Exploring CN’s East Rail Line, From Many Perspectives
Prince George, BC – The Prince George Railway & Forestry Museum is hosting a special event this afternoon to commemorate not only its 30th anniversary, but to serve as a preamble to next year’s centennial celebrating the arrival of rail transportation in Prince George.
Executive Director, Ranjit Gill, says a generous donation from CN has allowed the museum to bring in poet Cecil Giscombe from Berkeley, California, where he teaches at U of C. Giscombe is a direct descendent of John Robert Giscome, for whom the Giscome portage was named.
Giscombe is the author of Giscome Road, a book of long form poetry written when he travelled to the area back in the mid-1990s. He will be joined by local poet, Barry McKinnon, and well-known local architect, Trelle Morrow, at ‘an afternoon with writers of the East Line’ at the museum.
Gill says she’s hopeful a large crowd will turn-out to appreciate and explore the railway and sawmill communities along the CNR’s line east of Prince George, as seen through the eyes and words of those who have written about it.
The event runs from 1pm until 3pm and admission is free with the donation of non-perishable food items for the Salvation Army’s local Food Bank.
Comments
What a lot of people don’t know is that John Giscome was a rarity in the ranks of explorers of the Northwest. This was a black man from Jamaica that came north in search of gold and plotted the fastest route from the Fraser at what came to be known as the Hubble Homestead to the Parsnip River traversing the continental divide via Summit Lake and the Crooked River… and then wrote about it to tell all.
Very few know of the black explorers of the west, so in that respect this man is somewhat unique to our history.
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