To know which is the best and worst part of this is a very difficult question, and in many ways is far, far beyond a travel forum. It is interesting that in consolidating on last week the research has now moved on to Alberni where it turns out part of the family moved to- and has another little museum and archives.
At the moment my emotions are on a rollercoaster ride. We have been researching this family for 43 years, of that I have been working the case on and off for 16 years, so I can not be dispassionate. But in the last week we are now on the cusp of establishing that there are almost certainly living relatives on Vancouver Island, who were totally unknown about. This was all about the past, now it is something else. When that happens it is always an odd situation. There was never the slightest indication that might occur.
Just to be clear this is not my family, the link is purely to where I live in England.
When men moved from England to a new mining life in Canada or WA (USA) it was on promises of a better life made by recruiters.
In this case it has now emerged that the family lost two men in the awful Wellington Pit tragedy in England in 1910 (where 137 men and children were killed). To think of moving to another place thousands of miles away where there is a Wellington pit sends cold shivers down my spine (did they know that before moving?). With this family doubly so, as they had lost members in a different above ground tragedy at Wellington Pit.
Life in pit communities in Cumberland, England was hard, very hard. It is easy to see the lure of the recruiters from the NWIC (in WA) or Dunsmuir's mines on Vancouver Island or the mines at Fernie BC (where important key facts were conveniently omitted). Some men couldn't cope with life in North America and returned home. But most stayed- it was a different life, yes better living conditions than in England. Whether working conditions were that much different It is way harder to say.
Also in this family (a different branch) young children were sent from England to a farm school in Eastern Canada (a complex subject). Having found out yesterday that Vancouver Island had a farm school at Fairbridge (and the Chapel survives) that is now an add on for my friend when she goes to Alberni. What I would find a hard but necessary visit. Yet another complicated part of history.
Personally for over 40 years I have had a BC ferry hopping trip up my sleeve, from Vancouver working slowly up the island then the Inside Passage. I doubt it will ever happen now but the events of the last week or two have kind of been a learning curve for me, and deeply altered how I would do that trip, that it isn't just the well known places to visit.
Rick talks about Europe through the back door, and this hard to explain concept of travelling like a local. That applies in other places too.
I have a very strange feeling right now. I should have landed at YVR yesterday (on a big and very important trip which had to be cancelled), and tomorrow cutting across Vancouver Island on my way to the Olympic Peninsula then Seattle, the Cascades and Idaho. I now know that today I would have been visiting the archives of the First United Church of Canada in Vancouver, not just being a tourist for the day!!
But tomorrow would have been a big missed opportunity, on the cut over to the OP.
I was going to let this thread wither away, sorry for my ruminations which the webmaster will probably delete.
