The Provincial Government of B.C. will be forwarding a $100 cheque to each member of your family later this month. We each will have any number of ways to spend this money.
One possibility is to invest in the future of this region by preserving the past. Your Carbon Tax Credit cheque can be used by the Columbia Basin Institute of Regional History to document and upload four historical photos to our web site at www.basininstitute.org. These photos will then exist in searchable format for everyone in the Columbia Basin (and elsewhere) to study and enjoy.
As well, the Columbia Basin Institute can use your donation to secure other matching funds, ensuring that even more historic photos become available. But, perhaps best of all, as a registered charity we can issue a charitable tax receipt to you, thereby making your investment in Basin history tax deductible.
Bring our history forward for everyone’s use - support the Columbia Basin Institute of Regional History. Please visit us at www.basininstitute.org or by e-mail at info@basininstitute.org or by phone at (250) 489.9150.
Living in the foothills of the Rockies near Pincher Creek, AB, Sid Marty is also a voice of the Kootenays. He worked as a park warden in the Rocky Mountain national parks and continues to wander that same geography.
Sid takes on our increasing alienation from the natural world in ‘The Black Grizzly of Whiskey Creek’. He uses the real stories from a series of 1980 bear attacks at Banff, Alberta to explore our combative relationship with nature. Terry Glavin, another excellent Canadian nature writer, describes this work of Marty’s as “….a work of poetic genius…. a daring work of the imagination…. It’s as good as nature writing gets.”
Sid Marty reads from ‘The Black Grizzly of Whiskey Creek’ at Lotus Books in Cranbrook on Thursday, June 5th at 7:30 pm. Take the opportunity to hear one of the clearest voices of the Rock Mountain/Columbia Basin region.
For those literary and ecologically minded folks near Invermere October 16, 2007, promises a real treat. Don Gayton will read from his new book “Inrterwoven Wild: An Ecologist Loose in the Garden†at 7:30 PM in the David Thompson Secondary School Theatre. Don is a singularly imaginative voice, weaving the personal thread through the weft of nature and science. He writes and speaks from his own heart and his own local, the Columbia Basin. Don is the author of three previous volumes: The Wheatgrass Mechanism; Landscapes of the Interior; Kokanee. All are wake-up calls to what surrounds us.
The press release quotes: “Don Gayton brings his wealth of experience to show us how nature and ecology perform their magic right in our gardens and home landscapes. Engaging the reader with real – and occasionally hilarious – gardening experiences, Gayton marries the joys of gardening to the fascinations of ecology.â€Â That sounds good, but really what Gayton does is bring the rumpled fact of his bearded self, his life experience and his magic words to a public table where he reveals his soul in language we all understand. Don’t miss him, the man is pure poetry.
At the Artrageous Gallery, 1117 Baker Street in Cranbrook, the Cranbrook & District Arts Council will host a multi-media exhibit of David Thompson memorial art. From October 22nd to November 1st the David Thompson Bicentennial Quilt will be on display accompanied by the first paintings of Joseph Cross’s larger David Thompson Legacy Art series. The Artrageous Gallery is open Tuesday through Friday from 11 AM to 3 PM, and Saturday from 12 PM to 3 PM. Make the effort to come out and view Columbia Basin history from a different perspective.
The Whyte Museum of the Canadian Rockies and Parks Canada are cooperating in Banff, Alberta, to celebrate an early explorer of the Columbia Basin, David Thompson. On Thursday, October 18th at 7 PM Graeme Pole will present material from his work “David Thompson, The Epic Expeditions of the Great Canadian Explorer.” Then at 8 PM Ross MacDonald will talk on the David Thompson Bicentennial project. An exhibit in the Swiss Guide Room of the Whyte Museum will be open for viewing as well, featuring two original paintings by Jamie Morris that portray the life of David Thompson. Also on view are maps of Thompson’s and Charlotte Small’s travels compiled by Andy Korsos and Leanne Playter. If you are in the Banff area on October 18th, plan to attend.
University of Toronto Master’s student Sonya White is conducting a series of research conversations about memory, history and healing. She is inviting interested members of the diverse West Kootenay/Boundary Doukhobor community to participate in these research conversations.
Sonya is exploring the ways in which memories of conflict persist in the lives of people who have lived through experiences of conflict. Specifically, she will be asking questions about the different ways in which diverse members of the Doukhobor community in south-central British Columbia live with and remember their experiences of 20th century Doukhobor conflict. She is interested in speaking with people who experienced the 20th century conflict as direct participants or indirect non-participants.
Sonya White believes the research will hold many potential benefits for both Doukhobor and non-Doukhobor people who are interested in knowing more about how individuals find peace after conflict has been resolved. Specifically, the research will make an important contribution to the public understanding of Doukhobor history and experience in western Canada, and will validate and legitimize the knowledge of a minority Canadian cultural community. The work will also explore ways in which different generations of Doukhobors experieced the “Doukhobor troubles.” Finally, the research offers an opportunity to identify different strategies for living with difficult pasts and learning to heal from direct or indirect experiences of conflict.
If you have specific questions about this research and/or would like to participate in a research interview with Sonya, please contact her directly by telephone at (250) 421-2055, by e-mail at swhite@oise.utoronto.ca or by mail at Sonya White, 1631 Staple Crescent, Cranbrook, B.C., V1C 6J1.
The BC Sports Hall of Fame has issued a call for expressions of interest from community partners who are interested in providing a permanent home for a portion or all of its collections and displays.
Queries should be submitted in writing to Sue Griffin, Executive Director, BC Sports Hall of Fame and Museum, 777 Pacific Blvd. South, Gate A - BC Place Stadium, Vancouver, BC, V6B 4H8 or via e-mail to sue.griffin@bcsportshalloffame.com.
Submission deadline is Friday, September 26, 2007, at 5:00 pm PST. All required information and documents pertaining to the Expression of Interest are available on-line at http://www.bcsportshalloffame.com.
Don Wilson is the proud and deserving recipient of the 2007 British Columbia History Website Prize. His site at www.crowsnest-highway.ca is unique and inclusive. Please check it out. Don has been working on this for a long time. The Columbia Basin Institute of Regional History is happy to congratulate Don on all his effort and recent achievements.
   Many Canadians grew up with the story of “Albert Johnson,” a man who lived on the Rat River in the Mackenzie Delta area of the North West Territories. The tale about “the Mad Trapper” just never went away.
The man we knew as “Albert Johnson” shot and wounded a policeman who visited his cabin in early January 1932. When a posse returned and dynamited the cabin, the man known as Johnson returned fire from a foxhole he had dug under the building and then escaped into the Arctic wilderness. Cornered at the base of a cliff the fugitive shot a Constable through the heart then scaled the cliff to escape once more. Finally in mid-February in yet another shoot-out where another RCMP officer was seriously wounded, ”Johnson” was wounded nine times and killed. He was buried at Aklavik.
Several books have been written on this story, notably Rudy Wiebe’s “The Mad Trapper” (1980). A fictionalized account became “Death Hunt,” a movie starring Charles Bronson. Stainless Steel Productions is currently developing a feature film title “The Mad Trapper.”
The real identity of this man was never clear. Author Dick North in his book “The Mad Trapper of Rat River” (2003) alleged that the buried man was in fact an American criminal named Johnny Johnson. Now Myth Merchant Films from Edmonton, AB, have exhumed the remains recovering hair, beard and fingernail fragments among other skeletal remains. The new DNA evidence and research is scheduled to air as a one-hour documentary on the Discovery Channel some time in 2008.
Canada continues to reveal the “story” in history. Who said it was boring?
   Touchstones Museum in Nelson is hosting a panel discussion on June 7th at 7 p.m. that will feature local, regional and American perspectives on the historic importance of the Columbia River. The panel has been organized as part of the Touchstones exhibit (until August 15th) “River of Memory: The Everlasting Columbia.”
The panel participants are Bill Layman, Curator of “River of Memory”; Kindy Gosal from Columbia Basin Trust Water Initiatives; and Marilyn James, Sinixt spokesperson. Marilyn Luscombe acts as moderator.
On June 8th at 7 p.m. Bill Layman from the Wenatchee Valley Museum and Cultural Center will present his talk “The Columbia River Through Time: Developing Whole River Understandings.” This is a PowerPoint presentation with many visuals. Layman has spent much of his life documenting the Columbia River.
For more information on these programmes do not hesitate to contact Touchstones at 250-352-9813.
The Provincial Government of B.C. will be forwarding a $100 cheque to each member of your family later this month. We each will have any number of ways to spend this money.