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WELCOME TO THE BURKE AND WIDGEON HISTORY BLOG!

WELCOME TO THE BURKE AND WIDGEON HISTORY BLOG!

This may be the most important page of this website. But why the blog? What’s its purpose? Well, there are several answers to these questions. This blog will be the place where special events can be announced and where the author can update readers about the progress of Volume Two. It will also serve as the vehicle in which I can provide additional information and clarifications relating to any information contained within the first volume, ...

Correction regarding Frenchmen’s Bay Brick Factory

Page 164 of Burke and Widgeon - A History (Volume One) had related that Elijah Fader had been involved in establishing the brick factory at Frenchmen's Bay, located on the west shore of Pitt Lake, not far from Silver Valley, via Cougar Pass.  Recent research has cast serious doubt about his involvement in that brick factory.  Instead, he appears to have established a similar venture, during the time-frame noted on Page 164, on the east ...

Additional info surfaced about the opening of Silver Valley School

Two additional recently-surfaced newspaper articles, pertaining to the opening of the Silver Valley School, offer additional information and, in part, corroborates that already outlined in Volume One, particularly on 293: August 24, 1914, Vancouver Sun, Pg.3:  "Mr. Ewen Martin, secretary, and Trustee Hawthorne, of the Coquitlam school board, visited and staked out the site for the new school at Silver Valley.  The contract has been let to Mr. Nicholson, contractor, New Westminster." September 25, 1914, ...

Update: Silver Valley Post Office and Silver Valley School

A recently uncovered Vancouver Sun newspaper article established some helpful corroboration of details documented in the Burke and Widgeon - A History (Volume One) narrative about the opening of the Silver Valley Post Office and the Silver Valley School (book pages 282 through 297). This article confirms the book's assertion that the Silver Valley Post Office opened on June 01, 1914.  It reported that on May 12, 1914, the local Member of Parliament had committed ...

Innocuous leads sometimes net very positive results

Old land files have shown that in 1941, one Hazel E. Richardson became the owner of a 26-acre property located at the upper-most part of the current Riversprings' residential sub-division, mostly just above David Avenue and straddling Shaughnessy Street.  My research had initially anticipated that the later ownership details of that parcel would be at least somewhat illuminated but, instead, ironically, while that particular parcel's subsequent details remained shrouded, Hazel Richardson's kin were able to ...

The interweaving of early Burke and Widgeon families

In Volume One, we learned how frequently family connections existed between the various homesteading families that settled here.  Apparently, in Volume Two, that trend may continue.  One of the earlier landowners in Meridian Heights (top of Coast Meridian area) (c.1930s - 1940s) was a father and son team, James de Pas Murray (father) and James Ivan Murray (son).  Their family history can be traced back to the early years of the grandfather, James Irving Murray, ...

“Little Norway”

My recent focus has been directed towards uncovering more information about the history of this long-time enclave of summer homes, situated along the west shoreline of the Pitt River.  Few remnants of these homes remain today.  During this process, I've gained a better appreciation of the fact that there were two distinct areas where cabins existed: one at Little Norway, itself, and the second along MacIntyre Creek, located a bit north of Little Norway.  There ...

Silver Valley Trout Farm

One of the lesser-known but very interesting tidbits about the Quarry Road area of Burke Mountain was the fact that from the period of 1957 through to 1965 the Silver Valley Trout Farm operated just a short distance to the east of Quarry Road, partway between Minnekhada Park and the Munro Lake Trailhead.  Back in 1957, Hans Otto Lehmann and his wife, Mimi, purchased a twenty-acre parcel located on the east side of Quarry Road, ...

Logging in the Widgeon by the Swiss

Recently, I had the privilege of driving a one-time Widgeon logger on a trip down his own memory lane.  Ab Harvey, now 91 years of age, had logged that specific area from the late-1940s to about 1960.  In that latter year, a Swiss company had been contracted to facilitate the logging of the high mountain benchland on the northeast side of Burke Mountain.  Ab's job was to gradually make his way up the mountainside- a ...

Additional information about the family of John Louis and Isabel Klein (Cline)

Kin from the United States has recently learned through additional research that it appears that John Klein was previously married to a Caroline Detlofson in Duwamish, King County, WA.  Their marriage occurred on August 13, 1899, and they had a son, Walter Louis Klein, born in Seattle.  John Louis and Caroline apparently continued to live in Duwamish, WA - at least in 1900 - but at some point between 1900 and 1906, their marriage dissolved ...