January 9, 1983
Article from the Islander supplement to the Daily Colonist
By Elizabeth Gordon
From the time James Dougan set foot on the Island, Dougan has been a name associated with local history. The patriarch of the family came from Ireland, but did not travel directly to Canada, having first gone to Australia. From the city of Sydney, he went to California, on hearing tales of the Gold Rush, and eventually came to the Cowichan Valley. In the heavily timbered area where he settled, the first problem was clearing the land. People then had no horses, but they did have oxen to help in the work. To dispose of stumps they used to drill the top of them, then bore a hole in the bottom and light a fire which burned the stump, and the remains were then grubbed out.
James Dougan was the first in that region to start a dairy farm and send milk to Victoria by train. His cows were probably Holsteins and they produced a lot of milk.
Once he had become established, Dougan went back to the Old Country to pick up his wife and family. Their first home was a log house and originally it had an earthen floor. It wasn’t until the 1890s that they build the old homestead—a big rambling house with many bedrooms which originally had both upper and lower verandahs, though the upper one was later taken off. The location was picturesque, overlooking as it did the Cowichan Valley.
It was a busy life for Dougan and his wife. There were 15 children in all, 12 boys and three girls. Everyone worked very hard. Dougan had bought a great deal of land at a very low price. He had Chinese help on the farm, but there was still a lot for the family to do.
James Dougan died in 1915, and his wife in 1922. Mrs Dougan is remembered by her grandson, Ray Dougan, himself an energetic, industrious man, who, like his grandparents before him, made a name for himself in his community.
In 1938 Dougan, who’d trained as a car mechanic, married Vivian, his wife. Eventually he owned the shop where he had worked and he had seven employees. But he was the benefactor of the community, as well, installing the water system which served first the garage, and later the whole village of Shawnigan.
He built the first fire truck, too, which served the area. He was impressed with the necessity of having a fire truck after the community had burned.
Then, too, Dougan was responsible for the bus from Shawnigan to the main highway—another first for the region.
He was responsible for the first ambulance service and tells some harrowing tales of transporting critically ill people out of the mountain area to the hospital in bad weather. “One day,” relates Dougan, “we got a call by radio—I think it was near Christmas time. The weather was terrible, the wind was blowing a gale and it was snowing. It was a really bad night. I took my wife’s brother along and also put in the crosscut—we had no power saws in those days. We took a shovel with us and we had to dig snow out of a lot of places to get going. But finally we came to a spot where there was a huge tree across the road. It was about 15-18 miles from Shawnigan in a heavily timbered area.
Dougan goes on to say: “We were stalled and I knew we couldn’t make it. There was already a foot of snow. We were trying to get to a woman who had toxemia in pregnancy, and to get her to the hospital.”
Finally Dougan decided to leave his brother-in-law at the car while he himself went on ahead. He walked for miles and miles in the dark as his flashlight had quit working. It took him four hours of walking in the freezing cold with the icy wind tugging at his clothing before his saw anyone. He got down to a place called Fleetwood Creek, a mile from what he called the “end of steel” (end of the railway) and saw the railway speeder operator there.
“Somehow I ran across him, even though I couldn’t see in the dark,” says Dougan. I said: ‘Well Andy, I can’t make it. There’s a tree in the road.’ So we walked back to the speeder, where the sick woman was, a distance of a mile in the pitch dark, and went down to what we called the Bear Creek Camp, four miles away. But we had to wait until morning when the crew came out with the bulldozer before we could be on our way with the sick lady.”
On another occasion Dougan once brought a young Indian woman to hospital. Once again it was winter and there was a lot of snow. He had to go to the “end of steel” with the vehicle he used to transport sick people at the time: a big Pierce Arrow with four speed transmission and room for seven passengers. It was equipped with heavy chains.
The ”cat” was out working when Dougan went up the mountain, and he had to wait for the “cat” to come along before he could proceed. Finally he got down to the beach and picked up the young lady and her grandfather who was with her. It started to snow very heavily—huge flakes. Dougan was kept busy shovelling out the car when it bogged down in the snow. The young woman was moaning, stretched out in the back seat of the car, but Dougan was thankful to hear the moans. At least it meant the woman was still alive.
She was finally transported safely to hospital, but didn’t arrive until 7:30. It had taken them all night to get there. Dougan believed she survived the ordeal, but he says that often he didn’t hear what happened to the many people he took to hospital.
Another adventure concerned getting a message to a man logging way up the mountain. There was a railroad up the mountain, “all switchback,” but no road. They had what Dougan calls “logging engines” on the railroad then. “They had a shaft that went along to all the wheels with gears so they all drove. The wheels were relatively small, but had lots of power on the hills.”
Dougan was asked how much he would charge to get the message though to Shawnigan Lake Camp. It was a sad occasion. A man’s wife was dying in hospital. The man himself was an engineer. Dougan offered to take the message to him for $4.50, which was considered a goodly sum in those days.
His problem was how to get up to where the man was working.
The river ran below the mountain, but there was a huge tree that had fallen across it, forming a natural bridge. He drove by car to the river, went across the tree on foot, and from there he tramped through the bush, crossing the railway switchbacks as he did so.
“I got up to the camp and there was a fellow there named Frank Lee, a big, tall Irishman, who was the cook. There was also the timekeeper in his office. I went to him and asked if I could get a message though to my man, but the timekeeper refused and said that I must wait until the working day was over at five o’clock before the man could see me.”
“My message was urgent—I couldn’t wait. The railroad speeder was sitting right there on the siding. In those days they had engines like car engines, but speeders were open, no cab on them or anything. They had a seat (a piece of board) and a go ahead and reverse lever and brakes. But they did a good job. They’d go right up the hills.”
Dougan was eyeing the speeder when the time-keeper reiterated that Dougan could not have the man come down to talk to him before five. When Dougan stepped over to the cookhouse, Frank Lee urged him to take the speeder.
Suiting action to the words, Dougan got in the speeder and away he went up the main line. The timekeeper came out, missed the speeder and started to yell. But Dougan was already on his way to the top of the mountain. He eventually found his man working a big steam machine in the bush. He and Dougan set off in the speeder. They came down from the camp to where the Swedish section foreman named Gus was supervising a number of Chinese men working on the track. Dougan knew it was Gus’s prerogative to run the speeder so he told Gus. “We have to go all the way down to the river.”
Gus got on the speeder, pulled his hat down over his head, put the speeder in go-ahead gear, opened the throttle, and away they went. If they had all been astride a wild stallion they wouldn’t have had a more exciting a ride. There were times when Dougan thought the leave the tracks when it went round a bend. But Dougan was able to get the man back to civilization, though he never saw him again.
Dougan had a wife and family with him when he embarked on another adventure. It was 1960 and the Dougans drove 9,000 miles, mostly over grave roads, to Alaska.
“We wore out two sets of tires,” says Dougan. “But we saw everything in the way of wildlife except grizzlies. We did, however, see black bears. We camped on the way, having brought a tent along, but none of the animals bothered us. It was summer, the early part of July, and the weather was lovely. Among the places we visited were Mt McKinley, Dawson City and Anchorage.”
The couple and five of their six children were away for five weeks. They state that it was definitely an experience to remember.
Up until a couple of years ago, Ray and Vivian Dougan travelled a great deal by motorcycle. They had a very large bike on which they packed camping gear and the duo would set off for other parts of Canada or the United States.
One night, however, about five years ago they were camped at Kicking Horse. The lights from the public washrooms shone from further down the trail, and at night the Dougans saw the shadows of bears, silhouetted in the light, walking by their tent. There were five bears in the camp that night and two tents were ripped open by bears looking for food. But the next morning the Dougans calmly packed up their gear on the motorbike and moved off, as unperturbed as if nothing had happened.
The Dougans have travelled in Europe, too. Four years ago they set off for Sweden. They flew first to Amsterdam, Holland, where they rented a camper and drove to northern Sweden. Mrs Vivian Dougan, of Swedish parentage, speaks the language fluently and had an enjoyable time visiting her many relatives. She has dozens and dozens of living cousins, but her husband says jokingly:
“She has so many relatives, I could not count them all.”
The Dougans’ own family is a source of justifiable pride to them. Proud parents of two sons and four daughters, all university graduates, Ray and Vivian Dougan raised their family at Shawnigan. Two daughters became medical doctors; one became a schoolteacher; the other teaches music. The older son is an engineer; the younger one is a teacher. All the children live in BC and there are 11 grandchildren, too.
Nine years ago Dougan sold his business in Shawnigan and he and his wife now live at Mill Bay. However the couple still radiate energy and a love of life. Dougan himself makes movies as a hobby and the couple enjoy caring for their tow pet dogs.
It has been many years since the first Dougan set foot on Vancouver Island, but James Dougan, Cowichan pioneer, would be proud of his grandson who has carried on a fine tradition of community involvement.
Comments