Tales of a Pioneer Journalist: From Gold Rush to Government Street in 19th Century Victoria

Charlene Porsild is an assistant professor of history at Simon Fraser
University.

David Williams Higgins was a notable public figure who came to British
Columbia during the 1858 Fraser Valley gold rush. Two years later, he
moved to Victoria, joining the staff of the Colonist, the paper he later
purchased. For the next half-century, he devoted himself to public life
as a journalist, philanthropist, and politician. When he retired from
public life in 1897, he wrote two collections of stories about life in
B.C. Tales of a Pioneer Journalist is a selection of these delightful
and readable tales.

While the stories are offered as part of the documentary history of
B.C., their value is severely limited by the absence of a proper
introduction. The two-page biographical sketch of Higgins provides no
context for the stories. Characters and events are not interpreted, and
the stories are presented more or less as a memoir. Yet there is much
room here to interpret the man Higgins was and the class to which he
belonged by examining the way he describes encounters with women, Native
people, and other ethnic groups. The absence of historical context
detracts considerably from the book’s value as a documentary text or
teaching tool.