Bish Cob hia’ : D cae SS SYLVA irst omtnton aA Y * By ROBERTSON * This true, original account of life as he knew it in British Columbia in the Crown Colony days was told to the author by J. C. Maclure of Vancouver. He is B.C.’s oldest “Native Son”, and is probably the only survivor who actually remembers the day when British Columbia joined Canada. | “The telegraph relay between Bellingham, Washington and New Westminster was at Mat- squt in those days, and the key was in Mr. Maclure’s parents’ farmhouse. As his sister Sarah was the operator who took the message from Ottawa, July 1, 1871, he heard his father’s first words when she called out the news.” “WHAT DID you really say to him?” asked the magistrate of a New Westminster hotelkeeper—an Irish- woman—who got into court for using foul language against a man who talked loudly of joining Canada. “T called him a dirty Canadian,”’ she replied. “‘Sure, and what worse name could i call him?”’ It is 1871, only a mere lifetime ago and British Columbia is a house div- ided against itself. There is much talk of joining Canada—in fact, it is becoming a clamor. There are many heart burnings. Not a few pio- neers on the Pacific slope are loud in their opposition to the merger. The great chain of the Rockies seemed to be an unsurmountable bar- rier which cut off the Crown Colony from the East, giving it a feeling of exclusiveness. In the old West, Indian trails were the only means of com- TIMBERLAND LUMBER CO. LIMITED P.O. DRAWER 700 kK kK Phones: General Office Wood Office kk * NEW WESTMINSTER. B.C. NINETEENTH EDITION May Day at New Westminster in 1871. Their second celebration and in the year of B.C.’s first Dominion Day. munication through the mountains. So those who prided themselves on being a British Colony, and claiming no direct connection with Canada, thought of it vaguely as a place far over the Rockies; most had heard about; few had ever seen. The few Canadians who tramped their way through the Rockies, or trekked up with the gold seekers from California, proudly showed their _ 629 _ 264 eastern skill with the broadaxe to many a jealous settler. For their grandfathers too had faced the same hardships in hewing their living from eastern forests. But even in those days, British Columbians resented being shown how it was done back home, and so disliked the Canadians’ talk of joining Canada. The new governor, Musgrave, saw in confederation with Canada the PRESSED METAL PRODUCTS LIMITED Enamelled Badges Medals - Class Pins Light Metal Stamping Die Sinking, Engraving, Etc. Official Manufacturers of LONG SERVICE MEDALS FOR B.C. PROVINCIAL POLICE 446 Railway Street VANCOUVER, B.C. See Page Forty-three