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T.W. Paterson column: Nuggets gleaned from today’s news

Me, I’ll take the whoooo-OOO-ooo of the siren any day; it reminds me of the old newsreels
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Thomas Garth Harvey was a tireless proponent of the Shawnigan Lake Museum. (submitted)

“…We are most fully human, most truly ourselves, most authentically individual, when we commit to the community.”—the late Garth Harvey, quoting former Governor General Adrienne Clarkson.

A real grab bag for you today as I sort through my “nuggets from the news” file that just seems to keep growing…

The recent kerfuffle over whether or not it’s necessary in this age of high-tech to continue sounding a Second World War air raid siren to alert volunteer firefighters of an emergency is yet another example of changing times and attitudes.

The Duncan firehall uses such a siren to announce an alarm and, to distinguish itself, the neighbouring North Cowichan hall uses an air horn.

Me, I’ll take the whoooo-OOO-ooo of the siren any day; it reminds me of the old newsreels of London during the Blitz. (Not that I’m sentimental about air raids; it’s just something I grew up with in Victoria in the Cold War days of the 1950s. It’s one of those sounds that imprints itself upon one’s mind.)

And speaking of so-called irritating noises, Vanderhoof council has gone on record as being opposed to train whistles because they, and I quote, “severely infringe upon citizens’ quiet, peace, rest, enjoyment, comfort and convenience”(!) Council has passed a resolution calling upon Transport Canada to “provide a safe environment in which whistle sounding will be discontinued”.

Just wait until the E&N resumes operation (if it ever does).

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The discovery of 29 fossilized footprints, buried deep below a beach on B.C.’s Calvert Island, have formally been classed as “the earliest known of their kind in North America”. Tests age the footprints at no less than 13,000 years.

Washington State’s Kennewick Man is a mere piker by comparison — just 8,500 years old!

Speaking of footprints reminds me of Big Foot, or Sasquatch. Several months ago it was announced that DNA analysis has proved that Big Foot’s Asian cousin, the Yeti, is just a subspecies of a….bear. (Say it isn’t so!) As it happens the evidence was taken from scat samples and not from the bigger-than-human footprints for which North America’s fabled Sasquatch is renowned.

But what about the giant unearthed by Victory gardeners at Nanaimo’s Departure Bay in May 1943?

According to the news report, the discovery gave support to the legend that “a giant tribe inhabited Vancouver Island 500 years ago. The lower jaw, part of a skull and the shin bone of what was believed to be an Indian [sic] male were unearthed, and preliminary examination suggests that their owner may have been around seven feet [tall], weighed more than 400 pounds, and was between 40 and 70 years old when he died…”

You don’t suppose these really were bear bones, do you?

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Here’s one that fell between the cracks, dating back to 2011: real estate investor Sardul Gill’s $5 million gift to the University of Victoria’s Gustavson School of Business in honour of his immigrant parents is the largest ever given to UVic.

It will be applied to scholarships and financial awards, international projects, teaching and research.

As Gill explained: “My father [Bhan Singh Gill] immigrated to Canada from the Punjab in 1906. He laboured all his life and [he and Gill’s mother Hardial Kaur Gill] encouraged me to pursue my education at a time when there were significant barriers to people of [East] Indian descent in this country.

“My father could not get a job for nine, ten cents an hour…” That changed when he applied for work at Paldi, the Cowichan Valley’s multi-national sawmilling town created by fellow East Indian immigrant Mayo Singh. Mayo Singh is remembered for his many acts of charity and philanthropy; now, all these years later, Sardul Gill is not only honouring his parents but continuing Mayo’s belief in giving back.

“My greatest hope,” Gill told the Times-Colonist, “is that this gift inspires others to give back to their own communities.”

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The Cowichan Valley has lost one of its own most dedicated community-minded activists with the recent passing of Shawnigan Lake’s Thomas Garth Harvey. I met Garth and his late wife Gladys in the late 1970s, shortly after they took up their retirement and I moved to Cobble Hill. It was at the invitation of the late Brownie Gibson (another community dynamo) that I attended, then joined, the Shawnigan Lake Historical Society which the Harveys had co-founded in the former fire hall.

But the museum was just one of the Harveys’ community interests, a wide-ranging crusade that Garth carried on after Gladys’s passing and for which he was awarded a Canadian Care Award from the Governor General of Canada in 2006. In paying tribute to Garth Harvey in the Shawnigan Focus museum curator Lori Treloar concluded with one of Garth’s favourite quotes, this one from former Governor General Adrienne Clarkson, that so defined his dedication to the community:

“…We are most fully human, most truly ourselves, most authentically individual, when we commit to the community.”

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Another passing that shouldn’t go unmarked is that of Victoria heritage writer and historian Geoffrey Castle. In the 1980s he wrote a weekly column, “Victoria Landmarks”, on heritage buildings for the Times-Colonist; columns that were later published in book form.

Born in Uxbridge, Middlesex, UK in 1930, Castle, to quote his obituary, “received his Masters of Public Administration (MPA) degree from UVic. He worked for the Provincial Government of British Columbia for 40 years. After a short retirement, [he] was the archivist for the Municipality of Saanich for 20 years. He was a proud supporter of the UVic Library.”

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Last year I wrote about three Victoria Police Department motorcycle officers who were killed in the line of duty over a 30- year period.

There have been five fatalities in total and now, sadly, there’s a sixth.

Critically injured more than 30 years ago, Const. Ian Jordan, who died April 11, had been in a coma ever since. He was responding to a potential break and enter in the early hours of Sept. 22, 1987, when his vehicle collided with another VPD car at Douglas and Fisgard streets.

There you have it: a mixed bag, to be sure, but for the most part positive. May more of us take our cue from Sardul Gill and Garth Harvey and come up with ways that we, too, can give to our community.

www.twpaterson.com

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