The Victoria Daily Colonist estimated that four thousand Chinese arrived in 1860, and many went to the goldfields to earn a dollar a day. Those with a little capital began small businesses to serve the growing population of single men. These included restaurants, laundries, market gardens, and fishing companies, where the fish were caught by rod and line, then salted, dried, and shipped inland to the protein-hungry miners. Import firms such as Kwong Lee (also from San Francisco), “Importers and Dealers in all Kinds of Chinese Goods, Rice, Sugar, Tea, Provisions,” established their headquarters in Victoria and used pack trains of mules and horses to move their goods to the “instant” communities springing up in the goldfields. One of the most famous of these towns was Barkerville, which suddenly became, in 1862, the largest community north of San Francisco and west of Chicago.
The fur trade, and since 1821 the Hudson’s Bay Company, had ruled the area, but suddenly change was needed, and the new colony of British Columbia was created in 1858, with Queen Victoria naming its capital New Westminster. Governor James Douglas, who had worked as a young man in the fur trade, ruled with an iron hand as he decreed that the lawlessness of the mining camps to the south would not spread north of the border. He also requested a company of Royal Engineers and, in response, the British government sent 150 officers and men. They were accompanied by thirty-seven women and thirty-five children, and when the engineers were disbanded five years later, many of them chose to stay as pioneer settlers in the mainland colony.
Perhaps Douglas’s greatest achievement was ordering the building of the famous Cariboo Road, which stretched from Yale to the Fraser River and north for 480 miles into the Cariboo country. Swinging around mountain curves, clinging to precipitous cliffs high above whirling waters, it was the boldest enterprise in road building ever undertaken in a pioneer community in British North America. On the earlier pack trails, the cost of freight had been enormous, and the prices of goods carried to the Cariboo country were fantastic: $50 for a pair of shoes and $90 for a hundredweight of potatoes. The completion of the Cariboo Road changed this situation and opened a regular postal and stage service, with express coaches drawn by six-horse teams and travelling day and night in relays of twelve to thirteen miles. Pack trains of mules carried heavy freight; strangest of all, twenty-one camels were tried but proved to be a failure. Their smell frightened the horses and created havoc along the way.[6] Roadhouses were built every ten to twelve miles along the road to serve as hotels and supply depots. There travellers could buy a hot meal, have a drink from a bar, sleep on a hay mattress, and stock up on flour, beans, bacon, potatoes, coffee, tea, and hay for the next part of the trip.
Viscount Milton and his friend, Dr. Cheadle, left this rather rueful description of hotel life in the Cariboo district of British Columbia in 1863 at the height of the gold rush:
Our quarters at Cusheon’s Hotel were vile. A blanket spread on the floor of a loft was our bedroom, but the swarms of lice which infested the place rendered sleep almost impossible, and made us think with regret on the soft turf of the prairie, or a mossy couch in the woods. The fare, limited to beefsteak, bread and dried apples, was wretchedly cooked and frightfully expensive. Beef was worth fifty cents or two shillings a pound, flour the same, a “drink” of anything except water was half a dollar, nor could the smallest article, even a book of matches, be bought for less than a “quarter,” one shilling. Before we reached Williams Creek we paid a dollar and a quarter, or five shillings, for a single pint bottle of stout.[7]
At the goldfields the diet for the miners was Caribou Turkey (bacon) and Caribou Strawberries (beans), sometimes supplemented by fish or wild game. Enterprising cowboys drove cattle from California and Oregon to feed the miners, where they received top prices for their beef.
After the mining operations slowed down, cowboys and roadhouse operators concentrated on ranching and established some of the big British Columbia cattle ranches. Work was hard and “grub” was plain — plenty of hot biscuits, fried salt pork, beans or rice, and always stewed prunes to “keep a fellow in good order.”[8]
In 1865, Matthew MacFie described a ranch established three years earlier and owned by a Mr. Davidson on 1,860 acres, with 175 acres under cultivation (mostly barley and oats): “There were about fifteen acres of potatoes, two acres of cabbage, one of turnips, one of onions, and several of corn, beans, parsnips and carrots. The ranch also had some of the best livestock in the province, eight yoke of working oxen, six to eight horses, and a good selection of farm implements, including a reaper, mower and threshing machine, which could thresh 1,000 bushels a day.” MacFie also stressed that farming lost favour because of the proximity of the gold strikes. A gold rush was a serious hindrance to agricultural development, because workers refused to stay on the farm.[9]
As the goldfields were depleted, the miners turned to the coal mines, or prospecting for jade. A very large number of Chinese miners resorted to fishing, market gardening, food industries such as the canning factories, domestic service, and the construction of the railway. By the late 1870s, there were four hundred Chinese cooks and servants in Victoria providing the only domestic service available to the well-to-do in that growing town. By then the two colonies, Vancouver Island and British Columbia, had united, and they joined the new Dominion of Canada in 1871. Two years later, Prince Edward Island entered Confederation.
Stuart Cumberland, FRGS, was commissioned by a syndicate of Australian, Indian, and English newspapers to cross Canada by rail as soon as the CPR’s last spike was driven on November 7, 1885: “I am positively the first person to go over the line of rail between the Pacific and the Atlantic in a journalistic sense,” he claimed. He was pleasantly surprised at his reception in New Westminster:
The principal hotel in New Westminster is most comfortable, and the table is excellent as well as abundant. Salmon cutlets and sturgeon steaks deliciously cooked, hot rolls, with pats of guinea gold butter, and jugs of fresh, thick cream and well-made tea and coffee graced the breakfast table; and the midday dinner included oyster soup, marrowbones, roast and boiled joints, and fat tender chicken. The vegetables were a treat in themselves, whilst luscious fruits of various kinds were in abundance at every meal. The charge per day was, I believe, from $1.50 to $2.00, a considerable reduction being allowed permanent boarders. Next to the Driard House at Victoria the hotel at New Westminster was decidedly the best house I “struck” from the Pacific to Manitoba.[10]
By the end of the nineteenth century, elaborate, illustrated brochures were being issued in an attempt to lure immigrants to the new province. Typical of these was Information for Immigrants, issued in 1875 by G.M. Sproat, agent-general in London, England, for British Columbia. To refute descriptions of Canada as the land of ice and snow, the author met the challenge head on: “The great snow question. British Columbia has not a snow winter. There is snow, but not much snow…. British Columbia has not a snowy winter such as Eastern Canada and the Northern States of the Union have. The British Columbia winter is the winter of England and of France.”
The advertising appears to have worked, for Canadians continue to note the parallels between the two. “A little bit of England” and “more English than England” are phrases that are often applied to British Columbia. We should not be surprised that tea and British Columbia or tea and Victoria have become almost synonymous, despite the growth and culinary diversity of the province.
The newly arrived British colonists built beautiful homes on large properties in Victoria. Every housewife had one day of each month set aside when her friends would join her in the drawing room for afternoon tea. The drawing room was the “special” room of any house where the best furniture, china, and pictures were displayed — no children were allowed there except by special permission. The usual tea at these occasions consisted of thinly sliced bread with butter and rock cakes. Before departing, it was customary for the guest to leave her calling card, which indicated that she would like her hostess to come to tea.[11]
The Empress Hotel, one of the magnificent hotels constructed for the Canadian Pacific Railway’s guests, opened in Victoria in 1908 and began serving afternoon tea in the Palm Court with its splendid dome of Japanese glass. The tradition lives on, not only in the romantic elegance of the Edwardian lobby but in scores of other tearooms, tea gardens, farms, hotels, inns, restaurants, and cafés in and around the city.
From the nineteenth-century immigrants of Chinese ancestry in British Columbia, one of the largest and most varied Oriental cuisines in North America has grown, while in Vancouver one of the largest Chinatowns in North America has arisen. Newcomers from Japan have, over the past century, also established their place in the province’s cuisine, popularizing Japanese food long before it was fashionable anywhere else in Canada.
Canadians of Chinese ancestry have made important contributions to our food industries for more than 150 years, and wherever we travel in Canada, there is a Chinese restaurant serving an excellent meal at a modest price.
In 1986, when British Columbia hosted Expo 86 in Vancouver, the world came to visit and learned of the province’s beauty, resources, and lush natural vegetation. Vancouver was the focus of the exposition, and many residents in the interior of the province felt they were being ignored. To counteract this criticism, then-premier Bill Bennett had the Coquihalla Highway built, a stunning ebony trail that runs from the outskirts of Hope to the Okanagan cities of Kelowna and Kamloops. This road, along with the Trans-Canada Highway, opened the interior of the province to the rest of the planet.
For Expo 86, Susan Mendelson wrote the Expo 86 Cookbook, and it, too, introduced the world to the cuisine of the host city and province. In her introduction, she tells us:
Just as the sixties health food craze started on the West Coast, so have many recent food trends that you now find
in large metropolitan, centres everywhere. The emphasis on food in Vancouver is on simplicity, lightness and freshness. This is reflected in the fresh salads and fish dishes that are served in our restaurants and homes. Diversity and sophistication are also stressed. Hot and cold hors d’oeuvres offered at most Vancouver parties now allow the diner to taste a little of everything — all without breaking the budget. Specialty food stores can be found in increasing numbers, reminding Vancouverites of the city’s varied ethnic make-up; and burgeoning produce markets keep us supplied with fresh fruit and vegetables from around the world.[12]
Susan and her partner, Deborah Reitberg, opened the Lazy Gourmet in 1979, specializing in new food ideas for their customers. It was in their store that Nanaimo Bars were first sold commercially, and in her book she gives us several variations on this Canadian favourite.
The Okanagan Valley has now become famous for producing some of Canada’s best fruit and vegetables (much of it organic), and it is the location of organic vineyards. Saltspring Island, with its incredibly moderate climate and ideal growing conditions, has become the home of many organic growers. It is a Mecca for all those interested in this growing movement, spurred by our concern for our environment and our food supply in the future.
The temperate climate, long growing season, and sheltered valleys make anything edible possible! As a result, fruit, vegetables, wine, edible flowers, artisanal beers, honey, and mushrooms are available locally and (usually) at all seasons of the year. Organic farms are multiplying and thriving, and their products continue to grow in popularity. Salmon, idolized by the First Nations, has become a favourite food of all West Coast residents and is usually the centrepiece of every special occasion.
CHAPTER TWELVE
“You Feed Your Pigs and Cattle More Scientifically Than You Feed Your Families” [1]
WITH THE TRAGIC DEATH OF JOHN HOODLESS, fourteen-month-old son of Adelaide Sophia Hunter Hoodless, in August 1889, a happy wife and mother was transformed into a domestic crusader. When doctors in Hamilton, Ontario, told her that her youngest child was stricken with “summer complaint” from drinking impure milk, Adelaide realized that if she, an educated woman, did not understand the scientific principles of running a household, how did those manage who did not have her advantages?
Adelaide began to lecture and lobby for the development of educational programs to train girls and women in the practical science of running a household. She also advocated an organization for women similar to the Farmers’ Institute, which had emerged in 1884 under the guidance of the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture. She became a well-known speaker, often accusing the men in her audience of lavishing more affection, money, and concern on the farm livestock than on the farm family. She also opened a cooking school in Hamilton and began to advocate for a school of domestic science (now the Macdonald Institute) at the Ontario Agricultural College at Guelph, Ontario.
On February 19, 1897, a meeting was held at Squire’s Hall in Stoney Creek, Ontario, to hear Adelaide’s message. Despite the weather, 101 women and one man travelled by foot and by horse and buggy to attend, and before the evening was over, they had unanimously endorsed her crusade and formed the first Women’s Institute (WI) in the world. No one present that night could have dreamed that this fledgling organization would pioneer in the field of women’s issues, the strengthening of family life, and the enrichment of rural communities — not only in their own province but across Canada and internationally.[2]
Erland Lee (a founding member of the Farmers’ Institute) and his wife, Janet, lived nearby and worked tirelessly to ensure the meeting’s success. They were to be rewarded by watching two other groups form before the end of the year: Whitby WI in York County and Kemble WI in Grey County. Within five years there were forty-four groups in Ontario, and the Agriculture and Arts Amendment Act of 1902 recognized and confirmed “The formation of Women’s Institutes for the purpose of improving rural home life, and of imparting information in regard to women’s work upon the farm.” The growth of the movement and its educational programs was phenomenal in the years leading up to the outbreak of World War I in 1914, with 843 branches and 25,000 members.[3] In 1915 a Junior WI was formed on Manitoulin Island, the first of many, thus recognizing that this growing educational program for homemakers should include girls and women of all ages.
In the 1920s, many branches became interested in historical research and began scrapbooks that recorded the early history of their communities (often reaching back to the First Nations), detailing the homes, farms, crops, livestock, stores, industries (such as dairies and cheese-making factories), churches, and schools. By 1947, when the movement was celebrating its fiftieth anniversary, these scrapbooks became the foundation for the Tweedsmuir Histories, which Lady Tweedsmuir, wife of Canada’s governor general, encouraged every branch to develop. Many of them contain a message from Lady Tweedsmuir:
FOREWORD
I am so glad to hear that the Women’s Institutes of Ontario are going to compile village history books. Events move very fast nowadays; houses are pulled down, new roads are made, and the aspect of the countryside changes completely sometimes in a short time.
It is a most useful and satisfying task for Women’s Institute members to see that nothing valuable is lost or for gotten, and women should be on the alert always to guard the traditions of their homes, and to see that water colour sketches and prints, poems and prose legends should find their way into these books. The oldest people in the village will tell us fascinating stories of what they remember, which the younger members can write down, thus making a bridge between them and events which happened before they were born. After all, it is the history of humanity which is continually interesting to us, and your village histories will be the basis of accurate facts much valued by historians in the future. I am proud to think that you have called them “The Tweedsmuir Village Histories.”
— Written by Lady Tweedsmuir.[4]
The Women’s Institutes, begun in the late nineteenth century in Ontario, have often been called universities for rural women. They have expanded around the world to educate girls and women in domestic scien
ce and bring them out of their kitchens to support community projects with innovative fundraising events.
Harold Nichol Collection
These books are invaluable research tools, since they record in detail the everyday life of rural Canada. What was grown in the gardens, fields, and orchards of Canadian farms, how many general stores there were in the village and what was on their shelves, who was raising dairy cattle, beef cattle, sheep, hogs, and chickens? All this and more filled their pages, collected by dedicated curators of the Tweedsmuir Histories, and at regular intervals, Tweedsmuir Teas were — and still are — held to display the volumes to the communities and to attract new members to the group.
Originally, a few women would gather in a member’s parlour to hold a meeting and discuss everyday household tasks such as churning butter, baking bread, or “putting down” preserves. A visiting speaker might discuss some aspects of food preparation or preservation. As time went on, many branches expanded both their activities and their horizons to benefit the whole community by developing or supporting libraries, hospitals, museums, and school programs; undertaking cemetery preservation; installing streetlights; and overseeing a host of other improvements. The members became successful fundraisers, organizing box socials, garden parties, bazaars, bake sales, special catered events, and community meals. Many members coordinated food tables at rural school fairs, introduced hot lunches in schools, and catered for plowing matches, a tradition still carried out today.
To support their expanding educational programs and community services, many WIs developed cookbooks to sell as an educational device, as a showcase for their culinary skills and, of course, as a means to raise funds. These books are much more than a collection of recipes, for they give us a unique, first-hand account of everyday life in the homes of rural Canadians. They usually begin with a brief history of the WI, such as this introduction to Out of Country Kitchens by Quebec Women’s Institutes:
Canadians at Table: Food, Fellowship, and Folklore Page 12
