In the latter half of 1867, the local news still featured stories about the new Confederation of Canada and how it was working out, but elsewhere in the local news of the day there were other items of interest.
Not that long ago, right here in B.C. in 2017, a highly colourful meteorite flamed its way across parts of the province and seems to have ended up in the Kootenays. In 1867 there was a similar sighting and it also attracted strong notice from our citizens.
Under the heading of “A Celestial Fugitive” we read: “A remarkably brilliant meteor made its appearance a few minutes after 10 o’clock on Thursday night, in the eastern horizon, shooting across the sky with great rapidity, it emitted blue and yellow light,”
As we have noted a number of times, our early community had a great affinity for presentations of all sorts including drama, recitations, theatricals, music, and so on. In the newspaper, the New Westminster Dramatic Club stated it was hoping to erect a venue for such presentations and was requesting a piece of land to lease or buy for this purpose in the middle of the town. The “notice to lot owners” makes this clear as they wanted “a lot that would be suitable as a site for the projected new theatre and ball room…within a radius of 300 yards from the junction of Columbia and Mary streets.” (Note that Mary Street was Sixth Street then.)
Also from 1867, an interesting comment on finding people to harvest crops, in this particular case, in B.C.’s Interior. This is an eye-opening item in which the general sentiment could have been written today. The article under the heading “Passing strange” read as follows:
“The weather continues considerably favourable for harvesting, but although $60 a month and board, is offered for farm labourers in the Interior we are assured that thousands of bushels of grain, and hundreds of acres of hay will rot on the ground, owing to the impossibility of procuring help. Think of that, $60 a month and found, offered, and no takers.”
