Bamfield Years: Recollections

Robert B. Jaeggin was a history teacher and a librarian with the Toronto Public Library.

The Trans-Pacific Cable Station at Bamfield was the Canadian link in the world’s longest underwater cable, extending 4,000 miles into the Pacific Ocean. In 1930, R. Bruce Scott was transferred from his native Australia to join the small staff at the Bamfield Station, situated in an isolated fishing village on the west coast of Vancouver Island.

Transportation was restricted to boat and airplane until a road was built in 1963. Scott, therefore, adapted to a pioneer-like lifestyle in the beautiful natural environment of the Canadian West Coast, constructing a cabin for his family on a site previously occupied by an Ohiaht Indian longhouse.

The Bamfield area is one of the most thickly wooded in the world, so dense, in fact, that only the smallest birds could penetrate parts of it. “The silence was sepulchral,” in contrast to Scott’s native Australian bushland always filled with the sounds of birds. As Scott describes it, the primaeval forest is indeed most impressive, but this is also a story of an enterprising and determined immigrant who took an inordinate interest in his new environment.

To supplement his personal experiences with the local Indians and fishermen, he later researched the region’s history at the Provincial Archives in Victoria, comprising the material of three earlier books on the Southwest Coast of Vancouver Island.

Bamfield Years is a pleasant yarn. Scott has divided the book into small chapters, making it very easy to read. One might have welcomed an additional chapter on the actual operations of the cable station, particularly, given its importance during the war. Nonetheless, the research and personal experiences of the author in an area not often written about is a fine contribution to the literature of Canadiana.