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High Slack: Waddington’s Gold Road and the Bute Inlet Massacre of 1864 (New Star $16)
At the beginning of Judith Williams' High Slack: Waddington's Gold Road and the Bute Inlet Massacre of 1864 (New Star $16) we learn a strange, jelly like substance called Bute wax appeared on the waters of Bute Inlet and Toba Inlet during the winters of 1922, 1936, 1950, 1951, 1955 and 1956.
Bute wax has nothing to do with Alfred Waddington's attempt to build a road to the Cariboo gold fields, commencing at the end of 48 mile Bute Inlet. Nor does it explain why six Chilcotin Indians were hanged for the murders of fourteen members of Waddington's road crew and seven other whites in the area.
But Williams introduces Bute wax to serve notice she intends to explore the murky middle ground of history in the realm of creative non fiction: Everything can't be explained and mystery is an important part of life.
After describing her own explorations of Bute Inlet - mentioning a Homfray Channel sea serpent and petroglyphs - Williams recreates a journal kept by surveyor Robert Homfray. His Hudson Bay Company contingent of six visited Bute Inlet in the winter of 1861 with only two muskets and one canoe.
Shivering beneath 13,260 ft. Mt. Waddington's ice fields, 100 miles northwest of Vancouver, Homfray's expedition was easily over powered by 'six half naked Indians'. Homfray was rescued by the local chief of the Cla oosh tribe who guided them to the Homathko River. Relying on Indians for food, protection and transportation back to Victoria, Homfray was barely able to complete his two month journey. The Admiralty in London named Homfray Channel, near Desolation Sound, in his honour.
Looking for vestiges of Waddington's infamous road, Williams enters the Homathko River at high slack. "High slack, when the tide has risen to its highest point and pauses before it ebbs, is not just a good time to fish,"; she writes. "I have used it as a metaphor for a pause in ideological currents, a time to collect ourselves and perceive, not just what we have been taught to see and know, but to imagine what might be if our socially acquired filters evaporated.";
Halfway through the book, the author has yet to describe the so called massacre of 1864. Instead we learn tidbits about Alfred Pendrell Waddington.
Born in 1804 in England, Alfred Waddington was educated in France and Germany. He arrived in Victoria in 1858 and that year published the first book in the Vancouver Island Colony, The Fraser River Mines Vindicated. As Vancouver Island's first author, Waddington helped draft Victoria's charter and was a superintendent of schools. The Canadian government bought his surveys for a cross Canada rail route designed to terminate at Bute Inlet. Waddington obtained a contract from Colonel Moody in 1862 to construct a mule trail from the head of Bute Inlet to the Fraser River, to be completed in 12 months.
Waddington's life is not examined any further. [He spent his final years in Ottawa, where he died, trying to convince the federal government to build a transcontinental railroad. The government of John A. Macdonald subsequently began construction of the CPR, taking a route to Burrard Inlet instead of Bute Inlet. Today the highest mountain in the province is named in Waddington's honour.]
Waddington's 91 man party of roadbuilders left Victoria for Bute Inlet in April, 1863, aboard the steamer Enterprise. We are led to conclude that if Waddington hadn't stubbornly pursued his unrealistic 'business plan', Interior Indians would not have been aroused to defend their territory. Specifically, according to Williams' representation of Homfray's journal, "The terrible massacre was caused by the ill treatment of the Indian women by Mr. Waddington's party who were making the road."; This is the central thesis at the heart of Slack Tide.
Conjuring an operatic chorus of weeping women, Williams notes that dozens of male participants in the events of 1864 can be named, but it is difficult to track the names and fates of women involved. "Both historical and contemporary native statements force one to attend to the claim that the sexual abuse of the daughter of a chief caused the war.";
After members of Waddington's road crew were butchered in their sleep, news of the attack shocked Victoria. Governor Seymour issued a proclamation calling for volunteers to help apprehend the perpetrators, dead or alive. Nearly 150 men, including many Indians and Governor Seymour, chased Chilcotin Indians through the mountains until white vengeance was satisfied.
In Chapter Five we are told that in the summer of 1993, the Nemiah Band of the Tsilhqot'in nation (the Xeni qwet'in) demanded from the Province of British Columbia an official pardon for the hangings.
B.C. Attorney General Colin Gablemann is later quoted in chapter eight, speaking at a 1993 meeting with Cariboo Tsilhqot'in leaders, "The hanging of the Tsilhqot'in Chiefs in 1864 is a tragedy which, if we are to move forward with respect and in good faith, must be recognized.";
Williams values oral history as much as written accounts. In her third chapter she attends her husband's Sliammon Seven Aside Soccer Tournament and questions elders. Coastal expert Jim Spilsbury is also included, recalling cutting shakebolts above Homfray Creek in 1924 with his brother.
High Slack grew from an invitation by Rosa Ho, curator at the UBC Anthropology Museum, for Williams to create an installation of paintings, sculptures and 'book works' generated by her upcoast and archival explorations in and around Bute Inlet. Williams, Ho and Greg Brass also organized a symposium of 150 people at UBC First Nations House in 1994 called "The Tsilhqot'in War of 1864 and the 1993 Cariboo Chilcotin Justice Inquiry."; Upon viewing the exhibition called 'High Slack', New Star editor Terry Glavin invited Judith Williams to expand her Bute Inlet findings into a book for his Transmontanus series.
Cumulatively High Slack is like a panoramic mural. All the elements are depicted and it's up to the eye of the beholder to determine where emphasis ought to be placed. Different readers will make different interpretations.
[BCBW 1997]
Bute wax has nothing to do with Alfred Waddington's attempt to build a road to the Cariboo gold fields, commencing at the end of 48 mile Bute Inlet. Nor does it explain why six Chilcotin Indians were hanged for the murders of fourteen members of Waddington's road crew and seven other whites in the area.
But Williams introduces Bute wax to serve notice she intends to explore the murky middle ground of history in the realm of creative non fiction: Everything can't be explained and mystery is an important part of life.
After describing her own explorations of Bute Inlet - mentioning a Homfray Channel sea serpent and petroglyphs - Williams recreates a journal kept by surveyor Robert Homfray. His Hudson Bay Company contingent of six visited Bute Inlet in the winter of 1861 with only two muskets and one canoe.
Shivering beneath 13,260 ft. Mt. Waddington's ice fields, 100 miles northwest of Vancouver, Homfray's expedition was easily over powered by 'six half naked Indians'. Homfray was rescued by the local chief of the Cla oosh tribe who guided them to the Homathko River. Relying on Indians for food, protection and transportation back to Victoria, Homfray was barely able to complete his two month journey. The Admiralty in London named Homfray Channel, near Desolation Sound, in his honour.
Looking for vestiges of Waddington's infamous road, Williams enters the Homathko River at high slack. "High slack, when the tide has risen to its highest point and pauses before it ebbs, is not just a good time to fish,"; she writes. "I have used it as a metaphor for a pause in ideological currents, a time to collect ourselves and perceive, not just what we have been taught to see and know, but to imagine what might be if our socially acquired filters evaporated.";
Halfway through the book, the author has yet to describe the so called massacre of 1864. Instead we learn tidbits about Alfred Pendrell Waddington.
Born in 1804 in England, Alfred Waddington was educated in France and Germany. He arrived in Victoria in 1858 and that year published the first book in the Vancouver Island Colony, The Fraser River Mines Vindicated. As Vancouver Island's first author, Waddington helped draft Victoria's charter and was a superintendent of schools. The Canadian government bought his surveys for a cross Canada rail route designed to terminate at Bute Inlet. Waddington obtained a contract from Colonel Moody in 1862 to construct a mule trail from the head of Bute Inlet to the Fraser River, to be completed in 12 months.
Waddington's life is not examined any further. [He spent his final years in Ottawa, where he died, trying to convince the federal government to build a transcontinental railroad. The government of John A. Macdonald subsequently began construction of the CPR, taking a route to Burrard Inlet instead of Bute Inlet. Today the highest mountain in the province is named in Waddington's honour.]
Waddington's 91 man party of roadbuilders left Victoria for Bute Inlet in April, 1863, aboard the steamer Enterprise. We are led to conclude that if Waddington hadn't stubbornly pursued his unrealistic 'business plan', Interior Indians would not have been aroused to defend their territory. Specifically, according to Williams' representation of Homfray's journal, "The terrible massacre was caused by the ill treatment of the Indian women by Mr. Waddington's party who were making the road."; This is the central thesis at the heart of Slack Tide.
Conjuring an operatic chorus of weeping women, Williams notes that dozens of male participants in the events of 1864 can be named, but it is difficult to track the names and fates of women involved. "Both historical and contemporary native statements force one to attend to the claim that the sexual abuse of the daughter of a chief caused the war.";
After members of Waddington's road crew were butchered in their sleep, news of the attack shocked Victoria. Governor Seymour issued a proclamation calling for volunteers to help apprehend the perpetrators, dead or alive. Nearly 150 men, including many Indians and Governor Seymour, chased Chilcotin Indians through the mountains until white vengeance was satisfied.
In Chapter Five we are told that in the summer of 1993, the Nemiah Band of the Tsilhqot'in nation (the Xeni qwet'in) demanded from the Province of British Columbia an official pardon for the hangings.
B.C. Attorney General Colin Gablemann is later quoted in chapter eight, speaking at a 1993 meeting with Cariboo Tsilhqot'in leaders, "The hanging of the Tsilhqot'in Chiefs in 1864 is a tragedy which, if we are to move forward with respect and in good faith, must be recognized.";
Williams values oral history as much as written accounts. In her third chapter she attends her husband's Sliammon Seven Aside Soccer Tournament and questions elders. Coastal expert Jim Spilsbury is also included, recalling cutting shakebolts above Homfray Creek in 1924 with his brother.
High Slack grew from an invitation by Rosa Ho, curator at the UBC Anthropology Museum, for Williams to create an installation of paintings, sculptures and 'book works' generated by her upcoast and archival explorations in and around Bute Inlet. Williams, Ho and Greg Brass also organized a symposium of 150 people at UBC First Nations House in 1994 called "The Tsilhqot'in War of 1864 and the 1993 Cariboo Chilcotin Justice Inquiry."; Upon viewing the exhibition called 'High Slack', New Star editor Terry Glavin invited Judith Williams to expand her Bute Inlet findings into a book for his Transmontanus series.
Cumulatively High Slack is like a panoramic mural. All the elements are depicted and it's up to the eye of the beholder to determine where emphasis ought to be placed. Different readers will make different interpretations.
[BCBW 1997]
Submitted on August 19, 2003 in By David.
