Author Tags: 1850-1900, Early B.C., Gold, Natural History
Born in Camster, Scotland on March 23, 1842, Robert Brown arrived in Victoria in 1863 at age 21 as a botanical seed collector for the British Columbia Botanical Association of Edinburgh. Governor Arthur Kennedy placed him in charge of the Vancouver Island Exploring Expedition of 1864 that crossed the island at several points but never ventured further north than Comox. During this expedition, Robert Brown became an important explorer of Vancouver Island and one of the better chroniclers of indigenous culture in the 1860s, although he frequently used terms such as "savagery" and "barbarism." Reviewer Clarence Karr noted in BC Studies No. 85, "Brown seemed unable to accept the Indians' time-honoured desires to take part in their annual harvest of food if that meant that they would be unwilling to work for the expedition irrespective of the wages offered." Brown nonetheless managed to provide one of the first written records of a potlatch, at Alberni, and he also provided some of the first accounts of new Euro-American settlements at Cowichan, Chemainus, Comox and Nanaimo.
While Brown was concerned with scientific matters, other members of his entourage were, to his disappointment, equally concerned with finding gold. His expedition is chiefly remembered for its discovery of gold at Leech River, a river named after his second-in-command. A brief gold rush ensued. Brown's River, west of Courtenay, is named for him--reportedly at the insistence of his travelling companions. Brown made other exploratory forays before returning to Britain to become a journalist in London. He died in London on October 26, 1895. He is not to be confused with Robert Brown (1773-1858), the botanist who collected specimens in Australia during the first half of the 19th century and became first keeper of the botanical department of the British Museum.
BOOKS:
On the Formation of Fjords, Canons, Benches, Prairies, and Intermittent Rivers (London: Royal Geographical Society, 1869)
On the Geographical Distribution and Physical Characteristics of the Coal Fields of the North Pacific Coast (Edinburgh: Neill & Company, 1869)
Vancouver Island: Exploration, 1864 (Victoria: Harries and Company, 1865)
First Journey of Exploration across Vancouver Island (Fairfield, Washington: Ye Galleon Press, 1987)
Robert Brown and the Vancouver Island Exploring Expedition (UBC Press, 1989), edited by John Hayman.
[BCBW 2004] "Early B.C." "1850-1900" "Natural History" "Gold" "Classic"
Robert Brown and the Vancouver Island Exploring Expedition (UBC Press, 1989)
Article
Since the 1850s a variety of Scotsmen have explored Vancouver Island and later written about their work in detail. These include Governor James Douglas, the best known of the group; Captain Walter Colquhoun Grant, the Island's (and B.C.'s) first independent settler; Gilbert Malcolm Sproat, industrialist and writer; Alexander Caulfield Anderson, fur-trader and author; Eric Duncan, farmer, poet and philosopher; and William Downie, the first European to ascend the Skeena River. Scotsmen all; most as quick with a pen as with an axe or a walking stick. The curious reader following William Downie's trails will eventually discover the writings of his countryman, Robert Brown. Next to Sproat, he was the most active writer among these Scottish explorers.
Now, thanks largely to the efforts of editor John Hayman, for the first time in this century a book of Robert Brown's will be in print in Canada. Robert Brown and the Vancouver Island Exploring Expedition (UBC Press, 1989) is based on the journal that Brown kept while he led the Vancouver Island Exploring Expedition during the summer of 1864. The book also contains a collection of Indian legends and one of the earliest written accounts of a potlatch (held at Alberni).
Back in 1864 Victoria needed a gold rush. Due to the mainland gold rush moving further into the Cariboo and New Westminster becoming the natural centre of commerce, Victoria was sinking back into its original quagmire of silence. Gold cured everything on the frontier. So the city fathers sent Brown into the interior of Vancouver Island to find gold. To everyone's amazement, Brown was successful. The subsequent rush to the Sooke and Leech rivers lasted less than a year, but it gave Victoria renewed hopes. Meanwhile Brown led his men off into the sunset, unaware of the importance of the rush, and oblivious to the fact that few really cared what Brown's V.I.E.E. did with itself.
It now appears that Brown saw life through slightly out-of-focus lenses. As an explorer he was not highly important. But no brief commentary here can do justice to the complexity of Robert Brown's situation as a writer. He made some of the first literary attempts to transport the West Coast imagination from the local to the national and even further abroad. Brown was the first to fail at this, and he failed miserably. In the process he left behind B.C.’s first short story, and a posthumous edition of The Adventures of John Jewitt.
-- By Charles Lillard
[Spring / BCBW 1989]
