After her Black Diamond: Nanaimo-The Victorian Era, Jan Peterson's second instalment of her trilogy, Hub City: Nanaimo 1886-1920 (Heritage $19.95), covers from the arrival of the E&N Railway to the end of World War I, including the emergence of the labour movement, the Great Strike of 1912-1914, the rise and fall of coal baron James Dunsmuir and the Spanish influenza epidemic. In the aftermath of the 1887 mining disaster, mining inspector Archibald Dick wrote, "Seven persons... were all that got out alive of the 154 that went down to work on the afternoon of the 3rd May... The pumps were kept going for about two weeks before it could be said that the fire was extinguished."; On the lighter side, Peterson recalls Nanaimo's 1896 bicycle craze led to speed limits of eight miles-per-hour on streets and six in intersections. George Bird was the first person to ride a bicycle across Vancouver Island (in 13.75 hours) and Nanaimo's William Good was the world's fastest sprinter in the 400-metre race at the San Francisco World Fair-but was not awarded the medal because he was Native. 1-894384-66-0

[BCBW Summer 2004]