About Betty
by Berry Wijdeven
by Berry Wijdeven
For more than a decade, Betty Dalzell and I had this little routine going. When I saw her I would ask her if she was ready for her interview. She’d give a quick laugh, then answer with a determined “No”. Mrs. Dalzell didn’t want to be interviewed, didn’t want to discuss her life or her accomplishments. For her, it wasn’t about her. I disagreed, for I was profoundly interested in how, while raising three children and hobbled by an illness which had halted many others, she managed to write two of the definitive books about these islands. Books which have sold in the thousands and continue to provide insight and information on island history. After Mrs. Dalzell passed away last year, I spoke with her kids to see if they were willing to provide some insights and, after some thought, they agreed. So, with respectful apologies to the late Mrs. Dalzell, this is about Betty.
![Picture](/uploads/1/2/6/9/126967338/published/graham-ad.jpg?1568135075)
In 1907, a series of bank failures in Canada and the US set off a financial crisis. I had never heard about this event. Sure, I knew of the stock market crash of 1929 and the 2008 financial meltdown but hadn’t heard of the 1907 crisis until I was re-reading “The Queen Charlotte Islands Volume 1, 1774 - 1966” by Kathleen (Betty) Dalzell in which that event forms the backdrop for the wave of settlers who came to the islands between 1908 and 1914. Because of the crisis, the Canadian economy shrank by 7.8% as banks closed their doors, businesses went belly up and thousands of people lost their jobs.
The Canadian and British Columbian governments, eager to get the unemployed off the books, told them to do what they’d told people before: go west. So in 1908 the Government of British Columbia started a campaign informing the public about the availability of vast tracks of productive Queen Charlotte Island farmland at give away prices. Living on staked land for two years while building a cabin (and a few dollars in fees) would grant ownership of 160 acres. It sounded too good to be true, and it was, for much of the land wasn’t very productive or had already been claimed by timber and coal companies (never mind the fact that it had never been ceded by the Haida), but the offer attracted a steady stream of adventurers, dreamers and those looking for a better life and a piece of land to call their own.
For the next six years, as more and more settlers arrived, people cleared land, build homes, grew farms and established entire communities. Nadu, Delkatlah, Sewall, Graham Centre, Masset, Skidegate Landing, Port Clements and Queen Charlotte City all were established during those years.
The Canadian and British Columbian governments, eager to get the unemployed off the books, told them to do what they’d told people before: go west. So in 1908 the Government of British Columbia started a campaign informing the public about the availability of vast tracks of productive Queen Charlotte Island farmland at give away prices. Living on staked land for two years while building a cabin (and a few dollars in fees) would grant ownership of 160 acres. It sounded too good to be true, and it was, for much of the land wasn’t very productive or had already been claimed by timber and coal companies (never mind the fact that it had never been ceded by the Haida), but the offer attracted a steady stream of adventurers, dreamers and those looking for a better life and a piece of land to call their own.
For the next six years, as more and more settlers arrived, people cleared land, build homes, grew farms and established entire communities. Nadu, Delkatlah, Sewall, Graham Centre, Masset, Skidegate Landing, Port Clements and Queen Charlotte City all were established during those years.
![Haida Gwaii - Contemplative Pips](/uploads/1/2/6/9/126967338/house_orig.jpg)
Trevor (T. L.) Williams, Betty’s father, was one of those settlers. Stifled by class-conscious life back in Britain, he travelled the world before settling in Graham Centre. Within a few years he had built a respectable cabin worthy of his childhood sweetheart Meta, who joined him from England in 1910. Life was promising. Work was aplenty as the developing communities needed roads, bridges, wharfs and telephone lines. People revelled in community life and needed few excuses to socialize. But the start of World War I put an abrupt end to this blissful time as immigration to the islands dried up and settlers left to fight for their country. From North Graham Island alone, 118 men left to fight in the war, many to die, be wounded or never return. Trevor and his wife left for England as well, Trevor fighting in the trenches in France (including Vimy Ridge), nearly succumbing to influenza. When the war ended in 1918, Trevor and Meta decided, unlike many others, to go back to Graham Island but it wasn’t until October 1919, in the presence of their son Jackie and their six month old daughter Kathleen Elizabeth (Betty) they made it back home.
![Haida Gwaii - Heath and Pips](/uploads/1/2/6/9/126967338/published/betty-4.jpg?1568252854)
Not quite home, actually, for the town of Graham Centre had been abandoned, their home had been vandalized and was no longer livable. Trevor and Meta moved into the booming neighbouring town of Port Clements which is where Betty grew up. She went to school there, though island schooling only went to grade 8 in those days. Betty was eager to complete her education which meant going to Prince Rupert. Her parents lacked the financial resources to send her off-island, so Betty took a job to save up. By the time she had saved enough money, however, she got appendicitis which meant an emergency stay on the mainland, draining her savings. Eventually her parents managed to secure the finances so she left for school in Prince Rupert.
Betty 4 years old at Kumdis Bay
![Picture](/uploads/1/2/6/9/126967338/published/epson004.jpg?1568154452)
Betty at Shannon Bay Bunk House
And then Betty got tuberculosis. It is difficult to comprehend in a modern context how close to a death sentence getting TB back then was. Tuberculosis is an infectious disease caused by a bacterium which mainly affects the lungs, but other parts of the body as well. Untreated it continues to kill, to this day, half of those affected. Antibiotics are used to kill the bacteria causing the disease, with mixed results, but in the 1940s those resources were not yet available and many did not survive the disease. Betty recounted that, during her 10 month stay in the TB ward at Vancouver General, she would wake up in the mornings surrounded by beds, now empty, which had been occupied the night before.
![Haida Gwaii - Looking for scat](/uploads/1/2/6/9/126967338/published/epson005.jpg?1568146135)
But Betty survived, returned to Prince Rupert to convalesce and, as fate would have it, was placed in a house next to the Dalzell’s. Betty already knew the Dalzell’s as she had become friends with Jean Dalzell, and other girls from Rupert, as they made the yearly trek to the islands to work the cannery at Shannon Bay. Grandma Dalzell loved to have the neighbourhood kids over to visit or have a meal. While hanging out at the Dalzell’s Betty got to know Jean’s brother Albert and, in 1942, Betty and Albert were married. The couple settled in Prince Rupert where Albert was a shipwright, and started a family. By 1951 they had three kids, Glenn aged 6, David aged 3 and a brand new baby girl, Joan. Then Betty got tuberculosis. Again.
Betty figured this was the end of her life, for getting TB twice surely meant she was done for. She was sent to Kamloops for treatment, this time for nearly a year. Her husband could not be with her since there was no such thing as unemployment insurance or welfare and he had to stay home to earn money. And look after the kids. Fortunately there was family in Rupert and Terrace which helped out, taking in the six week old Joan. What likely pulled Betty through this time was the thought of the three kids at home and the availability of better medical technology which started to reduce the TB death rate. While Betty survived this second bout it would impact her health for the rest of her life. The disease left her with half of her lung capacity which meant she would get tired and had to take frequent breaks. “Be quiet, mom is having a rest” became a mantra in the Dalzell household.
Meanwhile, back on the islands, the wave of settlers which arrived between 1908 and 1914 had begun to wane as people started to die of old age. For years Betty’s dad, T.L., had been after Betty to write a history of the settlers. His friends and neighbours were dying, their stories were going with them and would soon be gone for good. Other had encouraged Betty as well and she had always declined, but this time, spurred on, perhaps, by her own sense of mortality, she said yes.
Betty, on her first outing from the hospital in Vancouver
Betty figured this was the end of her life, for getting TB twice surely meant she was done for. She was sent to Kamloops for treatment, this time for nearly a year. Her husband could not be with her since there was no such thing as unemployment insurance or welfare and he had to stay home to earn money. And look after the kids. Fortunately there was family in Rupert and Terrace which helped out, taking in the six week old Joan. What likely pulled Betty through this time was the thought of the three kids at home and the availability of better medical technology which started to reduce the TB death rate. While Betty survived this second bout it would impact her health for the rest of her life. The disease left her with half of her lung capacity which meant she would get tired and had to take frequent breaks. “Be quiet, mom is having a rest” became a mantra in the Dalzell household.
Meanwhile, back on the islands, the wave of settlers which arrived between 1908 and 1914 had begun to wane as people started to die of old age. For years Betty’s dad, T.L., had been after Betty to write a history of the settlers. His friends and neighbours were dying, their stories were going with them and would soon be gone for good. Other had encouraged Betty as well and she had always declined, but this time, spurred on, perhaps, by her own sense of mortality, she said yes.
Betty, on her first outing from the hospital in Vancouver
![Haida Gwaii Ermine](/uploads/1/2/6/9/126967338/published/img-027.jpg?1568154215)
Betty had some advantages taking on the project. Her dad, being the local notary public, was a respected man and being T.L.’s daughter opened doors. T.L. had also kept meticulous journals which provided a solid start. But Betty’s biggest advantage was that, having grown up in Port Clements, she was seen as a local girl. A few years prior a woman from Rupert had come to the islands to write stories, but had gotten it all wrong, making locals suspicious of talking to strangers about their life histories. People needed to trust the person they were talking to. Not just with their stories but also with their photos. These sometimes precious photos had to be taken to Rupert to be copied which could take months, so before people trusted someone with their keepsakes, they needed to be confident they would be returned.
And so Betty started her research, talking with old-timers, ideally a few at a time, recording their conversations on a reel-to-reel. Some were eager to talk, others weren’t as forthcoming, until someone at the gathering said something so obviously wrong the recalcitrant participant would have no choice but to pipe up and straighten them out. It was important for Betty to get it right and she kept digging relentlessly until she had the story figured out. And while she heard plenty of gossip and bedroom stuff during her interviews, she refused to use any for her book.
And so Betty started her research, talking with old-timers, ideally a few at a time, recording their conversations on a reel-to-reel. Some were eager to talk, others weren’t as forthcoming, until someone at the gathering said something so obviously wrong the recalcitrant participant would have no choice but to pipe up and straighten them out. It was important for Betty to get it right and she kept digging relentlessly until she had the story figured out. And while she heard plenty of gossip and bedroom stuff during her interviews, she refused to use any for her book.
![Haida Gwaii - Pips locates a scat](/uploads/1/2/6/9/126967338/published/img-021.jpg?1568156031)
Apart from doing the interviews, reviewing the tapes, and typing it all out, Betty also travelled to the Provincial Archives in Victoria for her research. Though she had a small grant, getting away for three weeks at a time was expensive and required planning. But Betty was not just meticulous in her research, her trips were also meticulously prepared. To make sure her family would not suffer, she would prepare and freeze three weeks worth of food, carefully labelled and numbered. As long as the kids remembered to take that day’s dish out of the freezer (which wasn’t always the case), the family remained well fed.
Since her book set out to cover the history of the islands from 1774, the year Europeans first made contact, till 1966, Betty realized that covering just the settlers’ stories would leave it incomplete; she needed to cover Haida history during this period as well. Betty knew precious little about that history, so she contacted Haida elders, many in the Masset area, who shared the concern their history might get lost and incorporated their accounts into the book.
The more she got into the project, the more Betty realizes she loved doing it. But it was still a massive undertaking, gathering, organizing and writing up all the material. Each day when the kids left for school, she would sit down behind her typewriter, still working when the kids got home.
Betty did get a lot of help during this time, from those who shared an interest in the project. Some helped with copying costs, others made files available, a beachcomber took her all over the islands to check out places. An Englishman named Gray Hills took his sailboat all over the archipelago to provide Betty photos of the most inaccessible places. And behind the scenes Betty’s husband Albert not just provided support, he was her first reader.
Since her book set out to cover the history of the islands from 1774, the year Europeans first made contact, till 1966, Betty realized that covering just the settlers’ stories would leave it incomplete; she needed to cover Haida history during this period as well. Betty knew precious little about that history, so she contacted Haida elders, many in the Masset area, who shared the concern their history might get lost and incorporated their accounts into the book.
The more she got into the project, the more Betty realizes she loved doing it. But it was still a massive undertaking, gathering, organizing and writing up all the material. Each day when the kids left for school, she would sit down behind her typewriter, still working when the kids got home.
Betty did get a lot of help during this time, from those who shared an interest in the project. Some helped with copying costs, others made files available, a beachcomber took her all over the islands to check out places. An Englishman named Gray Hills took his sailboat all over the archipelago to provide Betty photos of the most inaccessible places. And behind the scenes Betty’s husband Albert not just provided support, he was her first reader.
![Pips and Heath searching for scat in Haida Gwaii old growth](/uploads/1/2/6/9/126967338/published/epson006.jpg?1568156101)
After seven years of research and writing, Betty discovered she had gathered so much information it wouldn’t all fit in one book, so she decided on two volumes. Volume 1 (1774 - 1966) was published in 1967. It was an immediate success, both on and off-island with steady sales which have continued till today, nearly 50 years later. Volume 2 (Places and Names) came out three years later and has also seen continued success. After publishing the two volumes, Betty took seven years off, but then realized she wanted to tell her dad’s story. Based on her research and T.L.’s extensive diaries The Beloved Island was published in 1989.
Betty was done publishing, but not done yet with her work preserving the history of the islands. While talking with old-timers she kept noting how important and intriguing historical artifacts were shipped off-island due to the fact there was no place to store or showcase them locally. The islands needed a museum. So Betty became a driving force behind the establishment of the Skidegate Museum and later the Port Clements Museum where she remained the historical coordinator till the day she passed, at age 96.
Betty was done publishing, but not done yet with her work preserving the history of the islands. While talking with old-timers she kept noting how important and intriguing historical artifacts were shipped off-island due to the fact there was no place to store or showcase them locally. The islands needed a museum. So Betty became a driving force behind the establishment of the Skidegate Museum and later the Port Clements Museum where she remained the historical coordinator till the day she passed, at age 96.
![Haida Gwaii - Heath creekside](/uploads/1/2/6/9/126967338/published/img-001.jpg?1568154265)
In recognition of their work, Betty and her husband Albert were awarded the Order of BC. When the award committee got a hold of Betty to congratulate her, she told them to just put the award in the mail and was none to pleased to hear she had to go down to Victoria to collect it. To Betty it wasn’t about fame or being in the limelight, it was about the research. When I ask Joan and David, Betty’s surviving children, what their mom would consider her greatest achievement, they respond that while Betty was proud of her children and the work she did with the museums, it was her work preserving island history which she would consider her greatest accomplishment. When I ask Joan why it was her mom, with her dodgy health, busy raising a family, who ended up recording the history of island settlers, Joan points out how uniquely positioned her mom was to take on this project, having the skills, the connections, and the desire. She was the right person at the right time.