history

Vernon summer resident Julie McCann (née Holland) set an unofficial world record Monday, Aug. 9, at Greater Vernon Athletic Park, becoming the fastest woman to run 100 metres on all fours with a clocking of 22.99 seconds. (Christine Castrucow photo)

100 metre dash – on all fours: Vernon woman breaks unofficial Guinness record

Vernon resident Julie McCann sets unofficial Guinness mark as fastest woman to cover 100 metres on all fours

 

Geoff Goodship was contacted earlier this year by a man who had acquired his father’s First World War soldier’s uniform. Submitted photo

Vancouver Island man to be reunited with father’s 104-year-old First World War uniform

Geoff Goodship got a call out of the blue from an amateur historian who had acquired the outfit

 

Bill Merilees, a retired B.C. Parks regional information officer, collected mollusk shells from B.C. and Washington state coastlines for 50 years and has donated his 140,000-specimen collection to University of British Columbia’s Beaty Biodiversity Museum. (Chris Bush/News Bulletin)

VIDEO: B.C. man donates 140,000 mollusk specimens to biodiversity museum

UBC’s Beaty museum grateful for Bill Merilees’s historical record of B.C. marine biodiversity

 

History is being preserved thanks to a project by the Fernie and District Historical Society to digitize historic copies of The Free Press Newspaper. Pictured: RDEK Area A Director Mike Sosnowski, FDHS Executive Director Sara Edmondson, Fernie Museum Collections Services Coordinator Lindsay Vallance and president of the FDHS Nic Milligan reading a particuarly enthralling edition of The Free Press from 2012 when the newspaper turned 115. It has now been in operation for 124 years. (Scott Tibballs / The Free Press)

Taking print online: FSHS digitises historical copies of The Free Press

The society had been loaned microfilm that covers the first 50 years of The Free Press’s historical print run

History is being preserved thanks to a project by the Fernie and District Historical Society to digitize historic copies of The Free Press Newspaper. Pictured: RDEK Area A Director Mike Sosnowski, FDHS Executive Director Sara Edmondson, Fernie Museum Collections Services Coordinator Lindsay Vallance and president of the FDHS Nic Milligan reading a particuarly enthralling edition of The Free Press from 2012 when the newspaper turned 115. It has now been in operation for 124 years. (Scott Tibballs / The Free Press)
Captain James Cook statue splashes into Victoria’s Inner Harbour, after being removed from its upper causeway pedestal on July 1. (@CJusticeVic/Twitter)

Cast in bronze, then into Victoria’s Inner Harbour: So who was James Cook?

Likeness of British maritime explorer commissioned in 1976, forcibly removed on July 1

Captain James Cook statue splashes into Victoria’s Inner Harbour, after being removed from its upper causeway pedestal on July 1. (@CJusticeVic/Twitter)
Gwen Spencer Hethey with her uncle and mentor Major Frederick Richardson. (Courtesy of Greater Victoria Sports Hall of Fame)

‘She was a killer’: The B.C. woman who pioneered female sharpshooting

Gwen Spencer Hethey made military men ‘look like turkeys’ says her son

Gwen Spencer Hethey with her uncle and mentor Major Frederick Richardson. (Courtesy of Greater Victoria Sports Hall of Fame)
(Courtesy Photo | Frank Zmuda)

Beaver secretion found as part of ancient throwing dart in Yukon

Researchers saying it’s earliest known evidence of Indigenous peoples using the substance

(Courtesy Photo | Frank Zmuda)
A protester swings a hammer in an attempt to remove the head of the Egerton Ryerson statue in Toronto on Sunday June 6, 2021. A much-maligned statue of Egerton Ryerson was toppled in Toronto on Sunday. The statue, prominently displayed on the campus of Ryerson University, has come under renewed scrutiny after the discovery in Kamloops, B.C., of what are believed to be the remains of 215 Indigenous children at a former residential school. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Chris Young

Beheaded statue of Egerton Ryerson, toppled Sunday in Toronto, won’t be replaced

Ryerson is credited as one of the architects of Canada’s residential school system

A protester swings a hammer in an attempt to remove the head of the Egerton Ryerson statue in Toronto on Sunday June 6, 2021. A much-maligned statue of Egerton Ryerson was toppled in Toronto on Sunday. The statue, prominently displayed on the campus of Ryerson University, has come under renewed scrutiny after the discovery in Kamloops, B.C., of what are believed to be the remains of 215 Indigenous children at a former residential school. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Chris Young
Kevin Allen of Fernie helped research and untangle the relationship between West Fernie and the City of Fernie, and is now writing a book on West Fernie. (Phil McLachlan / The Free Press)

Local historian writing book on West Fernie

Kevin Allen of Fernie is compiling his research on West Fernie into a book thanks to a grant from the RDEK

Kevin Allen of Fernie helped research and untangle the relationship between West Fernie and the City of Fernie, and is now writing a book on West Fernie. (Phil McLachlan / The Free Press)
Frank Ludwig in the control room. (Photo submitted)

The Day They Closed The Old Mill Down in song

Former member of Trooper captures the essence of small town struggles and triumphs

Frank Ludwig in the control room. (Photo submitted)
A petition launched by a group of University of Victoria students calls for the renaming of Trutch Street. (Google Maps)

B.C. students lobby to get racist official’s name off Victoria street

University of Victoria students say Trutch Street puts racist history on a pedestal

A petition launched by a group of University of Victoria students calls for the renaming of Trutch Street. (Google Maps)
The booklet roots present day activism in the history of racist policies, arguing the history must be acknowledged in order to change. (CCPA)

New resource dives into 150 years of racist policy in B.C.

Racist history must be acknowledged in order to change, authors say

The booklet roots present day activism in the history of racist policies, arguing the history must be acknowledged in order to change. (CCPA)
Rob Rondeau, PhD candidate at SFU, is embarking on a mission to find definitive evidence of human migration to the continent. (SFU supplied image)

VIDEO: Marine archaeologist looking for clues of ancient migration in B.C. waters

SFU researcher hoping to find 15,000 year-old archaeological sites underwater

Rob Rondeau, PhD candidate at SFU, is embarking on a mission to find definitive evidence of human migration to the continent. (SFU supplied image)
Fernie, B.C. (Photo contributed)

West Fernie Stories: A Pandemic Heroine

Contributed by Kevin Allen The Spanish Flu hit the Elk Valley hard.…

  • Feb 22, 2021
Fernie, B.C. (Photo contributed)
Edmund Bodine is seen here at the military tribunal in Shanghai, 1946, when he was tasked with acting as defence counsel for four Japanese officers accused of the unlawful deaths of American pilots. Standing, L-R: Bodine, Shigeru Sawada, Yusei Wako, Ruyhei Okada, Sotojiro Tatsuta, co-counsel Charles Fellows. Photo courtesy of Natalie Bodine

The trials of Edmund Bodine: How a Kootenay woman’s parents defended Japanese officers during the Second World War

The forgotten details of the Doolittle Trial resurfaced in a book published last year

Edmund Bodine is seen here at the military tribunal in Shanghai, 1946, when he was tasked with acting as defence counsel for four Japanese officers accused of the unlawful deaths of American pilots. Standing, L-R: Bodine, Shigeru Sawada, Yusei Wako, Ruyhei Okada, Sotojiro Tatsuta, co-counsel Charles Fellows. Photo courtesy of Natalie Bodine
25 years later: The water skiing legend on Kalamalka Lake

25 years later: The water skiing legend on Kalamalka Lake

A group of waterskiers were towed behind a plane on Kalamalka Lake back in 1995

25 years later: The water skiing legend on Kalamalka Lake
Mohawk Council of Kanesatake Grand Chief Serge Otsi Simon discusses the current situation and actions relating to the Wet’suwet’en hereditary chiefs during a press conference at the National Press Theatre in Ottawa on Tuesday, Feb. 18, 2020. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Sean Kilpatrick

30 years after Oka crisis, Kanesatake land claims remain unresolved

Serge Simon, the current Grand Chief of Kanesatake, vividly remembers the events of July 11, 1990

Mohawk Council of Kanesatake Grand Chief Serge Otsi Simon discusses the current situation and actions relating to the Wet’suwet’en hereditary chiefs during a press conference at the National Press Theatre in Ottawa on Tuesday, Feb. 18, 2020. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Sean Kilpatrick
An image from the Royal BC Museum’s digitized collection of historical photographs shows an Interior Salish woman and child weaving baskets. The image is one of thousands posted in an online database. (Courtesy of the Royal BC Museum)

B.C. museum releases more than 16,000 historical photos of Indigenous life

Digitized images preserved and shared with Indigenous communities

An image from the Royal BC Museum’s digitized collection of historical photographs shows an Interior Salish woman and child weaving baskets. The image is one of thousands posted in an online database. (Courtesy of the Royal BC Museum)
Vehicles parade through Cloverdale in 1946. The actual parade is unknown as there were six in Cloverdale that year – May Day, the Rodeo, the Kinsmen’s Gymkhana (June 29th), the Fall Fair, August Memorial Service, and the Wild West Show. (Image courtesy of Surrey Historical Society)

BCHF conference once again slated for Cloverdale

Surrey Historical Society to host 2021 history conference

Vehicles parade through Cloverdale in 1946. The actual parade is unknown as there were six in Cloverdale that year – May Day, the Rodeo, the Kinsmen’s Gymkhana (June 29th), the Fall Fair, August Memorial Service, and the Wild West Show. (Image courtesy of Surrey Historical Society)
Fanny Rodgers shows a 45-year-old message left in the walls of her Castlegar home. Photo: John Boivin

Hidden message connects Castlegar homeowners decades apart

The Rodgers family was surprised when a message fell out of the walls as they were renovating

Fanny Rodgers shows a 45-year-old message left in the walls of her Castlegar home. Photo: John Boivin