Salt Spring Island Archives
| Accession Number | |||
| Date | April 2019 | ||
| Media | digital recording | Audio | mp3 √ |
| duration | 42 |
402_George-Laundry_Talk-QA-about-Musgrave_SSI-Seniors_04-2019.mp3
otter.ai
12.02.2024
yes
?
Outline
Unknown Speaker 0:00
All right
Unknown Speaker 0:33
make sure there's no brandy
Speaker 1 0:44
so is this the man who needs no introduction? I don't charge boundaries
Speaker 2 0:55
introduced the audience to me. Thank you for coming. I do want to make clear though that I don't like any trouble the audience. So I'm just going to go on. Like questions, you ask questions and one of the three choices either I know the answer, don't know the answer. This is a broad accent, there are two tools that you need that Musgraves an address and if you're on ads is and most of the houses up there. I got a couple of pictures. They were log cabins as opposed to some of the houses here on the valley that were built with lumber. And we'll explain that because big mill was, of course just across the water and shamans. Though they often say that Musgrave was cut off and salting but of course it's the other way around Saltspring was cut off because it was the center of commerce on Saltspring at one time, there was no Ganges. It was no Fulford but the main line of the economy round for let's say Nanaimo, which is more or less the capital of the colony. This was a colony of Ankara. And down to Chu Manos, which was a big mill, which was feeding the gold rush out of Victoria, Victoria had, I think, gone from some different numbers here, but from 700 to 20,000, in something like six months. And that played a big effect on Saltspring. So there is one book I mentioned, if you are interested in the history of soft being in particular, this is a book that the farmers Institute asked for the right to publish, it wasn't published with some more Stratton, a very famous international author did extraordinary work, but he had it down in just note form. So a group of us, four of us, Frank Kenosha and Conrad Knight asked the farmers that could be 100 and 20th project, and the family came here to receive it. And it was quite a feeling for them to have nothing and all of a sudden, they have a high quality book here. And we could do pretty much whatever we wanted to put a big picture in the center for and if you'd like to see that I could show it to you. I mean, we're all adults here
Speaker 2 3:37
and mine mind one of the most stunning pictures of paintings of salt marsh and it has that particular talk people are not selling books. If you get one of these, you got arm that and put it in a frame and you would pay $40 for a stunning, stunning picture. You can. I just mentioned this book because he does a section on Musgraves. His work was extraordinary. I've always thought of Saltspring as being three islands. If you look at from booth canals who to Ganges phrase tidal waters about 50 feet and you've got an island. There was talk about 1900 of putting a causeway through there because people were coming from the main part of Owen Vancouver Island and they would drag their canoes through there. So they thought they were put a canal. Well, we've had our own we go to put a war point, you know, that sort of Isabela point, you know. And then if you look at the Burgoyne valley here, my house has I think an altitude of about six feet above sea level. So wouldn't take much in geological time. Not long ago, there would have been Three Islands and all in their funny way, we kind of hope sometime that no iPhone would totally Musgraves was extremely vigorous community around the time from the late 1800s into maybe 1920, maybe 25 something in that way. It declines with the recession, depression in the 30s falls apart. Many people have to work off island during my dad worked up in his huge call for Georgia, Prince George now, but when that worked right up then was difficult enough. So I was born in 1936. In Duncan, technically, because there were no hospitals over there. I came home and my brother's a brother and two sisters quite a bit older, went down and we're told to go down and wash the boat, the tugboat come, and so I came home on a tugboat to Musgraves. And I thought for years, that's how it worked. That's not as good as Dave Harris. The story Dave house when he was a little boy was standing on Bob's deck out there. And granny jives, who was the midwife because Tony down the road with a black bag. And Dave said to Bob, where his granny Jive is going, and he said she's going to deliver a baby. So for many years, they thought that's how they came. So
Speaker 2 6:40
Musgraves was a sequence of remittance men, many of them their rooms and things like that. The first of them was Pembury. And he the first evidence of them building a dock and about a team 73. And from that begins to sequence and they're pretty much all related. These were people that were well paid to get out or things, you know, are we missing? So the lower part of Musgraves was settled by these remittance men. And you're living in a log cabin on a side hill with servants and 7000 acres. What do we got here? So they stayed there until probably well into the 30. Some of them and they were related to the Musgrave so MOSFETs are famous for business people. They, the last one of the last Musgrave was the last governor of Australia, for example. So give them good jobs and get him out of things that were followed by the friendships. That's trench, sorry, stretch. Then there were several more Brantford who was related but have a slightly different nature. He's in the top part up more towards where the Buddhist monastery is. And then finally, we have the Kellogg's come in who who are not part of this scene at all, but on a lot of land and if you look at the maps, and the names, very strange name now Kellogg's but of course, the intermarriage families. Every village of Kellogg has a quarter section over there somehow. So the the upper section of Musgraves laundry trail used to be there until it was taken out, cut up and taken up onto the flat spot above. And this is why I had logged how was it because there were no rules and you couldn't get any timber, your everything has to be timber. It was settled, upper masquerades was settled by mostly by veterans, more war veterans. And then I was just reading right after this the First World War, a group of 17 settler families had come in moved in. So at that period of time, about 1895 or so there were at least 200 recorded people. And some people said, obvious to say 300 people now that may would make it the largest part of the Saltspring by quite a bit. Reverend Wilson has in his books, something like 220 people on all Saltspring. Well, that there were more than that at Musgraves at that time, because it was on the hub of the economy from Nanaimo, down to an exploding Gold Rush town. So it settled by these two groups of people. The people in Upper Musgrave generally were people who didn't have a lot of money, and so they would work off Island and as I see my dad would go as far as Prince George's to work and that there was a post office That Musgraves and it stayed I think to almost 51 it was a boat going out of Burgoyne I remember going was a key place because it was on the tree dude. Come on down there. You could. One of the families I'll talk about a little bit the Smith family Roy Smith ran a boat out of out of Bergen Bay. And you could go around and I would go around we left Musgraves in a boat for the know about 39 I got something I got by 39 Things have dried up off island the work had dried up. And we would go around my dad kept the rats to 51 until 1951 I can remember going up to 51 Clear dish sheep out and 51 a truck goes over their knees. Two giant guys saw him she up onto the truck while they were the rocker boys so so that's when we left there. What you did for food there was a store on the dock at Musgraves I don't remember it may not have been a store. It was more likely a place where stuff came in on the mailable you could order stuff out and I found a bug got an order here from my mom in 1928 all needed cornstarch and matches and tourists all this stuff came to the Musgrave war and it came from some funny little store out in Beaver point
Unknown Speaker 11:53
the palace
Speaker 2 11:59
so that would that would be where you got your food from. You could we wouldn't have had a boat people. If you had a boat and very few people did. The main boat was like I'm gonna read your little boat Hopkins here. But it costs 25 cents to go around on the new mail boat, and that was a lot of money. So I would go around take the food around to my dad because he would go back every summer to share with us like because he saw to the needs often collagen. So I would take that stuff around and come down the hill here where the toilet field is. And I did that as early as about five. And we never somehow never worried. I mean, nobody in our right mind would leave their kids out waiting for a bus. Now. If they're teenagers. Five I'd be coming down the hill. And it was just a different time. My favorite story of Charlie Sampson, my old friend. And they had 14 kids living up to North are very famous for one of the first families not not his but their first family and 14 kids and they played all day and have some neat morning to go and play all day. And he said that 11 o'clock every night his mom would come in and count the number of kids so that's that's the kind of discipline Yeah, so the Boer War veterans and upper Musgrave is a guy who settled next to Dad was named was Muldoon. Well, you know, that's a good South African name. And of course he was he had fought on the other side against my dad really got along fine. He was a shipwright. My dad was a carriage maker and things like very skilled person. His dad's Woodworking is beyond belief. We have some chests out there. No nails in the furniture. That kind of stuff. You know, you couldn't afford nails. But I spent a good part of my youth up here straightening now. Well, they used to say that if you start with absolutely nothing you get you managed to keep most of it. More settlers came after the First World War they in the paper they were doing both groups of later on. 17 is a magic number. But the first article I read much earlier was 17 families this time or 17 more settlers. So something about well, it's a prime number. The Smith brothers came and they were one of the families they were remittance people as well. There were three brothers and the guy around the mailable I think maybe adopted by Arnold and middle 1920 scheme had electricity. He had a great big wheel and I can just remember it being about two Mason's high as me, his brother Frank had another one. And that's the one that people have seen because it lasted long, it was much smaller. But he had electricity. There was a rumor that even had a milking machine for the goats in the late 20s, early 30s. And Frank Smith sold goat cheese. So in terms of the economy, I put any of the stuff down, but they had that trench farm had an orchard of 100 1600 trees. Now that's, that's not peanuts. And my dad talks about 70 barrels of apples going off on a ship coming in. These are big barrels, not little things. And the boat came in, I think it was Mondays and Fridays or something. It didn't stop. If there was only people, it has not stopped. But I mean, you had to hold the ball. If there was stuff to pick up, then it would come in and do that. So outside of this sheet that they were talking about, maybe like a dozen rounds us killed a den cleaner on the way to Victoria to the gold rush. And talked about seven, I don't put it down here somewhere seven barrels of clams, 3030 bags of oysters that kind of thing was neat was going in. So it was a center of agriculture, believe it or not. There was one field we often talked about called 100 acre field. And that was right up on top on 1200 acres. And then there are a result there during the logging 1015 years ago whenever that was, some of the fences are still there. All right, well, let's get on to the fun part, what my dad sold well, for 30 years, I guess to help people encourage them. Remember the famous sweaters that were made? Remember, that's not that was introduced? Well document introduced by an Anglican priest under the guise of women's work. Well, we're coming back to that, I guess already know, what I hear on paper is women's work. And they taught them to do the weaving. And they became world famous. And my dad was selling direct to them. And I got a receipt here for received from Louis jars, the sum of $5 for wolves to be taken on or after June 15 1937. And I would go up there with my dad because he'd be there in the summer. And sometime when I was quite a bit older, we were up there, maybe in the late 40s. And I these two people came up up revival came up, followed by their wives, their wives, for them coming up the road and went in and had tea with my mom. And then we go down, four of them, and they go down to the barn to look at the wolf. And all sorts of funny things happen. So I asked my dad many years later what that was all about. And he said, Well, when you do business with people for 3040 years, it's important to leave her leave each time with a good feeling. So all of the stuff around the goat shed now whether we're putting would be if the two of them would look at the wall. And if they thought that was a good deal. Then they'd, you know, be happy. And a few days later, a guy would come up with a couple salmon. And if my dad frowned and it wasn't such a good year. Well, that's the other way they bring us down on him. If my dad was happy with it, he would always say, Oh, just a minute. I may have one more black fleece upstairs because black feast fleece, which was cherished by these people, so so that was a little bit about that. Most of the information that we have the day to day stuff comes from a shepherd okay there and his name was Athens, Alec Atkins. And this book is something that if you if you want to have a little bit of just safe enjoyment, that would be you and you can download this or get your hands on seminar from the archives. Wonderful, wonderful. He fell in 1999 at 91. He kept a record of maybe about nine to 10 months something like And almost every day is cutting ferns. Cloud up all my garden and these are big big gardens and planted all my potatoes and then it killed a deer. And they had to do that Sunday I felt very lazy commenced to cut difference in an 80 acre park 80 acres. And he said he was out there for a couple of days. Just the things they did in a sense this is the eighth of June being driving sheep today when right around the back from the south end have not been there before. And this is talking about Longclaw seeing the goldmine and one thing there was at that point a gold mine on Saltspring and copper mines as well, by the way. I think I think they brought that oh, this was a very poor drive. I think about 300 feet. Well, they had drivers at 800 800 sheep went around by Burgoyne Bay. So Pukekohe select Rosa and this is he runs into this character. Who I guess is Deke Maxwell. His name is Maxwell Poby dip back at that time, yeah. So Dick Maxwell and he's never been around it because you didn't know there was a farming career in here. So he has a long talk to this guy quite impressive. The mitten and all this is in the book. And he says in the in the book he said they'll have good farms out there someday. Well, interesting character. Because he probably one of the best
Speaker 2 21:55
examples of total unrequited love. He falls in love with the maximum must be Musgraves girl. Of course, there's no time for him. And he gets he doesn't really tell her. So he goes through and the nights he talks about this and the love that he had for an album. She is going to do better than now. So she marries is going to marry mother Dunsmuir. So owns all the coal mines. So comes the day that they're heading off and he has to roar across the couch and station and he caught what he doesn't roll him to for pulling the gentry. So he pulls her over on her way to her wedding. And he must have had some you know, troubling thoughts about that song
Speaker 2 23:02
he all I can say is I got was able to bring a book home one day I read it. And she more lent it to me under penalty of death. And she probably would have carried it out. I'm sorry. So you must have given it back to I gave it back. Oh, yeah. No, I I chose your moments to touch something that special in the royal Museum in England once I actually got to touch a letter from New. And that leaves a mark on an old physicist guy like that? Well, I don't know that. The Trench story. A couple of years ago, I was on my job at the Fall fair information. And the young woman comes up to me and she said, Do you know anything about muscaria? So someone has put her up to the party, that historical society? So I said, Well, what, what has she said, Well, I'd like to go up and have a look. I said, Why didn't you she said, Well, my grandparents used to live there. So that makes me curious ARE THEY COME ON or OFF? So we sit down, we were able to arrange to get her up there. And she's reading from her great. I don't know how many great certain abilities to grandmother, five years of age 1920 or something. And she's talking about playing among the 31st. So I said I didn't know whether was our little stream going down. So she got they wanted the woman and her partner were sound specialists from Paris. And so I take them around, they said they want to go places where they're great, great grandmother. And so I thought I would have had tea with my mom. So we went to where the house house had been burned all houses up there were burned by the draft dodgers. That's another story. So we went with how it would have been and please this record here, she's got one of these little records that you wind up. And it's what the girl her great great grandmother had as a five year old with records. So her goal is to go and play the record everywhere where her great grandmother would have been. And record a this may still be on the computer, because so then we go down and we take the sounds of all this, take this out, we sat on the deck quietly down, Musgrave landing, and he didn't record it with just the sound of the waves. And so you can pick up the sounds of mosquitoes, waves if you want. On the docks on that those were all kind of fun little things. I forgot to talk about lumbering, lumbering, of course, was a big thing. Being that close to a mill, there was a major camp there. And it was stocked by these to say about 75 Japanese people. And if you're out that direction, and looking back to the masteries mop while and see the coloring on the hill, that we called Aki strange and just over to the west, they have the scheduled going down right to the water. And they would, you know, skip physically
Speaker 2 26:44
four and five foot trees on. So you get a lot of people you can do it. I mean, the pyramids were built with rocks bigger than any equipment we can move today. So you tell me how they do this? Well, it's those guys most basic. Anyhow. People leave their I don't know that cheese factory, all those kinds of things that people leave about the late 30s. And some didn't, there was a rosemary lake over there, which is not a lake at all, of course is dammed up swamp. And he used that for hydraulic power to cut shakes. Because shakes were big sellers in Victoria these days, as you can remember exploding, and it's get them down a hill here. And when I was a little kid, you could see the skid logs. So there was a family living up there just at that rosemary, nice place. And he used to walk down to the school here just off the road each day. So stop this nonsense, you guys. That was you need the north, the south end fitness club is what you need. Because in the 1920s and 30s, there was I'm sure you've heard this story before, but there was a golf course and not not a golf course but a tennis court and the people dress up in white suits and come up to our house and was like The Great Gatsby. And they had they had a north and fitness club. And it was really I think more of a gin drinking club. So there was a person down here at Fulford the lake who formed what is called the so salting fitness club. And he has three rules. You got to own a farm and work he got up in the morning and you work all day and your mind your own business. And the third thing is it did that for four months has been shaped. So that's a true story though. Brian. Brian Brenton and I were junior members of the so salting fitness. And there's a certain guy in the club here who used to pay us a nickel to go and get broke sheet over as far away as bull months. Well, we'd play to it for a nickel you wish we never did get what he asked us to claim that we didn't do it fast enough. So you've never been we used to play the game with the buzzers. And you lie down into the sun facedown and the winner is the guy who lets the buzzer get the closest because they circled and they come down and you can see the shadow if you're leaning away yourself. That's the kind of thing we did. So are there any questions? I don't have a lot more I could go on in college some French Any any questions or anything? Yeah.
Speaker 3 30:07
The mill wheel down at the mill farm or up at the mill.
Speaker 2 30:13
The little one or the little one was Frank Smith. The big one was Arnold Smith. pornos was down farther, way down below. But they built the wheel goes wheels worked. Both of them produce electricity. But there was a bigger one much Arnold's was a much bigger Arnold's was twice my height. And they work and Frank Smith had the brothers Frank and Armand and Walter. And then Roy was, we think, maybe adopted, he ran the mailboat. But that, that we all worked and produced cheese from golf coaches. They were kind of the patriarchs. They were also people that probably were the families were happy with somewhere else. Another question, could you ever be? Yeah. Oh, I didn't mention that. I'm sorry. I have a group pair that came. After some of the ones I talked about. Let me see after somewhere. I think it was a general Brigadier General meet him and his wife. They have traveled all over the world, my understanding of them. And they bought 400 acres of Bradford's Bradford's property. And I think the Jeep is still there. They roared around Saltspring. Not always well accepted. As if they were hunting in India, because they had spent a lot of their life. I think she wrote a book, a new India or different India. Book that when they came here, it was called the new jungle. Yes, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. They weren't there that long as I remember. No. And they, they just brought it around. And he did in Jeeps. And
Speaker 1 32:21
I went to school with her daughter to I'm
Unknown Speaker 32:25
sorry, to school with
Speaker 1 32:26
her daughter, Tia. And, and I asked her about cheat. She says, I was very young. I can't read Misha, was the name some of the ones. You mentioned, that she couldn't tell me much about the
Unknown Speaker 32:39
life? Well,
Speaker 2 32:40
I certainly couldn't. We had moved away. And of course, I guess I was away from Saltspring. By that time, I I left in 54, I guess 55 Oh, that's Yeah, well, that was just about. Yeah. Before that. You're you you could probably get in to see the building where they were? Well, I
Unknown Speaker 33:04
think very, very light to go there.
Speaker 2 33:07
I think there now is a different branch of a family, these, these weren't to cook California akiza. To people who want all the banks, tremendous amount of money. And they were I got it when when I talked about this kid and the sound. About two years later. They approach approach to see if their mom and dad Kevin, Lord acts with you if somebody came and four of them came all together. And I was this time, I had a warning and I was able to make contact with the people at the bank at the house of their original hubs. And so they were wonderful, wonderful people. Now that was Phoebe, Phoebe Kellogg, wonderful people. And they they treated us as if we were visiting dignitaries. It's hard for me to behave. So. We did well, they, after seeing everything that you could possibly see. They invited us in for tea up their house. And they built this house that they took about 20 people around from Burgoyne. Every day for many, many months. They were spending 100 $300,000 A week building this house along house a long thing. And it was made up of rooms about like this, maybe six of them heated pool, things like that. And there's a grand piano over here and two rooms down another grand piano and so I said to the guy over and I said how do you handle the stress of not knowing which room to relax in Ellie's Just want to get the ducks did I have a drink? So they were they were wonderful to us. And if they were still there, I can see that you could easily arrange that. Is that the big white house up on the hill? No, this is on this is on the Sampson narrows, right fairly close up running parallel to the shoreline
Speaker 4 35:25
when when you talk about the barn, you're talking about the log barns that just got taken down a few years back.
Speaker 2 35:32
Our barn? Yeah, yeah. So it was it was advised by the insurance people. And they came out. A lot of things happened there people, there were groups of people or who came hunting. And they'd like fires and they go away. And things like that. And my sister went up there once and it was unattended fire. And so she took all their water and put out the fire and waited there and six guys with guns. So Michigan, explained the facts of life and my sister was able to do that.
Speaker 4 36:15
Hello is I was up there with side before so I passed
Speaker 2 36:18
away. Yeah, no. This was his barn. I didn't bring a picture today of that. But it's it's was I guess the last barn on the mountain there. Last visible barn on the opposite Myanmar, and it was near the road. Have you ever gone down to Moscow? You would have gone past this?
Unknown Speaker 36:40
Well, yeah. Did you take it down?
Speaker 2 36:43
While I was away from here, so it was it was in the last maybe 30 years ago I guess. Because
Speaker 3 36:49
I mean, I seem to remember having done by it was visible right on.
Speaker 2 36:55
People were people were lighting fires and the Vietnamese draft dodgers settled here for some reason they knew something about it. So and I got to meet some of them. One guy was a PhD in geography from Caltech. And he wasn't going to war. It's as simple as that. He was no nor, but they burned. I think every house on a mountain don't count the barns. My dad had this beautiful chest which some guy mentioned his name, refurbished it for me. There was what I had these big Sliding Panels across the door. And they went in and took us on and cut it up and used it for kindling. happened on a regular basis. Now he was able to resurrect it. So Musgraves is now I guess, becoming a haven for campers. For for I mean big time campers. I got a chance some years ago to go around Salzburg in a boat. And I was astonished by the number of very expensive houses down that side that did not have a road into them. So I mean, to the people. The people who were mashing took us took care of us up at Musgraves. That was clearly a house that was well used for business, to big houses, with every possible thing you could ever want. He did swimming pool, stuff like that a couple. And so he probably had every bank manager in the United States up here, that sort of thing. So it's become that now the big developments down with a water. Different a different place.
Speaker 4 38:53
I was up there two weeks, three weeks ago with some friends. And I noticed that three more of the logging roads have been very, very definitely blocked off. Yeah. When you come to the base of the last hill going up to the peak of Mount Bruce Yeah. And you get a dodge to the left. And there's a there's a 20 foot high wall there now. So that whole area is being blocked off right at the access points. Well,
Speaker 2 39:20
my dad's Israeli relatives named after me, he pushed the created out to go up to upper Musgraves for the development around war, and of course, then they decided that they might get motorcycles so the tour of the road up and gone down. Well, you can't have these motorcycles. There's other riders maybe there's other ways of dealing with motorcycles. So
Unknown Speaker 39:50
George, are you talking about that same road that I'm talking to?
Speaker 2 39:56
Now, Bruce, no, no, his road was down. by Arnold Smith right near the water and it was eroded came in the bottom and back up. Okay. I got also just a few pictures here I didn't get to do much but there's a picture of the old house near as much Korean War there's my dad's release from the South African war he was in the Canadian contingent then of course he got ill he was accidentally got he was in the hospital got put in a TB Ward and cough TV of course we had no money to fight for it so Major General Purpose eventually did but anyhow Who should I got this for me? He was a Canadian contingent and he's got some interesting stories but to find out in something and just a few stuff different people here's a picture some of you will remember. And here's one that last guy and he had just so come up and have a look at that. I'll get out you get to t so you got to bring that log in now I'm not gonna do anything
Speaker 1 41:22
I just want to thank you for so much for coming and telling us about this and please don't stop asking questions and doing everything but just as very small
Unknown Speaker 41:34
I would have expected at least get a popcorn
Speaker 2 41:43
so I don't have a sense of humor but I had something like six or seven students over my lifetime committed suicide on drug related things so I have no patients at all don't talk to me about
Speaker 1 42:05
please everybody up and thanks again for everything we do. We've got tea and coffee in in all sectors. So please enjoy and
