Sue Gould (a member of Gabriola Emergency Social Services) sent this along for us: January 26, 1700 is when an estimated magnitude 9.0 megathrust earthquake and tsunami occurred on the Cascadia Subduction Zone off the coastline of Washington, Oregon, Northern California, and British Columbia. This Saturday, January 26, 2013 marks the 313th anniversary of the [...]
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What do you think of the new sign at Brickyard Beach? It seems to be a contribution from the Gabriola Historical and Museum Society. The sign itself is lovely, and the text is informative. I wish it were a ankle-height or knee-height sign instead of a chest-level type sign, though; that way it wouldn’t block [...]
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From couriermail.com.au: Migaloo the dog has a nose for archeology. The three-year-old female black labrador cross is believed to be the world’s first trained archeology dog. She is destined to work on surveys of Aboriginal sacred sites across Australia, with other dogs now likely to be similarly trained to work on excavations at ancient civilisation [...]
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Nick Doe sent us this update: Some not very good news about Muffy, Gabriola’s very own woolly mammoth. His or her leg bone contains very little uncontaminated carbon and so cannot be reliably dated, but the experts will have one more try. Geological studies of the find site show that it is unlikely that this [...]
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If you’re growing veggies, you need to water them regularly, right? Maybe, but it turns out that it is possible to grow crops without adding water. From grist: Farming without water. David Little of Little Organic Farm has had to adapt to water scarcity in California’s Marin and Sonoma counties, where most farmers and ranchers [...]
Now this is from Washington State, so a bit south of Gabriola. But the story is very cool, so take a look if you’re interested in the history of First Nations. From the Peninsula Daily News: Legendary ‘creation site’ discovered by Lower Elwha Klallam tribe. Lower Elwha Klallam people stood at their sacred creation site [...]
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If you’re interested in the history of First Nations peoples, you’ll want to read this Globe and Mail article: When did the first people arrive in the Americas? It takes only a few minutes for Daryl Fedje and Quentin Mackie to go back in time more than 50 centuries. (Does the name Quentin Mackie ring [...]
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If you keep chickens, eat chickens, or are interested in the intersection of food and history, this Smithsonian Magazine article might appeal: How the Chicken Conquered the World.
Not about Gabriola petroglyphs, but interesting nonetheless. From The Tyee: The Joy of Giving Back. For many years, I squinted at murky black and white photographs taken in 1926 showing a great petroglyph-covered rock as it was hauled away from the Fraser River somewhere in the interior. I despaired that we would ever know the [...]
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The Gabriola Museum opens for the season this weekend, on Saturday, May 19th. (10 am to 3pm.) Their events page introduces the new exhibit: More Than Just Clay and Mortar: The story of the Gabriola Brickyard and the workers and their families For more than five decades until the early 1950s, the Gabriola Brickyard was [...]
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Jean Barman is coming to Gabriola, and you’ll want to be at her multimedia presentation this Wednesday evening. The topic is Early Settlers on the Gulf Islands. Pause at the VIRL to see the list of Jean’s books in the library’s collection. Peek in at Amazon to see more of her books and perhaps get [...]
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From the Tyee: Did Ancient Drifters ‘Discover’ British Columbia? …no one knows what to make of the evidence hauled up from the wreck that lies 16 kilometres off Pachena Bay in almost 150 metres of water, or the two wrecks that are purported to have yielded strange artefacts from beneath nearby Clayoquot Sound. For all [...]
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Feel like going into Nanaimo on Tuesday April 3rd? Here’s what will be happening that evening: 6:30 p.m. Snuneymuxw Chief Doug White will be discussing the Douglas Treaty of 1854 at the Nanaimo Harbourfront Library, 90 Commercial St. Prior to his discussion the Snuneymuxw dancers will perform in Diana Krall Square and then dance up [...]
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More on the history of sleep from the BBC: The myth of the eight-hour sleep. We often worry about people who lie awake in the middle of the night – but it could be good for you. Scientists have been saying for 20 years that the eight-hour sleep may be unnatural, and historians increasingly are [...]
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Every once in a while, Iain Lawrence’s blog comes to life again. I always notice; Iain’s writing is worth noticing. Tonight you should go look at his most recent blog post, The Fallen.
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We visited the Nanaimo Cemetery a while back, and came across George Taylor’s grave. Does his name ring a bell? George was a Gabriola pioneer, and Taylor Bay is may have been named for him. Here’s a photo of his tombstone:
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Did you know that there’s an official manual published by the BC government, explaining how to identify and describe culturally modified trees? (If you’re not sure what those are, see Gabriolan’s past post on the subject, Gabriola’s culturally modified trees.) You can download the guide (as a honking big pdf of more than 38 megs, [...]
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Here’s news for anybody interested in Gabriola’s history. Nick Doe writes: I’ve been researching Gabriola’s ice-age history this last summer and have come up with a few surprises, but none greater than this. As yet it is not clear whether this leg bone is from a mastodon or woolly mammoth; and we don’t know yet [...]
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