Rotary Skypark

Photo by Lisa Graham

If you have been protected from the rain at a bus shelter in Cumberland, taken a leisurely stroll along the pier at the Comox Marina, enjoyed an outdoor concert in Simms Park or listened to the sounds of children’s laughter at the new playground at the Courtenay Airpark, your life has been touched by Rotarians.

While Rotarians support grassroots community projects, the organization also has global reach.  In the 106 years since a Chicago resident named Paul Harris founded the first Rotary Club, millions of people from around the world have become members of this organization and joined hands in fellowship to put “Service Above Self.”

So what, exactly, is Rotary?  The official description is: “A worldwide network of inspired individuals who translate their passions into relevant social causes to change lives in communities.”  The Reader’s Digest description might be:  “A group of people who make a difference.”

The Rotary name is derived from the early practice of rotating meetings among members’ offices. Today, most Rotary clubs—including the four in the Comox Valley—have regularly scheduled meeting dates, times and places.

Rotary’s early emblem was designed in 1905.  It was a simple wagon wheel (in motion with dust) designed to represent both civilization and movement.  The present emblem, 24 cogs and six spokes, was adopted in 1924.  A keyhole in the centre of the Rotary wheel was added to signify usefulness.

There are four Rotary Clubs in the Comox Valley, all of which are part of Rotary International’s District 5020, which geographically encompasses all of Vancouver Island and western Washington. There are more than 5,000 members in almost 90 clubs in this region alone.  District 5020 is one of 530 districts of Rotary International (RI), which has 1.2 million members in 34,000 clubs worldwide.

Rotary was officially launched in the Comox Valley in 1936, with the creation of the Courtenay Rotary Club.  At their very first luncheon at the Native Son’s Hall, Courtenay Rotary members started what would be decades of community service by participating in sending a carload of fruits and vegetables to drought-stricken areas of the prairies.  The Simms Park Pavilion and the Water Park at Lewis Park are local landmarks that exist thanks to the efforts of this Rotary Club.  In the last 75 years, Courtenay Rotary alone has raised well over a million dollars to support both local and global humanitarian and community enrichment projects.  Their annual on-line auction and book sale are two of their largest current fundraising initiatives.  In 2011, Courtenay Rotary’s major local community project is raising funds for the ‘Trail along the Rail.’

In 1974, Courtenay Rotary sponsored the formation of Comox Rotary.  One of the most notable projects of this club is the construction of the d’Esterre House Seniors Centre in 1976, its expansion in 1994, and the ballroom renovation in 2011. Today, their most popular fundraiser is the Canada Day Ducky 500 Race, which celebrated its 24th anniversary this summer.

In 1987, the Courtenay Club supported the formation of the Rotary Club of Strathcona Sunrise.  With their meeting time set at 7:00 am, this club is great for early risers.  Historically, the Strathcona Sunrise’s fundraisers have included food booths and beer gardens at local festivals and events, and in recent years, Strathcona Sunrise has held a signature fundraiser with the sale of Skyrocket Fertilizer.  Funds from Skyrocket sales went toward the building of the Rotary Skypark, the Valley’s first universally accessible park.

In 2005, the RI’s centennial year, the Rotary Club of Cumberland Centennial was formed.  Their first major fundraising event—the Extravaganza Italiana—was held that October and raised $20,000.  More than 300 people attended the event in 2010, netting Cumberland Rotary $46,000 with some of the profits donated to the Comox Valley Hospice Society.   In total, Comox Valley Rotary clubs worked diligently and raised a collective $250,000 over three years for Hospice.  This project was spearheaded by Courtenay Rotary but supported by all four clubs.

This year, all four Comox Valley Rotary clubs are working together again, this time to support Rotary International’s 26-year long pledge to immunize the world’s children against polio.  Accepting a challenge from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, RI is committed to raise $200 million for vaccines for the four remaining countries where polio still exists: Afghanistan, Pakistan, Nigeria and India.  Comox Valley Rotarians will do their best to help RI reach this target.

Traditionally, anyone wishing to become a Rotarian must be an upstanding member of the local business community (or a retiree) and be invited to join by a current member.  If, however, you are new to the community or don’t personally know anyone in Rotary, you may contact one of the groups listed below and put your name forward for consideration.

Potential new Rotarians are encouraged to attend a few meetings as a guest in order to better understand the commitment and scope of the association.  Where you live in the Comox Valley does not dictate which club you may join; people generally choose a club based on the meeting location and time that best suits their own schedule.

Phil McLaren shows off another one of his restoration projects, an MG Midget.

Photo by Boomer Jerritt

The body is a rich Devon Cream hue, with immaculate chocolate-brown fenders and radiator cowling and it rolled down the Oshawa production line in 1916, the year my late father was born.

The McLaughlin-Buick owned and painstakingly restored by Phil McLaren of Astra Bay, was a pure labor of love.  A testament to the effort put into its restoration is that the old touring car looks like it could have rolled down the line last week, its vintage lines notwithstanding.

But it is only when one takes a ride in the old car that one really appreciates its venerability and understands how far technology has moved since that year half-way through World War One.  Don’t expect many hi-tech or modern innovations like a synchromesh transmission.  The three-speed gearbox demands the skill of double-declutching. Disc brakes, meanwhile, were far in the future in 1916, and braking power relies on two wheel mechanical brakes applied to the massive 30-inch wooden-spoked rear wheels only.

But, it was nevertheless a delightful ride I took with McLaren while I was researching this article.  I wouldn’t have missed sitting up as high as I was and waving at the folks along the way who acknowledged us as we chugged through that seafront neighborhood in Comox.

Needless to say the locals are not strangers to the McLaren McLaughlin.  Not only is it a familiar sight in the neighborhood but also elsewhere in the Valley, where it does popular duty at graduation events bringing prom-dressed young people to their ceremonies.  Brides love it, too.  And it has long been a mainstay at the various parades in Valley communities.

One appealing aspect of the McLaughlin-Buick for McLaren is that it is a Canadian vehicle.  The company began to turn out vehicles in 1907 as the result of collaboration between Sam McLaughlin and General Motors’ William Durrant of Detroit.  While it is directly tied in with General Motors’ mainstay, the regular Buick, the McLaughlin (which continued to be manufactured in Oshawa until 1942) boasted certain unique attributes, McLaren says, including the fact that considerably more wood was used in its construction.  After World War Two, McLaughlin evolved into GM Canada.

There was a time in which the so-called Big Three auto manufacturers produced a number of Canadian versions of the more commonplace American ones, such as the Meteor and Monarch by Ford, and the Acadian and Beaumont by GM.  However, the McLaughlin was the first to boast a uniquely north of the border provenance.

How did McLaren’s involvement with this venerable vehicle come about?  Well, in the first place it was something of a natural for the man who was automotive instructor at Vanier Secondary throughout his teaching career.

A career that saw the students in his shop turn to such projects as restoring vintage fire engines for Comox, Courtenay, Union Bay and CFB Comox.  During one memorable year (1994-95) the students also produced a competition level dragster that still races and still is to be found in the Comox Valley.

“Since retirement (in 1999) I’ve been doing mainly car stuff,” McLaren says.  “It’s not too different from when I was working, except now I’m doing it for me.  Or, rather for ‘us’, since Ardie (his wife) really enjoys the cars and is hugely supportive and helpful with the projects I’ve worked on.”

He notes that in gratitude for her stalwart support in his automotive endeavors he completely redid the kitchen of their Astra Bay home for her.

As far as the cars go—and there has been a number of them he has completely restored over the years— the McLaughlin-Buick was the first big project to be completed.

“Actually I started in 1966 or ’67 on a 1929 Willys Whippet,” he says.  “I got it up to a running frame, but I was always searching for parts to complete the project.  I was told there was a Whippet near Sunnydale Golf Course, so I went to have a look. What I found was a McLaughlin-Buick in pieces.  It had been shipped out from Portage La Prairie.”

Ardie and Phil McLaren in the restored 1916 McLaughlin-Buick.

Photo by Boomer Jerritt

The next weekend he took Ardie for a ride to see the vintage touring car, such as it was. He notes—not a man to sit around and waste time is he—that he was also building the new family home at the time.  To make a long story short, he decided to acquire the old tourer and to see what he could do with it.  This also marked the end of his involvement with the Whippet.

“I sold the Whippet for the price of the tires for the Buick,” he says.  “It was $1,500 for the five tires.  That’s still a fair amount of money, but it was a lot of money back then. The Whippet was never completed, but I’ve heard that it’s still around the Valley somewhere.”

He began to work on the McLaughlin-Buick in about 1977, he says, and it was finished by 1991, in time for his son Michael’s wedding.

“The hardest aspect of completing the car was the search for parts,” he says, noting that these were pre-Internet days, so word-of-mouth and other tips had to be relied upon, was well as car restoration publications.  “The McLaughlin was Canadian and in that was slightly different from American Buicks.  So, we had to search through the verbal network.”

He adds that while waiting for parts to complete the big project, he also restored an MG Midget for his son, Mike.

“Mike was always interested in the car restoration and it got him into his career in bodywork, which he still continues with.

Shortly after the completion of the McLaughlin-Buick McLaren, with his Vanier automotive class, undertook a unique project that was right up the alley of the students of the program—the completion of the aforementioned dragster.

The dragster, he says, raced a few times and then it was retired to the automotive shop at the school.  Eventually he decided it was time to offload it so he gave it to two of the students who had worked on it in the day.“It has raced quite successfully since that time,” he says.  “It was really a gratifying project because its creation, with huge parental as well as community support really gave some new life to my teaching career as I neared my time of retirement.”

And then there are the other cars, and the element that becomes apparent in talking to McLaren is that there is a ‘labor of love’ element in all his projects.   Which brings us to the 1950 Plymouth he restored to assembly-line calibre.  Yes, it was just a standard and rather prosaic ’50 Plymouth—at best never a terribly exciting car—but, there was a symbolic virtue to the vehicle for McLaren.

“It was a direct facsimile of the car my parents first bought after the war, when I was a young kid,” he says.  “So I found one of the same model and I restored it for them in the late 1980s and gave it to them.  They were thrilled.”

The Plymouth, since his parents have passed on, now sits back with the next generation McLarens, in what is quaintly called the ‘Hobbit Garage’ (for good reasons, because that is just what the structure resembles), right alongside the McLaughlin.

During that time he also restored a 1957 Morris Minor convertible to like-new condition.  The Morris Minor is a particular favorite vehicle of his, and he currently has the hulk of one sitting at his place for which he has great plans and when completed might provide the basis for yet another story.

A gem of a vehicle is his 1961 MGA, and this was to commemorate his fond regard for the memory of a late colleague at Vanier, Doug Hibberd, who had originally planned to restore it before ill-health took over.

He has a photo scrapbook showing the shape of the MGA at the time he acquired it from Hibberd’s widow, Margaret.  It was literally a rusted hulk and he was told by others in the field that the undertaking would be too great to bring it up to even a moderately decent standard.

Just the challenge he wanted.  He had the car for six years before turning his hand to its restoration, and then spent a further eight years restoring it to mint condition, a process which included both repairing, filling and even turning out facsimile body parts.  But in the end it was done.

“Marg Hibberd was the first person to ride in it,” McLaren says.  “She calls the car ‘Doug’ after her husband, and I even made a plaque with his name that is affixed to the dashboard.  It’s won a few awards over the years, including first-in-class.”

The final car (currently) is a 1956 Austin Healey.  Ardie, he says, had always wanted a Healey and he had always wanted to restore one for her sake.  Incidentally, she chose the color of the car.  They are not easy cars to find, however, find one he did.  The one they did find was unique in that it was produced in only the third year of Healey production.  This was before Healey was powered by the big six cylinder engines of the later 3000 model.

“It’s called a ‘100-4’ and that’s because it’s supposed to be capable of 100 miles an hour, with a 2.6 litre four cylinder engine,” he says.  “It’s a rare model and considered one of the most desirable Healeys; a big dollar car.  It’s a competition model and even has the fold-down windscreen for racing.”

At the moment of acquiring the Healey, McLaren says he tossed up between a Healey and a Jaguar XKE.  He’s happy he opted for the Healey.  Next project is the one that involves the Morris Minor mentioned earlier.

Needless to say, car restoration is a highly demanding and very expensive hobby.  The McLaughlin, he says, because he could do so much of the work himself, cost him about $9,000 from start to finish.  Many, however, demand a considerably larger outlay of money.

“Among restorers and collectors, the really old cars are losing their value,” he says. “They’re not as drivable as newer models, even models from the 1950s, which have smoother rides and are often air-conditioned.  People want some of their creature comforts when they’re on a long road-trip to a meet.”

McLaren is a past-president of Valley Vintage Wheels Car Club, an organization that has been going since the mid-1970s.  As with other car clubs in the area, VVW vehicles, including some of the exotics, like McLaren’s McLaughlin-Buick and a Stanley Steamer, are regular participants in local parades and tours, as well as the annual Comox Nautical Days Car Show, which takes place this year on the BC Day long weekend.  VVW can be reached at 250-338-2366.  The other major restoration car club in the area is Comox Valley Classic Cruisers, which concentrates more on the hot rod genre.  Find out more at cvclassiccruisers.com.  This year their 25th annual Graffiti Bash and Cruise is on July 23 and the Show and Shine is happening in Downtown Courtenay July 24.

Such a view is, of course, untrue and—fortunately for future generations—there has been an attempt in recent years to present a much broader and more inclusive picture that doesn’t just tell the saga of the ‘white guys’.  Not that the pioneering saga is in any way unimportant, but it is only part of the overall picture.

To get the real kick-off date of our region, it’s more realistic to go back in time for at least a millennium, and arguably even earlier.  For the tale of aboriginal culture in the area of Comox Bay goes back at least 1,000 years, according to Nancy Greene and her husband, David McGee.  And they now have proof of that larger picture.

For them an intense involvement with what we once were began with a few walks on the mudflats off Millard Creek, just south of the popular Courtenay Airpark Walk.  Estuary country it is, with the flats originating from the volume of silt that has been deposited by the Courtenay River over the centuries.

It’s a lush spot ecologically and in the days when the river was much more ‘alive’ and environmentally uncompromised than it has been in recent years, a veritable bounty of marine life, either in transit or resident, called it home.

“Some of these stakes, which look like nothing at first glance, have been here for 10 centuries or more,” says Nancy Greene, above at the Royston site of the ancient fish traps with her husband Dave McGee. “Underneath the surface they’re perfectly intact, preserved by the mud. It’s amazing.”

Photo by Boomer Jerritt

For Greene her change in perspective came about in 2002.  At that time she had returned to school as a mature student and was working toward a degree in anthropology.  Inspired, she wanted to get her scholastic quest wrapped around something original.  Quite frankly, she found it, and she found it essentially in her own back yard.  And what she found is something that has thrown conventional views of the Comox Valley’s history and pre-history asunder.

Now, eight years later, a tremendous amount of painstaking research is coming to fruition.  Research that has involved intensively scrutinizing what to the average stroller might be seen as a bunch of prosaic sticks in the mud.  What Greene has come to realize is that those sticks have opened up a panoramic tale of a people who toiled and thrived in the Comox Valley long before it was a blip on the radar of the outer world.

Living in the Comox Valley area, the duo had noticed the sticks before (you can see a lot of stakes when driving along the Dyke Road) and had paid them little heed.  But then the moment-of-truth struck.  These were not just random bits of wood, but they followed a pattern in a vast array, spreading out from the shore in parallel lines well into the flats.

Parallel lines are not random—those sticks had been put there for a purpose.

“At that point of revelation, I realized there were stakes everywhere, arranged in vast patterns that had to have a purpose,” she says.  “Probing around them we realized that beneath the surface they were perfectly preserved. They were so extensive they could only suggest some highly significant purpose.”

The irrefutable conclusion is that the stakes were part of what appears to be the most extensive and sophisticated pre-historic fishing operation to be found in Canada to date.

While the traps are long gone, the stakes—to the tune of 150,000 or more— bear testament to the extensive nature of the site.  How many more stakes is pure conjecture since, as they attest, siltification over the centuries may have covered over further layers of stakes well beneath the surface.

A walk on the tidal flats, once the patterns are pointed out is, in a word, dazzling.  A huge sweeping pattern encompassing a sizeable expanse immediately indicates the extent.  Once that reality was realized, the archeology student realized her true quest was before her, and she attests the revelation was a powerful one for her.

“It’s amazing,” Greene says.  “Some of these stakes, which look like nothing at first glance, have been here for 10 centuries or more.  Underneath the surface they’re perfectly intact, preserved by the mud.”

And the traps themselves in their days of use were not some sort of primitive or rudimentary constructions.  They were obviously designed to harness the tidal movements of the estuary in order to apprehend the fish—be those either salmon or herring, both of which there was a plenitude of in the days before the river underwent the challenges of dyking and dredging.

As of March of this year locations of approximately 200 trap feature sites, each representing as many as a thousand upright wood stakes, have been recorded on the tideflat.  To precisely map the trap features, coordinates of nearly 14,000 individual stakes were recorded at 19 of the sites, Greene noted in a report published this past spring.

The tidal traps, as illustrated, were amazingly sophisticated and cast an entirely new light on our preconceptions of this earlier culture.  Extensively distributed on the tideflat, the traps show a network of fish apprehension that was likely “industrial size in capacity,” McGee says.

“Not only was the fishery extensive, one conclusion we can reach from the carbon dating was that it lasted for a very long time.”

From a conservation perspective, Greene says, they realized the traps were not environmentally negative.  The aboriginal fishers appreciated the virtues of conservation of the species, be they salmon or herring.

What was found—and this was long before such considerations became serious concerns—was what appears to have been a sustainable way of fishing.  As the traps depended on the tides to catch fish, they only operated 50 per cent of the time.  They only caught fish on a falling tide.  For salmon, that assured that a lot of fish could swim past the traps on a rising tide and continue on up the river to spawn.

“The way that the traps functioned to catch fish indicates that early First Nations had a detailed knowledge of nature,” she says.

Considering that the traps are located close to salmon bearing streams, the realization that the traps weren’t used exclusively for salmon also came as a revelation to Greene and McGee.

“Some native fishermen believe that they were actually used more for herring than salmon,” McGee says.  “Midden sites indicate masses of herring bones, and as we know Comox Bay has been a big herring spawning area historically, so it makes sense.”

So, what actually caught the fish?  These were times well before the use of modern fishnets.  Greene says archeologists have found remnants of lattice panels buried in the mud at other intertidal sites along the Northwest Coast. The panels were built by weaving long pieces of split wood together—much as is used in basketry—which would be strung between the stakes.  Water could pass through the openings in the panels, but not the fish.  As for the stakes themselves, the majority are either hemlock or Douglas fir, both of which grow in abundance in the Comox Valley.

Mud flats friends.

Photo by Boomer Jerritt

McGee points out that First Nations culture was a “wood culture” and that virtually everything used was gleaned from the abundant forests of the day.

As for the woven panels that were likely used in the traps, both Greene and McGee expect that it is just a matter of time before they are found buried in the mud.  “Wood is generally well preserved when buried in waterlogged sediments, and we wouldn’t be surprised to find not only lattice panels, but basketry, and maybe even a canoe someday.”

Meanwhile, getting the actual project underway was no small undertaking, Greene says.  “Working independently, I didn’t have the financial and institutional support that I would have had if I was in academia.”

So, the task ahead of her wasn’t one for the faint-of-heart.  Fortunately for the entire community, aboriginal and otherwise, Greene is not a person to shrink from what would seem like a daunting task.  After all, there was no research funding, no equipment, and she wasn’t in a position at the time to be deemed a full-fledged archeologist.  That considered, she just went ahead and did it.

What she did have, however, was a community at her disposal, many members of whom were excited by what she was attempting.  “People were really excited to come out on the tideflat and help with the mapping.

“When the time came that we had data, it was then we really began to attract attention,” says Greene.  “What was initially a personal project invited huge community involvement where people came out to offer their expertise.  That helped us immeasurably.  There was a kind of synchronicity when we connected with groups like Project Watershed.  It tied in so well with some of the projects they were working on.”

One connection that was arguably the most significant of all, since the project involved early aboriginal peoples, was the vital tie in with the Kíomoks Band.  Early on, First Nations recognized the value of what had been found and they provided funding for the first Carbon-14 dating, a very costly process.  What it meant to them is that they, as a peoples, situated on the edge of the traps are a continuation of a society at least a millennium old, and likely older than that.

Are there other equivalent fish trap sites in our coastal areas?  “Possibly,” Greene says.  “Archaeologists are looking for other sites right now along the coast, but I haven’t heard that anything has been found yet that rivals the extensive distribution and sophistication of the prehistoric fishery at Comox Bay.

“As far as we know nothing like this has been found anywhere in North America.  We have some distinct advantages over other areas.  In many locales on Vancouver Island there was extensive logging and that process has messed up estuaries and destroyed whatever stakes might have existed.  That hasn’t happened as much here.  The booming grounds and loading areas were toward Royston, to the south of the flats.”

The process of mapping, says Greene and McGee, was a grueling one that involved accounting for “every single stake.”   Community involvement was an invaluable help and a team of volunteers joined them in slogging along the flats at low tide and marking the spots.

“In one respect it was good the flats only show at low tide,” she says.  “So, at high tide we were both able to document the day’s findings and also relax a bit.”

Greene says it’s important for contemporary Valley residents to realize that the estuary was considerably different during the centuries in question.  What has brought about the change is dredging and dyking of the Courtenay River channel.  While dredging has declined in recent years due to the shutting down of the sawmill, it was a regular feature in the river for decades so that tugs and barges could ply the lower reaches of the Courtenay River.

K’omoks elder Mary Everson told me that her Granny, Mary Moon, told her that at low tide before they dredged, the river was shallow enough to walk through,” says Greene.  “Dredging and dyking changed the dynamics of the river and the estuary.  Sediments and nutrients used to spread out across the tideflat, but now everything is being dumped in the deep water due to the greater velocity of the river.  The increased flow also means the stakes are more exposed, and when they’re exposed, they deteriorate.  It’s fair to say that at an earlier time there was a nursery aspect to the estuary, but dredging and dyking have seriously altered the ecosystems.”

The bonus in recent years has been, therefore, that the cessation of dredging has meant there can be a renewed focus on the estuary.  “The new interest in this site has been phenomenal,” Greene says, noting this has been very helpful in their quest.  “There are a lot of people moving to the area who offer a lot of expertise to support the protection and the restoration of the estuary that once was so abundant.  It is now recognized that it is a highly significant pre-historic site that is unique to this community, and all this interest is helping us get some financial support to finish up our work.  That’s very gratifying.”

Currently Greene and McGee, along with Comox Valley Regional District Area B director Jim Gillis and retired University of Toronto biology professor emeritus Paul Horgen (who are strong supporters of the project) have been making the rounds of municipal councils in hopes of gaining funding.  In that regard the ‘Stick in the Mud Club’ was born.  Far from finding the frivolous reference offensive, Greene and McGee find it amusing and one that might capture the imagination of the community.  So far they have attracted some welcome response.

The reference, Greene says, reflects a sense of humor about what really amounts to a whole lot of sticks in the mud.  Nobody wants to be a stick in the mud, but if you support the research, you get the title of being an official ‘Stick in the Mud’, something with a certain amount of oddball prestige attached to it.

Recently Gillis, in a presentation to Courtenay Council, said the most urgent need was to have organizations or individuals offer $500 to pay for the carbon dating of 40 to 50 stakes.  The stakes to be dated, he said, would be selected from different parts of the estuary to get a clearer picture of the age of the traps.  In return, the donors would become members of the ‘Club’.

In return for the contribution each member of the Club will get a certificate designed by First Nations artist Andy Everson, commemorating their participation.  The certificate will include the sponsor’s name and information about the particular stake the member has chosen to sponsor, including its age, species of wood, type of fish trap it was used for and the GPS location in the estuary from which the stake was excavated.

“We’ve had an enthusiastic response from the community, including support from local government, businesses and citizens,” Greene says.  “We have 18 stakes remaining for sponsorship if anyone is interested in supporting this important heritage resource for our community.  Sponsors will also receive a charitable tax receipt for their donation, issued by the Comox Valley Project Watershed Society.”

It’s all a costly process, as Greene explains.  “Our costs for getting the stakes out of the ground, preparing samples, shipping and lab analysis are around $500 per sample,” she says.  “In total we have sampled 46 stakes for radiocarbon dating.  In 2004 we dated 11 stakes to get a glimpse of the ages of the fish traps and found the oldest stake, a Douglas fir, was used in the construction of a trap about 800 AD.  The youngest stake, a western hemlock, was pounded into the tideflat in the early 1800s.”

Greene says that the analyses of the additional 46 stakes will broaden her understanding of the age and size of the fishery and how the traps functioned.

Ultimately Greene’s full report will be submitted to the provincial government and she will publish the results of the research in a peer-reviewed archeological journal.  And finally, if there is enough community support, the hope is that Comox Bay will be designated a national historic site.

For more information email Nancy Greene at: ngreene@shaw.ca

Cumberland Museum board members Anne Davis, Brian Charlton and Meaghan Cursons—here in the museum’s replica coal mine—gear up for the 27th annual Miners’ Memorial weekend in June.

Photo by Boomer Jerritt

The past is very much present in Cumberland—and a tangible expression of this intersection of the historic and the contemporary is the annual Miners’ Memorial Weekend.  Presented by the Cumberland and District Historical Society, this year’s 25th anniversary event on the weekend of June 18-19 commemorates the miners who worked, lived, and died in the mines at Cumberland as well as throughout the world.  By means of music, story, and ceremony, the event is a celebration of workers and their families.

In the quiet dimness of the Cumberland Museum, plans for the event are at full steam.  Museum board members Meaghan Cursons and Brian Charlton sift through boxes of archival material for a possible exhibit.  Joined by Anne Davis, president of the Courtenay, Campbell River and District Labor Council, the group looks through the old newspaper clippings, posters, and photographs of past events.

“This is the Miners’ Memorial Day Box!” says Cursons, pulling from it an old program with a photo of the Memorial Cairn from #6 Mine. “1986—that would have been the first event,” says Charlton, reading the date.  “Here are some of the press releases.  Who’s in that picture?” Cursons wonders. “Rosemary Brown, Wayne Bradley, is that Roger Crowther?” begins Davis, and Charlton completes her thought:  “They all look so young!”  Everyone laughs.

“Here’s Barney McGuire,” continues Charlton with one of the clippings.  “He was one of the initiators of the Miners’ Memorial event.  He was with the CAIMAW union—the ones who broke away from the international unions in the Canadian Independence Labor movement.”  Cursons wonders if he was the same McGuire that had left markers seen in museums across the province, with the famous labor slogan, “Don’t Mourn, Organize.”

“That’s a different guy—Barry McGuire!” says Brian Charlton. “It’s all the same family,” Davis adds with a laughs: “Brian is a McGuire!”

With his personal labor heritage, Brian Charlton is also very aware of the history of the Miners’ Memorial event.  “It actually started in Sudbury in 1984, that was the first one,” he says.  “I don’t know if they still do the Sudbury one, but Cumberland has kept up for 25 years now.”

“They aren’t in every mining community across Canada—Cumberland is very unique in that,” says Cursons.  “People are coming from unions across the Pacific Northwest and sometimes further afield—they make it their summer trip.  There’s groups of people that camp at Comox Lake, there’s groups of university students that have always attended, there’s the bus drivers in Victoria that actually get a city bus and make the trip every year—really interesting traditions of attendance that aren’t just local.  I think that’s why it’s such a big deal.”

The interest in the event has been increasing over the last several years.  “It comes from the nature of issues in the province,” Cursons says.  “That seems to make a difference—it goes hand in hand with general activism, and where we’re at in an election cycle, lots of reasons why people are more animated at different times.”

Adds Charlton:  “One of the reasons that Cumberland’s event has lasted so long is that it isn’t just the memorial ceremony at the cemetery.  There’s so much else going on, with ‘Songs of the Workers’ the night before, the pancake breakfast, the camping… One of the best things has been the Saturday night around the bonfire—one time there were at least 10 people with guitars.  Somebody even brought bagpipes!”

“It’s how I got my whole introduction to the labor activist community in the Comox Valley, and to the Cumberland Museum,” says Cursons.  “Both of those were 15 years ago.  The second year I was here, I ended up involved in Miners’ Memorial Day—I spoke and played music at ‘Songs for the Workers’.”

‘Songs for the Workers’ opens the Miners’ Memorial Weekend with a Pub Night on Friday, June 18 from 7 to 11pm at the Cumberland Cultural Centre, admission by donation.  “It’s a combination of scheduled performers and open mic—everyone is welcome,” says Cursons.  “There’ll be a combination of some traditional stuff and stuff you haven’t heard before. We have George Hewison playing, Doug Cox, Gordie Carter—we do a constant rotation of tunes.  We pass the hat and share the proceeds between the musicians and the event.”

Charlton in particular is looking forward to hearing songs from Gwyn Sproule.  “She does these traditional Geordie songs—English coal mining songs,” explains Cursons, adding that the event “goes as long as we can keep the energy going!”

The next morning the BCGEU hosts a pancake breakfast from 8-11am. “Again this is open to community, here at the OAP,” says Cursons.  “All the proceeds go to the museum.”  At 11am there will be a guided tour of the Cumberland Museum.  The Campbell River, Courtenay and District Labor Council, the Cumberland OAP and the Cumberland Chamber of Commerce are all supporting the event to benefit the museum’s programming, operations, and labor and mining history exhibits.

Ginger Goodwin’s funeral procession, August 1918. Photo courtesy Cumberland Archives & Musuem C110-001.

“At noon on Saturday, there’s a group who are going to walk to the cemetery—recreate the funeral walk from Ginger Goodwin’s funeral,” Cursons continues.  Ginger Goodwin was the well-known coalminer and labor organizer whose leadership of several strikes and outspoken opposition to the 1914-18 war brought him to the attention of authorities.  Despite his health problems, his conscription status was changed from ‘unfit’ to ‘fit for service in an overseas fighting unit’.  He went into hiding in the bush near Cumberland, with the help of townspeople, but was tracked down and shot by a hired private policeman on July 27, 1918.   His death sparked Canada’s first General Strike.

“There was a processional of people from Cumberland all the way to the graveyard—and there wasn’t a single dry eye,” says Cursons, quoting the reports of the time.  Anne Davis has researched the route described in Ruth Masters’ book of local history at the museum, and the group will try to recreate the same route for the procession on June 19.

The name Ginger Goodwin still elicits a strong response in the community.  “It’s interesting that he died in 1918, and he still provokes a lot of feeling,” says Charlton.  “He’s been dead for almost 100 years and we’re still battling it out because issues that were debated back then and fought about back then are still relevant today.”

Davis has a personal story of Ginger Goodwin’s influence.  “When I moved here in 1974, I was 19, and my then partner and I bought one of the old houses on Camp Road.  It had belonged to Jimmy Ellis, who had gone into care at that point,” she says.  “I went down one afternoon to meet him at the old folks home to just ask him some questions about the house and he sat me down and told me the story of Ginger Goodwin.

“As a kid, Jimmy had gone up to the lake with his father and was taking food up to those who were hiding out.  When he told me this story he had tears in his eyes, and it was tears of anger.  I grew up in Victoria and I had never heard of Ginger Goodwin but I got the message that something really important had happened here.  That was my very first introduction to labor history, and I’ve ended up being a labor activist for all of my adult life.  It was so important to Jimmy to pass that story on to the next person who was going to live in his house in Cumberland.  It had quite an impact.”

Adds Cursons:  “Something really important happened in Cumberland that connects to what all of our lives look like right now, and connects to struggles that are still going on.  That kind of thing never gets written down by the official establishment.  When you go to the archives, it’s only going to read a certain way if it’s a newspaper clipping from the mainstream press.  So the real story only lives because people have told it through stories and music—it doesn’t exist in the official record the way it needs to exist.”

The ceremony at the heart of Miners’ Memorial Weekend is the Graveside Vigil at the Cumberland cemetery at 1 pm on June 19.  “Miners’ Memorial Day for labor activists is a bit like getting back to your roots—that reminder of the struggles of the past,” says Davis.  “At the time Ginger Goodwin was killed, people were fighting for—and sometimes dying for—the eight-hour day, the two-day weekend, basic health and safety standards.  Because we’re not taught that history in school—the history of unions, of organizing—we have to go out and find it, and remind ourselves and others of our roots.  I think it’s a really important event for that, for connecting again, and remembering that the struggles we’re involved in today are sometimes not so different from what they were fighting for back then.”

Speakers at the cemetery will include labor leaders and historians.  “It’s an open mic, which can be interesting!” says Charlton, “because you get some fiery rhetoric—young Turks—like a lot of the Wobblies (the IWW – Industrial Workers of the World) and some of the other political groups.

“Marianne Bell, who used to be president of the Labor Council, is going to be speaking about women in Cumberland at the cemetery,” he adds.  “And one time there were some Chilean miners here, and they introduced their tradition of honoring people who had died in the last year—they would say the name, and everybody in the crowd would say ‘Presente’, meaning ‘Here’, which was quite a touching thing.  Another time when Roger Stonebank was researching the book that he did, he got in touch with some of Ginger Goodwin’s relatives in England.  They thought he was some kind of black sheep shot by the cops and Roger told them that there was actually a ceremony going on in Cumberland, BC for the last 20 years celebrating Ginger Goodwin—so they came up the next year.”

“It was very emotional the first year they came,” Davis recalls.  “They were quite tearful at the cemetery talking about him.  It blew them away that he was being honored.”

Adds Cursons:  “When we’re down at the cemetery we’re standing together and talking together, there’s music, and the act of doing ceremony and ritual—it’s a really neat blending of culture and politics, which strengthens both, which is why it’s such a powerful event.”

Davis agrees.  “I think that’s partly what draws people to come from Vancouver and Victoria too,” she says.

“The graveside part is really important to people, and because there’s a whole lot of activities over the whole weekend it’s worth coming the distance to be part of it.”

The ceremony consists of a “combination of music and speeches, and laying of the wreaths—bouquets this year,” says Cursons, noting that the memorial flowers are traditionally ordered and placed by unions, but any family, business or individual can order a commemorative tribute.

“We call out the different unions or individuals who want to lay a bouquet, and they come up and lay it at Ginger Goodwin’s grave,” says Charlton.  “We go down to Miners’ Row, for miners who don’t have marked graves, and lay some there.  And this year we’re also going to be laying some flowers for the women of Cumberland, the wives of the miners.  Then we’re planning a ceremony for 2:30 at the Japanese and Chinese cemeteries.”

Cursons recommends ordering the tribute bouquets before June 10 through the Cumberland Museum. “It’s also a fundraiser for the museum,” she says.  “But something we’ve discussed this year—talking about workers and workers’ rights—is that the international cut flower industry is devastating for women.  There is heavy pesticide use throughout the cut flower industry.  So this year we had a real serious conversation about where those flowers are coming from—we’re doing fair trade flowers for the bouquets from Comox Valley Flower Mart.

“It’s funny how you don’t necessarily connect the dots—especially something that symbolized love and mourning and respect—like roses,” she adds.  “You really need to think about who is producing roses, what is their wage like, what is their quality of life like, and how far are the flowers flying in jet planes—some really important questions.  So I hope that every year that we’re challenged by doing this right.”

At 3:30 pm on Saturday local historian Gwyn Sproule will lead a walking tour leaving from the museum, of the Cumberland mine sites.  Registration for the tour is not required; however advance tickets for $15 are necessary for the Miners’ Memorial Day Dinner at 6 pm.  “The big dinner is put on by the Cumberland Museum Board,” says Cursons.  “At that event Stephen Hume will be speaking, and Jim Sinclair.  There will be music and TheatreWorks is going to be doing a performance.”  Depending on numbers, the dinner will either be at the OAP or the CRI.  All food for the dinner is donated from local businesses, with proceeds going to the museum.

Music is threaded throughout the weekend.  “There’s music Friday night, music at the cemetery, music as part of our dinner,” Cursons says.  “Worker’s music is also folk music in its purest form.  It’s people’s music, songs of the workers—those have been sung for political reasons or for mourning or to set a pace to your labor.  And new verses show up, where some sort of relevant current event changes the lyric.  We may not be mining here anymore in Cumberland, but people all over the world are still doing really dangerous, horrendous work.  This last year has been a huge year for deaths in coal mining.”

“I think Miners’ Memorial Day is where people’s politics and their cultural expression line up— it’s not a dry political event.  It has a very political cultural component.  I like politics in our art and our craft!” Cursons says, acknowledging she also wrote a song that came out of Miners’ Memorial Day.

That thought further inspires the planning group.  “I think we’ve got enough songs now for a CD!” says Charlton with a laugh.  “As a fundraiser for the museum,” adds Davis.  “Brian’s got a line on pretty well every Ginger Goodwin song that’s been written!”  The idea catches on, with suggestions of songs to include: Cumberland Waltz by Wyckham Porteous, The Day They Shot Ginger Down by Gordon Carter, and songs by Joey Keithley, David Robics and Richard von Fuchs.

“There’s so many new people that live in Cumberland and in the Valley who don’t have a total connection to this history, so we’re working really hard this year on inviting the community as a whole to come out,” says Cursons.  “As part of that, we’re inviting other musicians who haven’t traditionally been involved in the event because we just want to hear workers music—it doesn’t have to be a particular union or labor song.  This event is totally relevant for all workers.  It’s going to be what we make it, as a community, for the next 25 years.”

Clearly Miners’ Memorial Weekend isn’t just a memorial caught in the past.  Cultural elements of the event are constantly being renewed, in a continual connection to contemporary issues.  The 25-year history of the memorial event itself is now part of the story of Cumberland as a community.

“We have an exhibit case that we want to get some of this material into,” says Cursons, placing the past event posters and flyers back into their folders.  “We want to keep everything intact and keep it safe, so people can see the progression of the event—this event is now part of our history.”

For more about the event visit: www.cumberlandmuseum.ca.