SPOKESHUTE Skeena River Memory 1990; E.A.Harris

Klondike of the Skeena 2nd ed 1987 Phylis Bowman

A common problem with local histories is also their strength: they are parochial. Historic, economic and geographic contexts are taken for granted. People interested in BC history hope to see patterns emerge from local histories. These patterns may be ephemeral cloud images or the Second Law of Motion depending on the author's number of footnotes. Here are some cloud vistas to locate 'Skeena memories.'

Port Essington may be seen as the Skeena River equivalent to New Westminister on the Fraser River. New West boomed during the gold rush days and then as the terminus for river boat transportation to the interior. Ditto Port Essington. Just as New Westminster was taking on pretensions of being a seat of commerce and government, the new transcontinental railroad chose to bypass it for the real estate potential of vacant, deep harbored Vancouver. Read Prince Rupert for Vancouver.

Most "history" on the North Coast is written by or concerned with white middle class. Doctors, missionaries, and merchants are the culture heroes potrayed. The periods for Port Essington easily divide along generations of the Cunningham family. Robert, the founder, came out from England in 1862; worked at Metlakatla as a missionary; and married a Haida woman. A shrewd, energetic merchant he saw the strategic location of Spokeshute at the mouth of the Skeena. Fluent in native languages and customs he created an instant town site with help Kitselas people (accounts differ).

Tsimshian’s continued to paddle cargo canoes on the Skeena for the next 25 years as they had from time immemorial, except now it was for the Cunningham house. But the vitality of the cultural fusion had ebbed away. By 1905, when 40 yr. old bachelor George Cunningham took over from his deceased father, both Tsimshian and Cunninghams were being pushed aside by new immigrants.

Port Essington was now linked to the interior with paddle wheel riverboats. The cannery boom on the north coast was beginning, but cheaper oriental labor was preferred.

Arthur Harris the author’s father, a recent English immigrant was managing R. Cunningham Ltd. with George as titular head. Arthur returned to England to wed Agnes in 1905. The first section of EA Harris book uses both Arthur and Agnes' diaries plus his own childhood memories to describe life in Port Essington. The Harris family moved to Vancouver in 1921 when EA was 14.

The books format with 25+ pencil sketch cartoons is appealing. It is not clear who drew them but if not the author then someone who perfectly captures his gentle sense of humour as revealed in the prose.

At Harris' best there are wry vignettes every few pages that make the book fun as well as informative. There is the flavor too of what it must have meant to be a "pioneer" family. No log cabin wilderness here though. The pictures reveal mansions even by today's standards. The effort to transplant a little bit of England means celebrating the author Charles Dickens's centennial or King George V's coronation in 1911; there is even a tennis club and baseball diamonds.

My chief criticism of the book is again its strength: Port Essington is seen from a nostalgic distance. The blurb on the outside book sees this as "more than a family history, -- it is the story of a northern community".

I am skeptical if "Miss Spot" (nick name for a freckled Tsimshian woman whose name the whites could not pronounce) or "old Joe" the Chinese cook or "Fuse" the long suffering Japanese handy man or the unnamed migrants who manned canneries and boarded in 'Jap House' or 'China House' would have recognized Spokeshute as their story.

The Bowman book is unfiltered. It’s the historian-as-pack-rat. I met Phylis Bowman soon after coming to Prince Rupert. She was working in the Tourist Bureau then. One day I asked her for a Rupert street map. "What do you need a map for? One walks up Second Avenue and down Third".

So be warned; don't bother to read the introduction. Just go straight to the text.

These are newspapers' clippings and photographs arranged in chronological order. Many deal with a famous murder which reads more like race conflict than a who-done-it.

It’s the pictures and Bowman cut lines that I enjoyed. "Look they are all wearing hats. Even the children wore hats in those days". I looked again; she was right; I had not noticed. Bowman pictures houses other than mansions. She attempts to name the members of the Native Salvationist Army Band. Nor does she sanitize the racism in a 1935 Daily News clipping: "Many older Japs and Finns don't speak English--".

There's probably something to say for not using maps; nor clouds for that matter.