1920-1923::Farson and the Cowichan Lake Floathouses
- Papertown Station
- Aug 8, 2020
- 8 min read
Updated: Sep 17
An early 20th-century writer who once called a Vancouver Island floathouse home.
"1915::James Scott Negley Farson: Journalist, Aviator, Civil Engineer, Adventurer (1890-1960)"
Photo Clip: Passport Application (1915)
Long before James Bond, there was a man who could make women swoon and who did the things that most men of his time could only dream about. That man was Negley Farson. Farson was a partially educated American journalist and Civil Engineer who wandered the earth, experiencing extreme adventures. He traded arms in Russia during the Russian Revolution, interviewed Gandhi before also witnessing his arrest, watched Stalin review the Red Army in the Red Square, and privately viewed the corpse of notorious American gangster John Dillinger moments after the FBI gunned him down… the list is endless.
“Almost everything happened to him that befalls a living man.” - New York Times (reviewing Farson's autobiography The Way of a Transgressor [1936])
"1920::Uncle Dick's Cabin on the North End of Cowichan Lake, Vancouver Island"
Photo Clip: Britannia & Eve (1935)
London, England
At the outbreak of World War I, Farson joined Britain's Royal Air Force and was sent to Egypt, where his plane was shot down in action. He was sent back to Britain to recover from a severe leg injury and fell in love with his nurse, Eve Stoker, niece of Bram Stoker of Dracula fame. When the doctors could do no more for Farson's leg, they suggested sunshine and rest as his next step for recovery. Eve knew just the place: Uncle Dick's cabin.
"1920::Negley and Eve's Dual Passport" Photo Clip: Passport Application (1920)
Penniless due to post-war circumstances, Negley and Eve married and soon arrived on Vancouver Island, where they were challenged to live on £10 a month. They met up with Eve's uncle, Dr. Richard 'Dick' Stoker, Bram Stoker's brother, who had retired to the Cowichan Valley in 1898. Uncle Dick gave the newlyweds the keys to his cabin, where they'd spend their first of two years at Cowichan Lake.
"1921::The Farson's Cowichan Lake Floathouse" Photo Clip: Britannia & Eve (1935)
London, England
During their second summer on the island, the Farsons joined their neighbours on the lake by trading in Uncle Dick's cabin for a floathouse. Each day, they would lift their floathouse moorings to wake up to a different view of a different part of the lake. Life was good, and Negley got his sunshine as prescribed.
"It was merely a raw board shack built on a cedar raft, but it had this advantage - we could pull up its wooden pile moorings and let it drift just to see where we would wake up in the morning." - Negley Farson, 1935 (on remembering his Cowichan Lake floathouse)
"1922::Farson's First Big Short Story" Clip: The New York Herald (1922)
New York, New York
Farson believed that while giving his leg time to heal, he could scratch a living by writing short story fiction for major newspapers from the comfort of his Cowichan Lake floathouse. However, breaking into the industry wasn't as easy as he had thought, and the young couple struggled to make ends meet. With an empty larder and a stack of rejection letters on his desk, Farson reached out to an old friend and editor at The New York Herald, who suggested he weave a story about the world around him on Vancouver Island. Farson took his advice and spent his summer writing, typing and observing life from his floathouse on the lake. When he next heard from his old friend, it was to receive a fat roll of dollar bills and a copy of The New York Herald, which featured his first big short story on the front page of its "Magazine and Books" section.
"1921::Eve Stoker Cooking Trout for Breakfast Near Shaw Creek, Vancouver Island" Photo Clip: Britannia & Eve (1935) London, England
By 1923, Negley and Eve had celebrated a healing leg, some writing success, and their first two years of marriage in the Cowichan Valley. Neither wanted to leave, but neither was ready to retire. At the dawn of their third summer on the lake, the Farsons left Vancouver Island searching for a new adventure, eventually finding one that garnered worldwide attention.
"1925::Map of the Farsons' Journey Through Europe on a Small Yawl"
Map Clip: Sailing Across Europe (1926)
In 1925, the Farsons set out on a 3,000-mile sail across Europe in a 26-foot yawl named Flame. With Negley as Captain and Eve as the crew, they descended Europe's most unknown and least-used waterways that most seafarers had never heard of before. Farson wrote daily accounts of their experience for the Chicago Daily News, describing the scenery, the people, river conditions and every phase of life they encountered. For three weeks of their six-month journey, his words fascinated readers worldwide as they traversed the little-known (and now abandoned) Ludwig Canal, built in 1846 by King Ludwig I of Bavaria, but inspired by Charlemagne's 8th-century attempt to connect the Rhine and Danube by way of his Fossa Carolina Canal.
"1925::One of 101 Locks of the Ludwig Canal" Photo Clip: Sailing Across Europe (1928)
The Ludwig Canal had over 101 locks stretching over 107 miles, making it longer than the Suez and Panama canals. When the Farsons arrived nearly 80 years after it was built, they found it nearly abandoned, and its locks nearly dried out. In spite of its poor condition, the Ludwig Canal was still fully operational and manned by farmers maimed during the First World War. And even though it was the only freshwater link across Europe connecting the North and Black Seas, only two boats had officially (and successfully) passed through its locks since 1905. The Farsons' yawl Flame was officially the third. At the end of their trip, despite benefitting from all the excitement and fame that the trip brought them, Farson admitted there wasn't a place in the world where he could write as well as he did during his summers spent floating on Cowichan Lake.
"...water so clear that you sometimes think your skiff must be floating in air, and, of course, the feeling of being there when the world was freshly made, as you always do feel in the remote regions of British Columbia." - Negley Farson (recalling British Columbia in his book Going Fishing [1942])
"1921::Negley Farson Collecting Driftwood on Cowichan Lake" Photo Clip: Britannia & Eve (1938) London, England
Farson continued to seek out new adventures, and Eve kept up with him at every turn. He became a War Correspondent for the Chicago Daily News during World War II, but lost his job when his editor felt that his writing often reflected a distinctly British perspective. He continued to write anyway, and with a knack for being in the right place at the right time, his work appeared regularly in some of the world's largest newspapers, including the Chicago Daily News.
"1935::A Star Was Born on Cowichan Lake"
Clip: Times Colonist (1935)
Victoria, British Columbia
Although the people of the Cowichan Valley didn't realize it at the time, a star had been born on Cowichan Lake. Farson spent most of his time writing as his house drifted on the lake and occasionally travelled to the post office in the nearby city of Duncan to send off his work to publishers in Chicago, Boston, or New York. Within two short years, Vancouver Island had produced one of the world's most prolific writers.
"Yes, we lived on an island lake in British Columbia for two years, subsisting largely on a shotgun, fishing rods and an overworked typewriter - and I wouldn't swap them for any other two years of my life. Not by a long shot!" - Negley Farson, 1938 (reminiscing about his time spent convalescing on Cowichan Lake)
"1921::The Farsons Camping Lakeside at Cowichan Lake, Vancouver Island" Photo Clip: Britannia & Eve (1938)
London, England
Success came easily to Farson after he left Vancouver Island, but over the years, alcohol became a problem. He wrote candidly about his vice in some of his work and eventually became known as the man who could not only out-drink Ernest Hemingway, but also out-Hemingway Ernest Hemingway. Farson's friends, Ernest Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald, would have agreed.
"1921::Negley Farson Lifting the Moorings of his Cowichan Lake Floathouse"
Clip: The Des Moines Register (1936)
Des Moines, Iowa
In 1936, a reputable reporter was utterly smitten by Farson after reading his life story in his newest book, The Way of a Transgressor. She noted in her book review that Negley Farson must be as charming as he is handsome and make love as well as he writes.
"Twice a week I rowed five miles down to the store to get mail and groceries. I always trolled on the way down or took a shotgun... or both." - Negley Farson (on surviving in the wilderness of Vancouver Island)
"1962::Negley and Eve's Gravesite in Devon, England"
Photo: (tbd)
The Farsons spent their post-Cowichan Lake years travelling and writing stories. Their lives slowed down when they took a break to raise their only son, Daniel. They settled in Devon, England, where they spent their remaining days, and both were buried in St. George's churchyard in the 1960s. Their son, a beneficiary of the family fortune, made a name for himself as a television personality and journalist and, like his father, wandered the earth, seeking and often finding extreme adventures.
"1920::Susan Stoker and George Simpson"
Photo Clips: Stoker Photo Album
In the 1970s, a leather-bound book was discovered in a second-hand bookstore on Vancouver Island. This book, filled with private photos of the Stokers' life at Lake Cowichan, offered a rare glimpse into the personal lives of these historical figures. The image on the left above is Susan Stoker, Dick Stoker's wife (Bram Stoker's sister-in-law). The image on the right is of George Simpson. Simpson and his wife, Suzanne, were neighbours and friends of the Stokers and Farsons, having moored their floathouse near Stoker's cabin. It was said that George Simpson, a devout animal lover, had trained the Whiskey Jack, which they both held in their hand.
"1920::George and Suzanne Simpson (nee Charbrier)" Photo Clip: Britannia & Eve (1935)
London, England
George Simpson and his Parisian wife Suzanne (nee Charbrier) had moved into their Cowichan Lake floathouse in 1917. After taking maintenance advice from their lake neighbours, they varnished, loved, and enjoyed their floating home for many years.
"1920::Two-Susans and Their Artwork"
Image: BC Archives (PDP02712)
Susan Stoker was a respected artist whose work attracted the attention of many prominent botanists. Her friend and neighbour, Suzanne Simpson, was also an artist. Near the end of her life, Simpson donated her Lake Cowichan property to the University of Victoria for research purposes on the condition that she be allowed to continue living out her days there, quietly and peacefully.
"1931::Headstone of Dr. Richard 'Dick' Stoker" Photo: (tbd)
The final resting place of Dick and Susan Stoker is at St. Peter's church in Duncan, Vancouver Island. It is also the resting place of Susan's sister Lucy, who had visited her sister on Vancouver Island and decided to stay. It reads:
In Loving memory of Lt. Col. Richard Nugent STOKER I. M. S. son of Abraham Stoker of Dublin Born Oct. 31, 1854 / Died June 14, 1931 Also SUSAN widow of the above Born July 27, 1852 / Died June 13, 1936 I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills And her sister LUCY HARDEN Died Aug. 10, 1945 Aged 81 years
"1935::Negley Farson Writes for Britannia and Eve"
Clip: Britannia & Eve (1930-1957)
London, England
Britannia and Eve is the magazine for lovers of Art Deco and all that came with the time. Negley Farson's Cowichan Lake stories and other life experiences often appeared as feature stories in this popular British magazine.
Farson's books featuring his time spent at Lake Cowichan:
The Story of a Lake (1939)
The Way of a Transgressor (1936)
Going Fishing (1942...rumoured to have been written on Cowichan Lake when he secretly returned to write this book).
