INTRODUCTION 

This book is an account of the travels of the little ship Toketie, bearing Francis and Amy Barrow and their black cocker spaniels, Rinnie and Nanette, on an exploration of the islands, inlets and harbours east of Vancouver Island, British Columbia, during the years from 1933 to 1941. Poking into every bay and inlet, the Barrows shared the activities of the coastal people, giving Mr. Oien a hand with the haying, buy- ing vegetables or dairy products from cash-short gardeners, inviting people for meals on the Toketie and going happily to dinner in log cabin, floating fish camp, logging camp, or wherever they were invited. “They insisted we stay for dinner” is a most common phrase in the Barrow journals. They picked berries, fished, had haircuts, did laundry on the beach, towed logs or boats, ferried people or things, helped sack charcoal, “yarned” with hundreds of lonely people, wrote letters for Phil Lavigne, played crib, helped set up Jim Stapleton’s store—year after year they greeted old friends and new. The Barrows were coast dwellers themselves, not “tourists”. They also made a contribution of the utmost importance in the discovery and careful recording of Indian art on boulders or bed- rock, both the petroglyphs (figures cut into the rock) and the pictographs (designs painted on the rock using red ochre or black soot, mixed with a bonding agent). The Provincial Archives in Victoria, B.C., and the National Museum in Ottawa preserve Barrow’s work and his correspondence with two important friends, anthropologists William Newcombe and Harlan Smith, who encouraged and supported him. At Duck Bay on Salt Spring Island, for example, there are a few dull red marks on an area of eroding sandstone cliff, but only the most discerning archaeological eye would recognize that these once formed drawings in red ochre. In the days when the colour was brighter and the figures still visible, Francis and Amy Barrow visited the site to make a drawing and to take photographs. Without their work, this rock-art site, and many others, would have been lost. According to her present owner, William Garden, the Toketie is the oldest operating yacht on the coast, has probably logged more miles than any other, and is now wearing out her sixth motor. Built for Francis Barrow at the Dafoe Machine Works in Vancouver soon after the turn of the century, in either 1903 or 1904, she was originally an open boat powered by a two-cylinder Lozier engine. By 1912, she had acquired a cabin and sometime after the First World War she was equipped with a two-cylinder Scripps engine. For the cruises of the Thirties described in this book she was pro- pelled by a four-cylinder Universal gasoline screw engine.  Considering the number of guests sometimes welcomed aboard, it is disconcerting to discover that the Toketie is only 26 feet in length and 7 feet 3 inches in width, with a depth of 3 feet 2 inches; her registered tonnage is 1.72. Although Barrow acquired the Toketie earlier, detailed summer sea journals survive for only 1933, 1934, 1935, 1936, 1938, 1939, 1940 and 1941. Toketie is said to mean “pretty” in the language of the Salish people of the Saanich Peninsula. From the eight summers of adventuring, events have been selected to make one meandering route. As a consequence, incidents are not always in chronological order, but the reader may refer to the entry dates to explain any anomalies. The coast people of the Depression years are seen not only in the words of Francis Barrow’s journal but also through the lens of his camera. All the photographs in the book are his. Unfortunately, the movies he made cannot now be found. Barrow’s spelling of surnames has not been changed, and may not be accurate, but other obvious slips have been corrected. Most of the coast dwellers whose names appear in the journals are not found in print elsewhere and only here and in the hearts of their descendants are they remembered. Perhaps the postmaster who enjoyed reading other peoples’ letters is in this category. Others, like the Hallidays of Kingcome Inlet and Harry Roberts of Roberts Creek, are better known. That Barrow enjoyed and respected them all is obvious in his writing. The sepia world of the Barrows is fading into the past and most of the people mentioned in this book are dead. Alive or dead, the individuals who happen to be recorded here are only a sample of those who lived on the Inside Coast ia the Thirties. The Barrow journals and photographs bring this era to life again, and activities on the shores of the Strait of Georgia will be enriched by the presence of these ghosts.

Barrows Notes from p. 73:  We left at 11.15 A.M. in order to catch slack water at the Hole-in- the-wall, but when we were a short distance inside Okisollo Channel I saw someone signalling to us from the shore, and going up to them I found two of our friends from the B.C. Forester who had been timber cruising, and they had got down to the bottom of a steep bluff and could not get any further. We took them on board and went on about half a mile to the next bay where the B.C. Forester was made fast to the boom at a camp. The B.C. Forester went on to Klein’s camp about a mile further on and we soon joined her, as the Kleins were hauling logs with the cat and a bummer. | took some movies of this job. 
(August 27, 1938

Returning to Forward Harbour, we anchored at the head of the harbour, On landing near the old house site near Worly Stream we very soon found the flat boulder covered with petroglyphs which Mac and Percy had told us about. It is a very fine ex-ample of the incised art, and is comparable to the petroglyphs at Nanaimo, though there are not as many figures. It is on gran- ite and looks very old. After lunch we rowed to another old house site at the opposite side of the harbour. We examined a cut in the midden about ten feet deep, where logs had been hauled out. It looked like an archaeologist’s paradise but we found nothing. The wind died down at dusk, for which God be praised.(p.97)