Passion

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Inspiration

Cayley's Chronicle

Video Transcript

Background Description: “Cayley’s Chronicle”. A photograph shows two long rows of shelves and the archivist, Janet Turner, between them pulling a large grey box from a shelf above her head.

Turner speaks: It often happens, back in the stacks in the archives, that I open a box whose contents I’ve never seen before.

Background Description: In the next two images, Janet is reviewing the contents of the box, which contain a file and some albums.

Turner speaks: Looking for photographs about mountaineering one day, I followed up a reference for the photo albums of a man called Beverley Cochrane Cayley – I just wanted images of mountaineers.

Background Description: Janet is holding a loose black page from the album with a page of text adhered to it. We shift to a brief close up of the text that seems to have three verses of a poem.

Turner speaks: I lifted out the first album, intending to leaf quickly through the pages. But an unexpected page of typed stanzas made me want to know this particular mountaineer.

Background Description: An album page with a black and white photograph shows a happy young couple relaxing by water’s edge. The caption below says, “of Indian Arm”. We are given a close up of the laughing couple.

Turner speaks: Here he is in the early 1920s, a young Vancouver lawyer with a BA in English, and a passion for the mountains. His friends call him “Bev.”

Background Description: Another page from an album shows a group of people sitting and standing on the ridge of a rocky peak - Only the sky behind them. The caption below says, “Twelve on the Camel Head” and then the names of the people. The date is September 30, 1925. It is followed by a page with a photo of a man and a couple of horses. One horse is packed with equipment while the other is saddled. The caption above says, “We establish camp in Paradise Valley”. Caption below says, “Parking up the Valley, July 12, 1925.”

Turner speaks: He spends most weekends with his friends, climbing local mountains like the Camel. Longer journeys take them further afield in BC, and into Alberta and Washington.

Background Description: Other album pages show photographs of mountains artfully pasted together to form panoramic views. We are taken across one particularly long panorama.

Turner speaks: Bev’s camera comes with him into the mountains. He loves to create panoramas of dramatic mountain scenes. The widest unfolds accordion-wise from the album – Panorama Ridge in August, 1926.

Background Description: A photograph shows four young men in the swimwear of the day and a black dog similar to a cocker spaniel relaxing in the sun on a dock. Another photo shows a scene of four climbers clowning around, one lying on the ground distressed, though with a smile on her face and the other three seeming to hold her down and beat her with sticks. Another image shows three climbers connected by rope heading down a steep snow-covered slope.

Turner speaks: I see him emerge out of the pages of his albums: a dog-lover (Ted is a faithful companion on many a trip), a fun-lover, a gentle wit, an athlete and risk-taker, a lover and philosopher of the mountains.

Background Description: An old photograph shows five male climbers sitting on the ground by a shack, holding mugs and eating sandwiches.

Turner speaks: I love this photo, taken in June, 1924 – it shows how strenuous mountaineering can be. That’s Bev at the left – the whole group “beaten, soaked, burnt, tired, and disgusted.”

Background Description: three people standing by a long tent with a stove pipe. One person is dressed in a white cooking uniform. Another photo shows the preparation of a tent is finished. One of the four people is bent over with his butt to the camera. And the last photo shows a climber with one arm raised, a knife in her mouth, and a shovel and hoe crossed over her legs.

Turner speaks: Bev and his friends are self sufficient – there aren’t any rescue helicopters over the horizon. But camp provides its own opportunities for goofing-off time.

Background Description: Here is a beautiful view of mountains above clouds with more sun-lit clouds in the sky above.

Turner speaks: In 1926, Bev climbs Mount Garibaldi. It is his last climb. I wonder how that trip seemed to him, whether he felt strangely short of breath. Later that year, he learns he is terminally ill with tuberculosis. He dies in June, 1928.

Background Description: We are shown a hand-drawn map, white on black, from the album with text written beside it. Then a graphic appears with, “Account of Mount Cayley: Expedition, July 7th-14th, 1928.”

Turner speaks: In July, his friends climb an unnamed volcanic peak in his honour, and officially register the name Mount Cayley.

Background Description: Other album pages appear in sequence as Cayley’s poem is recited: First is a mountain range.

Turner speaks: Is it because we had to have the sun To take them that they look So happy every one? The book Has only light and laughter: Background Description: Four people bring in a canoe with a caption that says, “Everybody Happy? Well, I should say! Harold, Mike, Gus, Ted, Dudley at Bishop Beach, July 12, 1923.” Turner speaks: you would say There was no day Of rain or tears Through all those pictured years.

Background Description: Five people ham it up – two are lying down in distress pose and the other three are on top - a tent in background. Next, we revisit the dog and boys on the dock, people travelling down a snow-covered slope as well as the finished tent with the backside of one of the climbers being offered to the camera.

Turner speaks: And were we out of doors as much as these Insistent glimpses show? It seems as if we never had to go Inside the house at all, But, scorning roof and wall, Just pitched our lives beneath the blessed trees.

Background Description: A view of Mount Garibaldi appears.

Turner speaks: The chronicle that memory keeps Of what befell In those same days Would sometimes lead us back by shadowed ways Where sorrow sleeps; This little book is wiser and its pages tell How all was well.

Background Description: A final photograph shows a close up of a satisfied group hanging out on the ridge that tops The Camel.

Acknowledgements: ‘Cayley’s Chronicle’ was created by Janet Turner based upon research provided by North Vancouver Museum and Archives volunteer Sharon Proctor prior to the February 2009 Centre for Digital Storytelling Workshop which was organized by the Museum and Archives as part of the Virtual Museum of Canada’s project, ‘Climbing to the Clouds: A People’s History of BC Mountaineering’.

Music: ‘To the Ends’, ‘Pennsylvania Rose’, ‘Rumination’, by Kevin Macleod. www.incompetech.com.