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Campbell River Museum presents Great Fire update

The Great Fire of 1938 was the biggest fire in recorded history on the coast of British Columbia
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Author Richard Mackie will present a lecture on the Great Fire of 1938 that burned 30

The Museum at Campbell River, as part of the exhibition Burning Snags and Raining Ashes: The Bloedel Fire of 1938 presents noted author Richard Mackie on Saturday, Nov. 2, from 1-2:30 p.m.

Mackie’s talk will focus on the Great Fire, known variously as the Sayward Fire, the Bloedel Fire, and the Comox Valley Fire.

The Great Fire of 1938 was the biggest fire in recorded history on the coast of British Columbia. Its names reflect the extent of its force: it burned 75,000 acres (30,184 hectares) in Sayward and Comox Land Districts – from Gosling Lake, north of Campbell Lake, to Browns River, west of Courtenay.

In this illustrated talk, Mackie will update his account of the Great Fire from his 2000 book Island Timber: A Social History of the Comox Logging Company, with new stories and recollections of this devastating and transforming fire.

Mackie is the author of Trading Beyond the Mountains: The British Fur Trade on the Pacific, 1793-1843 (UBC Press, 1997), Island Timber: A Social History of the Comox Logging Company, Vancouver Island (Sono Nis Press, 2000), and Mountain Timber: The Comox Logging Company in the Vancouver Island Mountains (Sono Nis Press, 2009). Mackie lives in Vancouver, where he is Associate Editor of BC Studies. The cost for the talk is $6 This is the second lecture offered by the Museum as part of its Fall Lecture Series. Phone the Museum at 250-287-3103 to register.