Pau. St. PIERRE

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LIKELY - In other towns are community organizations of
reknown: Richmond Kiwanis, New Westminster Rotary,
Williams Lake Volunteer Fire Department, Vancouver
Opera Society, Las Vegas Cosa Nostra. Likely is known
for the Likely Cemetery Society (LCS).

The organization lists two goals
on its 1987 incorporation papers.

One is to restore the dilapidated
old Cariboo gold rush graveyards
at nearby Keithley and Quesnel
Forks where, until recently, weeds
and grey time are smothering the
early history of our province.

The second goal is to prepare
the cemeteries to take new tenants
from nearby communities such as
Likely. We're all going to go some
time, they say. So why not spend
the next few thousand years at an
historic site?

One of the most active members
of the LCS is Dave Falconer, a
teacher at the combined elemen-
tary-junior secondary school.

He is the tallest free-standing
teacher in Canada. Well, the
tallest in B.C., anyway. If not,
then the tallest in Likely. Six feet,
eight inches.

He is a quiet, gentlemanly chap
of 46 who most recently grasped
the 300 hearts and minds of this
community by having his students
cook earthworm cookies and feed
them to their parents.

Dave probably loses more time
and money and gets more fun out
of cemeteries than can be imag-
ined by people born without a gift

* of high enthusiasm.

As a boy in Vernon, he worked
for a local stonemason who made
tombstones. For years afterward,
he worked for logging companies,
but nine years ago he completed
his studies and became a teacher.

His first school was in Chilcotin

Learn
bicycle
safety

BICYCLE SAFETY courses for
children aged seven to 12 will
begin June 30 at recCentre Lons-
dale.

Bicycle Association of B.C.
education coordinator Barbara
Lepsoe will be the instructor of
two in-depth safety and skill pro-
grams.

The programs encompass 10
hours of classroom and riding in-
struction over five Saturdays from
June 30 to July 28.

“The kids will learn how to
treat their bikes as vehicles, in
terms of maintenance, riding skill,
and respect of both traffic rules
and motorized vehicles,’’ Lepsoe
said.
“We will be sending the kids
home with lots of printed infor-
mation and even encourage the
parents to take part in the classes.
They can also assist with safety
supervision when we go for group
rides,’’ Lepsoe explains.

While bicycle helmets are not
mandatory, they are recommended
for all riders.

Parents may want to meet with
Lepsoe during the program for
advice on what to buy.

More information on this pro-
gram as well as the shorter Bicycle
Roadeos to be held at zecCentre
Magnussen July #4 and 28 is
available by calling 987-PLAY.

at Riske Creek.

There he began his quest for old
graves. He restored the grave of
Mrs. Swanson, Indian, who was
active in the Chilcotin War of the
1860s.

With permission and help from
surviving relatives, he restored
several graves in Chilcotin. One
such was the grave of the old
Church Ranch on Big Creek
where, as was the custom, they
buried their dead on their own
premises.

One of the Church daughters
had exceptional ability as a wood
carver and had placed an in-
tricately ornate cross over the
grave of her parents. But age had
scarred its face and worms had
felled it. Dave carved a new and
equally fine cross and then rebuilt
the white fence that surrounds
those graves.

He has pictures of similar resto-
rations in this area. They appear
in the Cemetery Society Newslet-
ter, such fetter being the closest
thing Likely has to a newspaper.

He points to photographs of
grave headboards found at the
Little Snowshoe Creek burying
ground, The lettering on the old,
pewter grey pine is raised as if
carved. Not so, he says. Originally

. names, dates and other details
were inscribed on the headboards
with black paint.

Acentury of Cariboo sun, wind
and frost ate away the wood of
these boards except where the
good, lead-based black paint
prevented the erosion. Bas-relief

MAEsFiT

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AUTOMOTIV!
SPECIALS

1229 Welch St., North Van.

986-8190

e Paulitics & Perspectives ©

art, needing only a century or so
for completion.

As the newsletter notes, most of

the gold rush graves of the 1860s
and 1870s were hurried affairs.

“‘Hastily prepared, poorly
marked, rarely recorded, seldom
maintained and easily forgotten.

«*_,.because the graves did not
fulfill any immediate need (not
even an emotional or sentimental
one, since friends and relatives
usually moved on to other gold
camps) these locations tended to
fall rapidly into disrepair and an-
onymity.

“There is, however, a need in
most people today to be atle to
somehow relate to the past.’’

So ends this report from Likely,
British Columbia, a community
which happily faces backward.
The respect people here accord to
the past may be associated with
the name itself.

It memorializes John Likely, a
New Brunswicker, born 1842, died
1929. When he was not washing
gravel here for gold he was study-
ing Greek philosophy and he was
known all over Cariboo as Plato
John.

Plato John gave lectures to
fellow miners and assorted
wayfarers on philosophy, some-
times under a big cedar tree near
the southernmost tip of Quesnel
Lake and sometimes on an island
in the lake.

Historians say that other pros-
pectors admired his style so much
that they shared their secrets with
him. Plato John never struck it
rich, but he lived long in Cariboo
and was honored.

Alas, Plato John did not die
here. He died in Kamloops and is
buried in an unmarked grave.

oy. , f *

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9 - Friday, June 29, 1990 - North Shore News

NORTH VANCOUVER CITY LIBRARY

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