In spring 1914, my grandpa Harold Monks left his life as an accounting clerk in industrial Lancashire to start a new life as a “rancher” on Vargas Island in Clayoquot Sound. In the early 1970s, Harold was interviewed about his early days on Vargas Island. This audio recording is a valuable first-hand account of some of Harold’s experiences, and along with Harold’s snapshots and documents, made me want to learn more about the Vargas Island “ranchers” (their term) and what life was like for Harold and his neighbours. In spring 2019, some of this research was featured in an exhibit I guest curated at the Tofino Clayoquot Heritage Museum: “Vargas Island Ranchers at Home and at War”.
“I stayed at Harry Hilton’s, that’s the one I was corresponding with before I came out…they were all mother’s side.
Harold Monks
Harold came to Vargas Island because of his mother’s “Canadian Cousins”. The Ontario-born Hiltons had moved west to homesteads on the Canadian prairies in the 1890s. Eventually, homesteading proved unsuccessful and in 1908, the Hiltons had moved to Saanich BC. Some of the family decided to try out “ranching” on Vargas Island: Harry Hilton, Billy Hilton and his twin sister Esther and her English husband Fred Hopkins, his brother Frank Hopkins and Frank’s wife’s family, the Howses. Harold’s cousins were joined by a couple of their Saskatchewan farmhands. Other neighbours on the north and west side of the island also had been prairie homesteaders.
Harold Monks came from a “white collar” job in an industrial town, but had some outdoor experience, having spent much of his 21 years on his Grandpa Barton’s 12 acre Lancashire farm.
On the south east part of the Island, George Anderson had been a fruit farmer in Australia, and his nephews Arthur and Ted Abraham had been farming for a couple of years in New Zealand. Arthur and Ted’s mother Mrs Malon and “young lady” sisters arrived in summer 1912 — from a nice middle class life, and absolutely no experience of farming, or the west coast conditions they were coming to, other than letters from Arthur and Ted (only recently arrived) telling them how wonderful it was!
While they came with high hopes and some experience, none of these self-proclaimed ranchers were prepared for the very different landscape, climate and growing conditions, not to mention living on an island separated by stormy seas from the closest store, and mail and supplies that came every 10 days by coastal steamship.
We have gone to a primitive life and no mistake, but I think we shall like it alright.
Helen Malon July 21 1912
Page 2 – A pre-emption
Stephanie Ann Warner 