"He held thrift, oats and potatoes in equally high esteem." -- Richard Somerset Mackie, historian

Eric Duncan of Sandwick in the Comox Valley was a farmer, historian, storekeeper and poet who published in The Shetland Times, Chamber's Journal, Gems of Poetry and the Comox Argus. He claimed his rhymes were "not the rose-tinted reveries of a rusticated rhapsodist, but the regular, rough reminiscences of a real rancher."

Duncan was raised a Congregationalist, but with no Congregational church in Comox, he attended both Presbyterian and Anglican services and eventually settled in St. Andrew's Anglican Church, Sandwick, because the service was closest to the Lutheran service to which his Swedish wife had been accustomed. A University of Victoria scholarship is given annually in his name to a deserving student from northern Vancouver Island. Motor cars were said to be the bane of his existence.

BOOKS:

Rural Rhymes and the Sheep Thief (Toronto: William Briggs [Montréal: C. W. Coates; Halifax: S. F. Huestis], 1896)

The Rich Fishermen and Other Tales (London: Century Press, 1910)

The Rich Fisherman and Other Sketches (Toronto: Macmillan of Canada, 1932) [Note the difference in title between this and the previous one. There is considerable overlap between this and the first two books (all collections of poetry).]

Fifty-Seven Years in the Comox Valley (Courtenay: Comox Argus, 1934; San Diego: J. Barrett Gilmer, 1967; Courtenay and San Diego: Comox Books, 1979)

From Shetland to Vancouver Island: Recollections of Seventy-Five Years (Edinburgh: Oliver and Boyd, 1937)

From Shetland to Vancouver Island: Recollections of Seventy-Eight Years, 3rd ed. enlarged (Edinburgh: Oliver and Boyd, 1939)

[BCBW 2004] "Local History" "Fiction" "Ranching"