"I've yet to go through Hell's Gate in a stern-wheeler," says Robert D. Turner, "but usually I do try to get everywhere that I write about."

Everywhere, for Victoria-born Turner, has thus far meant the waterways and railways of the province. Currently employed as the Chief of Historical Collections at the Royal British Columbia Museum, Turner is unquestionably the leading authority on B.C. transportation history, having produced seven books, with two more on the way.

"I try to put myself in the positions of the engineers and surveyors and ferry captains I'm writing about," he says, "Being part of the museum community helps because I get introduced to some very special oldtimers that way."

In particular, Turner recalls one delightful gentleman in his '90's. "We were sitting in his kitchen in Penticton. He was losing both his sight and his hearing. I ended up writing words and phrases down and almost shouting them to him. I'd say, 'Rotary Snowplow!' and his eyes would light up. He'd start remembering wonderful stories about working in the Coquihalla back in 1915."

Turner's parents were born in B.C and his grandparents passed along stories of riding paddle wheelers in the Kootenays. He studied resource management, B.C. provincial parks history and regional planning at the University of Victoria and UBC.

By the time Turner was ready to release his first book in 1973, Vancouver Island Railroads (Golden West Books, California), there were no B.C. publishers for his work. Since then Victoria's Sono Nis Press has quietly produced a stream of steady sellers from Turner, including The Pacific Princesses, The Pacific Empresses and Sternwheelers and Steam Tugs.

Turner's most recent book is West of the Great Divide (Sono Nis $39.95), a comprehensive pictorial history of the CPR in B.C. from 1880 to 1986. Already into its third printing, this book has a scope almost as vast as the-province's terrain and history. And yet its author remains little-known beyond history buffs.

"Bob's pure magic to those who've ships and trains in their blood," says fellow historian Charles Lillard, "but perhaps he's too decent and intelligent to become widely known."

Turner has also published several hundred of his own photographs in books, journals and exhibits. He wants to produce another pictorial book on B.C. railroads, plus complete a new book on logging railroads, perhaps research the CPR's Atlantic service, update his earlier work and possibly investigate paddle wheelers of the Northwest Territories.

"I'm satisfied with the progress we're making in B.C. history," says Turner, "It takes time to develop interest in local material. I don't expect my type of books to be on the grocery racks.

"But I hate to think of kids growing up in B.C. and believing that paddle wheelers only existed on the Mississippi River."

[BCBW Summer 1988]