Monday 29 December 2008

False Creek Record

One of the surprises in Don Waite’s recovered collection of Pitt Lake papers is a note written on 29th July 1951 by City Archivist Major J.S Matthews to Vancouver Sun journalist Tom Ardies. The note reads:
The story of the "Lost Creek Mine" is pure rubbish; it was invented about 25 years ago, and has been improved upon until now. Certain weak mind[s] accept it as true.
There are several such stories. Several appeared first in the False Creek Record.
Click on the picture for an enlargement of the note.
Major Matthews’s notes at the City of Vancouver Archives reveal that the False Creek Record never existed and that articles claimed to have been taken from this phantom publication appeared in the Province, between approximately 1900 and 1910, and not in the 1920s. Clearly I must spend some time perusing the Province to look for the “several” Lost Creek gold stories Major Matthews refers to.

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