The Left Coast

    My recent trip to British Columbia began with my reading about the “Far Corner”, while on the plane. The “Far Corner” is that area of the continent encompassing Oregon, Washington and British Columbia and the full title of the book being read was (and still is): Far Corner: A Personal View of the Pacific Northwest Including Certain Places No Longer Easily Found. 

   The view offered is from the 1920s and from it one learns that British Columbians were driving on the left-hand side of the road during the early part of that decade. The following description of the protests over changing the rules of the road seems now to be rather quaint given the more noxious debates currently raging. 

“At that time the stranger discovered, before he got to his hotel, that Vancouver was no Yankee city. His taxi ran on the left. So did all other traffic, including the specially built streetcars. This was odd enough even in Canada, where otherwise, except for tiny Prince Edward Island off the East coast, traffic followed the right-hand custom common to the United States. 

    It was confusing at first, though one ceased to think of it; and it was fair notice to the outlander, either Canadian or American, that the Province of British Columbia proposed to live up to its name. This was a true British Commonwealth. But there had been a mounting opposition to the left-hand rule. This presently congealed into a strong parliamentary clique and, after a good deal of impassioned oratory, the provincial legislators passed an Act changing the rule of the road to right-hand. The time set for a change was January 1, 2019.

   I was still a resident of the province, and recall the uproar as the day drew near. The letter columns of the Vancouver Province, Sun, and World, and of the Victoria Colonist and other papers, were seething with bitter protests and denunciations concerning the un-British, even traitorous adoption of “Yankee notions.” Various societies, associations and clubs were galvanized into action, They held meetings. They passed and drew up resolutions damning the whole business as the work of Satan in league with Uncle Sam. Communications signed John Bull and The Englishman, both gentlemen obviously close to apoplexy, were given prominence. What was good enough in the time of Gladstone, it appeared; what was good enough for the Pitts, both Elder and Younger, and doubtless, too, good enough for Beowulf, was good enough for British Columbia in the twentieth century. It was freely prophesied that collisions and wrecks would strew the streets and highways with carnage compared with which the field at Balaclava was as nothing.

   The awesome day came and passed. The local press reported that not a single accident occurred that could have been charged to the change. Disappointed John Bull and True Englishman returned to their more usual subjects of letters to the editors, things like the first crocus in Kerrisdale, and the correct ingredients of proper chutney."

Sources: 
Far Corner...is by Stewart Holbrook and you will enjoy it. Here are two chapter headings which will likely entice you: "The Edens of Erewhon" and "The Dead Stacked Like Cordwood."
About the subject of "Left-Handed Driving" you are now curious. For B.C. see: "99 Years Ago, British Columbians Started Driving on the Right-hand Side of the Road," Bronwyn Smyth, Vancouver Is Awesome, Jan. 1, 2021. For a list of all countries where they still drive on the "wrong side" see this Wiki entry: "Left- and Right-Hand Traffic."

The Bonus:
Speaking of quaintness, attentive readers who made it to the last sentence will have noticed that letters were being written  to newspapers in British Columbia alerting readers to the blooming of the "first crocus in Kerrisdale." Readers of this blog will recall that letters were written in Great Britain reporting on the arrival in the spring of the first cuckoo. The Times even published a series of books with the titles, The First Cuckoo, etc. See: "Books of The Times."