Hi Everybody. Wow, a lot has changed in the months since I took my unexpected wikibreak. (My job has been rather time consuming, but I hope to settle back in to a routine again soon). I live in Prince George and was born in Creston. About eight years ago I became fascinated with the history of our local sternwheelers and the era of Grand Trunk Pacific Railway construction. So fascinated that I wrote, and am still working on, a lengthy historical romance novel series set in Prince George, Prince Rupert and Hazelton through 1909 to 1918. In the course of writing them, I've bought and studied many local history books, and have sets of old newspaper articles relating to that period. I have a passion for the pictures of that era too and have several albums of them that I collect. The real history of these towns is far more interesting than anything I could make up and it makes a wonderful background for a long story. The sternwheelers and the big hotels, the railroad, land speculating, the brothels, the honor, the corruption...ect...ect...
My research for these books often led me here to wikipedia, and still does. I'm only now beginning to realize the scope and importance of what wikipedia does and I am enjoying myself here. More writing for free, I guess can't get enough of it.[1] I'm also studying the Great War, and have researched BC's role in it for about three years now. I've read a little of the propaganda/books/poetry that was written in Germany and England before and during that war. HG Wells said that it was a war started by writers, and that seems true enough.
I read fiction for joy and entertainment and to get lost in the world that the author created, so the bigger the better. But I also like to finish the book and be left with a feeling that all is right with the world, so I don't like anything too deep or gloomy. We can go to non-fiction if we want that and find plenty to choose from. So here's my list:
...that the Cody Caves are part of the setting of the children's book, The Kootenay Kidnapper by Canadian author Eric Wilson?
...that there were no police in Cascade City, British Columbia in 1897 and when thieves broke into a store, taking 150 pounds of tobacco, a book-keeper was sent to arrest the suspects?
...that the St. Eugene Mine in Moyie, British Columbia produced ten million dollars worth of ore between 1895 and 1905 and was considered to be the most important silver–lead mine in Canada?
...that Oblate missionary Nicolas Coccola spent 63 years in British Columbia working among the Shuswap, Kootenai, Dakelh, Sekani, Gitxsan, Hagwilget, Babine and Lheidli T'enneh First Nations? Was he the guy outside Kellogg Idaho? where the mission is named for him?
Chilcotin WarAlthough not any time soon. I find the the topic a bit overwhelming and difficult to find sources for and am more comfortable working on its associated articles.
Misc stuff to do
Category: Northern Interior of British Columbia related. Figure out main articles for the ones missing them: Greater Prince George, Bulkley and Skeena. And figure out where boundaries are in the categories to be: Atlin, Nass and Liard.