Judge’s Wife: Memoirs of a British Columbia Pioneer

Published from the manuscript copy in the National Archives, Eunice Harrison’s memoir of life in British Columbia from 1860 to 1906 offers one of the earliest accounts of the province by a woman. With verve and humour she describes everyday life in early Victoria and Vancouver. As a young woman, she travelled across the Strait in the tugboat Etta White to make music, take part in theatricals and witness a Native ceremonial dance. After her marriage to Eli Harrison, a well known circuit court judge, she travelled the Cariboo road with her husband, recording her impressions of justice being meted out in the rough, pioneer world of the BC Interior. Her account of the social customs of the day, through the eyes of a woman, is both acute and instructive. The memoir concludes with her experience of the catastrophic 1906 San Francisco earthquake and fire which she lived through while on a visit to the city with her two young children. Her account of the destruction and chaos she witnessed as she made her way to safety through the burning city makes for gripping reading.