Converse - Following the Curve of Time

One of my great joys in writing this book was the wonderful people I met along the way. The book could not have been written without their assistance and I am very grateful for their support. I would like to thank Janet Blanchet, who never tired of my request for just one more question. She answered countless queries that I had about her mother-in-law, M. Wylie Capi Blanchet, and she did so with grace, honesty and trust. A very special thank you goes to Tom Liffiton, who is related to Capi (Liffiton was her family name) and has researched the genealogy of the Liffiton family. He spent the better part of a year helping me gather information about Capis early life. Among many things, he went through ships records, transcribed illegible family letters, combed through burial records and found business records and family photographs taken by the noted photographer, William Notman of Montreal. I am greatly appreciative of the help that my husband, Brian Silvester, gave me. I know that authors always thank their family members, with good reason, but Brian is, in addition to being supportive, a master mariner and his assistance with the marine-related aspects of the book was indispensable. Marine terminology, in particular, is very precise and many times he rescued me from mixing up the colloquial with the correct. I am indebted to Rolf Hicker of www.hickerphoto.com for the photographs he so generously loaned to me for this publication. Rolf is a very talented nature and travel photographer of national and international repute.

There are two instances of help that warmed my faith in human kindness. In The Curve of Time, Capi mentioned an incident from her childhood in Cacouna, Quebec. I did not think the Liffitons had had a house there but I wondered about her grandfather Snetsinger. I had only an undated envelope, possibly from around 1911, with the word Cacouna written on itnot much to go on. I contacted Viateur Beaulieu, the web master for the Cacouna web site. Viateur did not know of any such house but searched around and not only found a reference to the Snetsinger Villa, but went out in the winters snow, and then again in the spring, to take pictures of the house for me. My heartfelt thanks also go to Rick Terrell, the park facility operator for Desolation Sound Marine Park, who similarly went beyond the call of duty when he took a boat across Desolation Sound into Prideaux Haven to find, at the remnants of Mikes place, some stonework that I had been unable to discover on my last visit there.

I am grateful to Peter Macnair, who took time out of a very busy schedule to go over Capis photographs of First Nations places and artifacts with me, and also to Dan Savard, the senior collections manager of audio-visual records for the Royal BC Museum. I would also like to thank Dr. Tim Yeomans, who helped me understand some of the medical aspects of this book, and Richard Blanchet for information about his father, Peter. Thanks also to Rosemary Joy, whose research on her familys genealogy included John Gray Goodall Snetsinger, Capis maternal grandfather, and who helped provide information on Capis background. She also graciously loaned me a few photographs. Yvonne Maximchuk, co-author of Full Moon, Flood Tide, answered numerous questions on Knight Inlet; Hugh Ackroyd, the Sunshine Coast area supervisor for BC Parks, responded to my inquiry on tourism and Desolation Sound; William Garden, naval architect, helped me understand boat design and told an interesting story about Capi; Edith Iglauer, who wrote an earlier article on Capi, responded to my many questions about her research. Thanks also to Rob Morris, editor of Western Mariner, Freda Thorne and Barbara Gilbert of the Sidney Museum Archives, Derek Hayes, author of several historical atlases, Tim McGrady of Knight Inlet Lodge and Valeria Cisotto for taking time to show me around The Latch, which is architecturally similar to Capis Little House. Gwyneth Hoyle, who has just completed a book about Geoffrey Blanchets brother, The Northern Horizons of Guy Blanchet, provided information on the Blanchet family, and Mary Glezos found the Liffiton burial section for me at the Mount Royal Cemetery in Montreal. Finally, I would like to offer a special thank you to Bill and Donna Mackay, the owner-operators of Mackay Whale Watching who run the Naiad Explorer out of Port McNeill, for all their support in establishing contacts and for the insight and information they offered on the Broughton Archipelago.

The Legendary M. Wylie Blanchet

CATHY CONVERSE

Copyright Cathy Converse 2008

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any meanselectronic, mechanical, audio recording or otherwisewithout the written permission of the publisher or, in the case of photocopying, a licence from Access Copyright, Toronto, Canada.

Published by TouchWood Editions in 2008 with ISBN 978-1-894898-68-3.
This electronic edition was released in 2011.
e-pub ISBN: 978-1-926741-90-1
e-pdf ISBN: 978-1-926741-84-0

Cataloguing data available from Library and Archives Canada

Edited by Marlyn Horsdal
Proofread by Meaghan Craven
Main cover photograph by Cathy Converse.
Inset cover photograph is Capi in rowboat, 1944, courtesy of Janet Blanchet.

TouchWood Editions acknowledges the financial support for its publishing program from the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund, Canada Council for the Arts and the British Columbia Arts Council.

www.touchwoodeditions.com

For Brian

* * *

Come run with me along the sea

When dusk sits on the land,

And search with me,

For shells are free,

And treasures hide in sand.

Virginia Covey Boswell

This page: The Caprice at anchor in Welcome Pass, with the Ivanhoe in the background.
COURTESY JANET BLANCHET

CONTENTS

Areas Covered

Back row, L to R: Alan Snetsinger, Carrie Jane Snetsinger Liffiton (Capis mother), Charles Liffiton (Capis father), Frank Snetsinger. Front row, L to R: Arthur, Edith, Minnie and Harry Snetsinger, 1885.
COURTESY ROSEMARY A. JOY

CHAPTER ONE
Capis Early Life

Capis original name was Muriel Wylie Liffiton. To her children, however, she was just Capia nickname that she acquired when she became captain of her own boat, the Caprice. She hated the name Muriel and certainly never used it except for formal and legal documents. Even for her by-line she substituted M. Wylie Blanchet, or M. L. Blanchet for Muriel. Capis middle name, Wylie, stemmed from a family tradition of incorporating ancestral names into their own. Wylie was the maiden name of Capis maternal great-grandmother, Margaret Wylie of Dumfriesshire, Scotland. Wylie was also the middle name given to her maternal uncle, Harold Wylie Snetsinger.