Salt Spring Island Archives

Donate Now Through CanadaHelps.org!

Audio

Robert Akerman (1912-)

This tape is part of the Salt Spring Island Historical Society Collection and comprises an address to its members.

The last 10 minutes of side 1 and 15 minutes of side 2 are comprised of Mr Akerman discussing the Burgoyne Valley and his family.

Audio File Disclaimer: Please keep in mind that these interviews, recollections and talks are one person’s “truth”. These speakers generously shared their stories, experiences and personal knowledge with the Salt Spring Archives and we share them here with you. We ask that you be respectful with how you read and share them. We hope that you will learn from them.

Accession Number 989.031. Interviewer Tony Farr
Date 1977 Location
Media tape Audio CD mp3
ID 3B Topic

50b_Robert_Akerman.mp3

otter.ai

18.01.2023

yes, 11.03.2024

Molly Akerman

Bob Akerman 0:00
Thinking way back, who was [Indiscernible] of the Fulford Inn?

Tony Farr 0:06
Was it Coleman? No it wasn’t Coleman, he was there.

BA 0:16
I remember after the White House, remember after Cullingtons. Remember Albie Davies, and Jumbo Davies, his nephews. Kennedy, Mr. Kennedy. He built this hotel. Mr. Kennedy, he sold it out and it changed hands several times. And then it burned down. So nothing was under that piece of property just few years ago, and they built a new hotel there now and it's still there. And I hope it doesn't burn down.

Speaker 1:11
Well didn't the Fulford, the other building there burnt down two or three times. Fulford hall burnt down three times.

BA 1:16
First one was built in 1925

Speaker 1:20
Of course before the hotel Bob, there was a store. Mcfadden and Skeffington store.

BA 1:28
Well, before the hotel, Rogers was the first.

Speaker 1:33
Yeah, yeah, exactly. But then store.

BA 1:38
Brandy, Kevin, and McFadden? [Chatter]

Speaker 1:48
They had a store there, after Rogers burnt down. McFadden married a girl around the other islands, Maine island. Skeffington used to stick with us, I can remember them because I had their horses.

BA 2:07
They must have built the White House then

Speaker 2:11
Skeffington? No. Somebody else definitely, went to war. Skeffington did. I used to write to him all the time so i know it.

BA 2:24
Well, we got a jist about him there. Ivan, what do you say?

Ivan 2:28
I was just going to ask you if that was a Cranberry Rogers?

BA 2:33
No, no, no, it was Jim. Jim Rogers. Where Jim used to be there. [chatter]. They had the first one.

Speaker 2:50
Well when was the little church built?

BA 2:57
The United Church? I have a picture of it there. It was built...

Speaker 3:07
Mr. Nightingale gave the land.

BA 3:11
Yeah, Joe Nightingale.

Speaker 3:16
And Reeves came there in 1911

BA 3:22
It must have been I think, just before the turn of the century, I'm sure. that's what across we can. [Chatter]

BA 3:53
Well, they covered pretty, pretty well. Any other questions?

Speaker 4:04
How long would it take for your grandfather when he came to valley? It would just be all trees. How long would it take him to clear the first few acres?

BA 4:17
Well, must have taken him quite a while because my dad and uncles were clearing land in the valley. They cleared a lot of [Indiscernible] boys. Five boys. They all worked

Speaker 4:35
They would be enormous trees I imagine

BA 4:39
Oh, I guess they were. I guess they would be maybe up to seven feet. We still have a cedar tree on our property there, the old property and it's seven feet in diameter, still standing. They had to, most of the time in those days they had to dig them up. They got all the roots cleared and pried them out. Rocks and pull them together.

Speaker 5:16
What would their first thing be that they would do? They live off the land pretty well when they started, but what would they aspire to? A garden, a vegetable garden?

BA 5:28
My grandfather had quite a big garden and orchard. How they used to fall the trees, because they didn't have any saw, not even a cross cut saw. So they used to fall a big tree, say 6 foot 2, they would get an auger, and they would bore so far in to it. If it was leaning a little bit they would come around on this side and they would bore another hole down on an angle to meet the hole, maybe one or two in. Then they would take charcoal coals from their fires that they were clearing land with and they would push these coals into that hole, and keep pushing them in until they got the wood started until they got the pitch or something and it could come up through another hole and cause a draft. All that would burn out. It would take them days to take one tree down. They would do the same thing after they got it on the ground, they would do the same thing. They would pour in, pour down the coals, every so far along the tree. [Chatter]

Speaker 7:01
Bob, do you care to mention Martha Clay? A word about her and her arrival to Victoria.

BA 7:10
That was my grandmother, Martha Clay. She left England in about 1859 I think. She and two sisters came out on the Robert Lowe, which was a bride ship, bride ship came into Victoria. And she worked. She came up with Mrs. David Spencer. They were old merchants in Victoria in the early days. And she worked for her for a while until she met my granddad and they were married and Victoria then they moved up in the early 60s. I think that family that like grandfather Akerman and the granny Akerman, they were the first white family in the Burgoyne area.

Speaker 8:26
Well, I'm glad to hear that because Joe Garner just asked me the other day, who was the first white family on Saltspring? And I thought it was Akermans.

BA 8:34
Well, I didn't like to say Saltspring. But then I know they were the first first like family in that area.

Speaker 8:40
Well, your Uncle Joe, I always thought that he was the first white child born on Saltspring.

BA 8:49
Well, that's what I heard. I don’t know if you remember Johnny Whims. Johnny Whims, he's sitting on the plow down in Mouats mall. You see that picture? And he was about a character you know, always joking. And one day, in the early days, the boats used to come in to the Ganges and all the old timers just like go down and see them come in, you know something to do. And Johnny was standing there and this tourist guy came in and he asked Johnny about the early days and if any of the old timers around. Johnny he was a black man. Oh yes, he says, that man over there sitting on the guardrail, that's Joe Akerman. He was the first white child born on Saltspring and he says I was a second. Didn't crack a smile you know, got a big kick out of that.

Speaker 10:00
You said your father was working in the 80s?

BA 10:05
I have a picture of him driving. Well, this picture here of the church, that's him sitting on the fence posts back there. He was not 12 years old and he transported a lot of that lumber, windows, doors from Burgoyne bay down to build that church. See a lot of the windows and doors and flooring came from the butter church, at Cowichan bay. I don’t know if you've ever heard of the old stone church in Cowichan Bay, the butter church. See they built there in the early days and they found they were on the wrong property. So they had to give it up. And so the windows and doors, flooring and a lot of the lumber was donated for this church in Fulford. The windows that are in theri now were actually from the butter church in Cowichan bay.

Speaker 11:12
Both your grandmothers lived to an old age, I remember them both, Granny Akerman and Granny Gyves. How old was Granny Akerman when she passed?

BA 11:22
96. I think granny Akerman. I don't think actually I knew how old she was, but I think she was close to a hundred. Both grandfathers. They're close to 90 too. [Indiscernible]

Speaker 11:46
Well, was that a fact that Joe Akerman was the first white child born on the island?

BA 11:50
Yes, he was. Joe, he used to live at the North end, he had a farm there. He has passed away now.

Speaker 12:01
In that little book, “The Saltspring Saga”. I think they said that there was an attempt in Victoria, in about about 1860s, to get settlers to come to Saltspring Island. And they gave them an axe and the sack of flour. Did many people come do you think?

BA 12:23
I think there was quite a few that came in those days, but quite a few of them didn't stay. It was pretty rough.

Speaker 12:34
These were people that had got sort of marooned in Victoria and wanted to go to gold rush in the Caribou but they didn't have any money and they were destitute.

BA 12:45
I think one of the biggest worries for the old timers in the early days was if anybody was badly hurt or or sick they didn't have a doctor or anybody looking after them.

Speaker 12:59
And no way of getting anywhere except to row!

BA 13:07
My grandmother Gyves, the daughter of the Chief of the Cowichan. She was pretty good on anything like that sickness, I guess she was told from her people how to look after people that were sick, and maternity work and things like that. And I think she brought into the world practically all babies in those days.

Speaker 13:51
Was your grandmother Gyves sister to the wife of Mr. Trage?

BA13:59
They were cousins.

Speaker 14:04
May I ask you, you gave us a kind of verbal description of those properties, is that on paper anywhere, or in the form of a map or survey or whatever? That progression of those timelines, that would be very useful to have that down in an orderly fashion. A kind of diagram of the valley. First settlers.

BA 14:33
I could get a map of the valley and put who owned it in that time?

Speaker 14:36
Take our place, Wilsons owned it when we bought it from Wilsons but then [Indiscernible] from Nanaimo. Wasn't he, or his son or something was a mayor up there for a while? Cause they rowed here.

BA 14:55
It was [Indiscernible], then the Wilsons. Jim Wilson. And... Maybe if I could get a, I will get a map of that area and then I can put on the original owners and then so on after that.

Speaker 15:20
That would be a very useful historical document. It would get those farms on there even if [Indiscernible] order down the valley on either side of the creek.
[Chatter]

Speaker 15:45
Who was it that built that nice old squared, log house on your property? Was that your family? Well, we went and looked at it once when Beth Hill was working on that little book about the houses, and the square timber.

BA 16:07
Oh yeah. That's the old Traveler's Rest.

Speaker 16:09
Was that the original cabin? Or was there an earlier one further west from that.

BA 16:16
There was one. Well, my grandfather when he first first year came in, he built a small log cabin up the valley, but more under mount Bruce. And he planted an orchard there right away. And I guess it must have been in the summertime when he went in there because there was some sunshine. But in the wintertime. He wasn't getting any sunshine. So he moved across the valley, then over into where he is now.

Speaker 16:47
They are making that same mistake today. They find a property in the summer, then they find there is no sunshine in the winter. You got a lot of neighbors that way.

Speaker 16:58
Bob, do you if Dick Toynbee has copies of all these photographs?

BA 17:05
Uh yes, Dick has. I Just hope that maybe I can get some of mine back, I have I have a lot out. That I can't seem to locate. A lot of the pictures that are in Bea Hamiltons book, I gave her those and I've given them again out. Somebody’s got them, they borrowed them to get prints off and then forgot about them I guess. I asked Marguerite and she said no.

Speaker 17:46
I've got Nightingale, the one of Nightingale farm and the old church. Isn't that the one from Dick Toynbee's book?

BA 17:54
Well I think, Dick got pictures from me but there is another chap who got them before Dick and I asked him about them and he said he gave them to Dick so I don't know.

Speaker 18:09
I don't think it is that one then. I think theres some of the Nightingale family in one of them.

BA 18:15
That's right, that's right. I think that's one thats missing too.

Speaker 18:22
Well thats one of the finest ones, photos, one of the finest ones out there is. I think of early valley, one I'd like to use on the next round of postcards. [Chatter]

BA 18:50
Yeah, let's see this one here, this old picture, that the old travelers rest. My grandfather, grandmother and some of the family not all the family there. [Chatter]

Speaker 19:29
How many are there of you still living on the island? [Indiscernible chatter]

BA 20:16
I have a lot of baskets. I have quite a few of my grandmother basket. This is a scraper, for scraping hides and such. And thats the bowl they used to mix paint a lot in them, the Indians made them. They chipped it out first then smoothed it out.
[Chatter].