WADDINGTON, A Biography of Alfred Penderill Waddington, by Neville Shanks (1975 1st Ed.)

Author: Neville Shanks. Published by North Island Gazette Ltd., Port Hardy, BC., 1975, 1st Edition. Printed in Canada. Excellent Condition SOFTCOVER Book, with cardboard cover, stapled and taped, tight spine. Clean inside, other than the first owner's name and date of 1976 inside. Size: 8.75 x 5.75 inch, 80 pages.   

WADDINGTON, A Biography of Alfred Penderill Waddington, by Neville Shanks, is a rare and scarce, historically significant biography published in 1975 by the North Island Gazette out of Port Hardy, British Columbia, that chronicles the turbulent, ambitious life of Alfred Penderell Waddington (1801–1872), an English-born merchant, author, politician, and infrastructure promoter who left an indelible—and controversial—mark on early British Columbia.

The book covers several distinct phases of Waddington's impact on Western Canadian history:

• BC's First Author: After arriving in Victoria during the 1858 gold rush, Waddington authored The Fraser Mines Vindicated (1858), widely recognized as the first non-government book published in the Vancouver Island Colony.
• The Bute Inlet Wagon Road: Waddington championed a disastrous project to build a commercial wagon road from Bute Inlet to the Cariboo goldfields.
• The Chilcotin War of 1864: The construction of his road directly triggered a violent conflict with the Tŝilhqotʼin (Chilcotin) people, who were defending their territory and dealing with starvation and smallpox threats. Fourteen of Waddington's road workers were killed in a surprise attack, halting the project permanently and bankrupting him.
• Transcontinental Railway Pioneer: Despite his failures, Waddington spent his final years fiercely lobbying in Ottawa for a cross-Canada railway. Though he died of smallpox in 1872 before seeing it happen, the Canadian government ultimately purchased his early geographic surveys to help build the Canadian Pacific Railway.

DID YOU KNOW? Waddington's name remains highly visible in British Columbia today, most notably through Mount Waddington, the highest peak entirely within the province, and the surrounding Mount Waddington Regional District. Shanks' biography remains a foundational piece of regional historiography for researchers studying early colonial infrastructure, the Chilcotin War, and BC's transition into Canadian Confederation.

GC&C Stock #5362