C.H.J. Snider: Why Stories Matter

Hello everyone, I’ve been very busy these past few weeks, gathering the images and writing the captions for the over 250 paintings, drawings, photos, and maps that will appear in full colour in Along the Shore. I wanted to share this interesting photo with you that I found as I raked through the Toronto Reference Library Baldwin Room’s incredible image collection.

TRL, TEC 433 T

Some of you may be wondering about its relevance — it’s a picture taken of the defunct Toronto Evening Telegram Reporter’s Office, by an unknown photographer in 1904. The man on the right hand side of the door was one of the most influential writers on the marine history of the Toronto region and the Great Lakes in the first half of the twentieth century. His name was Charles Henry Jeremiah (C.H.J.) Snider.

Rising through the ranks of the Telegram’s offices to the position of Editor, Snider’s interest in the Great Lakes was wide and varied — he authored a series of books on the marine battles and skirmishes fought on the Great Lakes during the War of 1812, and also discovered a vessel sunk during the course of that conflict, the Nancy, a British supply ship. An experienced sailor, he was also an accomplished marine artist, and provided many illustrations for John Ross Robertson’s classic series on old Toronto, Robertson’s Landmarks.

“J. W. Steinhoff”, 1876-1899 C.H.J. Snider TRL, JRR 2654 Cab. IV

Above is Snider’s rendering of the steamer J.W. Steinhoff, that plied the waters of Lake Ontario from the downtown docks of Toronto Harbour to Victoria Park, an early pleasure ground and later amusement park, located at the east end of the present day Beach district.

Rather than presenting the reader with a straight recitation of fact and academic argument, Snider relied heavily on oral tradition to tell stories, many of which were published in his well-loved column, “Schooner Days”, which ran in the Evening Telegram from 1935 to 1956. His work included the first hand information he gleaned from aged captains of schooners, stonehookers, and steamers, Great Lakes sailors, and others who had an intimate knowledge of the inland seas of North America and the Toronto waterfront.

Snider’s work has been quite influential to me in writing Along the Shore. I believe, for many of us, that it is the telling of the story that creates memory and makes history relevant to us in our everyday lives. The anecdotes and experiences of those who previously occupied the Toronto waterfront — the First Peoples, the pioneers, the sailors and swimmers, the waterfront entrepreneurs, and those who eked out a living at the water’s edge, are a vital part of the historical narrative that grounds us in the past — a past that might seem otherwise too distant and irrelevant to matter much in our busy lives today. So thank you C.H.J. for your stories, and for helping us to connect to our own place at the water’s edge, along the shore.