1

DOCUMENT NAME/INFORMANT:

MR. F. B. CHETTLEBURGH

INFORMANT/S ADDRESS:
INTERVIEW LOCATION:
TRIBE/NATION:
LANGUAGE:

ENGLISH

DATE OF INTERVIEW:

MARCH 26, 1962

INTERVIEWER:

MR. ORCHARD

INTERPRETER:
TRANSCRIBER:

MELANIE NESS

SOURCE:
TAPE NUMBER:

1206: 1

DISK:
PAGES:

49

RESTRICTIONS:
HIGHLIGHTS:

/

2

* ... though, that gives and impression of the place. Go
as close as you can. I/d like you also to think of this,
that if you do put something on tape, and then you say, III
think we better not publish that," that is fine too ...
(speaks to third party). Go to any detail that you like.
Describe that first trip of yours up the river, in detail.
Anything to do with the river. Then we/II move on to
Hazelton. I would very much like your first impressions of
Hazelton.

** Now the first time I saw Hazelton ...
* (Speaks to third party.)
TP Yeah.

* What were you saying, sir?

** The first time I saw the word /Hazelton/ was in the
IIPel1 Mell" magazine. And I was reading in an insurance
office at lunch hour. Years afterwards I found myself going
up the river to Hazelton, but it was on the wrong side of
the river! What the magazine had done, they/d printed the
plate, turned it round, you see. So that was the only
really disappointment I had with Hazelton. But it/s a
lovely spot, it really is. I was enraptured with it.

/

3

* Let us start with the trip up the river. What were you
doing coming in there?

** I was out for a mining company. I was going to open up
the Pubba (?) River coal mines. Now leaving port I think on
the stern wheeler, the Port Simpson, we used to get off
whenever they took on wood, and help to stack on the wood.

* What year was this?
** Nineteen-hundred and nine. And this particular day, we
passed through the canyon, which was very exciting of
course, Kitsilas (?) Canyon, and we were loading wood, I
believe it was Just above the canyon, and I was a young
fel low at the time, and I went out and helped. And I got
saturated in perspiration, so went and changed, and put on
another pair of overal Is, and another shirt. Went up to see
the captain, and Just as I went in the pilot house, he
reached up to pull the bell rope. I said, "Good God, you're
not going to put on some more wood?!" "No, no, no my lad,
no," he said. "When I'm ahead of time like this," he said,

"I always drop off and see old George Carpenter at Lawn
Creek. We always have a game of crib." And Just one game,
then we got on board and off we go up the river. Well, we
passed Minskinish (?). I won't deal with, others have dealt
with the Skeena River. And arriving at Hazelton, I got the

/

4

boys together and wanted to be a little (inaudible) I
suppose. I said, “Come on let’ s go and have a drink”. So
we went to the Hazelton Hotel, and at the time I was
confident I had ten dollars in my pocket to pay for the
drinks. So they all bellied up at the bar, and they started
to drink to my health but I couldn’t find my ten dollars!
I’d either been robbed or else I had lost it. But luckily,
Amos Godfrey was my boss at the time and he paid up the bill
and so I started in at Hazelton with nothing. And then we
got the pack horses, went out to the Collar (?) River.

* What was your first impression of Hazelton, coming up
the river?

** Hazelton, there’s only thirteen and a half acres in
Hazleton, surrounded by an Indian reserve. To look at it
you’d think there wouldn’t be more that about twenty or
thirty people there. But, I’ve given you a list of them on
there. Oh, there’s some lovely families. One in particular
was the Reverend John Field. He was the “guiding light”,
and he was an Irishman, had a lovely wit of his own. And he
had a greeting for everyone! Every day he met them, “Good
morning. Are you better?", and people sorta thought it was
funny for a time, but afterwards they got wise to it. And
the Reverend John Field would go into the saloons. There

5

were three saloons, the Engineca (?), the Omineca, and the
Hazelton. He'd go in with his, "Good morning. Are you
better?", and he got to be highly respected, and I never
knew him to solicit funds for himself or for his church. But
he was never short of funds. They were all behind him.

* What did he mean, "Are you better,"?
** I don't know. It's just a catchphrase of his. On one
cedarville

occasion, when Theelyville (?) came into a sort of
headquarters for the (inaudible) Stewart, that was just
below Hazelton. Wigs O'Neill ran a little boat down there
cal led the Kettish Hen. I saw the Reverend Field, and I
COed IV1-1AAfJ

r~

said, "Have you ever been to TA-ee-fyViTle"', Mr. Field?",
and
he said, "No I haven't, my boy." I said, "Hop in. We'll go
down." So I got Paddy Caow's (?) team and we drove down to
Theelyville, and at TheelyvilIe, the first thing on the left
when you went up the hill was a huge sign on a tent. "Cap
Hood: Soft Drinks, Cigars, and Refreshments". Wel I, he was
running a blind pig there (?), there's no doubt about that.
And so I introduced the Reverend Field to Cap Hood, so
Reverend Field took a step back and looked at the sign.
"Tell me, Captain Hood. Is this what they cal I your 'black
pig'?" Well poor old Cap's face went red, you know, and the

/

6

Reverend Field just smiled and walked up the street. Oh, it
went over good.

* What did he look like, Mr. Field?
** He was rather on the small side. Very dapper, though,
very neat ...

* What did he wear, though?
** Oh, clerical, all the time.

* Yeah, black clothes, and dog collar ...
~~ Yeah, yeah.

* And what, did he have a beard?
** No, no.

* Gray haired, did you notice?
** Well, he was gray, here and there.

* Had he been there quite a long time?
** He had. I don’t know how long.

* Yes, I had heard it went way back to the time when they
had the trouble with the Indians, he was there. They broke
the stockade.

/

7

** Oh, yes. And they had an Indian trouble at Kispiox.
There was only two blows struck in that Kispiox War, as we

call it, That was Bill Bweeny, An Indian hit him with the
butt end of a rifle, that was blow number one. And the next
thing was when Bill hit the ground, and that was blow number
two. But then there was Indian trouble at Kltwanga, or
Kitsumkalum, rather. That was the time that, John ...

*

That was Kitwancool, wasn’t It, Kltwan ... ?

** Kltwancool, yeah, not Kltsumkalum.

* Yes, Kitwancool Jim.
** Kitwancool is just north of Kit ...

* That was earlier on, wasn’t it, that was the early one?
Yes.

** Kitwancool. Kltwanga Is the ...
* Down by the river.
** Down by the river, and Kitwancool is up a few miles,
eh?

* Were you there at the time of the Kisplox trouble?
** Oh yes, yeah.

/

8

* Could you describe that, what happened and what was ...
** Oh, there was really no trouble at all, except the
Indians resented the approach of one or two of the white men
with their klooches (?). Of course in those days, when
there were loggers and miners there, it was very western, in
fact Hazelton rather prided itself that it was the town of
the contented klooches (?). And it went down all right too.
But the Kitwancool trouble was brought about by the
surveyors, really. In cutting a line, a survey line, they
took the corner off of one of the smokehouses, cut it off
with an axe. And Kitsegukla John, a huge fella, stood
about six foot four, he took a shot at one of the engineers,
one of the surveyors. And, as the inquiry came to a head,
it appears that it wasn’t him that shot, it was his wife
that took the shot. And she said that signaling her husband
to come in off the trapline, as lunch was ready.

* This was at Kispiox, or the ... Kitwancool trouble.
** Kitwancool.

* What about the Kispiox trouble? Didn’t they have a
sort of, almost a vigilante group that went up there?

** Oh, yes.

/

9

* What was the story behind that? I mean, how did it ...
** It started (inaudlble). I’ve forgotten the road
foreman’s name. They were putting in a road north from
Kispiox, that is the old telegraph trail. They were cutting
it out as a road. And evidently, some of the boys
misbehaved themselves, and then the road foreman, he got at
loggerheads with the Indians. And he came downtown to Bill
Alison, who was then Government Agent, and they had a
vigilante up there. And that was one time that I think,
they got Dutch Klein, and Gus Rosenthol (?), and put them in
a canoe, took them up by canoe, rather, and left them at the
bridge, just south of Glen Vowell, and forgot all about
them. Didn’’t leave them enough grub. So they only stayed
there two or three days and they had to come to town to get
some grub. But they didn’t last. It was a storm in a
teacup. But that was the great trouble. The Indian women,
you see, the (inaudible) and the miners were running after
them all the time, and naturally the braves resented it.

* You said that Hazelton was a kind of ‘wild west’ town.
Now how, just exactly, would it be wild and western in a
sense. I mean, what was a distinctive quality. What kind of
people were in and around it?

/

10

** Well, those days, Hazelton, I think had about fifty or
sixty whites. And there were an equal number, if not more,
Indians, living up on the bench. And the Indian dogs, there
must have been a hundred and fifty if not more. They were
living under the sidewalks in Hazelton, near the cafes and
hotels. And this particular day, Harry Harrison, who was
developing the Telkwa copper deposits, he was sitting on a
bar chair, tilted back on its hind legs against the wall on
the veranda of the Omineca Hotel. The Chinaman came out to
ring the triangle for lunch, you see, and there were three
or four dogs came out from underneath the sidewalk, howling
to beat the band. Harry Harrison said, "Shut up, you son of
a bitch, you don't have to eat here."

* Was it a very shacky sort of a place?
** It was, yes.
* And muddy streets, and was a lot of ...
** The streets were kept up pretty well because it was
headquarters of the public works department then.

* And was it full of pack horses ... ?

/

11

** Oh yeah. Had no trouble getting forty or fifty pack
horses there. In fact on one Instance I remember a hundred
and fourteen pack horses go into the Groundhog.

* Was it true that the pack trains mostly left from Two
Mi Ie?

** No, no. That would be the easiest place for the
packers gather their last drink. In fact, going up the
Skeena, as the telegraph captains had to be supplied, you
wouldn’t go near Two Mile at all. You would go up the
Skeena and cross at Glen Vowell, then go up. At Two Mile,
there were twenty-two girls there, doing a roaring business
too.

* At both places. Or at one, or between the two places.
** No, just at Two Mile. In fact, there was a regular
taxi running backwards and forwards to town.

* Because I heard that Two Mile was quite the wIld place
where the saloons and the girls were.

** That was where the trouble started with Simon
Gunnanoot.

* That’s what I understand. Were you there at the time
of the Gunnanoot shooting?

12

** Yes, I’ll show you something that very few people have
seen.

* Ian, Just turn it off for the moment, will you? <Break
in tape)

* Would you like to speak about those, can you, would you
want to read from the notes? Don’t read, anyway, Just
say ... What sort of characters were in Hazelton at the time,
that you knew? There was Barney Mulvaney <?) at that time?

** Barney Mulvaney, and George Burns had the mail
contract. And they were always in trouble with the Indians.
Either one or the other one owed the Indians money. And
George Burns usually could keep pretty sober. But poor
Barney couldn’t.

* He was quite a character, wasn’t he, Barney.

** Oh, he was. He was very clever, too.
* That was before he went to Burns Lake, I suppose.
** Yes, yeah. Yes, I think he’s recently passed on.
* Yes, about two years ago. Have you anything abou ... how
would you describe Barney?

/

13

** Barney was very florid complexioned, receding hair,
very witty, Irish wit of course, and he was a very good
friend. But, oh he was typically Irish. If he could slip
it over you he would. And loved it and Joshed about it
afterwards, of course.

*

And he was the, he had the mail contract. How would he

carry the mail in those days?

** In dog team during the winter months, and then in
canoes during the summer months.

* Where would it be from, what area?
** Well, they'd split that mail carrying from Hazleton
down to Kitsilas Canyon, then they had another bunch from
Kitsilas down to Essington (?) or Rupert.

* Barry Klein was doing some of it, wasn't he?
** Who was that?
* Barry Klein.
** Oh yes, he was on and off there. And another, the
Harris boys, they had a few teams on the run, and Huey
McClaine was a wonderful character up there.

* He's still alive.

/

1
4

** He’s in Telkwa.
* In Telkwa, yeah. We’ve talked to him, we have some
very nice things. What did he do, mainly?

** Prospecting.
* He was?
** I was on one mail run with Huey, and he said, "We’ve
gotta call in at Minskinish." We didn’t know what it was
about, so we, sure enough, when we got to Mlnskinish, there
was Miss Tomlison (?) out on the ice with a package for us.
She said, "Now when you boys get to Rupert, I wish you’d see
Mr. MacIntosh," he was the postman at Rupert, "and bring me
back an Eaton’s catalogue, will you?" So we naturally
acquiesced. And when we got to Rupert, we dropped in, said
that we wanted and Eaton’s catalogue, "Oh, help yourself, up
there on that shelf." So we took one off the shelf, put it
in the kitchen (?) box and brought it up the Skeena, and she
was there to meet us so we gave it to her, and she thanked
us, and away we went. The next trip we came down, she was
also there. She said, "Don’t you ever stop at this place
again!" I said, "What’s the trouble, Miss Tomlison?" She
said, "Do you know how old that Eaton’s catalogue was you

/

15

gave me?" I said, "No, I haven't the remotest Idea
(inaudible)." She said, "It was twelve years old!"

* Was that Lily? Lily Tomlison?
** I guess It's the one that's out at ...
* Annie?
** Annie yeah.

* She's quIte a character. The little one, she's quite
small.

** Another, coming back, we had the money for the banks.
And we had to be very careful, tobaggan, so we saw Mr.
Tomlison, asked permission to lock up the tobaggan in their
little bandstand. So he was agreeable, so we put it in
there. But he wanted to keep the key, so Barry Klein said,
"Not on your darned life! I'm responsible for that, that
registered mail, and I'm keeping the ... " So we had quite a
shout over that, take the key away from him.

* This was old Mr. Tomlison, the original one?
** Yeah, yeah, yeah.

* What sort of a character was he, how would you remember
him as?

/

16

** Oh, he was centered around Minskinish. He thought he
had a mission, which he had, he had a mission. But he
wasn’t quite robust enough to tackle it. The interpretation
of the aims and objects of the mission with the main
consideration, besides the moral upbringing of the Indians,
that’s fine.

* The, it never seemed to come to anything, I suppose
** No, no, it just petered out. He didn’t do the
missionary work that the Collinson’s (?) did, on the Nass.

* He didn’t establish something that was more lasting.
** No. Well Hazelton in those days, they had the three
hotels, the Olsen ran the Hazelton Hotel, the Omineca was
run by Jack Seeley, and the Engineca was leased by Dave
Pratt. But later it was taken over by the notorious
Blackjack MacDonald. Talkin’ about the Hazelton Hotel, that
used to be typically western. There were (inaudible) games
going there, and poker games, and blackjack games, and this
particular night, Bill Burkin (?), the barber, he came in to
playa little blackjack. And he was very lucky, too. And,
then he thought he’d go in and get into the poker game. So
he fooled around the other tables, no one paid any attention
to him, but he was loaded. Olsen didn’t want him in the

/

17

poker game. He said, "I don’t want you in, Bill,-" he said,
"you’re too full." So, Bill insisted upon playing, and,
last of all, there was a big pot up, and Olsen said, "Well,
keep out of this, Bill," he said, "you’re drunk. I don’t
want you in here at all," he said. "In fact, 1’11 show you
what I’ve got, before the draw. I’ve got three aces and a
pair of kings." Bill says, "That’s no damn good at all.
I’ve got four aces!" Then the lights went out. He’d gone
round the other tables, you know, picking out a few
(inaudible) of aces. They were all the same cards in those
days. It was either the red or the blue Bicycle card.

* This makes a noise in the michrophone, you can hear the
papers moving. That’s why I thought we could just keep them
on the table.

** And the stores over the Hudson Bay Company, and
Cummingham"s store was managed by Major Morrison. And I
think you had Miss Morrison, or ...

* Vicky Morrison.
** Vicky Morrison.

* She was ...
** Vicky Simms.

,/

18

* Vicky Simms, that’s right, yeah.
** I heard her on the air (?).
* We have some more things to get from her about
Hazelton, yes.

** And there’s Sargent’s store, Lockworthy’s store, Stevie
Smith had a store, and an Indian store. And there was a
fellow by the name of Bragston, Randy Jewellers, no, not the
Jewellers shop, a watchmaker. That~s where the Jewellers
is. Ratho’s photographic store, and there was a Mr. Sharp,
he was the watchmaker. And his daughter is living in town
now. She married the bank manager’s daughter up there.
Charlie Reid. Then there’s the usual smattering of Chinese
cafes and laundries. When I went up there, I think the
principle families was the Reverend John Field, the Boyds
(?),

the Cokses, Hicks Beeches (??), Rathols, Morrisons,

deVoyens (?). Louie deVoyen was the editor of the Omineca
Herald. Stevie Smith’s family, the Kirbys, Burkins,
Sharps, and Dr. H. C. Wrinch at the Hazelton Hospital.
(Papers rustle) I~m sorry.

* It’s all right. As long as you are not speaking it
doesn’t matter.

/

19

** The unattached were largely responsible for all the
life and the zest in Hazelton, of course in those days, and
it was quite a sporty town, with hockey and baseball and
football. And it was Pat Aldus, Straun (?) Robertson, A. R.
and Jim MacDonald. Bill Alison was the Government Agent, I
think he was related to Dick MacBride. Mrs. Homer, Welsh,
and Allan Wiley. they were in the government office.
McCormick, and O’Shayee (?), H. H. Little is in Victoria
now. he was the bank manager. And Fred Field. the son of
the Reverend Field. was an accountant, for Sargent’s store.
George Swan. Huey MacClaine, Harris Brothers (?). then there
was the notorious Ned Charleston. Burk Lassie. and Catallne
Levaka (?). He made his headquarters there regularly.
Other packers were Puchette and Ezra Evans. Bill Curr, Gus
Rosenthstall (?), Bill Llama. the Carr brothers. and of
course Senator Dunlow. The Indians lived on the first
bench. and the bench above them were where their braves
were. So the opinion was expressed that they were a
segregation there. The lower bench for the poor Indians,
and the high bench for the good Indians. And altogether,
the social life was very good around there. They were all
agreeable, and in later years it improved with the influx
from the railroad. Hazelton, the main street of Hazelton in
nineteen-hundred and eleven as I recall it, was a bunch of

20

tamale stands, and shoe stands. Oh, it was a regular Coney
Island there. And all sorts of dark games going on.

* Where did people get their money from, from the mines
and from the railroad?

** From the railroad, and the surveying, and there were
lots of land staking in those days. They staked out the
entire Bulkley Valley, and KIspIox Valley, and the Engineca
Mines were going. Going very well, too. And then the up
and down the river with the boats, with all of the crews
working.

* Could you talk at length about some of these characters
here, for Instance Catallne. What do you remember about
him, and how would you describe him?

** Cataline could speak very very little English. And his
pack train was 64 head, mostly mules. And they’d pack 300,
350, I have seen 450 on some of his mules. I ran into
Cataline coming down the Groundhog Trail one time, I was
soakin’ wet, it was a miserable day, and he sat hunched up
over a fire. And that old beggar, he took a blanket off, he
had a blanket with a mantle on it, and he gave it for me to
sleep In. And he went and got another manltle for himself.
And he was still sitting by the fire when I woke up in the

/

21

morning. And I, oh we ... He died in Hazelton at George
Burns’s. I don’t think he had any money, but I believe his
daughter was well-fixed in New York.

* Oh he had a daughter?
** Yeah, yeah.
* You don’t know anything about his wife or anything like
that.

** No, no, n-no, no, nothing.
* Would that be before he came in the country?
** I think so, yeah.
* Did, how, what was his speech like? Can you reproduce
it at all in your mind?

**Oh, no. He had no English at all. Absolutely none at
All. I believe it was Portuguese. I/m not quite sure on

* People are generally pretty vague about why he was
called Cataline and so on. His real name was Cull.

** Yes.

22

* Jean Cull (?). Yes. Blackjack MacDonald. What was
notorious about him?

** Blackjack MacDonald was always in the sporting world.
Always had a bunch of girls around. And very interested in
getting a bunch around there, you know? And he was a good
spender, himself. I was his pall bearer here, Little and I.
But I don/t think he had any, I know he dldn’t have any
money.

* Did he retire to Victoria, then?
** Yeah, yeah.
* Was he, he was a hotel owner (inaudible) most of his
life.

** Yes, he had a hotel here, the Sevoy (?) Hotel, and
Downthall (?). And he had the Engineca Hotel, and the New
Hazelton Hotel, and he went up to ...

* Telkwa?
** Yes, he had the Telkwa Hotel, and also one at Stewart.
* Was he wealthy in those days then, was he making money?

** Well, he was making money, and he was spending money.

23

* What sort of character was he, what sort of a man?
** Robust, heavy-set, good-natured ...
* A gambler.
** Oh, yeah, an out-and-out gambler.
* Was he up in the Yukon?
** Not that I know of. (Break in tape.)
* Was there any particular ...
** They used to call it the rabbit ranch.

*

Oh ,

** And there weren’t many eligible girls up there
(inaudible). And so there was a fellow running a
cleaning/pressing ... He was the tailor. Jock the tailor.
Anytime that we’d go into the hills, we’d leave our clothes
there for him to press up so they’d be ready for when we
come back. So I came back from the Babine, went to see
Jock, I said, "Have you got my blue serge suit, Jock?" "Oh
my God, no I don’t think I’ve got that." I said, "You must
have it! I left it here." "Well," he said, "I lent it to
Bill Sweeny. He was going up to the rabbit ranch." So he
used to rent these darn suits out!

/

24

* Go up and pay court to Mrs. (inaudible).
** Then she came into town, I had a little office at the
back of Aldus and Murray's there, and she said, "(inaudible
name), I'm going to start a little mess." There were two
messes in town, the Omineca mess and the Hazelton mess. She
said, "But I'm a lot short on funds." I said, "How much do
you want?" She said, "About seventy-five dollars." "Well,"
I said, "I think we can get that for you somehow." So, so I
figured with the boys and we all put up five or ten dollars
apiece and got her started In the mess, and she looked after
us in great shape, too.

* What was a mess? A sort of place for ... How would you
describe a mess?

** A mess? Just, Just a dining room.

* Oh, Just a dining room.
** Sure, that's what.
* Only it was a rather simple affair, I suppose.
** Well no, it was, she had it nicely furnished.

* In a hotel, in one of those ...
** No, no. In one of the store buildings.

25

*

Oh, I see, yes. A cafe, really, sort of a dining room.

** No, no. She only Just served her ... regulars.
And all the other attached people I suppose.

** Yes yes.
so they used to eat in messes there.

** Yes.
And they’d sleep somewhere else, and ...

** Yeah.

* Yes, I see.
** Probably sleep down on the beach in a tent. Most of us
did.

* What was the beach?
** Well there wasn’t much of a beach. It was all right at
low water, but oh I suppose the beach should be at the foot
of ... I don/t know the name of ... near Cummlngham/s store. By
the Hudson Bay. That would be about twenty feet of beach
there. So we put up tents all along there. Then the great
draw-ring (?) card, for the Hudson Bay store was the stone

/

26

warehouse, where they used to keep all the booze. They
supplied the whole area, you know.

* Well, there weren’t any liquor licences and laws in
those days, were there, particularly ...

** We never inquired. In fact the stone house should go
in there, and they were all big tons (?). They weren’t
vats. They were just tons. And there was one glass on a
little piece of shiplap (?), nailed to the wall. And that
glass, I never remembered being washed. If you wanted
scotch you got the glass and went and turned on the tap, and
helped yourself, or brandy. or whatever you wanted.

* How did you pay for it?
** Oh, you paid for it. Except you didn’t have to for
before breakfast. You got the eye-opener for nothing.

* This is very interesting, this place. Let me see,
where was this, what was it? It was connected with the
Hudson Bay ...

** Hudson Bay. yes.

* They brought the. they brought it up every yea~?
** Oh yeah, yeah.

/

27

* What sort of place was it? Was it a building?
** Built out of stones.
* What shape was it?
** Well, at the beach. Whatever they got from the river,
all put together with mortar.

* And was it down in the ground?
** Oh, it was down I think about two steps. Not more, I
don/t think.

* Was it square?
** Yes, it was square.
* It had a roof on it.

** Oh yes.
* Was it near the Hudson Bay store?
** Oh yes. It would be about forty feet from the office
door.

* Was it locked up?

** Most of the time.

/

28

* Then they’d open it at certain times. How would you
get drink out of it, how would it, how was it ...

** Oh, if there were a big bunch around there’d be someone
staying right there. Jack Boyd at that time was the store
manager.

* And how would you get your drink? You wouldn’t have
bottles, or would you bring your own bottle?

** No, no, no, you’d have to use that glass, wait for one
another to use it.

* How did they sell the stuff apart from that? Suppose
you wanted to take it away with you?

** Oh, well, it was Hudson Bay rather, 35 over proof. Was
nine dollars for a two gallon keg. Four and a half dollars
a gallon.

* You picked up the whole keg?
** Yeah, you took a whole keg. That/s usually what
happened.

* You put it on your pack horse ...
** Yeah.

/

29

* Was rum the main drink?
** Yes.
* Any other kind of spirits at all ...

** Oh, yes. Their scotch-whiskey was- good, and at the time
of prohibition, there was a fella Sutherland there, running
a mine down on Roche de Boule. He and I bought out the
remains of the (inaudible). And we took it out and put it
in my root cellar. Of course there was no rum or whiskey,
they’d easily sold that, but we had (inaudible) ports and
sherries, and vermouth galore. And my wife went out to the
root cellar, to get some fruit, she said, "There’s a note
under the door. What does it mean?" The note was, "Move
the hooch." So I took the precautions and took it upstairs
in the attic. That was … oh, very early in the game,
anyhow. About twelve or fourteen years afterwards, I met a
lame man by the name of Allan. He was Bob Allan’s brother.
I hadn’t seen him for years, of course. He said, "Did you
ever get that note I left in your root cellar for you?" I
said, "Sure I did. I don’t know who left it." "Well," he
said, "you’re too good a guy to see the fellas pinch all the
booze on."

* That wasn’t Joe Allan, was it?

/

30

** No, no, no, no. I forgot. Bob Allan was the district
forester up there, that was about nineteen twelve.

* Do you remember Kayuse (?) Jack?
** Kaiuse Jack? Yeah, I drove him from Aldermere down to
Hazelton, in a wagon. It was an awful trip. The poor
beggar, he was suffering bad. It didn’t last long. He
cursed me uphill and down dale for, for hitting all the
mudholes. ‘Cause there was no regular road then it was ...
In fact they hadn’t started trading.

* What was wrong with him?
** I beg your pardon?

* What was wrong with him?
** I don/t recall , now. Just worn out’ I think. Ezra
Evans was another one of the packers; (inaudible name); Bill
Curro I was going into the Groundhog and I said to Bill
Curr , I said, "Well, how are the mudholes between here and
the Groundhog?" "Well." he said. "one bloody or none at
all. There’s only one." "That’s good." He said, "It starts
,/

about five miles out of town." he said. "and it finishes up
in the Groundhog." And it was about right, too.

* Was the Groundhog near the telegraph trail?

/

31

**
No, that’d be , thirty five mi1es east of the
telegraph

trail.

* Oh, it was up the Hazelton route.
** Yeah, yeah.
* Or, up the Skeena.

** Up the Skeena, and it didn’t go all the way around with
the Skeena, it cut over Poison Mountain. And, at
Blackwater, you left the Nass River and headed over Jackson
Mountain, or Groundhog Mountain, to drop down to the Skeena
again. So there were between Third capita and Groundhog,
you didn’t touch the Skeena.

* How would you describe Groundhog? What was it, and, I
mean, for somebody who doesn’t know anything about it, how
would you describe It?

** Oh, it was ...
* Without, no, not in a picture. Just in words, because
I would like to know how it would be ..•

** Well, it was a wide valley, a summit valley, with one
or two lakes in it. Oh, quite a few lakes in it, and the
hills were not precipitous, but they’d run up to about

/

32

forty-five hundred, while the summit of the Skeena was
around about three thousand. And the vegetation was on the
top of the mountains, very smal1 growth, but in the valleys
there was Engleman spruce, balsam, hemlock ...

* And how would you describe the Groundhog mine, I mean
what, what relationship ... ?

** Well, there were 765 claims staked in the Groundhog.
But it constituted about five upthrusts. And the coal,
generally speaking, from a coalminers standpoint, wasn’t
considered clean. It was very banded.

* Was it the only, anthrocite in the country?
** Well, there was very little anthrocite. There was a
semi-anthrocite up there, over towards the Stikine. but in
the main Groundhog. there was no anthrocite.

* Just that it was easy to get at, get out of the ground.
actually, It was a surface coal.

** Oh it. very much so. Some of those seams were thirty
feet deep. With the dirt.

* Was it worked at all?

** No. no, no.

33

*

Just the plain. . . ‘ cause I thought , I suppose. the

Railway coming in it would be used …

** Well. they anticipated the railroad would go from
Misago (?) Bay through to Edmonton. But. I don’t think
you’ll ever see the Groundhog amount to anything.

* Now. just before we leave Hazelton. I just wondered if
there was anything ... Remember Jim, Bill Sargent, not Bill,
Dick Sargent?

** Dick Sargent, very well indeed.
* Would you like to describe, talk about him? He was
quite a character.

** Dick, I had a letter of introduction to Dick Sargent,
from his father. Old Dean Sargent, Capell. And Dick was
very good to me, I was then about, oh, twenty-four, I
suppose. And I was going into Copper River, and we had
about forty head of horses to take in, and I said to Dick, I
said, "Will I have any trouble with the Indians, Dick?" He
said, "No, none at al I." He says, "Only two things to
remember: if you’re going to pay them three dollars a day,
pay them three dollars a day, don’t take off anything for
jam, or marmalade, or whatever they take. And if you say
you’re gonna kick’em, kick their backside, do it, and do it

/

34

darned good and hard. Make them always dependent on you, or
reliant. As long as they can rely on you, know what’s
coming. You’ll have no trouble with them." And I never did
have. I have a great respect for all those Indians. Yes,
there were some very very good Indians there. There was the
Wilson brothers, they had a pack train, and their wife, or
Robert Wilson had a wife. I think her house was the
cleanest of any house up there. She was a wonderful
housekeeper. Pete White, Tom Campbell, Aroa Bone (?), bit
of an agitator was Tom Campbell, but ... he was a good hard
worker. David Louie, now David Louie, the second year I
went up there, I heard that his father had died. So I
hunted up Davie, I used to call him Keghead, cause he had
such a big head. I said, "Well, how many horses have you
got, Davie?" "Oh, no horses stop." I said, "What do you
mean, ‘No horses stop.’?! Your father had about twelve or
fourteen head! II "Oh , I know. But Indian law, my father’s
horses go to his sister, my aunt. Don’t come to me, his
son. “I said, "Why not? You should get them." "Oh, not
Indian law, no. I don’t know he’s my father." Well, that
tickled me. There’s a devil of a lot of sense to that, too.
And Luke Fowler, and there was (inaudible) there. Charlie
Sterrit was a wonderful character. Yes, I guess there’s

/

3
5

many more, if I could only think of them, but, that’s a long
time ago. I have a great respect for them, and ...

* Then you moved to Telkwa, did you?
** Let’s see ... from Hazelton ... Yes, I went to Telkwa.
* What did you move to Telkwa for? Was it because the
country was more ...

** Well, the ... I had a store in Hazelton, and I had one
1n Telkwa. That is, implement store, and harness and that.
And we also opened up at Fort Fraser. I took in with me a
partner, Klein Sinclair. Well put a little money into the
business, but I kept on my fieldwork just the same, and he
looked after the stores. But, Telkwa, and after the railway
got through, they just went along like nobody’s business,
once they got away from the Skeena. Then I went with the
forestry. I was with the forestry for about five years, and
moved back to Hazelton in the forestry, went down to Rupert
for a while.

* Did you see Hazelton change in that time, develop in
any direction?

** No, no.
* All stayed the same.

/

36

** All the same, yeah. There’s not much room for it to
develop on thirteen and a half acres, you see.

* I suppose the only things that developed were the,
South Hazelton, and New Hazelton, and those areas.

** South Hazelton didn’t develop very much either, I don’t
think.

* New Hazelton, did that prove anything worth a
challenge?

** No, no, no.

* Do you remember, an Englishman with the name of, of
Digville?

** Digbil I?
* Digbil, yes.
** Oh, very very well indeed.

* Yes.
** He was an artist for the Bystander.
* Yes. Do you remember him up there, when he was up in
that country?

37

** Oh yeah, yeah.
* How would you describe him?
** He was an eccentric. Very very clever with a pencil.
Yes, and he had ... Poor old Digbil, took up a pre-emption on
Tyee Lake. Well, he was all alone, and he used to spend
most of his time ... He had a little fox terrier, he'd come
to town, stay in town two or three days, and go back again.

* And town, was this Hazelton?
** Telkwa.

* Telkwa, yes.
** So when he came to get his (inaudible) of improvements,
he went down to see Steven Hoskins, who was the Government
Agent of Smithers, so Hoskins said, I am not at all
pleased, Digbi1, that you’ve put in vour residence, From
what I understand,” he said, you’ll spend one-third of your
time going to Telkwa, and another third in Telkwa, and” he
said, “of course, I've got to get in four thirds in
somewhere, because you have a third of your time going back
again.” But he got his ...

* You don't know whether any of his drawings are around
anywhere, do you?

38

** No. I don't. If there are any. I think Ernest Hoops.
at Whiterock, will have them. I remember he did one of me.
I was in Sargent's store at the time. as a clerk. He had me
helping Mrs. Regal. She was quite a flashy little
(inaudible). And Thought (??) bought that some bizaar we
had there. and I think probably Ernie Hoops has got it. Oh,
the department of fisheries probably overlooked a bit. They
gave him a job, as fishery inspector. Well, he took an
intere8t in his work. fishery Inspector in those days were.
it was a position in name only. But he undertook to get
these salmon, at saltwater. He'd take the colouration of
them as they came up the river, as they altered, you know.
And he must have sent fifteen or twenty of them back to
Ottawa. Ottawa wasn't interested at all.

* This was Digbil, was it?
** Yes, Digbil.
* He did get interested in something then. eh?
** Oh, yeah.
* What about people at, Telkwa? Do you remember Jack
Neill there?

** Oh, very well indeed.

/

39

* How would you describe him?
** He was a typical American. Well, Jack was out for the
money, he got the money, and he didn’t know what to do with
it. But he passed on. Oh, Jack was al I right.

* Do you remember the hotel he had at Telkwa?
** No, he had a hotel at ...
* Aldermere.
** Aldermere, yeah.
Aldermere, yes. How would you describe that hotel?

** It was a big, two-storey log building, part of it was
store, part of it hotel, and part bar. And there was, a
little veranda going around the bar, leading to some
bedrooms. And fellas, if they weren’t very careful, they’d
walk out of their bedroom door, you know, they/d be,
plastered probably, and just flop right down on the bare bar
counter! Walk right off ...

* Was it quite a wild place, that hotel?
** Oh, yes, you bet, yes. Wild. Yes, just as McCarthy
would have felt, revelled in it, I remember reading one of
his books once, when he was relating stories about the

/

40

girls, he said, “Daughters of Pleasure, one and all of form
and feature delicate.”

* That was the, was this hotel full of those kind of
people?

** No, but they had their little ...
* Their little place. yeah
** Yeah.
* Yeah? Yeah. At the hotel, do you mean, or down at
Telkwa, where they had the ... ?

** No, no.
* No.

** No, at Telkwa, they were across the river.
* Oh yes. I suppose this sort of group was quite common
in each ...

** Oh yes, yeah.
* ... each area ...

** Oh, yeah.

41

* ... at that time, with all the railway crew, and the
miners, and that, yeah.

** As they used to do their shopping at a regular time,
say Thursday afternoon, you/d see them in town, all the
girls, and ...

* Where would they live, in what sort of places? In sort
of •..

** Oh, they had some ...
* ... little houses on their own?
** Yeah.

* Yes.
** Get him to cut it off one minute.
* Turn it off, would you, William?
TP (William) O. K.

** Come through in here, there/s (break in tape)

* O. K.
** I was with the forestry at the time, and I cal led in on
Mike to his place, at Catalaska (?) Lake. He didn/t know

42

me, and I didn/t know him, but I/d heard his name. I said,
“Mr. Toowee (?), could you put me up for the night?

Ah,

indeed I could. Have you had supper?” I said, "No.1I “How
many eggs can you eat?” “Well,” I sald, “a couple, maybe
three.” “0h, it’s no damned good if you can’t eat ten
eggs." He cooked himself up ten eggs and gave me three.
And we sat talking and reciting Robert Services poems, ‘til
half past one that morning.

* Did he recite you his own poems?
** Oh, some of them, yes. He was good, too.
* How would you describe him?
** Oh, raw-boned, uncouth, very blunt, and generous to a
degree.

* What was his build, what was he like?

** Oh, enormous. Yes, he was big build. Very very broad
shoulders, which were most noticeable.

* What did he do?
** Just waited for those chickens to lay his ten eggs!
* He kept pigs too, dldn’t he?

43

** Oh, yes, he’d had ‘em.

* And he Just lived off the land, did he?
** And he cut a few, well afterwards he cut ties, and
shipped them out.

* Did he have a lot of hair?
** Yes, yeah.

* How would you describe his hair?
** Unkempt.

* Black? Gray?
** Oh, it was starting to go gray then, yes.
* What sort of voice did he have?

** Typically Irish. Oh, he was Irish al I the way through.
* Any stories you remember about him?
** No, I can/to It was Just that one night that I
remember.

* You don/t remember, you didn’t come across any of his
verses at al I, anyways ...

44

** No, no.
* Yes. Do you remember Joe Brlgun (?) ?
** Joe Brigun? Yes.
* How would you describe him?
** Joe Brigun was a, well set-up man. 'bout five
foot ... nine, I imagine, heavily set, and muscular. Florid
complexion. receding hair, and sure typical Frence, I tell
you. He said, "Well ..." I said, "How are the (inaudible),
Joe?" He said, "Oh, hey, she's not too bad, but, oh the
oats, oh she's good." Yes ...

* What was good, did he say, what was good? Ooh zee ooo?
TP Oh the oats.

* Oh, the oats.
** The oat, the oat.
TP What about Mrs. Brigun?

* You remember Mrs. Brlgun?
** Yes, I'm ...

* She worked for Jack MacNeill a bit, didn't she?

** Yes, she was ...
45

*

Mrs. Kegpool (?) was her name, wasn/t it.

** Yes, that/s right. Yeah, I/d forgotten her name. Yes,
she was, in the dining room there.

* She was quite a ... naive sort of person, wasn/t she,
when she first came out, I gather, gather the impression
that, she came out from England and ...

** Well, she was a little bit ... Yeah, she was. I think
you/re quite right there. But it didn/t take her long to
absorb the atmosphere. And no one got any change out
of ... what was her first name?

* Sarah?

** No.
* Oh, Lucy? No.
** No, I/ve forgot by now. If my wife was here, she/d
know it.

* Yeah.

46

** Now. I remember she rode out on the horse from
Hazelton, with Mrs. Happy Turner. But they couldn’t sit

down to eat their supper that night. They stood UP.

* That was her first ride?
** That was the day she arrived in Telkwa. They came to
Telkwa first, then she got the Job up at MacNeill’s. And it
was quite a treat. to have a white woman wait on table here.
because we/d had one Indian there, One-Eyed Emily. She was
a good horse scout.

* What, It was Chinese cook there, wasn’t It? I wonder
who ...

** No, Orchard was cooking there.
* Oh, was it? Oh yeah. Charles Orchard, yes.

** Yeah, yeah.
* Yes. No relatIon as far as I know, but I don’t ...
(Break in tape.)

* You went to Smithers afterwards I think.

47

** Yes, yes, yes. Ran the hotel there, then I think we
went down to Portland, to finish up with. He dldn’t get
along with MacNeill at all.
What sort of person was he? What was he doing?

** Orchard?
* Yeah.
** Very short-tempered. Good-natured, when you had him as
a friend, you had a wonderful friend. But he resented
anyone going into his kitchen. And when MacNeill would go
in, "You go run your hotel. 1/11 look after this kitchen."

* Was he English?
** No, no. He was American.

* American.
** Yeah.

* Yes, would you like to turn it off, Ian?
TP (Ian) Yeah, I’ve only got about two minutes. (Break in
tape) .

*

All right, fine.

/

--

~

48

** What made that country, when I say /that country/, I
mean the Bulkley Valley, the Engineca, the Omineca, more
I

than anything else, in spite of the fact that many that came
up there were ... very green, as long as they played ball, and
did the right thing, and paid up their debts, they were
always brothers. They always helped one another out. And
that/s the remarkable thing about that country. How they
stood behind one another, for thick or thin. It helped to
build up the character in the young fellas, and those that
couldn’t take the rough spots, naturally had to ... get out of
the country, and if they dldn’t play the game, they had to
get out of the country. And in support of that, I/m not
saying this disparagingly, to anyone in particular, but
there was a bookkeeper, in one of the railroad camps, Eli
Culvertson. The notorious bridge expert. What he did I
don/t know at all, but the police had to get him out of the
country. One of the things he was doing, he was trying to
emancipate the railroad worker. And formed a little union,
of eastern Europeans. Until the police got wise to it, and
the last time I saw Eli Culvertson was Hebman (?), not
Hebman, Fairburn, was putting him on the train for Edmonton.

* They didn’t want unions in those days, eh? Well, there
was nothing illegal in that, though, was there?

/

49

** Except from the, railroaders’ standpoint",
* You mean from the railroad owners’ standpoint ...
** Yeah, yes, yeah, yeah.
* ... or from the workers/ standpoint. But then that
wasn’t a country of owners, that was a country of workers,
wasn’t it? People that were earning money ...

** We! 1, it was a country of contractors. I mean, most of
the workers on the railroad were eastern Europeans.
Couldn’t speak English. Coming down the Skeena one time,
with Huey MacClaine in the canoe, we saw an arm sticking out
of the woodpile, driftwood pile. We stopped, tried to get
it out. We couldn’t. So we went down to Essington, and we
got the police to come back, and they, with a (inaudible),
they released this body. And that body had three cheques,
amounted to $378 in his wallet. And Huey MacClaine said,
“you know, we were foolish. We should have got him out
ourselves.”

* Yes.
TP That’s it, Bob.

* O. K. Fine.

/