01-071: Footnote to Phillip Godsell’s Story of Near Massacre at Fort St. John in 1912

By Dorthea CalverleyWhen she was interviewed in 1974 Mrs. Elizabeth Beattie remembered Mr. Godsell, and had read the story reproduced in Peace River Chronicles. She also remembered many of the old-timers who were in the region when the event was supposed to have taken place. She said she had heard discussions about the incident not long after Mr. Godsell’s account was published.

“That is all poppycock”, she said.

Throughout the long conversation about the Beavers as she knew them from 1914 on, she asserted over and over again that the Beavers were “good people”, “friendly people”, and “never apt to kill”. “I was never afraid of them”, she said emphatically.

She had been at Hudson’s Hope only a short time when the Hudson’s Hope Beavers had finally been brought under treaty, and she described the “high jinks” that accompanied the primitive rodeo and gambling games that took place at such a gathering. “Some people were scared”, she said, “but I never was, because it was only their way of having a good time. I never knew of them threatening anybody.”

“Anybody who was around here then knew that Mr. Godsell made stories to sell, but nobody ever took them seriously. There was a lot of exaggeration in that story”, she said.

John Beatton, Jr. has been interviewed by other people, we are told, and, we are assured, confirms Mrs. Beattie’s opinion that there was never any danger of a massacre.

We draw no conclusions from the opposite views of the local inhabitants and the “headline” in Peace River Chronicles.