David Milton McGowan

Chetwynd the logging / mining town 100 km to the east has a chain saw carving contest every summer and this year was no exception. These artists do some phenomenal work with machines of many sizes while I’m having a great day if I can get mine to cut straight.. I have been intending to stop and take some pictures of a few of the two dozen sculptures situated about the town and finally took time to get two. Many are cut from a single log. Pegasus, which has been placed in front of the town hall is one of those that has attached parts; the wings, of course. In the second one Mama Eagle is banking around the tree trunk and bear as two young eagles look out of the nest.  

I’ve been working on a story that has a “crime baron” operating in New Westminster , BC in 1881. I’ve found the research interesting, due to the great changes that were taking place at the time. For instance, Vancouver did not come into existance until five years later and twenty years later was a thriving city and one of the more important ports on the Pacific coast. However, more about that in a later post. For now, I was just looking through some of the material I collected for “Jake’s Justice” and “Cattle Business” and thought I would post some of those items. “Cattle Business” takes place west of Edmonton in the early 1890s and has to do with some of the unlikely people who, despite their lack of a proper background, eventually became the developers of Canadian Agriculture. It also introduces an aboriginal policeman. According to a couple of sources I discovered the BC Provincial Police appointed “Special Constables” (a policeman’s responsibility, little training and n...