26 - Wednesday, May 6, 1992 - North Shore News

Homage to the pioneers

B.C. author recounts tales of unusual characters that moved onto the coast

Coastal Villages by Liv Kennedy; Published by Harbour Publishing; 176 pp., $39.95 hard cover

wholesome people who crossed the prairie in

T HERE IS a tendency to think of Canada’s pioneers as

wagons, built sod huts and broke the ground to raise

crops.

But on British Columbia's coast, there was a special brand of pio- neer who arrived by ship or land and then set off to explore the rugged shoreline in tiny boats.

In her book Coastal Villages, Liv Kennedy tells their stories — how they disccvered remote but ap- pealing coves and inlets, and found ways to wrest a living out of small logging, mining, canning,

- trapping, service and hospitality enterprises.

They came from many different

_ paits of the world, although a good many were hard-working folk who originated in Norway and Finland and were no strangers to toiling in the wet.

Quite a few were American, driven north by the aftermath of the Civil War or by their own

. desire for land and opportunities and the pursuit of a maverick lifestyle that was disappearing in the U.S.

They were well-suited to the unusual and often hermit-like lifestyles chat began to identify the coast.

Kennedy's book chronicles the development of the small com- tunities founded by these people, and so often ignored in cur tendency to think of B.C. as only Vancouver and the Okanagan.

Coasta! Villages also provides a fascinating companion to the boater and explorer who may have seen these towns and wondered how they came about.

Combining a large collection of old photographs with a rich histo- ty, Kennedy's book is alive with

LOOKS AT BOOKS

anecdotal information about the coast’s inordinate supply of “characters’’ — the perennial bachelors and loners like “Whiskey Harry’ of Owen Bay who, tike a number of other coastal folk, simply disappeared one day and was never heard of again.

Other tragedies occurred at Owen Bay, and in the years that followed, after it had become a ghost town, boaters were known to pull anchor and leave in the middle of the night to escape the spectral horror of footsteps on the deserted docks. -

Many of the women who helped people the coast were not raised for the rigors of that life, but managed to raise families in float homes and cabins tucked into the most unlikely spots.

It was an exciting life for children like the Schnarr sisters, who kept baby cougars at home.

Kennedy introduces the reader to Frank Osborne, who manufac- tured marine engines out of his small shop in Lund for boats that

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plied the waters up and down the Coast.

The story of how Chief Billy Assu of Cape Mudge hosted more than 2,000 natives at one of the last gigantic potlatches is one way Kennedy pays tribute to the color- ful tribal element for whom the ar- rival of the Europeans was initially a stimulus and then very nearly the end of their cultures.

These are details one can imag- ine hearing on a sunny dock or over a steaming coffee mug, but however gleaned, they are testi- mony to Kennedy's remarkable af- finity and familiarity with the coastal people she has met.

She doesn’t forget to pay homage to the one all-important element of coastal life: the many little boats that brought supplies, linked the people to each other and the larger world, and occa- sionally took a B.C. pioneer to his or her watery death.

Kennedy writes from personal experience, having herself grown up in several of the logging camps

and fishing villages she talks about.

Her parents were pioneers on Quadra island and she was born aboard the coast mission ship Columbia.

Having spent much of her fife in boats, including a trip around the world in a 37-foot cutter, Kennedy has frequently contributed articles and photos to Pacific Yachting and Boat World.

As an author, she takes her place next to the host of individu- als who peopled the coast and were formed by it, contributing to B.C.’s unique place and character in the western corner of this vast country.

-By Maureen Curtis, a freelance writer whe lives in North Van- couver.

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