Vancouver Island

News out of Victoria, British Columbia, 100 years ago today.

Not much substantial about the war that I can see today. Not much news at all, really.

• Praise for the Australian navy from New Zealand and Canada
• Broughton Strait (the straight between Malcolm Island, where Sointula is, and Port McNeill, and where Cormorant Island, home to Alert Bay, is) is closed. Any ships in the strait risk being fired upon. No reason is given.
• Oh, hey, Luxembourg! Forgot about them. Still officially neutral, but occupied by Germany and completely surrounded by Germany and German occupied Belgium and German occupied France, the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg is paid indemnity for the damage done by the passage of German troops through the country, but the citizenry is showing signs of deeply resenting the occupation.
• The Mexican civil war has flared up again.
• But it's all O.K., because Weller's Home Outfitters has your Christmas gift problem sorted...

News out of Victoria, British Columbia, 100 years ago today.

• Germans advancing on Antwerp, two of the outer forts have fallen.
• Survey of the conditions of colonies on the west coast and northern areas of Vancouver Island.
• The Sunday magazine, as usual, has a wonderful summary of the weeks events
• Full page travel article on Mount Robson in the magazine section, recently made accessible by the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway.
• The usual collection of ads and advertising illustrations that caught my eye.

News out of Victoria 100 years ago:
- No declaration of war yet as of the morning edition. A second extra edition is put out with the huge headline "BRITAIN AND GERMANY AT WAR"
- The day prior to the declaration, in my home town of Duncan, a meeting to form a militia overflows the Odd Fellows Hall and is moved to the Tzouhalem Hotel. I wonder how many of the men that signed up on that night made it back and how many have their names on the monument beside the train station, across Canada Street from where the Tzou used to be... 

A selection of advertisements from the June 28, 1914 edition of The Daily Colonist, Victoria, Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada.

There are undoubtedly a near endless supply of stories out there today about the 100th anniversary of the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, the event the sparked the First World War. But what was going on here in the colonies? News took a while to get way out here. What follows is the lead story from the June 28, 1914 edition of The Daily Colonist published in Victoria, British Columbia: