Ginger Goodwin: Beyond the Forbidden Plateau

John Marshall was Associate Professor of Library and Information Science at the University of Toronto.

This is an imaginative reconstruction of the life and death of Albert “Ginger” Goodwin, an early labour organizer in the West. After leading a prolonged strike in Trail, B.C., although already classified by his doctor as D (unfit for combat), he was suddenly reclassified A and drafted for service in World War I. The year was 1918; war fever and anti-labour feeling were strong in the land. Working conditions in the mines and basic industries were deplorable, and the nascent labour movement, in the face of brutal employer resistance and collusion with police and the army, was flexing its muscles with increasing militancy. Goodwin fled to the Forbidden Plateau on Vancouver Island with other draft evaders, close to friends in a local mining community. Sought out and gunned down by the police, Goodwin became an instant hero-martyr. After a memorable funeral in Cumberland, workers in Vancouver responded by calling Canada’s first general strike. Goodwin’s assailant was “tried” and declared free of blame.

Hanebury recreates Ginger’s life and his interaction with workers, friends, and enemies, each of whom fills in parts of the story, in alternate fashion, from his or her point of view. These very human “recollections” are effectively woven into the fabric of historical fact. Among the most important of these reconstructed figures are Reverend Menzies, who gradually becomes a champion of Goodwin and his cause and leader of the People’s Party of British Columbia; Sam Clark, a local labour leader of great integrity; and Sam’s daughter, Sarah, with whom Goodwin has an affair, who is permanently deranged by his murder and spends her life institutionalized, waiting for his return. For the most part, these people come vividly to life in this tragic and quirky tale. Here is another important but near-forgotten piece of our history restored to memory by a committed writer and a dedicated regional publisher.