A few weeks ago, we published the first of a two part post featuring our second cousin, Leopold George Duncan Galwey Foley (1888-1984).
Stories of Leo's life always fascinated my father.
A rebel, an adventurer, a hunter, a miner, an engineer, a hermit, a jeweler, an Army deserter, an Army hero, a curmudgeon- all describe our cousin Leo at various stages of his life.
To catch up, please check out:
After serving valiantly in World War I - in an albeit unconventional manner - as a Driver of Horse-Drawn Artillery with the Canadian Field Artilly Battalion, we next find Leo on the Eastern Slopes of the Cariboo Mountain Range in British Columbia.
No single event in history did more to create British Columbia than the discovery of gold in the Cariboo Mountains during the 1860s.
This Gold Rush precipitated the chain of events that led to connecting Canada from sea to sea.
When the miners first came to that "uncivilized" country, it had only been known to the indigenous Indians and to the fur traders of the Hudson Bay Company.
It was a remote and forbidding place. With this onslaught of miners and those businesses which accommodated them, came "Law, Order and Government" on behalf of the British Crown.
Not far from Vancouver, a Hudson Bay fort was established at Yale in 1848.
With the discovery of gold in 1858, Yale became a roistering mining town. Within a year, over 30,000 people swarmed up the Frazer River.
Yale was the end of navigation on that part of the River and the beginning of the Cariboo Wagon Road.
The most recent of many "rushes" in the Cariboo Gold Fields was in the 1930s.
About 150 miles north of Yale, Leo entered "Gold Country" near the Quensel Lake.
He first worked in The Bullion Mine near the abandoned mining settlement of Quensel Forks - the oldest mining camp in the Cariboo Region.
Today Quesnel Forks is BC's last remaining ghost town, dating back to 1858.
By the early 1860's, gold fever was rampant at the forks of the Quesnel and Cariboo Rivers and "The Forks" quickly became a rowdy gold camp attracting close to 5,000 people.
Even after prospectors moved further north, the Forks remained a busy centre until bypassed by the Cariboo Wagon Road.
By 1875, it became a thriving Chinese community with over 200 merchants and miners. The site had several revivals, but during the 1920's most of the area mines closed and by 1956, it was abandoned.
In 1935, the Bullion Pit became the site of the largest hydraulic monitors ever installed in North America.
It operated from 1892 to 1942, constructing over 64 kilometres of canals to draw water from nearby lakes and creeks to feed the hydraulic nozzles.
In fact, Morehead Lake was created to supply water to the Bullion mine. Today, the Bullion Pit stands as an astonishing man-made canyon.
A forlorn marker now reminds the tourist: "The largest man-made hole on earth."
Leo staked his claim nearby at Likely.
Following in the style of the early placer miners, he sifted through river sand panning for gold nuggets.
In the 1930s, Leo started noticing more and more people coming through the Connaught Tunnel as they followed the Cariboo Wagon Trail.
Some were trappers; some were ranchers; some were loggers. They came from many different walks of life and they all came prospecting for gold.
Men who prospect, either full or part time, are a breed apart.
They are happiest when they have mountain ranges to roam, rivers to explore or boulders to bulldoze with the stick of dynamite that was usually hidden under their bed.
The first twenty minutes from Leo's cabin was a downhill hike along a steep footpath through a cathedral of Douglas Fir and Lodge Pole Pines.
The path continued onward through a hole in a roadside hedge and onto the gravel forest road.
Here, as he would say, the "bohereen" begins. The bohereen is what they call an unpaved, narrow country lane in Leo's native county Clare.
To Leo, this landscape was reminiscent of the famous Slieve Elva in the Burren beyond the village of Lisdoonvarna on the Corkscrew Pass near his birthplace in county Clare.
If you are traveling to this area , you will need to be driving a four-wheel drive jeep - equipped with ropes, shovel, water and an axe - all stored in the "boot".
Road repair crews can only do so much to maintain the next 75 miles in order to keep the road open for most of the year.
However, trekking to Leo's cabin on foot along that gravel road beside the Quensel River Rapids is the more exciting way to make the trip.
In season, bears can be spotted fishing for salmon in the nearby spawning pools.
Leo recalled once witnessing a nine foot Black Bear tearing at dead trees seeking worms and grubs.
Suddenly, he saw two woodpeckers begin diving at him - eventually chasing him off!
During the Depression of The Hungry Nineteen Thirties, Leo's parents had retired in Dublin. About his life in the Cariboo Mountains, his family knew only what Leo chose to reveal in his letters home.
Unbeknownst to them, Leo was "working for the government" three half days a week.
In this 50s by this time, he worked shoveling and grading the forest roads around Cedar Creek Canyon - many miles off the Cariboo Wagon Trail - to clear a trail through the Canyon - slashing it out - to allow people, hunters and horses to pack through.
Leo became known as "Tim" among his friends in the Cariboo.
He seems to have spent his long life battling the forces around him.
Leo has been described as
".... An independent gentleman: secretive, suspicious,
perhaps a little afraid of life .....
Maybe not wanting to be hurt anymore...."
For over 25 years, he lived in his one-room log cabin situated on top of a high river bank set 200 feet above the rapids of the Quensel River. Hidden in a cathedral of Douglas Fir, he worked his claim mining for gold nuggets.
He did find "colors" in his pan - but, not much.
The Mother Lode in the Cariboo has yet to be discovered. But, hope springs eternal that the newly found casual scuff of rock might turn up the Big Nugget that had been missed by the thousands of previous hunters.
In his own way, Leo was a colorful and unique miner.
As he faced advancing age and ill health, a group of loyal friends - big-hearted Cariboosters- eventually prevailed upon the weakened, independent- minded old son of an Irish gentleman.
They were able to convince him to come down from his embattled mountain retreat to find sanctuary with them in the nearby town.
In 1980 at age 92, Leo was the oldest resident at The Cariboo Lodge on Williams Lake to win the Annual Walkathon Challenge against Dunrovin Lodge in Quesnel.
To participate in the Challenge, entrants were required to walk at least thirty minutes a day - for 142 days. Each day represented a kilometer. 142 days equaled 142 kilometers which is the distance between the two Lodges.
At Williams Lake, about 75 miles from the claim he had staked and mined alongside the Cariboo Wagon Trail at Likely, the marker on Tim's grave reads:
+ Galwey Foley, Leo (Tim) 1887-1984
Rest in Peace.
APPENDEX
April 4, 2018
The Archivist at Blackrock College, Ms Carolyn Mullen, was kind enough to send me the following story which she found in the Galwey-Foley Files at the College.
Although this indicates that Leo might have been a Blackrock student, there are no records on file for him.
EPILOGUE
History gives a nation its bearing on what it is and how its people are affected by what has happened in the past.
Its kings and queens, its wars - with victories and defeats - these all mold a nation’s culture into the way it views itself in the present.
In the same way, a family history presents how a family has survived and come to terms with the great social and cultural experiences of the ages.
We hope these stories will give each member of our family a foundation and, in some small way, explain how we came to be what we are today.
Hopefully, through these vignettes, our future generations will gain a knowledge of the energy and dynamism, the loves and hates, the errors and mistakes, the victories and failures, the struggles and successes that make us what we are.
Our family history presents a fascinating read - and, hopefully, some lessons to be learned in the process.
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