Lunatic Writer's Blog

Guy Consolmagno & the Vatican Observatory

3/31/2013

Brother Guy--A Jesuit and research astronomer--echoes my feelings about the relationship between science and religion very eloquently. At one point he reminds listeners that Scripture says: "God so loved the world that he gave us his Son." Brother Guy emphasizes the fact that it is the "world" that God loves, the physical, real, rational, open-for-investigation world. We are part of this world and, like God himself, are expected to love it. Hence science. Hence environmentalism. Hence all charity and love. Amen.

Br. Consolmagno and part of the Vatican meteorite collection, courtesy Kevin Nickerson

(Originally broadcast on CBC's Quirks and Quarks on April 15, 2006)

Science and religion are often seen in conflict, but that's something Brother Guy Consolmagno would like to put behind us. He's certainly put it behind him. Brother Guy is the Curator of Meteorites of the Vatican Observatory in Arizona, and an accomplished planetary scientist, and he sees no tension at all between his science and his religion. He also thinks many scientists with religious beliefs feel the same way. The conflict, he suspects, is a result of people who know too little about both science and religion.

Click BELOW for the CBC interview with Brother Guy and learn what the Roman Catholic Church really thinks about science.

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VATT--the Vatican Observatory, near Tucson, Arizona.

Ready for more? Here what the Vatican Observatory's chief astronomer, Jose Gabriel Funes has to say about the possible existence of
extra-terrestrial intelligence.

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Robert Sproule & the Appeals Court

1/9/2013

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Matthew Baillie Begbie was a colossus in the early history of British Columbia's judiciary. Later he was to be known as the "hanging judge" This epithet was likely undeserved, however, since judges of British Columbia at this time had no leeway in passing sentence in murder cases. Only if a jury recommended mercy could hanging be avoided.

Begbie was the Chief Justice (or its equivalent) for most of his professional life and remained in this role until his death in 1894. It was he who, early in 1884, heard the appeal launched by the Ainsworth Syndicate over the ownership of claims at Big Ledge. Begbie reversed all of Gold Commissioner Kelly's rulings, except one. Hammill's re-staking of the Bluebell site was a simple case of claim-jumping, Begbie decided, and he ruled in favour of Sproule.

Begbie also expressed his annoyance at the role played by Baillie-Grohman in the dispute. "...the whole of this wearisome, expensive and mischievous litigatiion has been caused and fostered by the unauthorized intrusion of a stranger, who seems to have succeeded, before the Gold Commissioner, in raising such a cloud of irrelevant statement and controversies, as to entirely obscure that officer's view of the few material facts in each case. This interference, it is scarcely necessary to state, is entirely illegal."

However, lest we think Begbie was the kind of man to hold a grudge, it is instructive to notice that Mrs. Baillie-Grohman, in writing of her time in Victoria, states how Begbie was a good family friend and would often come over to house for dinner. And, after all, the two men did share a common middle name.

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Thomas Hammill, Sinner or Saint?

11/25/2012

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Thomas Hammill was born in Cornwall, growing up in a tradition of hard rock mining and smuggling. Concerning his physical appearance, one man described him as “too neat, too nattily dressed for the frontier.” Nevertheless Hammill was an experienced prospector who, like Sproule himself, had been all over North America seeking his lucky strike.

Sometime during the morning of June 1, 1885, while working on his portion of the Bluebell Mine, Thomas Hammill was shot in the back. He died within an hour of being discovered.

Six months later, at a courtroom in Victoria, the murdered man was described in quite glowing terms by some of the men who worked for him. And, said one of the witnesses, he didn’t know of anyone who held anything against Hammill, except the accused, Robert Sproule.

Later, a witness for the defense, claimed to have known Hammill when he was in Colorado, and claimed he was notorious for being a claim jumper, even back then.

In 1884 Judge Begbie of the Supreme Court of British Columbia supported this assertion, describing Hammill’s actions at Big Ledge in the preceding year as “simple claim-jumping.” The judge ruled against Hammill and returned the Bluebell claim to Sproule.

So what kind of man was Thomas Hammill, really? Like Sproule, he seems almost to have had almost a split personality. Competent, ambitious, likeable (to some at least), and quite possibly unscrupulous. Early in 1882, he joined the employ of John C. Ainsworth of Oakland California, thereby irrevocably tying his destiny to the convoluted actions about to unfold north of the border.

More about Ainsworth in the next post...

To learn more about the Big Ledge project, click HERE.

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Robert E. Sproule

11/15/2012

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          Sproule (rhymes with “coal”) is the central character of Big Ledge. Born in Weeks Mills, Maine, like many young men of his generation, he was drawn to the lure of gold and instant wealth, promised in the bonanza discoveries all across North America in the 1800’s.

       Sproule had prospected in Colorado, Arizona, Oregon, Washington Territory. There are even reports that he spent time in South America and possibly South Africa, looking for diamonds. He’d come close in Oregon. He’d found a promising deposit of coal near Tacoma, but rival interests apparently “framed” him on a charge of arson and forced him to leave or face the possibility of imprisonment.

            In the Kootenay District Sproule was convinced his luck had finally changed. His claim was clearly prior to anyone else’s. And any idiot could see that Big Ledge was tremendously rich in lead and probably some silver as well. There were technical difficulties, for sure. There was no easy route to the mine site. No apparent way to move the ore out. And Sproule, personally, had none of the financial resources necessary to build the needed infrastructure.

            Nevertheless, Sproule was certain he could build his fortune here. It came as quite a shock that, within weeks of his initial claim, rivals were hot on his heels, a syndicate of prospectors and businessmen headed by John C. Ainsworth of Oakland California. They had big plans for the area, which included not just staking out as many mining claims as possible, but building rail lines and putting steamboats on Kootenay Lake. In a very palpable way, things had set themselves up as a David vs. Goliath story at Big Ledge.

            To my knowledge there is no existing photograph or portrait of Sproule. He seems to have had no distinguishing physical features but he is variously described as strong, a good worker, a tough mountain man, and an experienced miner. Most important perhaps is his age. He was forty-something when he first came to Big Ledge, at least ten years older than most of his peers. He would have been considered an “old-timer” by the young bucks and, in his own mind, he must very much have regarded Big Ledge as his last chance to strike it big.

            There is much disagreement about Sproule’s character. His friends describe him as reliable, trustworthy, a good worker, knowledgeable. Hendricks, who became his great financial backer in 1884 had no hesitation in hiring him as his superintendent of mining operations.

            His enemies, however, paint a very different picture. They describe Sproule as a man of unpredictable movements, vengeful, argumentative. Indeed some describe him as a criminal, not only guilty of arson, but probably murder too—more than one.

            There seems little doubt that Sproule had an intense dislike of Thomas Hammill who just before the close of the mining season in 1882, jumped his claim. His many threats against Hammill’s life are well documented. So when, on June 1, 1885, Thomas Hammill was found shot in the back, Sproule immediately became the prime suspect.

            All the evidence against him proved to be circumstantial and, right to the moment before his hanging, Sproule continued to profess his innocence.

            Who was the “real” Sproule? And what exactly happened on the day of the murder? That is the work of Big Ledge to explore and hopefully for my readers to enjoy.

Want to read the the start of the novel? Click HERE!

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Geography of Big Ledge

11/10/2012

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Big Ledge viewed from the west

            Big Ledge, just outside present day, Riondel, is the nickname given to the ledge of rock (or promontory) that conspicuously sticks out into Kootenay Lake about two-thirds of the way up from its southern extremity. A series of hills fills this promontory rising to about 100 metres from lake level. Historically this “ledge” could also be recognized by the prominent brown stains on its rock outcrop. A century of mining activity has pretty much put an end to that identifier however

            Although Big Ledge was long known to the aboriginal people of the area, it took till the early 1800s before it came to the attention of white folk. And this mostly, just in passing. From the beginning, people understood this promontory might be good place to extract lead--for making bullets, for example. But it was a damned difficult place to get to. And with no infrastructure anywhere nearby, no one could see any way to turn this knowledge into a money-making venture.

            The situation changed dramatically with the advent of the railway. By 1882, trains were pulling into Sandpoint, Idaho, not far from the Canadian border and the south shore of Kootenay Lake. By this date, plans were already underway for the great Canadian Pacific as well (though it would not pass nearly so close to Big Ledge). And one John C. Ainsworth of Oakland California was proposing to build a short spur line to link Kootenay Lake to the Columbia River as a means of moving ore, supplies and people. Suddenly Big Ledge, and the lead and silver buried in its rocks, had become accessible.

Hot Springs, sometimes referred to as Warm Springs, and finally Ainsworth Hot Springs, was the first settlement developed in the West Kootenay. It was built in direct response to the mining claims made over at Big Ledge, four miles across the lake in 1882. The Ainsworth Syndicate, of Oakland California, made this their base camp. From here they addressed mining interests on both sides of the lake. It was also their hope that this settlement, or some place nearby, would soon become the terminus for their planned railway spur line.

It is between these two points, separated by just four miles of water, that the core of my story takes place, with Thomas Hammill and his boys, based at the hot springs, and Sproule and his confederates holed up on the promontory. These were marvelous, magical places back then and remain so today, and like two terminals in a battery, a whole lot of electricity flowed between them.

The hot springs today

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Getting Started with Big Ledge

11/4/2012

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from the play, Sproule's Folly: Sproule with Lily Langtry.

Big Ledge and the Murder at the Bluebell Mine

“How did you get your idea for writing this book?” This is a question often put to authors. Somewhat to my surprise, my answer to this question would be almost the same for both Lunatics, which I finished last year, and Big Ledge which I’m currently working on.

In both cases, the books were not born of inspirational moments. Rather they emerged more as a response to long nagging ghosts. The character of Wernher von Braun had haunted me for several years. Since the time I followed up a footnote about him while working on my play Gravity. Soon I was obsessed. I wrote an audio play about von Braun, then an unproduced stage play. Finally I realized only a novel provided a format big enough to deal with this larger-than-life character. The Lunatics story is about much more than just von Braun but its original impetus certainly owes much to the feeling I’d long had, that I just hadn’t finished with the man.

A similar tale might be told of Big Ledge whose central character is Robert E. Sproule, an American miner, hanged in 1886 for the murder of Thomas Hammill. This murder took place very close to where I live, near the present day village of Riondel on the east shore of Kootenay Lake. I pass by it at least a dozen times a year along the highway on the west shore. From there, sometimes from the comfort of the Ainsworth Hot Springs, I gaze across the four miles of cold water to the lead-laden promontory and marvel to think, even today, a hundred-and-twenty years later, the landscape hasn’t changed much. It would take little imagination to see a miner’s campfire burning in the distance, or to see the wake of a Flatbow canoe pulling in to shore, or hear the sounds of steel picks clanging against galena ore.

I look across at the site of the Bluebell Mine and remind myself that this is where it all happened, amid this now peaceful demi-paradise. The early years of the 1880’s marked the moment the first steamboats plied the lake, the first trains skirted its shores, the first log cabins and first towns made their appearance. It was the end of the Age of Innocence as English, Canadian and American interests all collided at once in this undeveloped land full of promise.

Sproule was hanged on circumstantial evidence, despite appeals and petitions from far and wide. He went to the gallows still professing his innocence. His voice still haunts me. That moment of history still haunts me: that crucial pivot in time when the future may diverge in a thousand different directions (as it does in the beginning of the writing process). I can’t rest till I feel I’ve let Sproule have his final say. And, to be fair, I want other characters have their say too.

Big Ledge is a tale of murder, greed, perjury, disappointment and even fantasy. In its retelling, I hope to finally exorcise some of its ghosts.

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Guy Consolmagno & the Vatican Observatory

Click BELOW for the CBC interview with Brother Guy and learn what the Roman Catholic Church really thinks about science.

VATT--the Vatican Observatory, near Tucson, Arizona.

Robert Sproule & the Appeals Court

Thomas Hammill, Sinner or Saint?

Robert E. Sproule

Geography of Big Ledge

Getting Started with Big Ledge

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