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"Wake Day"
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"It was the mystery of the year 1880! All Vancouver Island talked of it: everyone had his own solution." So opened an article written by James
K. Nesbitt, for The Daily Colonist, Victoria, June, 1950, seventy years after
the mysterious event. This Weekend Magazine article explores the unsolved
disappearance of a retired Royal Navy Captain. Nesbitt
ponders: The first
details of his mysterious disappearance, and the discovery of his damaged sloop were
reported in The
Nanaimo Free Press, January 17, 1880. The mystery deepened. Evidence was revealed about a robbery to the sloop in the The Nanaimo Free Press, January 21. Further information about the disappearance of Captain Wake was revealed in The Daily British Colonist, January 24. More information about the robbery of goods from the sloop, and further speculation about the disappearance of Captain Wake were disclosed in The Nanaimo Free Press, January 31. George Wake, Captain Waks's son, offered a reward for information leading to any clues about the disappearance of his father. Two years
later, in 1882, a settler on Thetis Island found some human bones near the beach
where Captain Wakes's sloop was discovered. A
coroner from Nanaimo who evaluated these bones, concluded that they were not
of Captain Wake. One hundred and twenty-two years later, the mystery remains unsolved! Created 2002 by Lynda G. Poulton |