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Born to Die
"We taught our children to be delinquents." So wrote lifelong criminal Joe Gordon before he was hanged at British Columbia's Oakalla Prison Farm in 1957 for shooting a policeman during a failed robbery. In a letter he scrawled in his jail cell, Gordon described his downfall and made a plea to parents to love and care for their children so they wouldn't end up like him. "Born to Die" is the story of Gordon's sensational trial, set against the backdrop of Vancouver's seedy underworld amid a time of widespread police corruption. His final words are as relevant today as they were then, for although he lived and died in 1950s Vancouver, his tragic life and path to oblivion can be walked at any time and in any community in North America.
Dr. Fred and the Spanish Lady
In the wake of SARS and H1N1, this story of medical health officer Dr. Fred Underhill and his battle against the 1918 Spanish influenza that killed 25 to 50 million people worldwide is particularly relevant. Underhill is symbolic of the senior public health officers in cities across Canada and the U.S. who mounted the best defence they could against the killer flu. His vision, his tireless efforts, and his dialogue with colleagues in Seattle and elsewhere saved many lives. And his patient advice and findings are still relevant today as we await the new viral epidemics that undoubtedly lie ahead. In their enlightening account of the events of that era, authors O'Keefe and Macdonald have crafted a compelling story of people coming together in a time of crisis.
The Mulligan Affair
Starting in July 1955 and carrying through to the spring of 1956, the Tupper Inquiry, which was investigating the activities of Chief Constable Walter Mulligan and the Vancouver Police Department, was front-page news. Every evening at 6:10 p.m. precisely, virtually every radio that could pick up the signal turned the dial to Jack Webster on CJOR. Could Mulligan really be in cahoots with local bookies? Could Vancouver's chief constable be a 'top cop on the take?" The Mulligan affair had everything it takes to make headlines: death, graft, bootleggers, bookies, corruption, hookers, gambling, cops and politicians with memory loss and a veiled mystery lady.
The Klondike's "dear Little Nugget"
Contains excerpts from the Klondike nugget.
Canadian Holy War
Scottish nursemaid Janet Smith was the victim of a 1924 tragedy that ignited racial tension in a very young Vancouver. At the core of the issue were the mysterious circumstances surrounding Smith's death, particularly the fact that the only other adult in the house at the time was the Chinese houseboy. When Smith's death was followed by the assassination of Davie Lew, a well-known Chinese man, it only strengthened the European view that Vancouver's Asian community was a hotbed of violence and corruption. Newspaper editors and most of Vancouver's white community raised an outcry, charging the police with incompetence and demanding arrests, while Presbyterian indignation called for law and order as well as an end to Chinese immigration. Before the summer was over, the tongs of Chinatown and the clans of Canada's West Coast were set to defend their own, and one Scottish minister went so far as to declare it a time of "holy war."
The Final Voyage of the Princess Sophia
October 25, 1918, is the day that goes down in history as the Inside Passage's worst maritime disaster. More than 350 people lost their lives and the CPR's British Columbia Coast Service was forever tarnished when the Princess Sophiawent down off Vanderbilt Reef in Lynn Canal between Skagway and Juneau, Alaska. In this book, the authors relive the tragedy of the Princess Sophiaand her last voyage and tackle questions that still linger. Was the sinking really just a "peril of the sea," as the inquiry concluded? This story explores the heroic efforts of those who answered the SOS and tried to save the passengers and crew but were later the ones to recover bodies instead.
Merchant Prince
Everyone who lives in the western provinces of Canada has been affected by Alexander Duncan McRae. That's why Betty O'Keefe and Ian Macdonald believe the man deserves more than fleeting references in Canadian history books. McRae was Vancouver's 'merchant prince', a businessman, a self-made aristocrat who lorded over Hycroft, the finest home on the west coast (now the home of the Women's University Club).
The Sommers Scandal
In 1953, Forests Minister Robert E. Sommers was one of the most powerful men in BC, able to influence the province's major industry, forestry, with a stroke of his pen. Five years later he plummeted from the heights when he was sent to jail for conspiracy and accepting bribes. The Sommers scandal was the first and biggest stain on the record of Premier W.A.C. Bennett's Socreds. Betty O'Keefe and Ian Macdonald have recreated those stormy days of the mid-1950s, when Sommers, Bennett, Attorney General Robert Sommers, Phil Gaglardi and Gordon Gibson rocked the rafters of the Legislature with bellowed accusations and denials. Weaving interviews with major players and the media reports of the day, they show the relentless process by which Sommers was finally brought to trial, and reveal the confusing array of verdicts for Sommers and his co-accused. The Sommers story is also the story of BC's forest industry. The forest-management system was under attack and investigation as the Sommers scandal unfolded, and the decisions made in the 1950s set the course for the death of logging towns, the corporate concentration and the crisis of overcutting some 30 years later.
Scandal!!
Lotus Land's scandals of the past 130 years may seem to be all about money, but there's also been sex, corruption, staggering incompetence and outright lies. Jump aboard as veteran political junkie William Rayner explores BC's scandal-ridden history. Read about the comely juror and the murder suspect, the two politicians who fell in love on the job, the crooked cops, the scam artists, the double-talking bureaucrats and--above all--the fast ferries from hell.
