Victoria’s story through historical fiction
Vanessa Winn interview segment
Produced by Trevor Marc Hughes
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“We are in Rutledge Park,” Victoria author Vanessa Winn tells me, “which was part of the old Cloverdale estate. We’re very close to Cloverdale Avenue which of course takes it name from the estate of Dr. William Fraser Tolmie, one of the founding families of Victoria.”
Tolmie was part of the fur trade and that establishing industry features prominently in her two works of historical fiction The Chief Factor’s Daughter and Trappings.
“This estate adjoined Hillside Farm, which was John and Josette Work’s farm. The estates joined one another so you would be travelling from one farm to another.”
Through Winn’s research, she has created novels that describe the social fabric of Victoria, during the Victorian Era. The gold rush sets the stage, with hordes of fortune seekers piling into the town by the shipload. But what was it like to live in and around Fort Victoria, an HBC establishment formed around the fur trade?
In this interview segment, Vanessa Winn tells The British Columbia Review about how her research into British Columbia’s historical characters, such as Catherine Work and Charles Wentworth Wallace, and more famed figures in the fur trade such as William Fraser Tolmie, makes vibrant and energizes aspects of Victoria’s early colonial and settler history.
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Trevor Marc Hughes was a freelance arts reporter at CBC Radio from 1997 to 2007. In and around that time he worked as a researcher and associate producer on documentary and current affairs programs that aired on Knowledge Network, The Discovery Channel, and Discovery Health, and were produced by Transatlantic Films, the UK’s oldest independent film production company. His own documentary projects include The Young Hustler, a film he produced and directed, about his grandfather’s days operating a Fraser River tugboat during The Great Depression.
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The British Columbia Review
Interim Editors, 2023-26: Trevor Marc Hughes (non-fiction), Brett Josef Grubisic (fiction)
Publisher: Richard Mackie
Formerly The Ormsby Review, The British Columbia Review is an on-line book review and journal service for BC writers and readers. The Advisory Board now consists of Jean Barman, Wade Davis, Robin Fisher, Barry Gough, Hugh Johnston, Kathy Mezei, Patricia Roy, and Graeme Wynn. Provincial Government Patron (since September 2018): Creative BC. Honorary Patron: Yosef Wosk. Scholarly Patron: SFU Graduate Liberal Studies. The British Columbia Review was founded in 2016 by Richard Mackie and Alan Twigg.
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