Bamfield Community Museum and Archives’ 11th annual exhibit pays tribute to “The Life and Legacy of R. Bruce Scott.” this summer.
Scott played a major, but mostly forgotten, role in the establishment of the Pacific Rim National Park, devoting close to 40 years to lobbying for protection of the coast he so passionately loved.
“As a local historian, Scott wrote five invaluable books and numerous articles for magazines and newspapers. His fifth book, Gentlemen on Imperial Service, is a fascinating look at the history of the Trans-Pacific Cable, which brought him, as an employee of the Cable Board, to its Bamfield terminus in 1930,” relates Judith Phillips, a director with the Bamfield Historical Society.
A sixth book was left unfinished when he died, aged 91, in 1996. His daughter, Susan Scott, has generously given the rights to his books to the Bamfield Historical Society, which has plans to reissue them.
(Copies of “Gentlemen” are still available in Bamfield and from the BHS).
To learn more about this unsung Vancouver Island hero, come to the Bamfield Museum exhibit, which opened July 1 and continues through the Labour Day weekend. The exhibit will then be available for viewing in the library of the Bamfield Community School during school hours.
For more about Bamfield’s past, see: www.bamfieldhistory.com.