An excerpt from the fall issue of British Columbia History

1 New Digs for Sasquatch

The new Harrison Hot Springs Visitor Centre. Photo: Mark Forsythe 

The mythical Sasquatch has deep spiritual and cultural meaning for the Sts’ailes people who believe Sasquatch (Sa:sq’ets) watches over the land. Red ochre paintings depicting the shape-shifting creature date back thousands of years, and Sasquatch continues to have pride of place at a newly constructed Harrison Hot Springs Visitor Centre, home to the Harrison Sasquatch Museum. Its collection includes casts of mysterious footprints, first-hand accounts, photos, maps, and conjecture about the hairy creature, also dubbed Bigfoot.

There have been more than 3,000 documented sightings in the region over the last century. Harrison Hot Springs is at the epicentre. The Sts’ailes people adopted a stylized Sasquatch figure for their logo and flag; a nearby provincial park bears the name; and Harrison Hot Springs has promoted itself as Land of the Sasquatch. Sasquatch statues, murals, mugs, and socks abound in the lakeside village, which also hosts Sasquatch Days each summer. Located at 499 Hot Springs Road, the museum promises “an immersive journey through the realms of both fact and folklore.” Admission is free.

2 BC’s Francophone Ranchers

Francophone ranchers: Ernest Patenaude, left, at Harper’s Camp, today the village of Horsefly, near the present-day city of Williams Lake, 1896. Photo: Horsefly Museum P982-15cn

BCHF member and executive director of La Société historique francophone de la Colombie-Britannique, Maurice Guibord, has been uncovering stories of Francophone ranchers in the Cariboo, Thompson, and Okanagan. A grant from Digital Museums Canada supported oral history interviews with descendants whose families established ranches in the 1860s and 1870s.

Daryl Minnaberriet is the great-grandson of Louis Antoine Minnaberriet, who came from the Basque region of France. He first chased gold in California and in 1861 began ranching near Spences Bridge. He married La’staa, a local Indigenous woman, and preempted 160 acres of land. Daryl remarks, “Preempted is another fancy term for stealing native land.” Louis Antoine later left La’staa and their son to start a new European family. A common practice at the time, it still rankles Daryl.

Basque Ranch remains in operation and is now owned by the Cooks Ferry Band—in a sense it has come full circle. Learn more about the contributions of the Minnaberriet, Boucherie, Guichon, Isnardy, Lequime, Patenaude, Pigeon, and Versepuech families at the Digital Museums Canada website, digitalmuseums.ca/funded-projects/the-francophone-ranchers-of-british-columbias-interior-plateau.

3 100 Years of BC Books

Howard White shares publishing tales at SFU Harbourside. Photo: Greg Dickson

Don Stewart (left) in conversation with Vancouver writer Rod Mickleburgh. Photo: Greg Dickson

Book lovers paid $25 each to gather at SFU Harbour Centre to celebrate publisher Howard White and Vancouver bookseller Don Stewart. The venerable pair have logged more than 100 years in the BC book trade between them. Howard and Mary White’s Harbour Publishing has brought 1,000 titles into the world—many with a BC historical focus. Early success came with Raincoast Chronicles, which captured the spirit and culture of the coast.

The Sunshine Coast-based publisher eventually acquired an extensive Douglas & McIntyre catalogue and helped launch other BC publishing houses. Howard was encouraging his own competition, as BC Bookworld founder Alan Twigg remarked. The one that got away was distribution rights for the Harry Potter series—before it went viral.

Alberta-born Don Stewart knew book-selling would be his lifetime occupation at age 21, when he purchased MacLeod’s Books. Anyone passing through its doors marvels at stacks of books rising from floor to ceiling. (A Stan Douglas photo of this organized chaos once hung in the Vancouver Art Gallery). Request a title, and Don knows where to locate it among the estimated 100,000 titles. “It’s very important to offer books at all levels to people,” said Don in a Vancouver Sun profile. The event was presented by BC Bookworld, philanthropist Yosef Wosk, the Simon Fraser University Library, and the Alcuin Society.

4 PARC Campus Takes Shape

The PARC Campus under construction; PARC is an acronym for Provincial Archives, Research and Collection. Photo: Gregg Carmichael

The new Royal BC Museum facility to house the BC Archives is now beginning to look like a building. Located at Colwood, in Greater Victoria, the PARC (Provincial Archives, Research and Collection) Campus is a 15,200-square-metre structure built from mass timber, engineered from compressed wood. The $270-million facility won’t be large enough to accommodate the entire provincial collection; much will remain in storage in the Victoria region, but there will be expanded lab and research space for public access to artifacts.

BCHF and Friends of the BC Archives have urged more meaningful consultation with BC Archives. There have now been online engagements with staff and surveys for public input into province-wide access to services, research and educational services, staffing levels, Indigenous reconciliation, and improved public access to the Colwood location. (Additional bus service from downtown Victoria is planned.) Find more information at the Royal BC Museum Collections and Research Building Project website, collectionsandresearchbuilding.ca.

5 Final Flights

Hawaii Mars in flight. Photo: Coulson Aviation

The Martin Mars water bombers are possibly the most admired aircraft to ever grace BC skies. British Columbians watched these massive planes tackle forest fires for five decades. Now out of service, the last two surviving Mars aircraft have been donated by Coulson Aviation to two museums. The iconic red and white Hawaii Mars made a low pass along the Vancouver Island coastline during its final flight from Sproat Lake to the BC Aviation Museum in Sidney. The Philippine Mars, with original US Navy colours, is bound for the Pima Air & Space Museum in Tucson, Arizona.

Built during the Second World War to carry US troops and cargo, they were later converted into the world’s largest water tankers after a consortium of BC forest companies acquired four Mars in 1958 (25,000 litres could be scooped up in 22 seconds.) One crashed while fighting a fire in 1961 with the loss of four lives; another was destroyed by Typhoon Freda in 1962. In 2007 Coulson Aviation purchased the last two and grew its fire-fighting fleet into the largest (in volume) in the world. Many British Columbians lamented the Mars’ final retirement in 2015, but enthusiasts can get a close look at Hawaii Mars, soon on permanent display at the BC Aviation Museum, bcam.net. •

Mark Forsythe travels through BC and back in time, exploring the unique work of British Columbia Historical Federation members.