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Stuff about me
My favourite picture this week
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This user spends WAY too much time on Wikipedia and really needs to get off the computer... after one more edit. |
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This user is working on publishing a book.
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Hi, I'd like to introduce myself. I live in Prince George and was born in Creston. About eight years ago I became fascinated with the history of our local sternwheelers and the era of Grand Trunk Pacific Railway construction. So fascinated that I wrote, and am still working on, a lengthy historical romance novel series set in Prince George, Prince Rupert and Hazelton through 1909 to 1918. In the course of writing them, I've bought and studied many local history books, and have sets of old newspaper articles relating to that period. I have a passion for the pictures of that era too and have several albums of them that I collect. The real history of these towns is far more interesting than anything I could make up and it makes a wonderful background for a long story. The sternwheelers and the big hotels, the railroad, land speculating, the brothels, the honor, the corruption...ect...ect...
My research for these books often led me here to wikipedia, and still does. I'm only now beginning to realize the scope and importance of what wikipedia does and I am enjoying myself here. More writing for free, I guess can't get enough of it.[1] I'm also studying the Great War, and have researched BC's role in it for about three years now. I've read a little of the propaganda/books/poetry that was written in Germany and England before and during that war. HG Wells said that it was a war started by writers, and that seems true enough.
[edit] Sandbox
 My Sandbox
[edit] Commons
My page on Wikimedia Commons is here.
[edit] Some of my favorite fiction: kind of in order
I read fiction for joy and entertainment and to get lost in the world that the author created, so the bigger the better. But I also like to finish the book and be left with a feeling that all is right with the world, so I don't like anything too deep or gloomy. We can go to non-fiction if we want that and find plenty to choose from. So here's my list:
- JRR Tolkien Only me and a billion other people
- John Jakes
- Larry McMurty
- Jeffrey Deaver
- HG Wells
- Robert McCammon
- William Stuart Long
- Anton Myrer
- Ray Bradbury
- Stephen King
- Dean Koontz
- Greg Matthews
- Rudyard Kipling
[edit] Some of my favorite non-fiction
Canadian and world history:
- Pierre Berton
- Barbara Tuchman
- Eva Maclean
- Russell Walker
- Art Downs, Willis West, Norman Hacking and Wiggs O'Neill
- Jack Boudreau
And lots and lots more, I'll read anything once.
[edit] Did you know?
- ...that on average, laying the track leading up to the final spike of the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway cost $112,000 a mile?
- ...that William Moore was the earliest settler of Skagway, the famous gold rush town in the Klondike Gold Rush?
- ...that Gustavus Blin Wright, a pioneer road builder and entrepreneur in British Columbia, Canada, built the 127-mile-long Old Cariboo Road in 1862–3?
- ...that Irene Jordan of the South Fort George suburb of Prince George, British Columbia had owned a popular brothel that later became the first City Hall of Prince George?
- ...that the SS Moyie (pictured) was the last working sternwheeler in Canada and is the oldest intact sternwheeler in the world?
- that the Olson Hotel in Ainsworth, British Columbia had a two-story outhouse?
- ...that Christina Lake, British Columbia has the first golf course in Canada to offer black sand traps?
- ...that the Cody Caves are part of the setting of the children's book, The Kootenay Kidnapper by Canadian author Eric Wilson?
- ...that there were no police in Cascade City, British Columbia in 1897 and when thieves broke into a store, taking 150 pounds of tobacco, a book-keeper was sent to arrest the suspects?
- ...that the St. Eugene Mine in Moyie, British Columbia produced ten million dollars worth of ore between 1895 and 1905 and was considered to be the most important silver–lead mine in Canada?
- ...that Oblate missionary Nicolas Coccola spent 63 years in British Columbia working among the Shuswap, Kootenai, Dakelh, Sekani, Gitxsan, Hagwilget, Babine and Lheidli T'enneh First Nations?
[edit] Some funny things I've seen on Wikipedia lately
[edit] Editing milestones
- ^ My edit count
[edit] Articles I started and are ongoing
Chilco 1910
[edit] My first article
[edit] Which led to writing these
[edit] Which led to writing this
Inlander 1909
[edit] Which means I have wrote (should write) these
[edit] And couldn't (shouldn't) leave out these
Moyie and Kuskanook racing on Kootenay Lake (1908)
[edit] And then I wrote about these BC people
William Moore's Western Slope at Yale
All below need notes reformatted, some need notes and expansion
[edit] Along with these BC places
All need notes reformatted, some need notes and expansion and the settlement infobox
Omineca River
- 70 Mile House, British Columbia
- Ainsworth, British Columbia DYK
- Alexandria, British Columbia
- Cascade City, British ColumbiaDYK
- Cassiar Country
- Christina Lake, British ColumbiaDYK
- Cody CavesDYK
- Donald, British Columbia
- Dunster, British Columbia
- Giscome Portage
- Horsefly, British Columbia
- Millar Addition
- Moyie, British ColumbiaDYK
- Paddlewheel Park
- Quesnel Forks, British Columbia
- South Fort GeorgeDYK
- Tete Jaune Cache, British Columbia
[edit] And also these BC events
All need notes reformatted, some need notes and expansion
Bedaux Expedition in the Peace River Country
[edit] Other articles I contributed to a lot
All need notes reformatted, some need notes and expansion
Colonial Hotel at Soda Creek
[edit] Other articles I contributed to a little
Harry Colebourn and Winnie
[edit] Main "to do" list
[edit] What I'd like to get to Aug-Sept
Make these ship articles:
- Northwest (sternwheeler)
- Distributor (sternwheeler)
- Omineca (sternwheeler)
- Nelson (sternwheeler)
Go over early sternwheeler articles and improve them as much as possible. Y Done
Go over biography articles and improve them as much as possible.
Expand and add pictures to:
and create:
- Phoenix, British Columbia
Help with clean-up of:
[edit] What I've been procrastinating over and must get to
[edit] BC articles that need creation (people)
- George Ainsworth
- Joseph Bucey
- Charles Bulkley
- John Calbreath
- Peter Dunlevy
- Stuart Henderson
- Frank Laumeister
- Billy Moore (steamship captain)
- James Reid
- Charles Seymour (steamship captain)
- James Trahey
- Alexander Watson (shipbuilder)
- Alexander Watson Jr (shipbuilder)
[edit] BC articles that need creation (towns)
[edit] BC articles that need creation (gold rush)
- Atlin Gold Rush
- Cassiar Gold Rush
- Overlanders (British Columbia)
- Peace River Gold Rush
- Stikine Gold Rush
- Waddington's Road
[edit] Existing BC articles to be expanded (people)
Robert Cunningham Needs pic too
[edit] Existing BC articles to be expanded (towns and places)
[edit] Existing BC articles to be expanded (gold rush)
- Vessels of the Lakes Route
- Chilcotin War Although not any time soon. I find the the topic a bit overwhelming and difficult to find sources for and am more comfortable working on its associated articles.
[edit] Misc stuff to do
- Category: Northern Interior of British Columbia related. Figure out main articles for the ones missing them: Greater Prince George, Bulkley and Skeena. And figure out where boundaries are in the categories to be: Atlin, Nass and Liard.
- Pacific Western Brewery
- Salmon Valley
- Bridges of Hazelton
[edit] Awards
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