Lytton, BC

Lytton B.C. had a devastating fire this summer. July 1, 2021. Canada Day. Often the village held the record for the hottest place in Canada. This year a temperature was recorded at 49.6 C. (122.2 f) Situated in the Fraser Canyon, 258 km (160 mi) north of Vancouver where the South Thompson River meets the mighty Fraser River. 

 

I had ridden my motorcycle on the popular Duffy Lake Loop many times and you pass through Lytton as part of the ride. The blending rivers are far below. I also worked there while filming the movie, The Pledge, with Jack Nicholson.  Lytton was small but held a certain charm and I was captivated by an abandoned house, right on the main street and thought it looked pretty enough to deserve restoration as a regional information center. And my imagination led me to write this on my website:

 

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 old  homestead  dreams

 

 Lytton House

 

Sometimes you can write your own history to a photograph ... 

Spring, 1883

Honey, I got the job working on building the railroad now so we can stay right here in Lytton!  I will be on maintenance. and I found a great building lot for a house.

I can't wait for you to see this area.  The mountains are sometimes purple and blue, and the pines are always green.  The wide river gorge is really beautiful.

The lot I picked is right on the main thoroughfare.  We can build our own house and I can do a lot of the designing and building myself, you know I am good with carpentry and I don't care how hard the work is. We'll make our house real nice, it'll be the best one in town.  And we'll have the kitchen so you can always see the views. It'll be a real kitchen too, not like the cubby hole in New Westminster.  We'll have a big fireplace for winter, there's lots of pinewood windfalls around, and I'll make a nice porch on the shady side for summer. 

You'll feel free up here, Honey, the sky never ends and the air is even sweet to breathe. And we'll have 3 kids, two boys and a girl, with a big grassy front yard for them to play in. And we'll plant an apple tree so they'll always have rosy cheeks. And a vegetable garden in the back. And there's fish in the rivers too, we can almost eat for nothing.

The River Trail comes through here, and the Wagon Road going to the Cariboo gold.  And now they're prospecting up the Thompson River too. So there is a real future here. Now don't laugh, but you might even see a camel! Once the railroad is done there will be more settler people too. Families. Folks like us. You'll be able to sell your delicious pies to the travelers and miners. I know you'll love it here.

Lytton will be a good place for us to settle, Honey. I have promise of a long term job with the railroad company. We can make a good life.  I will buy the building lot.  I can't wait to get started.

Send me a return letter, no never mind, just get here as soon as you can.  We are too young to be apart any longer.

You know I miss you.

God speed.

 

  ... I would love to see this beautiful old house preserved by Lytton
as a heritage site, or perhaps restored as a tourist information center,
but I fear it will disappear to developers soon. 

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Alas, that is no longer possible. The fire raging nearby approached the village and took only 20 minutes to turn it to horrific flames. People had to jump into their cars and escape with what they had on. About 250 lived there with about 1500 in the First Nations community also evacuated with only minutes notice. 90% of the town was burnt down as well as the Chinese History Museum. Artifacts of its record became ash.

Some say they will rebuild and start over again. Perhaps they will. The people of Lytton didn't live there because it was easy, they are hardy people who are not afraid of work and we hope they succeed.

Now I am glad I snapped this picture of what I named Lytton House, as it preserves a quiet memory for me, with thoughts of hope for the future, and perhaps a bit of our Lytton village for you too.

 

 

 

 

 

HongKongers

In April 1975 I was in Hong Kong. It was British then and a fascinating city for a Canadian. Full of energy and human action. Today HongKongers feel they are a unique people who with their freedoms over a hundred years have built something special that needs no suppression of their dynamic spirit. 

 

We stayed in Tsim Sha Tsui in Kowloon and had a nice hotel right on Nathan Road. The old Kai Tak airport was only a narrow strip of reclaimed land that jutted from the main waterfront into Victoria Harbour circled by high buildings. The pilot flies over the tops and there was no glide path, so he has to suddenly cut power and drop between those skyscrapers, but crank it on again about half way down to get going and avoid being a splat! Then you look out the window and the wings seem over the water because the tarmac is so narrow. You appreciate the skill of airline pilots. 

 

And you soon discover the bus drivers' skill too as they race their double-deckers on a tortuous route through the city, narrowly missing overhanging awnings and surging crowds. Hong Kong may be British but it's not London,

You visit Hong Kong Island via the Star Ferry. When you want to cross from Kowloon you just run aboard and toss your money into a huge funnel and are never sure if they actually count it. 

You might see a rare Chinese Junk passing with orange sails, or witness people in the Causeway Bay Typhoon Shelter who live their whole lives in little sampans. Or go to the magical Tiger Balm Gardens and buy a little vial for aches and pains. And it works! 

Although the riches of Hong Kong were evident in the fantastic array of modern high buildings and Rolls Royces, the poor were visible too. Living in grey tents or a lean-to on the hillside with only a piece of corrugated tin for shelter, sometimes whole families eked out a living by making plastic flowers or little toys and dolls. Cooking in tiny pots. Julia Child once said the Chinese were the best cooks because they could make their food taste the same wherever they were in the world!

 

While we were there Chiang Kai-Shek died. April 5, 1975. He was the Nationalist revolutionary and military leader of the Republic of China from 1928 to his death in Taipei, on Taiwan island, the last stand of the free Chinese against the Communist hordes that still rule today. What was called Mainland China then, and wants now to eliminate Taiwanese democracy from China. Like Beijing has done with those brave HongKongers who resisted as long as they could. Taiwan may be the last of Free Chinese.

 

In 1975 you had to escape to Hong Kong from China. While we watched on the news of Chiang Kai-Shek's passing, the hillsides bloomed with the red and blue flags of the Republic lamenting the event. And it seemed that however poor those hardy people struggling on the slopes were, they loved their freedom more than cowing to the communist regime and needed to show it to the world.

 

Says something about their mettle, doesn't it?  

 

  

Note: In 1842 China ceded Hong Kong Island to Britain in perpetuity,  (Treaty of Nan King)  followed by the Kowloon peninsula (Convention of Peking) in 1860, also to the British in perpetuity. The lease was up on the New Territories only in 1997. Many China watchers feel the Brits betrayed the people of Hong Kong.