Shloomack

The Province of 8 August 1926 includes an interview with Jason Allard, who, claimed the Province reporter Victor Harbord Harbord, "knows all there is to be known of Fraser Valley Indians." Jason Allard, (almost 80) told him a Gothic tale about "Slough Moug" and his brother "S'Mamqua," originally from Nanaimo, who settled at Stave Lake "and murdered everyone that ventured into their territory."

The account refers to an article by a Mr. S.A. Fletcher that I found in The Province of 27 June 1926. Click here for a transcript. Fletcher reminisced about his early years fishing and hunting at Pitt Lake, "long before the gas engine was thought of," and told the story of his encounters with old Chief Swampkwa and the widow of his brother Shloomack. [A 1878 census (see May postings) shows the spelling of the name of the chief as Tsa mem.kwah.]

Old Chief Swamkwa, who saw his people diminish around him, "did not like the white man: he had been cheated and abused by them," but there is no reference to Slumach's end in this account and nothing that would hint at a violent reputation of this old gentleman or his brother Shloomack. Nor is there any reference to gold in Fletcher's story.

It still looks as if Jason Allard's phantasmagorical story is the first where Slumach is connected with the gold in Pitt Lake country.

S. A. Fletcher may have been Sidney Ash Fletcher, who died in December 1934, 78 years of age, at New Westminster. A Sidney Ashe [sic] Fletcher appears from 1903 until 1911 as collector for the Provincial voters list for Delta, Dewdney and Richmond and New Westminster city.