of trees and then he preempted more property and he bought Russell island. So this was his property in up to 1884. He had a daughter with his wife, Mary named Mary, how many Peavine Kahaluu. That was her husband. And he preempted this property so nice and close to mom and dad when you start to have kids. This is the 8091 census and the top line we have William Hillman his wife, Mary, then we have an English lodger. And I haven't tracked him down. I started to look, he's a bit tricky to find. And you know, there's an Englishman that was lodging with him very interesting. One day when I have time for how old I'll be, I don't know that girl might look them up. Then we have John P. Kehoe, his wife, Mary, they had a six year old son. And then they had to lodgers Abel Douglas and Mary Helen Douglas that were ages five and eight or nine, it's not mine. So at night, she was actually nine years old at that time, and she was lodging so these are the Douglas kits. Now, this is what happened to Mary how may have the next may may have set of 1892 she ended up in the cemetery, that Fulford she died in childbirth, giving birth to twins. And the rumor was that her husband in one of his drunken rages, beat her and caused her to miscarry and everyone died. And there's stories of ghosts in the ghost in the orchard, in William homemakers orchard. And, you know, I've looked down at him for nearly 15 years now, and I've been aware, for all those years when I go by a certain place in that orchard, I stop in my tracks and go, oh, there is something really disturbed here. I always have to stop and honestly, I give a little prayer. And I just go you, it's okay. You can. I don't know what makes me do it. I'm not hocus pocus that way at all. And I've talked with other neighbors about that as well. And they know the spot to and Rumi kind of Saucony Brian Smallshaw His wife had a visitor, who was she, she was visiting, she knew nothing about the story and she had a presence visitor in the light. And it was a brown skinned woman and a volute and a big dress that just showed up in the middle of the night. So anyway, Mary Mary, how mayor. So next door to the east, this is April Douglas, the whaling captains property. This is his wife, Mariah McCoy, the famous she wasn't famous then she's certainly famous now. And she was Mrs. Evil Douglas.

Speaker 1 37:33
This was her husband for me. He and his partners caught eight or nine orcas in the in the Salish seas in the streets here and then they figured they kind of fished them out. So they moved up to Cortes Island, and operated out of what they called whaler Bay, which is why it's called Wally Bay. And they took all the orcas out of there within a few years, and then he folded his business. In the meantime, Mariah was having children and children and children and children and children. She had eight children with this guy. And then she decided enough, the First Nations women, her mother was from Vancouver Island. We're not sure what what bands here what group she was with. But they weren't so tired as the as the White lives where they could go back to their home reserve as things were getting uncomfortable at home. So anyway, Mariah moved on. She became Mrs. George Fisher, the George Fisher fat story, I could give a dozen talk spinning off everything I'm saying here and this is a really big one. His father either was murdered or committed suicide when he was a few or maybe just shot himself accidentally when he was a few months old. And then his stepfather committed suicide. So anyway. Amazing. family stories are good people. Brian Malloy and her middle age now I threw this one in because a I just love this photo. We're all familiar with it. Nobody knows who's in it. However, since Frank has kindly sent me high resolution pictures. I'm zooming in on all the faces and to see who I can recognize. I'm pretty sure that's Mariah Mahal. I don't think I work as a portrait. I did work as a portrait artist as well. So I'm pretty familiar faces and contours. And we all are, but anyway, I'd say that's her. And maybe her sister Mary is standing beside her there, you know, maybe we can start to identify some others. So with George Fisher, Mariah, who was a midwife started having babies. 23456 716 children. She must have loved it. She died when she was 86. She was on muscle island where she spent a good part of the last few years and apparently she was out wrestling octopuses for supper, right until she was in her 80s fabulous woman next door in this property was able Douglas Old that he sold it to the poppin burger family. And he didn't sell it to vote 1886. But who are the poppin burgers? Well, there was George Poffenberger, who came from Bavaria in 1857. So look at the town that he left. Isn't that lovely? And he came and lived on Vancouver Island, and he took a First Nations wife named Mary. We don't have a photo of Mary, but we have a photo of her sister. This is Lucy, Lucy Peterson, who was born on Pelican Island. And we can guess your sister looks a little bit like her. And I just love these old photos anyway. And then you've seen this picture already. And this is from the she married Henry Samson, who lived in the north end up near St. Mary lake. And it's probably it is, I would guess it's her and Henry Sampson in the back. And again, I can zoom in on these pictures now. I think we've identified for sure who's almost for sure. Who is in that photo, and I think it's mainly pizza. So Lucy pizza. George's wife, Mary, had children, and children and children and children. There may have been another one named Emma. I'm really tracking that one down. Boy, it's a mystery. In 1880, George Poffenberger and his oldest daughter went to visit family in Pennsylvania and they died of TB. They probably had TB before they went Pennsylvania was had a lot of cemeteries sanitaria for people to come with TB, so he died in 1880. He couldn't have bought the property van. However, why is that? Okay? He had these two sons Thomas and John poppin burger and I expect that they're the ones who bought it in 1886. Thomas lived there for a number of years. They didn't have much impact on the land after the Douglass left. I'm sure that Douglas is put in a few fruit trees. But he was he made his evil Douglas made his money from whaling and sealing ceilings when he got into severe impacts on the land wouldn't have been great. So Thomas Poffenberger worked sealing maybe even got started through April Douglas, and that an Oregon newspaper reported in 1904 in the spring, April 15, that this ship, this ceilings ceiling vessel, the Triumph had been lost. And the daily colonists weighed in a couple of days later and said there's no fears and you know, your fear mongering these are upright ceiling companies and nothing's happened and all 31 guys on board, there's no problem they're gonna come home. So great, long article and really razzing The Oregonian paper. Well, the silence spoke volumes. Thomas Poffenberger didn't he never came home, the two King brothers and then the who were half Greek half First Nations and Arthur Tao was half Hawaiian half First Nation, Swift, important Island and had connections to the west side of Fulford. So this was John Puffin burger. And he set up and raised his family on that property. And his wife was also from Connecticut, as it's known, now called Ireland. And they had eight children. It seemed to be just the number and a lot of them survived. These were robust people. I mean, maybe a lot of them didn't. But this is astonishing. He was a farmer. He was an orchardist. He was the beaver point, Postmaster for a number of years. So he started to dig into the landscape, how many trees he had to take off? I don't know, there might not have been that many of them because again, it could well have it said open rocks right across even their property in 1874. So we'll move along really quickly to the King family. They're a huge family to get into and we can't get into details, very story. He was from Izmir, or Smyrna, which was part of Greece and up until 1920. It's not part of Turkey. This was his wife married sis, isn't this the most beautiful picture just wanted, she was a strong US woman. Her father was a chief and they even got into substances which is nice so you can track a little bit. She came with a daughter she had a daughter born of an Irishman, apparently and there was an Irishman that ran a saloon in Victoria a saloon in rooming house. So perhaps Emma was the daughter of this fight and Irish fellow and then Mary and Mr. King, his actual name was may either John su or Yanis Pasila or Yanis. can come on, can't say anyway, different names really tricky to trace Alexander. He drowned he died. Leon became a very well loved figure in the community. Why? Sofia's daughter Maria mouse there's a puzzle on Thomas soul anyway, stuff going on you know they say a joke about Fulford as what's what's the most confusing day of the year in this cell kind of Saltspring Father's Day? Well, this Maria has got me really puzzled about who the daddy by Constantine who also who also died within the triumph. So the boys on the left and the right are the two brothers who drowned and in between as Adolf Twiggy, who became a well known kind of institutional himself in the South, as well as his whole family. This is the fight and Irish guy's daughter and apparently she was a Spitfire for whole life. She she was a lot of fun and very Sparky and a lot of trouble. And she became Mrs. John Stevens, who was another Greek fellow young, young nurse, and the Stephens family, continuously deleted to this day on that end, and when she married John Stevens, they were given four acres as a wedding present that was big long strip and it's still it's cut off about two thirds of the way up but that was the land beside the creek. When you're pre empting a suddenly land the first thing you look for is potable water for yourself and then obviously for your crop. So now we're finally getting into the second wave of newcomers. These were the purchasers. James Hector a monk, he was from here. This was an overview of his very green fields talk about the Higgledy Piggledy grid coming down on their Turtle Island. It's a cathedral town yeoville couple miles across of King from a you know, a pretty good size village, his father ran a private Grammar School. And he came aboard this this ship in 1891 April 22. He remembered most vividly the painful for advice of his family because England would never be home again. He did get back once he found work quite soon at the strawberry Vale school in Sydney in Saanich. Pardon me using Saanich. And he got to know a guy in in near his school named Samuel fair Clow, a fair cloud. I'm not sure how he said it. This last little bit wasn't preempted until 1902 32 acres for $32 Any takers? Anyone want to buy? 32 acres for $32 have to prove it up mind you. So this was the distance from where Jim Mark lived and where that property was. In 1902. Not long after Fairfield bought this property William Howe may have died.

Speaker 1 47:44
And this is what Jim Mark ended up buying. And apparently he did go by Jim all the time, not only to his family, but to his neighbors. Mr. Month to his students, of course. So he bought 264 acres for $2,500. So his neighbor and possibly friend circle due to that business transaction, home and commute while he continued to teach at the strawberry Vale school for a number of years. So where did he live? Well, this is that old hummock cabin that you've seen before. So I'm sure that he stayed there, at least on weekends. And then the could take the theory that this is the Isabel steamship that stopped at Fulford harbour, this is circa 1905. And not here very soon. This is 1908 He got himself a boat, he probably got one beforehand. And Leon and Sophie King next door probably built it because they built more than 80 of these gorgeous boats. That looks like one of those. This is how he commuted to Victoria, to spend Sydney growing up and went straight from Sydney right up by a school very handy. He had hired help. Now these photos are particularly precious because it is so difficult to find anything about the Japanese and Chinese people who were not allowed to pre land and to take Crown land in this way they could only purchase after years later. So we have neato This is Cyril Simon's photos and he names them this year. I can't tell you how special that is that he bothered to remember their names and you know, try to spell them right Matt scoobo. So here we're doing a little bit of lamb land clearing, these are five of the guys. I can't tell you, which is which but these there were there were six of them that were working there at that time. And they all have names. Yay. Brian Smallshaw, who is doing a master's thesis on the Japanese and Japanese Canadian people on Saltspring. This so he's he's very thrilled with these photos. We ended up with a barn how many years old cabin and a monk farmhouse. And here it is 1908 and we got the proud owners on the doorsteps. That's me monks and Jim monk. And the guy in front is probably Charlie Munger. Jim's brother came out a few years after he did and they call it Fernhill farm. So making inroads I've taken a Google Map and I blot it out the road so we can get an idea of some of what was coming. I mean, it's pretty chewed up. But anyway, first of all, where's the water? Here's the water. So I think I'm going to go back because here's my

Speaker 1 50:31
Can you see what that pond is you can see it on the ortho photos and and on the satellite. So that's an irrigation pond. That's not a natural pond. Although it's a year round. There's a swamp just to the northwest of it. And then there's another little pond a little further Northwest that was was dug up. Water Systems We got the King family coffin burger family and get the monk farmhouse, school car you have roads. This is how you get to your property. The king family's road became king road. And the top of Papa burgers road remains private and the monk road is mostly private in the middle hatch, the little black striped areas where it's still public, and you can still see vestiges of it the whole way. But if you do go to take a look at it, don't go on the private property, please because the owners are a little sensitive. And there's some property so fruition and beyond we may mark two kids so they had two daughters they had a son is the same obviously grown up there's Uncle Charlie that was helping with everything. So fruit sales, livestock teaching, this is how you make a living. Even Jim Mark worked for the younger handy record for a bit. But on 1923 Christmas Day, may mock died in Victoria TV. So sad times we suddenly had a widower with three young kids to raise not able to teach at the school anymore. And then he hit the dirty 30s And the whole assault spring suffered during the dirty 30s and particularly the fruit growers so the fruit growing Bonanza days before were just just gone through hard times and through transportation issues. 1935 January 2 was another important day to Jim month because his son died. He he died in that lady Mental Hospital communicable disease and he died very quickly. So there goes the one that was going to take over the farm and run it and he was a good young farmer apparently. This is the monk farmhouse circa 1936. So you can see he put the the only addition is the is the kind of second story bedroom you can actually stand up stairs which is nice. So onward. In 1941 Mr. Monk, but his farm next Mr. quotation mark suit he called Kirby 1951 He came back for the closing of the beaver pump school. He's the tall guy on the left. You can see what David O'Flynn for those of you who know him while we got a six foot 10 inch height packed up there just thought it was great. That tall saw Simon's on the right. That took some of these amazing pictures. This is Mr. Monk not long before he died. So I'm gonna try to get a better picture, the best we've got. Now, he sold the place to a woman named Stephanie Stockley, who in her old age with her daughter wrote this book, and it's very telling that it's called tennis cow. This is what I call the third wave of newcomers. Yes, they were purchasers. But tennis cow tells you that the cow had to put up with being milked as did all farm chores with the tennis shedule. This book is a delightful capsule of the time and what's the the English people mainly on Saltspring we're doing but it just seemed to be a long string of parties and costumes and drinking and smoking and, and the poor cow had to wait to be milked and better get used to it. So it was a whole different crowd that came. Mrs. Stockley couldn't pay for her. She was widowed and had a teenage daughter when she came she couldn't pay fully for the property and she didn't pay the back taxes. So some of it reverted back to Jim mark and it went to his daughter Margaret, back to so that that the family still that east side of the property. Then we have the Ungers, a lot of people, particularly in the south in New Haven always spoke very well and I don't know any of this, I'm afraid before we sold the rented so neighbor, Jamil hearts that one of the sisters was born in my farmhouse as of last year. The Beaver point strata which got started in 1985, cleared out the house, and we're set to burn it down in this past February. and the fire department was going to do it. And the Saltspring community got a little up in arms about this. He said really, you got to be kidding. 10 year old, perfectly useful home actually. But there's no doubt it has to go and the strata has agreed to move into Rucker Park. And they will donate the the demolition costs which will be about $30,000. to helping to move it up to Rucker Park, I got a mover it's going to move near the end of November into December. So there's going to be this house rolling down the road soon. I think it's going to be a red letter day on Saltspring. Lots of photo ops. So this is the month long house now. Different views of it. They strip the porch off the front. But this is what's ready to roll and why it's so perfect out at Rocco is a of course it's not a record building, and it's an interloper. But the floor plan is absolutely perfect for public events. So the living room is big enough to hold as 30 to 40 people so that there can be talks of various sorts history, natural history, farming, whatever. There's a kitchen to the side, there's rooms upstairs for park staff to have an office and accommodation for the euro caretaker that now lives out of a little kin box. And so it's going to work perfectly. And the other thing is it's been lifted for until last year. So it's not precious. The rental houses the two that are unoccupied. And the two that other two that may eventually the unoccupied they're truly homes. They're absolutely precious and they can't take the traffic's of this one can. They just can't. So when we open up an interpretation and administrative center through this old farmhouse, once this set up and running, we can start to open up the other buildings so that if you want to go on a tour, particularly in the tourist season to the original house from the 1870s we can start to get that going that old glorious queen out of Alfred rucklehaus. I'd love to see tourists through there. I've had the good fortune of being able to go through it and it's breathtaking. It is a time capsule fitness, you'd have to really assure people through and kept them well barricaded from everything but it can be done. I think it can be done with the correct care. And then a neighbor who was a guide at Barkerville would dress up as one of the ladies old lady's a Barbie doll she's gonna dress up as one of the Mrs. replisome lead the tours, tell people not to touch anything and get new clothes up here. So the human impacts up where the caretaker shack is now up behind the pigsty and before the Fords because take up too high, there's going to be a really good site, it won't have electricity or plumbing to start with plumbing, who cares? It's fine electricity, I will get there. So this is the conclusion of my talk. And I'm just leaving you now with l&r point and this is where we started. And I hope that through telling you all of these people's stories and interventions and impacts that when you look at this land now you see it quite differently. You can see the poplin bourbon Douglas Poffenberger orchards you can see the how may a mock orchard you can see the king Steven orchards you can see Harry Burton's little orchard up here, I'm still not finding. Okay, this is various places. So a lot of human health impacts for an awfully long time. And I'm sure I've gone over my time but thank you very much