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Chilcotin: Preserving Pioneer Memories by The Witte Sisters (Heritage $39.95)
Never mind Arthur Erickson's SFU, the Marine Building or the BowMac sign. The top engineering feat of B.C. is either Mungo Martin's 39-metre totem in Beacon Hill Park or Rudy Johnson's bridge, erected without government support in 1968.
Rudy Johnson purchased the 200-ton, 300-ft.-long steel bridge in Alaska and re-assembled it across the Fraser River, with the help of engineer Howard Elder, in six months for only $200,000. It allowed him to cut 30 miles off his trips between his Buckskin Ranch and Williams Lake. Johnson is one of countless do-it-yourselfers featured in Chilcotin: Preserving Pioneer Memories, a 432-page Who Was Who that was assembled, as much as written, by the three Chilcotin-born Witte sisters-Veera, Irene and Hazel-all raised at Big Creek. Eric Collier, author of the backwoods classic, Three Against the Wilderness, is one of the few characters in Preserving Pioneer Memories who might be recognizable to urbanites, but unfortunately his entry remains slight. The Witte sisters' research for their original 1995 collection of profiles has yet to be updated or revised. The Witte sisters recall the first white woman in the Chilcotin, Nellie Hance, who rode side-saddle for 400 miles to get there in 1887, and the more remarkable loner Chiwid, a Chilcotin Aboriginal woman who lived outdoors for much of her adult life. Rumoured to have spiritual powers, Chiwid (also Chee-Wit, or "Chickadee,";) was a crack shot who moved her solitary camp according to the seasons, protected only by a tarp. Born as Lily Skinner, she was the daughter of Luzep, a Chilcotin deaf mute from Redstone, and Charley Skinner, a white settler in the Tatlayoko-Eagle Lake area. Chiwid married Alex Jack and they had three daughters, but her life changed irrevocably when he beat her mercilessly with a heavy chain. Remorseful, Chiwid's husband drove several head of cattle to Chezacut and sold them to Charlie Mulvahill to raise money to send his beautiful wife to Vancouver for treatment, but thereafter Chiwid left her husband in order to roam the Chilcotin, from Anahim Lake to Riske Creek, sometimes with an old horse and a dog. Many people in the Chilcotin tried to assist her, offering firewood, food or clothes, but Chiwid maintained her independence, fearing she would become sick if she remained too long indoors.
Ill, aged and blind, Chiwid spent her final years in the Stone Creek Reserve home of Katie Quilt, where she died in 1986, and became the subject for a book published by Sage Birchwater in 1995. 1-895811-34-1
[BCBW 2006]
Rudy Johnson purchased the 200-ton, 300-ft.-long steel bridge in Alaska and re-assembled it across the Fraser River, with the help of engineer Howard Elder, in six months for only $200,000. It allowed him to cut 30 miles off his trips between his Buckskin Ranch and Williams Lake. Johnson is one of countless do-it-yourselfers featured in Chilcotin: Preserving Pioneer Memories, a 432-page Who Was Who that was assembled, as much as written, by the three Chilcotin-born Witte sisters-Veera, Irene and Hazel-all raised at Big Creek. Eric Collier, author of the backwoods classic, Three Against the Wilderness, is one of the few characters in Preserving Pioneer Memories who might be recognizable to urbanites, but unfortunately his entry remains slight. The Witte sisters' research for their original 1995 collection of profiles has yet to be updated or revised. The Witte sisters recall the first white woman in the Chilcotin, Nellie Hance, who rode side-saddle for 400 miles to get there in 1887, and the more remarkable loner Chiwid, a Chilcotin Aboriginal woman who lived outdoors for much of her adult life. Rumoured to have spiritual powers, Chiwid (also Chee-Wit, or "Chickadee,";) was a crack shot who moved her solitary camp according to the seasons, protected only by a tarp. Born as Lily Skinner, she was the daughter of Luzep, a Chilcotin deaf mute from Redstone, and Charley Skinner, a white settler in the Tatlayoko-Eagle Lake area. Chiwid married Alex Jack and they had three daughters, but her life changed irrevocably when he beat her mercilessly with a heavy chain. Remorseful, Chiwid's husband drove several head of cattle to Chezacut and sold them to Charlie Mulvahill to raise money to send his beautiful wife to Vancouver for treatment, but thereafter Chiwid left her husband in order to roam the Chilcotin, from Anahim Lake to Riske Creek, sometimes with an old horse and a dog. Many people in the Chilcotin tried to assist her, offering firewood, food or clothes, but Chiwid maintained her independence, fearing she would become sick if she remained too long indoors.
Ill, aged and blind, Chiwid spent her final years in the Stone Creek Reserve home of Katie Quilt, where she died in 1986, and became the subject for a book published by Sage Birchwater in 1995. 1-895811-34-1
[BCBW 2006]
Submitted on January 31, 2006 in By David.
