By PirjoRAITS
Sooke News Mirror
Dec 07 2005

Just a few minutes from Sooke along West Coast Road is a stately old home sitting on a broad expanse of land bordering the ocean and the highway.

Driving by, one wonders about its history and what importance it may have held for early settlers in the area. The home is Woodside, built sometime in the 1860s, the home of John Muir, a character much overlooked in the history of Vancouver Island.

The 1840s proved to be a harsh and unforgiving time for people in the British Isles. The strict class structure made it all but impossible for common folk to make a decent living in Scotland.

Muir, at 50-years-of-age was a coal miner and a dreamer. He dreamed of a better life for his family and risked his life and theirs to venture into the unsettled and inhospitable land on the western edge of North America. Travelling by sailing ship, the Muirs, 15 souls in all, endured an unbelievable six months at sea, putting up with storms, hunger, and insufferable conditions in order to take advantage of free land and a new life.

In 1848 Muir had responded to an advertisement for "consignee" workers with the Hudson's Bay Company. In return for three years of work, they would be given a grant of 25 acres of land and freedom from the poverty they faced each day in Kilmarnock, Scotland.

Muir's journey and his life is the fabric for Daryl Ashby's new biographical book, "John Muir: West Coast Pioneer."

The book, written in a fictionalized style, is easy to read and proves that historical figures and fiction can coexist on the pages without diluting the facts.

Ashby recreates the story of the Muirs' struggle to develop a place for themselves in the hierarchic colony ruled by James Douglas.

Muir's diaries and writings provide a clear glimpse into the mind of Douglas and his cronies and the iron grip they held on the lives and fortunes of the early settlers.

Ashby began to realize that the man and his family, though recognized locally, had been overlooked in the bigger historical story of Vancouver Island and British Columbia

"I used to drive by the stately home on the outskirts of Sooke and it intrigued me," said Ashby. "Once I started getting into his story the more I realized he had been overlooked and I got hooked."

He spent 10 years writing the story of John Muir. He combed through archives, visited old homesteads and let the essence of John Muir himself instill in him the drive and passion to write the story of this long forgotten historical figure who fought for a democratic way of life.
Muir's diaries and papers show a side of the early governance policies that relegated labourers to a life not unlike the one they left. Servitude and class separation is not what Muir and his family came to the colony to relive, he was not about to embrace that which he had fled and went on to challenge the HBC and initiated the first labour strike in Canada.

"Douglas was ruthless and he didn't want a democratic government, he wanted a higher gentry,' said Ashby.

Success followed for Muir and his family, but much of the history of it was left in the minds of those involved and was rarely written about or acknowledged.

Ashby is to be commended for bringing this amazing character to life in his book. At times it reads like a novel, which is a good thing as it makes these historical characters and events come alive in a way a strictly historical work would not.

As in most places, knowing the history of who, why and what happened makes the area infinitely more interesting and intriguing.

Those who came before shaped the hearts and minds of those who followed whether it is in this century or last. Blacktop and easy access are quickly replacing the ruggedness of the West Coast, but it still brings out the hardy souls who choose to live in a place where the wind meets the sea and history is still wet footprints in the sand.

Ashby is an independent historian who grew up in Sooke and now resides in Victoria.