User talk:Skookum1

Archives

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1. October 28, 2005 - October 31, 2006
2. November 1, 2006 - January 27, 2007
3. January 28, 2007 - March 27, 2007

Rugged Point volcanoes

It appears that there are no volcanoes on Vancouver Island, just on the mainland of British Columbia according to Volcano World. Black Tusk 18:46, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Volcanics near Rugged Point

I found out that an ancient tectonic plate called the Kula Plate used to have volcanic and sedimentary rocks about 55 million years ago that were scraped off and plastered against the continental margin when it was being subducted under the North American Plate, forming Vancouver Island. Black Tusk 17:23, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Chinaman (dab)

I presume the edit I made will be bastardized within hours. Whether the term is derogatory or outdated or floral shouldn't be placed on a disambig page because then there becomes an edit war over "proof" that the word is whatever. This leads to the "need" for references on a page that shouldn't have them. The question, proof, explanation, etc. of what the term means is gone into on the article's page itself. Disambig pages should only consist of concise descriptions to help a searcher determine which term they meant to be looking for, not in depth explanations of said terms. Thanks, I hope it holds, too. Chickenmonkey 02:08, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

because then there becomes an edit war over "proof" that the word is whatever.

Yeah, that's exactly what happened here over the last few weeks, in fact. The demand for references was by HQG, who's since backed down variously/considerably on what the page should have and/or be about. But there's always going to be someone who wants to rev up the language (and politics) to suit themselves; to me it's no better than the hooligan vandalisms of the last few days, as it's much similar in tone (esp. re the one edit commented on in recent edit to the main talkpage, about the tone of invective, which is of course rooted in emotion. Encyclopedias can document that emotions exist, but they shouldn't express them, no? Thanks; this page is going to always take some watching over...Skookum1 02:18, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

I agree encyclopedias shouldn't express emotions, in the general sense, and disambig pages in encyclopedias definitely shouldn't. It's kind of like a phonebook listing the ugly John Smith or the famous Jane Doe. Chickenmonkey 02:38, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

....something that might be useful to say on the talkpage...Skookum1 02:46, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

I'll certainly keep an eye on the page and mention these things if need be. Whether anyone will listen? Who knows. Chickenmonkey 03:00, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Hey again. With the dab page on Chinaman, or with any dab page, the most common usage should be the intro (if there is to be an intro). Given that a search for "chinaman" goes straight to Chinaman, I assumed the most common usage was accepted to be "a term used to refer to a Chinese man". That, along with the qualifier you used "or in a less common usage", I would say that the other two uses in the intro should probably be listed with the other "alternate" uses. Which, according to policy (I think) all "alternate" uses listed should be linked to a page that mentions the term. Porcelain doesn't mention "chinaman". I don't doubt the three uses listed without being linked to an article that uses the term are accurate, but I'm going to remove the "drug reference" usage and the "porcelain" usage for now. I'm sure, with the China trade ship usage, the Old China Trade article (I think would be accurate, not sure) could be edited to include a sourced usage of the term "chinaman" to refer to their ships. Chickenmonkey 04:13, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

Oh, the Chinaman as a porcelain dealer is well-established, and in fact in one dictionary quoted on the Talk:Chinaman page (or its archive) it's the first listed; the ship ref is even older, but much less common; I found two usages in Kipling, as well as somewhere out there today I found a 1740 cite for it, in a time when we were still toying with "Chinnish" and "Chinian" to name the people of the new country "we" were trading with. But as for the chinaware thing:

• The Chinaman - a shop in the UK

shows that it's alive and well, and probably quite normal in England; I suspect it's pronounced China + man, with more emphasis on "man", as in "old China hand"; or like some Newfs instructed me long ago, "Newfoundland rhymes with 'understand'". Whatever; there's no article needed for Chinaman (porcelain dealer), not that I can see; but it's certainly a real usage, and in fact older than the demonym. And as for the ship, I'm not sure if it was a physical type of vessel, or more the nature of the ship's business/trade/route; maybe we'll find that out somewhere....Skookum1 04:19, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

Taking A Stab At

I sifted through some other articles on the coast with the Indigenous cultures and nations. I realized for a group which is heavily written about, there was little about. So, my main focus is working on the Kwakwaka'wakw, it's affiliations, and tribal groups. I moved a few articles around, and fixed up a couple others, but you noticed that already. The Kwakwaka'wakw article will become my main focus, along with the tribes. I'm probably going to create articles for all the tribes, if they are not created, but I think you kind of did that with 'so and so Nation'. I just think it should be the name of their nation, with other links following, ye know? I'll search around for pictures, and maybe stop by VPL to get some resources for books on the Kwakwaka'wakw. Let the article pimpin' begin! OldManRivers 05:31, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

See the

and other templates for tribal breakdowns, non-band.Skookum1 06:23, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Not sure why FN cat is displaying here

I just noticed "I" am in the BC First Nations category., I just had a look through the page to see if I could spot where I didn't, maybe, use the colon format Category:First Nations in British Columbia, but I looked through the edit-source and can't see/find it. What's causing this? If anyone else can find it, pls rmv.Skookum1 21:29, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

See the section directly above this one. The template in there puts pages that transclude it into the category. Xiner (talk, email) 21:46, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

Didn't you know that you, Skookum1, is First Nations? lol OldManRivers 21:49, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

I know, I just noticed that and tried to fix it; must be a hidden Category reference, maybe on one of the archive pages; I've asked User:Xiner to help me as I can't find it myself, despite thorough searching.....still can't find that map I'm talking about; lots of pages to sort through, might be a language page or main nation page, or even a subnation page - one of the external links, goes to a really elaborate language-areas map with neat floating overlays you can turn off. BTW YOU should have a look at the BC MapPlace links I just put on the BC WikiProject page, and check out the First Nations displays...this is the same technology used to build the other map; maybe that one is linked off the main MapPlace page....hmmmm.Skookum1 21:59, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

BC Treaty Process

I started it. Personally, I think it's great as it is, but I think others will want to add more. If you want to help out with it, that would be great. I'm going to find source material on the whole BC Treaty Process. I don't know a whole lot about the actual histories of each things, but, I know the Nisga'a Treaty was a template for the BC Treaty Process, or as I like call it, Selfish-Government. I also plan on starting senakw soon because the history of that village, pertaining to Vancouver would be great. (Ya know, how the missionaries and government murdered and destroyed the village.) OldManRivers 21:43, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, I guess that's the title it's usually known by these days; but NB it's for THIS process, not the previous ones with the NDP, or the century-long abstention by the BC government that led to the Land Claims impasse in the first place (Ottawa wanted them to settle over a century ago; 85% of the province was Government Reserve as a result, land held in abeyance of eventual settlement, until its original political purpose/stake was forgotten/shoved aside and in 1976 the new Forests Act assigned the whole shebang to be run by the Forest Industry; this was, IMO, a tactical/pre-emptive move to take the resources before they could be handed back over; and the deal is that MacMillan Bloedel, who got over half the wood (maybe as high 2/3; I've forgotten - this is from an old Allan Fotheringham article, I think....), was the main backer of the Bill Bennett election campaign in 1975. The item I saw on the Forests Act was coming from the environmental angle and didn't make the FN connection; I recognized it when in another article or book I came across the Government Reserve-as-collateral-for-eventual-land-claims-settlement context in an analysis of how the land claims impasse had come about. As early as Dufferin's visit in 1874 BC was getting dressed down about needing to settle, so as to not leave a legal vacuum, and it was an issue in the Confederation discussions; the BC position post-Confederation was that the plebiscite to join Canada had somehow wiped any provincial responsibility for land claims or native governance, which was all Ottawa's problem; but Ottawa couldn't settle without BC, and Ottawa wouldn't/couldn't come to the table if BC didn't, and BC wouldn't. Anyway (as I could go on...). I think a history of Land Claims in British Columbia or something is a separate potential article, covering all the history of the various native political/legal manoeuvres and statements, from the original Nisga'a declarations and the Lillooet Declaration and others like those right down to Delgamuukw, Vander Zalm's grandstanding at Toba which was quickly followed by the chopper visit to Seton Portage which was followed up by five dozen riot-squad mounties, the NDP's "go" at a treaty process, the Campbell government's about face, which then introduces the current Treaty Process. The bands/peoples who abstain or have only observer status should all be noted, of course.Skookum1 22:08, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

Oh gods Treaty just agitates the hell out of me. OldManRivers

You're not the only one. It's taken me years to straighten out what went down, i.e. technicality wise, and it's frustrating to watch/hear rehashes and modern-day press/political spins on it that don't conform to the actual history. Most British Columbians don't want to know; most also want it settled in the natives' favour, although you wouldn't think that from the letters to the editors and op-ed columns (that's intentional; they give airtime to loudmouths to drive readership, as people love to read people they hate...); and when I say "most British Columbians" I'm not referring to the new wave of immigrants, wherever they're from (Asia, Eastern Canada, Europe, Africa, wherever) but to the "old" BC intercultural community; sympathy for the native positionsn and a "damned right of course they own it" attitude has been around for a long time; it's just never given a media voice unless the person can be painted as a leftist or a loon or protesthead or whatever; calmer voices like Suzuki's and Glavin's are deliberately drowned out....whatever, it's sunny, man, and I've got to get outside with the guitar and open up for a while...talk to you later.Skookum1 22:22, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

And btw most people I'm talking about want a settlement not because of economic/market stability, which is the political motivation lately (as well as land scams right and left, as with Tsawwassen and Temexw), but because they want to see justice. Canadians, though a bunch of up-tight pricks for the most part, are inherently decent-minded and believe in fairness, and although there's some bozos who say "get over it" or "they deserved it/no better" who get a lot of airtime/copyspace the vast majority of people are horrified and also know that they wouldn't like it if their grandparents were stripped of their rights, lands etc; you'd think the Chinese community, so hot-to-trot for its own settlement, would have recognized the much more severe abuse your people went through, and continue so to this day; but all new groups just see it all as dollars and sense; settlement for new money types, whether from ON or China or wherever, is all about economic stability and political embarrassment; but consider human/indigenous rights in places where most of them come from, and you begin to see why IMO, if I'm right, there's a general lack of sympathy for the natives among the newer elements, as they just have no connection to it and don't want to know anyway; although how natives were treated is brought up as something to be critical of the so-called "dominant culture" with. So "be of good faith" Wiki-style with some of us hwelitem, even ones that don't know as much as I do (and I know too much for my own damned good), as people want to know, they do want to fix what's done, and they're just as frustrated with the politicians as you are (and about nearly everything). Don't confuse the people with the politicians, I guess, is the way to sum that up. It goes for the old days too; there are lots and lots of stories of ordinary folks getting along with their native neighbours and cooperators etc; it's the bad stuff that gets print/air.Skookum1 22:28, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

An Automated Message from HagermanBot

Hello. In case you didn't know, when you add content to talk pages and Wikipedia pages that have open discussion, you should sign your posts by typing four tildes ( ~~~~ ) at the end of your comment. You may also click on the signature button located above the edit window. This will automatically insert a signature with your name and the time you posted the comment. This information is useful because other editors will be able to tell who said what, and when. Thank you! HagermanBot 07:31, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

Shut the heck up Hagermanbot. I guess you're perfect and always remember eh? ;)--Keefer4 | Talk 07:52, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, Hagermanbot's just a little too hasty. At least give me a minute to re-open the page to add my sig when I realize I left it off; fine to do it for me I guess, but I don't need a f**king robot telling me what to do because he beat me to it!! "He" and his "scolding" is more annoying than Hong or Uncle G. Guess I'll add a note on hagermanbot's little talkpage, wherever it is....Skookum1 17:23, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

That (Personal attack removed) bot that just (Personal attack removed) goes and (Personal attack removed) leaves its (Personal attack removed) stamp should be (Personal attack removed)(Personal attack removed)(Personal attack removed). Oh that felt good, on so many levels. Now. Back to being civil.--Keefer4 | Talk 00:16, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

You can opt out of Hagermanbot. Just use the link in the heading, here, and go from there -- its simple and self-explanatory. Hagermanbot is well meant, but annoyingly officious. It really needs a reasonable time-delay, instead of jumping on unsigned posts the moment they appear. -- Lonewolf BC 03:21, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

Sockpuppet

Skookum1, a piece of advice. Obviously the 4. person is an experienced Wikipedian, but I haven't seen any conclusive evidence that it is a sockpuppet. Until you have that evidence, it's better to assume good faith, because premature charges can doom the prosecution even if they are correct. Xiner (talk) 15:51, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

Other than one comment in the last few days 4.x.x. has backed down since I mentioned the checkuser report. I've been waiting for more before filing a report, but "if it walks like a duck and talks like a duck" applies here. It may not be who I and others think it is; but it's someone who's a regular Wikipedian who's "hiding" behind an IP address in order to make insults etc. "Assume good faith" is exactly what's not going on with the opponents of rationality in this fiasco. Well, it's not a fiasco because it's not over yet. But it sure is a nasty can of ideologically motivated worms, all writhing and posturing and puffery with their self-importance and righteousness. I left university to get away from sophomoric attitudes among people who think they're educated, and whose childish behaviour they hide behind procedural and bureaucratic manipulations; I may leave Wikipedia, ultimately, for the same reason.Skookum1 15:58, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

From what I've heard checkuser can go back about a month, for what that is worth. That gives you a little time to see if they continue the suspected sock behavior. Are editors allowed to use different names for different articles, so as to avoid someone being moved to stalk and undo every edit because of conflict in some contentious area? Edison 22:14, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

Mark Britten

This was the entire content of the deleted article: <<Mark Britten is an American comedian whose stage name is "The Chinaman"..>> There's not much point in my restoring that one sentence. There's no block on reposting the article once it has some content. NawlinWiki 19:11, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

Couldn't have waited 5 minutes, could you, from the moment I created the article? Was it my fault for not putting a inuse on the article? Was my fault that I didn't warn other users possibly interested in expanding the article that it was tagged for sd? Oh, wait a minute, I DID warn other users possibly interested in expanding the article that it was tagged for sd. And I did IMMEDIATELY. Problem is, you were even faster in deleting the article. Now I'll have to report your behaviour, sorry. --maf 19:35, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

Just to clarify that the preceding post was directed at User:NawlinWiki. --maf 19:36, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

Update: Behaviour reported. --maf 19:54, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

Mark Britten article has been restored/written using available web resources. I'll be emailing him personally to tell him that the first try at this article got deleted in less than two minutes; maybe that'll find its way into his act.....Skookum1 18:41, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

Category:Vancouver Island

Just created this today after near cardiac when I discovered there was/never had been such a category. It will obviously need to be subdivided at some point, but when/if your wikitravels take you to the island feel free to check/add to the cat. I guess in a sense this would also be the first of the traditional/historic region categories so we can work towards things like the elimination of the silly Regional District classifications for where people hail from &etc. Anyway, later. --Keefer4 | Talk 07:53, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, noticed that as lots of them are on my watchlist and I saw them all go by; it's the one definable region in BC, unless we define Category:British Columbia Coast or Category:Coast of British Columbia (not West Coast of Canada which irks me as a title and usage but may be mandatory by Wiki rules; cf. my notes on Talk:West Coast of the United States early tonight about "West Coast" as our self-definer, not of either nation; that commonality between US and LA and Seattle etc. Category:British Columbia Interior seems fairly well-defined, other than the Skeena maybe, and the Canyon and Pemberton; it implicitly includes the north, or maybe there should be Category:Northern British Columbia, from PG on up I guess, including of course the North Coast, though, so also overlapping, unless sep categories (and articles) for North Coast of British Columbia, South Coast of British Columbia, Central Coast of British Columbia were established; easier to just have of course Category:Coast of British Columbia which both Category:Lower Mainland (if it exists) and Category:Vancouver Island can be subcats; my notion about the whole thing is the tripartite division of the place, and also my old idea about the "traditional" regions; i.e. vs. using the RDs as how to further subdivide other cats and such; but there's overlap between regions all over the place, and Yale and Pemberton which aren't quite one or the either; and the North Coast are more connected to the Island than the rest of the Coast, and so on. I think we can safely establish categories Category:Cariboo, Category:Kootenay, Category:Chilcotin, Category:Fraser Canyon, Category:Okanagan, Category:Similkameen, Category:Shuswap, Category:Omineca etc (within the historical cats there could eventually be - hmm can't be Category:New Caledonia so (prob Category:New Caledonia (fur district) but I've never really noticed paranthetical titles in cats. So should these be made bold and let the chips fall where they may? Wiki rules would probably prefer that we identify what those are as officialized regions somehow; they're easily recognizable, even when they overlap or things don't fit right, too, though; but we also say "(the) Cariboo" as well as "(the) Cariboo Country" and so on through the list, eventually Stikine and Liard and Dease and Peace River Block (??) when there's enough articles up there to warrant; the Peace already but that cat name's going to be problematic, huh? Anyway, thoughts on seeing your Vanc Isl. cat; makes me think we can get away with all the others, and wondering on these other cat ideas; gona sign off; it's nearly 2.Skookum1 08:45, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

Note overlap between e.g. Category:Chilcotin and the already extant Tsilhqot'in, which would seem to necessarily be a subcat of the otheres; not all native nation cats will coincide with these regions, but a lot will; or they could when necessary be in more than one region-cat, or only in the one that applies, e.g. Category:Ktunaxa in Category:Kootenay (provided that the Slocan is defined as being part of the Kootenay; I've never been clear on Nakusp and Revelstoke, Nakusp is maybe Kootenay as it's Arrow Lakes, but then so would be Galena Bay and Beaton and nearly Revelstoke; and again there's areas that don't fit like Category:Big Bend of British Columbia, though that's already in Category:Columbia River in its own way; as should be Category:Kootenay when it comes into being; the Okanagan cat is an issue because of the differential spelling, and it does span the border; it's one reason I specificaly chosen Category:Syilx as the name for the Okanagan people cat, because of course in teh US it's got two o's.Skookum1 08:53, 7 April 2007 (UTC) Y'see to me there would seem to be an obvious parent cat of some kind of the American Okanogan and the BC Okanagan; I dodged the bullet with the FN/Native American cat but harder to do as a purely geographic region (in a non-national sense, like that problem with the Georgia-Puget Depression wherever that winds up at now.Skookum1 09:16, 7 April 2007 (UTC) Georgia Strait-Puget Sound Depression, Georgia Strait-Puget Sound Basin?? - Anything but Whulge or Salish Sea. Fine if there were a common regional name spanning languages, but then it probably woudl hvae become part of regional english if that were the case, no? Whatever; g'nite for the second time, it's now 2:24am. One last PS I'll be reworking my Lillooet article, which needs work as I cribbed it from what was already there, but it's never been brought up to par and has errors; writing this tor emind myself, similarly with others in htat area, including those that need creation; I should really be spending my time writing/publishing a book on the area....but it's aresources thing, time/money spent while writing. Not that I'm making any money here, y'see... and get more grief than necessary sometimes ;-) Skookum1 09:19, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

Category:Geographic regions of British Columbia has Aspen parkland in it, which isn't the purpose of the cat but I can see someone seeing it there; maybe a Category:Biogeographic zones of British Columbia, provided there's a Biogeographic zones of British Columbia or a similarly-titled List article.Skookum1 09:13, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. We've got a good redlinked 'to-do' list of possible future cats above this now, which I may cc to my to-do page, actually. I have been frequenting the Categories for Discussion boards lately, and chiming in occasionally-- since the streets and squares issue arose, and has since been overturned entirely. Anyway, it seems category deletion impulses are usually triggered by "over-categorization" and "non-notable" cats that don't specifically have articles associated with the cat. titles. In the case of most BC regions, we should be ok (Van Isle being the easy 'no brainer'), although there could be sourcing issues again re: the vaguely defined regions. But certainly in the cases of Category:Kootenay and Category:Okanagan, which are better defined, creation shouldn't be controversial. I think fairly strong community support could be obtained from the project members too, if we were to discuss this on the WPBC proj page. Of course, those subcats would/could (as you alluded to) be based on those obvious larger region articles which you compiled a while back, which would have cats (Category:Lower Mainland, Category:British Columbia Interior (purely a parent, really)..., Northern... &etc.). The categorization would have to follow existing articles, but would provide a more sensible and realistic flow of organization for articles relating to any BC subject. This way, we actually could realize and incorporate the different levels of self-identity into the cats (ie: "I'm from the Island" or "I'm from up in the Shuswap"), which we know exist at the various levels of regions. Same with the biogeographic zones under the geo cat.. Precedents elsewhere would be useful, I'll keep perusing the boards and other cats for some guidelines, so as to try and pre-empt deletionists, although I'm sure a few will surface in all this. Still some inevitable cat. overlaps with peoples/towns, but hey, things are different here, as we know ;). Later man.--Keefer4 | Talk 09:55, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

OK just found Category:Oregon Coast which bodes well for an overarching Category:Coast of British Columbia here, esp considering the British Columbia Coast article, of your creation.--Keefer4 | Talk 10:04, 7 April 2007 (UTC). Just created it, running on fumes...--Keefer4 | Talk 10:47, 7 April 2007 (UTC). Just started adding to coast cat. Need a fresh pair of eyes on it though... for example, put the whole category Category:Bays of British Columbia as a subcat of coast, which was probably wrong, considering Kootenay Bay &etc. but then all the bays were on the coast... a few conundrums, correct/organize as you see fit. ZzzZzz.--Keefer4 | Talk 10:47, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

Bays of British Columbia? Yikes. Now is that geographic bays, or towns named "bay"???? And what about Category:Inlets of British Columbia and whatever you'd put sounds in or call; and don't forget that a lot of things that are Sounds and even Straits are actually also part of Category:Fjords, according to strict definitions of fjords....and BC has a lot of freshwater fjords (Harrison, Pitt, seton-Anderson, chilko, Kootenay, dozens of major ones more...). freshwater bays and marine bays might be a useful distinction (sorry given up with my shift key....). anyway, just got in, haven't looked at you-know-where yet and need to eat and, er, tune up. I'll send ya a letter about other stuff. (PS bornmann watch in effect with the trial opening and today's press coverage, haven't noticed anything yet but we should all stay tuned....the case is gonna be hard stuff to right; alreaDy the articles aren't up to date because of complexity; like so many - hey, you don't have any old copy on the Salmon War of 1996, do you? Have to be bothsides POV of course, so alaskan/washington papers which I've never read their side of the crisis in would be interesting research.....like so much else, but there's only so much time in this world, and so much else to do....sigh.Skookum1 07:35, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

Nada for Salmon War material, unfortunately. Seems the only 'sounds'/inlets cat is in fact Category:Fjords of British Columbia, which I moved to coast. WIll probably move it back to general Category:Geography of British Columbia, and tag some of the individual fjords/inlets etc with 'Coast' or 'Interior' cats as applicable. Lots of close category calls today in your old neck of the woods, from Port Douglas up to Pemberton country and beyond, tagged some with both coast and int cats, same with a few rivers, mountain ranges and trails which straddle. 'Bays' category contained both geographic and settlement put it back to general 'geo of bc'. A few more then ZzzZzz.--Keefer4 | Talk 09:25, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

English Names for Chinese People

Uncle G reverted your and Falsedef's edits AGAIN. Is there any way that his POV agenda can be stopped? It's pretty obvious that the article won't be deleted, so there needs to some way to get him to stop reverting everything that others write that conflicts with his narrow-minded view.Zeus1234 15:50, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

What a pleasant surprise! The article was deleted after all. Looks like my note above was premature.Zeus1234 03:29, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

maps

yeah, hey, if you've got maps for stuff around bellingham bay (Portage Island, Lummi Peninsula, etc.) i'd be glad to deal with them if you don't have time. i've got plenty of time to work on that stuff right now. Cheers! Murderbike 04:06, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

Hereby...

		The Original Barnstar
		Skookum1 is hereby awarded the Original Barnstar for his extensive work throughout British Columbia related articles. Adding the new cats over the past few days has enabled me to see just how extensive that work has been. It is clearly an invaluable contribution taht extends to nearly all facets of the province. Also, for standing your ground, albeit colourfully, against such accusations of "hysterics" and acting like a "chicken with your head cut off", and being told to go get a blog, &etc. amidst controversies. The fact that you continue to contribute in the ways described above trumps any of these.--Keefer4 | Talk 23:39, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

Wow. Thanks. I now have two - one for CanCon, of all things, given I'm virtually a BC separatist, and a Bridge River-Lillooet separatist on top of that ;-) Should I put these on my userpage or what? Been thinking of overhauling it and archiving what's there; esp. since my Grand Recuse is about to start....Skookum1 23:49, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

Bornmann

Congrats on that barnstar. I'm sure it is well-deserved. I doubt that anyone has added more BC content than you. Which is partly what brought me here. I was wondering if you saw the article about Bornmann in the Sun yesterday? "Liberals can thank 'Spiderman for exposure" from the Saturday paper, B1. I tought that you might be interested in adding something to our article. I was also wondering if you had any plans on cleaning up Hollywood North or runaway production which was in a pretty sorry state the last time that I saw it. --JGGardiner 01:10, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

Well, I've been in a certain other bloodbath lately; there's only so much I can stomach at times ;-) and I'm starting to feel like sisyphus with articles like that, although I don't think we'll see much in the way or targeted you-know-what in future; I didn't get a chance to see the article, which I guess was in the second section because I looked through yesterday's front page tonight looking for it; but remember to be fair it's not only Erik's article that needs work, Basi and even Justice Bennett (or Barrett? whichever) all need articles, as with the defendants and more on Brian Kieran; the tie-in to Marissen and all that; we can expect your standard rant-edit from potty-mouthed and/or politically upset British columbians like on other pages, but while I think POV watch is worthwhile I don't think we're going to see any more savage edit wars. Now, as for myself cribbing the news into the article, it's partly awkward because I was such a main combatant and I'm also as you know rather prolix :-| in the extreme; what I've done with other topics is to make a list of points needed to be addressed and ask someone else to stich them together in simple language ;-) The other side of my writing situation is that I'm going to be un-webbing in about a month and have a host of articles I need to amend, and only a few weeks to go (adventures await...), and tidying up the BC Wikiproject. I meant to save that article, and the one before it, but I was hoping the expansion-momentum might come from somewhere else; I'm good at seeing what's missing, or what needs to be put in context; and I'd be wary of my POV throughout if I was original-writing it.Skookum1 05:23, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for ideas and encouragement

Hi Skookum, yes, I enjoyed working on the Barnard Express article and agree with you that it is high importance. Yesterday I added three fair-use images from BC Archives and I hope they stay as I believe the use is more than fair, after all wikipedia is a nonprofit research tool same as their site is. I wonder why BC Archives holds the rights to all those online pictures when Canada Archives freely admits when there is no copyright, and often on the very same picture? I don’t get it. But if those three pictures are allowed there are hundreds of others in the online BC Archives that could be used in a project regarding BC sternwheelers. I’ve noticed that writing articles on wikipedia seems to be like trying empty the ocean with a bucket, you write one and a dozen more need to be created to link to it and so on… ad infinitum. This certainly seems to be the case with BC history: I was surprised to find nothing on Cataline or Simon Gunanoot for example. Anyway, as to the ownership of the BC Express boats, only the two namesakes belonged to the company. Of the other ten, two, the Operator and Conveyor belonged to Foley Welch and Stewart who were the construction contractors for the Grand Trunk Pacific. Of the eight left, three, the Chilco, Chilcotin and Fort Fraser belonged to the Fort George Lumber and Navigation Company, who also held lots in the South Fort George townsite and used these steamers to bring prospective buyers to the area as well as contracting them to the railroad, survey companies ect… The Robert Hammond had a similar purpose and was owned by the rival townsite, Central Fort George on the Nechako River, which being less navigable didn’t have the service of the BC Express boats, which were too big, or the service of the Fort George Lumber boats which were their competition. An interesting aside: the Mayor of Kamloops and a party of other men in 1913 managed to get the government mail contract from the BC Express Company and were going to use the Robert Hammond as a mail steamer, but the plan fell through as they weren’t prepared for the challenge, nor was the boat, which was not powerful enough to keep the same twice a week delivery schedule from Soda Creek to Fort George like the BC Express boats could. Okay, where was I? That leaves four. The Quesnel was built by a merchant in Quesnel, perhaps in the hopes that he could contract/charter it out while saving money on his own shipping costs. The Charlotte was built earlier than all of these in 1896, just for the Soda Creek to Quesnel run, I would assume to serve the merchant and pioneer needs of the area. She was built by Senator James Reid of Quesnel and named after his wife, under the company he organized as North British Columbia Navigation… and that was as much as I ever noticed before. But, here’s the kicker, one of the three partners in the NBCN was Captain John Irving, another big name, and the other was Tingley, himself, who was running the BC Express Company at that time and had been for eight years. So, while not a BC Express boat the Charlotte had strong associations. The last two are the Enterprise and the Victoria and here’s where GB Wright comes into play, along with Thomas Wright, {brother?} they were the owners and operators of these two boats. The Enterprise was built first, in 1863, and was used between Soda Creek and Quesnel until 1871. But, here’s an amazing story, in 1871, the Wrights took her all the way up to Fort George, considered impossible before then because of the Cottonwood and Fort George Canyons, but they didn’t stop there and continued on up the Nechako to the Stuart River finally ending up at Takla Landing. Supposedly the Wrights took her there because of the Omineca Gold Rush, but it doesn’t seem as if she did any work there and was also abandoned there. By then the Wrights had built the Victoria which ran the Soda Creek Quesnel route from 1869 to 1886. And that’s all of them. Categorizing them by ownership like this ie: railroad, private and Hudson’s Bay Co, {oddly enough we had no Bay steamers here}, seems to make more sense than going in chronological order as I did in Steamboats of the Upper Fraser River in British Columbia. I think I’ll go back and play with that, as it looks rather amateurish right now and I was wondering how to divide it into sections while maintaining a timeline. The same could be done for pages for the other areas you mentioned. These articles would be much bigger than the Upper Fraser or Skeena River, as those each only had a dozen or so sternwheelers during a relatively short era. In the south, there were probably 200 sternwheelers on the various lakes and rivers, over a much longer time span. The Beaver in 1836 to the Moyie retiring in 1957. Also many of which were famous: Moyie, Sicamous, Kokanee, Nasookin, Slocan ect…ect… and will need their own articles. Not to mention articles that would need to be made for some of the captains, builders and owners. One thing would make starting a little simpler, I was thinking of categorizing the provincial sections much as Art Downs did on his two volumes of Paddlewheels on the Frontier. Kamloops and Shuswap. Okanagan Valley. Arrow and Kootenay Lakes. Columbia and Kootenay Rivers. Lower Fraser. Upper Fraser, {which I noticed he called Cariboo and Central}. Skeena and Stikine River. He also touched on the Yukon, but that is another project in itself. They could be called Steamboats of the {region in question} in British Columbia, giving everything some consistency. I’ve often thought that Sternwheelers of the… would be a better caption, but that takes out sidewheelers and doesn’t allow for anything that isn’t a paddlewheeler. Anyway, last thing, your comment on monopoly route rights is interesting, because I think that did apply in some regions, especially when there was too much rivalry. Paddlewheelers owned by the HBC and private interests on the Skeena often raced and one, the Hazelton piloted by John Bonser, who later piloted our Chilco and Fort Fraser, rammed the other one, the HBC’s Mount Royal, during a race, and the other captain left his pilothouse to go get a gun. I believe the government had to step in and gave the route to one or the other before the situation got out of hand. Our paddlewheelers also had rivalry, townsite versus townsite for one thing and BC Express versus GTP for another. When Charles Millar took over the BC Express Company he also showed some interest in Fort George and was planning a third townsite there and made arrangements to buy the Indian Reserve there. The railway was horrified, as that was their plan, they just hadn’t done much about it yet, and they had to give Millar part of the townsite that would eventually become the actual Prince George. It is highly inferred in the book A Thousand Blunders: History of the GTP in Northern British Columbia that the railway didn’t much like Millar or his company after that and deliberately built low level bridges across the Fraser between Fort George and Tete Jaune, to stop river navigation when they had earlier promised the BC Express Company that these bridges would have lift spans. Certainly Captain Bucey didn’t appreciate these new plans and when he was trying to take the BC Express up to Tete Jaune and found the way blocked, he threatened the railway workers with a shotgun. More of this GTP vs BC Express rivalry was illustrated when the BX and the Conveyor raced in the summer of 1914 from Soda Creek to Quesnel. Oddly enough the deal was that the BX still had to deliver the mail, but the Conveyor didn’t have to stop at all. Nevertheless Captain Browne pulled ahead of Captain Shannon at some key point and then Shannon rammed the BX with the Conveyor. The BX wasn’t badly damaged. Needless to say, it was the BX that was declared the winner when they got to Quesnel. Anyway, holy cow, I didn’t mean to run on for so long. I will keep my page updated with ideas for this province-wide steamboat articles project and will keep looking for stuff on Wright. I know he was a pioneer road builder as well as a sternwheeler captain.CindyBo 00:14, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

May I remove tag from improved article?

Me again. I was just wondering if it was okay for me to remove the old needs improvement tag from Steamboats of the Upper Fraser River in British Columbia? And I don't know how that rating system goes, but it might be better than "start" now. And I finished a new companion page Steamboats of the Skeena River I decided the..."in British Columbia" is a bit of overkill. Would it be rated similarily?CindyBo 06:17, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, that's fine, I should have done so; normally those things disappear by random/browser visitors who patrol pages that have the templates, but if someone's done enough work to warrant taking them down, go for it even if you did the work yourself; I'm about to pull the one off Yakima War once I find out about it a bit more so can figure out if it's still POV or not (it really was, i.e. from the cavalry's point of view/language). There's a paper or book somewhere on the raftsmen of the Omineca/Stuart and Fraser Rivers, some content of which might be suitable here as still be freight shipping/travel. The Skeena's a great place to start another article of this kind; I just returned to the Burnaby Public Library a "Lost Bonanzas of British Columbia" thing which had something on a certain boat/strongbox re Kitselas Canyon; such books typically also have bits that can go in first Nations articles, in this case Kitselas (the people, as I remember the context - they charged a toll to transit their waters and were also known for being, um, a little on the tough side; can't remember how Basque puts it, has to do with the chapter on the Mount Royal; the chapter on Brother XII in there is the most detailed I've seen...but he also has other steamship stories in there too...that's where I made SS Pacific from, and was going to do the SS Sophie, the infamous/tragic sinking in the Lynn Canal that's the largest in coastal history). Please note re List of ships in British Columbia that I've linked the Upper Fraser article to the shipnames there; more or less suitable esp. because of the way you've written the article. I think you'll find that the boats on the Skeena, Stikine, Lower Fraser, Okanagan/Kootenay Lakes/Columbia River/Arrow Lakes weren't on just the one river, more like several; Skeena and Stikine boats had done duty on the Fraser, probably the Columbia, probably Puget Sound, definitely Inside Passage, possibly the Sacramento River also. So I'm not sure what you've done for the Upper Fraser is gonna work anywhere else; maybe the Middle Fraser (Boston Bar-Lytton) as I don't think anything there ever saw service anywhere else, other than those on the Upper Fraser and (maybe) Shuswap Lake/Kamloops Lake and those on the little lakes of the Lakes Route (not gonna be a list, there's only 3-4 maybe 5 on each lake...). What I'm getting at is individual ship articles is a better idea as a focus for particular-ship content, and the general article should be about the steamboats as a business/era; and say on Steamboats on the Skeena River there's going to be vessels that, as just alluded to, were definitely on the Fraser, probably ran to Skagway; that's why the List of ships in British Columbia was partly built, so that all those that served on certain routes, e.g. the Inside Passage, Kootenay Lake, the Lower Fraser/Harrison Lake, can be listed in context by location, and this is so those that were in more than location can be indicated easily. BTW have you joined the BC wikiproject. You don't need an invitation but if you'd like one I'll plop one on your userpage :-)Skookum1 07:03, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Finally got time to reply to this, we keep crossing paths all over the place anyway. I see your point about seperate ship articles, even when there is only a tenuous connection to a gold rush and even when they run on only one river and have no past or future like most of the ones in the Steamboats of the Skeena River and Steamboats of the Upper Fraser River in British Columbia. Regardless of that, though, seperate ship articles makes even more sense because there are other links that will eventually be made to these boats, Collins Telegraph for the early boats on the Skeena page for example, not to mention the pages of the individual captains and all those great stories about the races, trips to Takla ect.. that could be main articles. Anyway, I rambled on about this somewhere else too, but I think the consesus then is: seperate articles for most, if not all, of the boats. Oh, and yes I'd like to join the BC wikiproject. I am a wikipedian in British Columbia and I think I had that mixed up with the project. I've gone to that page, but I'm still try to get a hang of all those tags and templates that are all over the place for everything, but I think I'm starting to get a slightly better idea of how things work around here. I'm sure we'll be talking again soon.CindyBo 03:58, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Just found..

Great Bear Rainforest. Have tagged it. Not a fan of the name of course, pure invention in the vein of Salish Sea IMO, but thought you'd want to know of its existence (I didn't see any evidence of your passing through there). Later.Keefer | Talk 03:20, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Just read through it and what is there is wildly inaccurate in a few spots... wonder how this got in under our radar...--Keefer | Talk 03:22, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Tawdry neologism yes, but they did a better marketing job. What a name encompassing the region in question might be, but I do submit there's been an effort to equate it to Central Coast in the same way there's the effort to equate Cascadia with the Pacific Northwest (or even, more pointedly, a preferred term for); likewise the Salish Sea but with a much less convincing sell-job and also the place is too much in people's faces, unlike "the Great Bear" whichis the size of New Brunswick or whatever; can't even come up with a single name for it, too, because it spans so many different bits of island and different reaches of water. Princess Royal is the mainstay of it, and the most important part (and amazingly rugged for something with low relief...) but despite the nice ring it's only that island, and it's very un-p.c. I have a similar bitch with South Chilcotin, which sadly has caught on despite being incorrect and incorrectly derived; yes part of the Chilcotin Ranges but not part of the Chilcotin; it's gotten so bad adjoining areas to the south and east, even Lillooet, have been dubbed as being in the Chilcotin. "City geographers" I call it - "here, let's give this area a name as it doesn't have one". As someone I know up in Lillooet says about this kind of thing, re bivouac.com giving things names without any local context, the landscape "doesn't need names; it's what it is". There's other examples, but Salish Sea strikes me in the soppy category; so does Great Bear Rainforest, but that one we're stuck with now.Skookum1 05:53, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

i.e. sloppy geography comes up; the article said it was in "southwestern british columbia"...it's typical of the fuzzy writing that's around in envirobumpf....I won't go into other examples but the point is the drawing of lines and pasting names on the map from a distance has always been a mistake-making exercise; and this area's designated outline is a political boundary like any other when you stop to think about it; just not that or the ruling politick, but they've gotten the ruling politick to acknowledge the term, which is something I guess.Skookum1 06:07, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Some swordfighting to come over the term's origins. I expect a lot of the contributors who created that article will be none too happy with it being labelled as a recently created marketing term, which is of course, what it is. But one that has sadly, imo become recognized by the public consciousness, if not precisely mapped out (which is what I'll try to establish through LRMP sources &etc.)--Keefer | Talk 06:12, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Well like I said there's a need for LRMP articles also ;-| but in all cases of such terms, whether hyphenations like Tatshenshini-Alsek for the "BC Panhandle" (as I've always called it) or Muskwa-Kechika or "South Chilcotin" (a contraction of Southern Chilcotin, full name should be Southern Chilcotin Mountains which is what the province had it named for a while; it's the Spruce Lake Protected Area again now (Spruce Lake-Eldorado Wilderness/Study Area was its name for a while in the '70s). Dates of provenance, and who coined the term, are fair game. What are they trying to claim -that the name is "from time immemorial" or something? They tried to pitch the Randy Stoltmann Wilderness too; that's now the [][Upper Lillooet Protected Area]] and nowhere near the scale they imagined; and really 40 years too late to pitch; as it is the "South Chilcotin" has been being pitched for park status for the '30s and it's still not. anyway, later....Skookum1 06:19, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Have a look at my comments on Talk:Great Bear Rainforest; added the template there and also to put the fly in the ointment the northamnative template; although if we do that then all LRMPs, if there are articles for them, should have them; well, the TCs and bands usually are part of the LRMP mechanism; much more than the RDs, which they're "outside" of and don't participate in.Skookum1 06:02, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

SS Enterprise

Hi again, just figured I'd ask about the name before I start an article on this boat, which I'll do after I finish with Hazelton. I wanted to get these towns that are heads and terminus's of navigation on these two rivers done first. Then I figured I'd do the ship articles in order, oldest to newest, by region. SS Enterprise isn't taken, although I'm sure there are others out there, I noticed a couple online. So should I just use that or get more specific SS Enterprise (sternwheeler)?CindyBo 18:58, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Oh, and do I put those wikiproject British Columbia and wikiproject Ship tags on the captain's and ship's talk pages too, as I start each one?CindyBo 19:42, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

For a laugh

See Talk:Sinclair Centre. Think I need a wikibreak soon...--Keefer | Talk 00:16, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

Re Central/Northern Interior

I believe the Northern Interior refers to everything from Quesnel up right to the borders on every side, excluding only Prince Rupert as it's on an island. [1]. Central Interior is definitely Prince George and its surrounding area, and then there are many other regions within the Northern Interior. I'm not sure exactly where the regional borders are, I think it depends on the purpose we're talking about, forestry, electoral, etc more than anything. So it's not unusual to see Prince George referred to as either Northern or Central, both are true, it just depends on how specific you want to be. I also read your comments on my user page about the towns along the GTP route, yes there are a lot of them, mostly forgotten now. I think one was planned for every five or six miles or so, either by the GTP or a land speculating company. I have some info on a few of them, can't find Birmingham yet. Quick and Hubert and a few other like that. Some were roadhouses, brothels or unlicensed hotels (or all three at once) and tough to track down. And yes, I did start the page on Simon Gunanoot, I didn't notice that it was on your page until yesterday, or the day before, when I poking around on other people's pages looking at user page formats. I didn't mean to barge in on your to do list, especially on something you have a lot more knowledge on than I do. I was wrapped in the Hazelton, British Columbia article which, of course, closely concerns Gunanoot, Cataline, Cline etc. I used Sperry Cline's version of the Gunanoot events rather than some others that I've come across that seemed... wrong somehow. There are some wild versions out there, very contradictory.CindyBo 20:42, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

All versions should be mentioned/cited, as much as possible; it's the whole point of NPOVism, to make sure everything is covered; in the course of pre-research on this it was interesting how much material there actually was, as well as conflicting bios. Even in wildly-wrong stories there can also be useful/relevant factual detail that's absent from others; so integrating verifiable facts as well as recounting false rumours/reporting are both in the ballpark.Skookum1 20:45, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

I noticed that too, in some of the more outlandish tales the dates were often right etc, where the sensible seeming ones written by people who were there had wrong dates or whatever. What's unfortunate is how even the local newspapers can't be fully trusted, some journalists made things up as they went along: if you look back on the local Titanic articles dated a couple days after it sank, it gets quite amusing, names wrong, everyone survived and so on. I'll dig up whatever references I can on Gunanoot and add them. There's an online bio too,[2] that seems quite accurate, barring the Kitsegas error, but then it goes into some theories about Louis Riel and aboriginal resistance and everyone knowing where Gunanoot was all along... I'll add the reference to the article and leave it up to the experts, because I'm not sure what to make of it. I got in way over my head on that one. Anyway, back to Central Interior for a second, I will amend what I said a few minutes ago, although Prince George considers itself to be the Central Interior, for some purposes it isn't,[[3]] and can go much farther south than I realized. Some of these regional lines are quite subjective, I guess.CindyBo 21:41, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

About Mark Dalton

Hey, I saw it spelled "Jeramy James Sons" on the information page where he was arrested for something. Type the name into Google, and you'll see what I mean. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 69.137.135.33 (talk) 21:54, 14 April 2007 (UTC).

Yeah, I did find it weird as well at first. I couldn't believe it myself it was spelled that way.

--69.137.135.33 01:57, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

Talk pages

Always enjoy running across your comments on talk pages. They're always extremely informative and interesting. I learn a lot, so thank you.

I'd give you a barnstar, but I'm afraid I'm not finding anything suiting, so this'll have to do. Cheers. RichMac (Talk) 09:33, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

Mine (above) can be from both of us, then. And of course, you're absolutely right.--Keefer | Talk 09:48, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

Birmingham

I'll have to go get that book, because I do recognize the reference to Birmingham now, it's mentioned in Rev Runnals, History of Prince George. Fort Salmon still exists as a farming community of Salmon Valley and Willow City is a couple of trailers and two or three houses. I certainly envy that era their optimism. I remember reading that the GTP said that Prince Rupert was going to be much bigger and more important than Victoria because its Oriental shipping lines are 500 miles closer and all that. They commissioned Francis Rattenbury to build a hotel for there that would be bigger and better than the Empress and also wanted him to build Chateau Mount Robson, Chateau Miette and the Jasper Mountain Inn. A person has to wonder what this part of the province would've been like if any of those would've been built.CindyBo 01:46, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

Direct answer: the downturn caused by World War I, from which BC never recovered, not really, is at fault. Likewise the grand days of settlement in the Thompson, Kootenay and Okanagan, as with the whole gilded age worldwide but here with a special wild-country charm like, of course, nowhere else, plus a self-conscious Britishness in some places like Walhachin (which needs a better write-up) and the genteel orcharding society in the Okanagan and spa-and-steamer society life on the lakes. Northern BC might have swung up more if Prince Rupert had turned into a real city (as if it had room, but neither does Vancouver; Terrace is more likely for a North Coast metropolis just because of available valley-floor real estate....provided it's more than 60m above current sea level I guess); consider if there'd been actual industrial/commercial development throughout BC, instead of just resource exports - all the spin-off industries and what comes out of that, which is greater metropolitanization and urbanization; could have easily happened, and of course has begun to in PG, Kelowna, Kamloops; but that whole Omineca-Prince George area, with all its space, looks ominously Los Angeles-izable in the long run, given current population/immigration trends. Lots of room for freeways ;-) Just kidding. But yeah, a lot of the dreamers and visionaries in pre-Great War BC had amazing dreams; if not for the War, many of them would have continued coming true...what a grand place this would have been...(instead of a fleeting memory of one).Skookum1 01:56, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

Have you seen the little mini-chateaux built of timber; e.g. the North Bend Hotel, the *Balfour, British Columbia|Balfour Hotel, the Sicamous Hotel or Mount Stephen House in Field; I linked those on the Canadian Pacific Hotels article and on the Balfour and Sicamous pages maybe; don't think there's a North Bend page yet nor one for Field. Similarly all the CPR railway stations are highly photogenic, even the prefab/generic models. They don't build 'em like that anymore....the Prince of Wales is the largest of the style - timber-chateau I call it - but some of the others looked pretty neat/ the PoW actually looks a lot like the GN ones in MT come to think of it; Balfour and Sicamous were a lot smaller. I suppose Railway hotels in British Columbia might be a worthy topic, or another glorified table-list.Skookum1 01:58, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

I've also read "that had the Titanic not sank and Charles Hays not died, he could've saved the GTP and made sure those hotels had been built, because he was a brilliant financier with big London connections,". Fairly,unlikely I suppose.CindyBo 02:24, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

Such twists of fate and unwound destinies attend all disasters, especially high-profile ones; also the SS Pacific, for instance, and the aforementioned Sophie, and the Mount Slesse aircrash also (my uncle was on it).Skookum1 02:54, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

I've read about the SS Pacific before somewhere, but not the Mount Slesse plane crash. It's funny how everyone can quote the story of Titanic chapter and verse, but other disasters, and more recent and local ones, are rarely mentioned. Hollywood strikes again, I guess. And perhaps how some of us as Canadians have a tendency to know more American history than we know our own. When I first started researching the Great War, I was frankly surprised at just how much Canada and British Columbia was involved from the very start, and how devestated we were as a country and province afterwards.CindyBo 03:50, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

Enterprise

Yes, I noticed another when I was on BC Archives looking at pictures, I just found another picture of the one you mean, looks like I lucked out on the name, the other's a sidewheeler.[4] As to the article though, 1863, that's just Cariboo Road like I said or was it Old Cariboo Road still?CindyBo 07:53, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

Yes, it should be interesting trying to figure out what was where when, but at least all of the 12 upper Fraser ones redlink on such and such (sternwheeler), I checked on my user page. And I didn't really want to go SS on them anyway because neither Art Downs or Willis West refers to any of them as SS. Hopefully this will all come together a bit more as more ship articles are created. The next one I was going to do was Blin Wright's Victoria (sternwheeler), there's probably a dozen more of those too, but at least Art Down's is clear about both of these two Blin Wright ships being built, used and wrecked/abandoned on the upper Fraser, so there isn't too much confusion yet. There sure will be some later though. Oh, I just saw your Overlanders suggestion. That's a good idea, I have some info on that around here somewhere, and can find more. So Overlanders (British Columbia) would be the right title? Oh saw second message, do a redirect too. Haven't done one of those yet, but that's what the help desk is for.CindyBo 08:41, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

Thanks

Thanks for the BC-Map-Place link, it's already in my bookmarks. Cheers. --Qyd 13:58, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

Carrier First Nations

I think I'd be a bit lost trying to do that one. I know very very little about that except for a tiny bit of history on some of the towns/settlements in question. I can ask around up here though, I know quite a few people who might have some of that information. Maybe Fishhead64 might be able to help, he seems to do some Northern related articles. I ran across him on the Prince George Talk Page.CindyBo 01:41, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, I shouldn't dump all this stuff in your lap alone; I already clutter up the wikiproject talkpage with my musings, and the article requests page, and certain subpages run by bobanny and keefer4 with other article requests, and my own make-work/think-big sandbox area, too; Fishhead might click in; easiest thing to do though would be to pick up the local native newspaper or hit one of the friendship centres and just ask; or better yet at the friendship centres see if their computer person has some recruitable as a wikipedian who'd like to "engage the machine"; there are quite a few aboriginal wikipedians, even here in BC (most articulately, and new like yourself, User:OldManRivers), so they'd have sympathetic company/support; it's not like it's totally white man's turf at all. I barely knew my way around Shuswap and Tshilhqot'in and Kwakwaka'wakw other band councils and tribal councils when I made those templated stubs, too (see First Nations in British Columbia); the templates/stubs are purely mechanical to make, unless some specific is known like in teh case of the Lheidl T'enneh their recent rejection of the treaty deal (though "recent" is a word not to be used in Wiki articles); it's an "if you have time" thing to create the stub-articles; the only research needed is what the current composition of the tribal councils is; I've got different web pages with different rosters for each of the Carrier Sekani and Carrier Chilcotin councils, for instance....and there may be associations of the other bands not in either of those councils that would be mentioned in the PG paper (or phone book?) but not down here.Skookum1 04:59, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

I was thinking about the Friendship Center too, and I know a few people who know a lot of First Nation's history and how everything is organized. And some of them would love working on wikipedia. I'll definitely ask around. It's funny, a person thinks they know quite a bit of local history until they get on here and then it's oops I didn't know this and I don't know much about that... and I was down-right wrong about the other thing, it's certainly a learning experience, especially as you go into unknown territory. But I like working on different subjects and getting new suggestions, otherwise I'd get stuck in a rut, and circle around the same topics forever.CindyBo 06:22, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

John Houston

I had to grab A Thousand Blunders history of GTP in Northern BC, because our local history just concerns him as owning our first paper in South Fort George. He had the first newspaper in Prince Rupert too. He despised both the CPR and the GTP and used these papers to call them out on some of their policies, called them tin-gods and so on. He was a huge name as a pioneer around here. In A thousand Blunders, it says he was the Mayor of Nelson during 1890's and a member of the Legislative Assembly during the Dunsmuir era and supported a move to cut off provincial aid to railroads, an attitude that got him barred from cabinet in 1903. In 07 he moved to Rupert and started his newspaper, once the railroad locked his printing press up in a railcar and he had to go get the police to get it for him. He wrote a particularly nasty poem about them, (the GTP not the police) first anonymously, then openly. The railway bought the lot his newspaper was on in 1909 and he showed up here and died a year later of pnuemonia being dragged on a tobbaggan to Quesnel hospital, as we didn't have one then. I don't know about his past before Nelson though. I can dig around, though. And we just say Houston like the Texas one.CindyBo 19:56, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

Oh and on the topic of hotels, what, if any, historical significance did the Castle Hotel in Vancouver have? One of our other founding fathers of that era left here in '14 and bought it. That's Al Johnson and his hotel here was the Northern. At times, during rail construction he'd sell $7,000 worth of drinks in one day (at 25 cents each), longest busiest bar north of Chicago and so on, you know how they used to talk.CindyBo 20:13, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

Well, if it's true that's notable all by itself. Most old hotels in Vancouver are getting historical articles either because they are historical or they're part of the current SRO controversy; the Castle's pretty notable but I don't know it's history; it was one of the classic and most popular beer parlours downtown - "Michael's" in its last days.Skookum1 20:25, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

I found a great website about our John Houston right here: [5]. It seems unfair to call him a politician, newspaperman seems to suit him better.CindyBo 20:27, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

NB he would nonetheless get both cats; also as an elected politician/mayor there's another cat that any article on him should have. And depending on where he's from/ethnic background, there's the "people from" categories and also "Canadians of xxx descent" etc.Skookum1 20:30, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

Okay, so does John Houston (newspaperman) make the best title? I may as well do an article on him today/this evening as I have all this stuff out on my desk now anyway.CindyBo 21:00, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

Just read his bio on that link from houston.ca and I'd say newspaperman for sure.....Skookum1 21:07, 18 April 2007 (UTC)