In the course of this post’s first five minutes of existence, it had been given four titles, not all of which were written down immediately. The first, Finding Australia, was based on an opinion post by Julianne Schultz, While Trump is moving fast and breaking things, Americans wanting to escape should come to Australia.
I realized that this was analogous to the situation my maternal grandparents found themselves in, living in Gateshead, in northern England, at a time when there wasn’t even northern soul to comfort them. Their then youngest daughter, Margaret, had died of tuberculosis in 1908, and my grandmother, born Jane Briggs (1880 – 1972) was determined to leave England. They escaped to the wild west of British Columbia, first Steveston then Kelowna. Both my aunt Mollie (1906 – 2010) and my mother, Jennie (1916 – 2021) had tuberculosis, and both were sterilized, which is the main reason why I was adopted and became a McLellan.
This situation encouraged me to reflect on other forms of escape more generally and the attraction of gold rushes, specifically. So the second title was, Finding your gold rush. It was then modified to Finding your personal gold rush, before it ended up as Rush.
Long after I had started writing this post I discovered that Jane’s husband, my maternal grandfather, Harry Andison (1878 – 1947), had lived in Yale, British Columbia. It was at the southern boundary of the Fraser Canyon gold rush (1858 – 1927). Before I knew this fact, I had regularly stopped at Yale when opportunity presented itself. It was the one location on the upper Fraser River = north of Hope, population 6 686 in 2021, a district municipality at the confluence of the Fraser and Coquihalla rivers, that had appealed as a place to live. It was serene, and seemed to have a more moderate temperature than Lytton, Lillooet or even Quesnel.
Lynne Brown (ca. 1952 – ), in Whoever Gives Us Bread: The Story of Italians in British Columbia (2013), notes: The title of “the largest town west of Chicago and north of San Francisco” moved in rapid succession from Yale to Lillooet, and then to Barkerville. Yes, these former boom-towns became bust-towns. Less polite comments include epithets such as: the wickedest little settlement in British Columbia and a veritable Sodom and Gomorrah of vice, violence and lawlessness.
The disadvantage of a lake, and other varieties of stagnant water, is that they attract mosquitos, while swiftly flowing rivers do not. Mosquito bites always caused a severe reaction in me, so I have always chosen places to live that are relatively free of mosquitos. This is why I live close to salt water, and definitely not near a lake! For those interested, Iceland is the only European country without mosquitos.
I remember driving my mother, Jennie (1916 – 2021), from New Westminster to Kamloops, on some unremembered date. We stopped for coffee at Ashcroft on the Thompson River. She confided in me, that this was where she had always wanted to live. The population of Kelowna in 1920, a couple of years after her family moved there, was about 1 500. The population of Ashcroft in 2011 was 1 628. This helped me understand its appeal. I think the reason she never moved either to Ashcroft or to Kelowna, as a widow, was that she felt the need to live close to a near relative = my sister, Mychael, her choice of name, but adopted and named Morva Alison, born Maureen MacCormack. They lived less than 800 meters from each other, for almost 30 years, excluding the 19 years she lived with my parents as a child.
Rush has a lot of different meanings, so it gives a lot of scope for individual attention. A dictionary can help people examine how the word is used. Yes, it can be a noun or an adjective. Of course it can also be a verb, with and without an object. Many of the definitions refer to a sudden escape to something, or a release of emotion.
The wild west of the Pacific Northwest, of which British Columbia is a part, is exemplified in two complementory works. The first, chronologically is Edmund Naughton’s (1926 – 2013) western novel, McCabe (1959). After more than 50 years, I found an e-book version of the book on 2025-12-17, hidden behind an inaccurate title, Strike from the Sky, but with Naughton listed as the author rather than Alexander McKee (1918 – 1992). I had originally learned that Odhams Press had published Naughton’s McCabe with McKee’s Strike from the Sky and James Mitchell’s (1926 – 2002) Steady Boys Steady (1960). There was even a used copy available from Yare Books in Great Yarmouth, England for £21.77 plus £33.13 in postage = £54.84 equivalent to NOK 746.88 = USD 75.
Until now, my familiarity with McCabe is related to the second work, Robert Altman’s (1925 – 2006) film McCabe & Mrs. Miller (1971), my favourite western film. Altman is generally appreciated for his western revisionism. Yes, one is entitled to ask just how much of this approach is derived from Naughton’s work? Brad Bigelow (1967 – ), a self described champion of neglected books, contends that McCabe follows the classic western formula, at least superficially: stranger comes to town, settles in, the town adjusts to him. Then circumstances change and the former stranger is forced to decide whether to run or stand his ground. It is reminiscent of Fred Zinnemann’s (1907 – 1997) High Noon (1952).
With the publication of McCabe seven years after the film High Noon (1952), it is appropriate to ask if Naughton is looking back or forward? Is he anticipating western and other film trends that came in the next 10-15 years, or looking back at older films and, to a lesser extent, novels. Naughton’s protagonist, John McCabe, is an anti-hero like John Yossarian in Joseph Heller’s (1923 – 1999 ) Catch 22 (1961).
In Darkness at High Noon: The Carl Foreman Documents, a 2002 documentary based in part on a lengthy 1952 letter from screenwriter Carl Foreman (1914 – 1984) to film critic Bosley Crowther (1905–1981). It appears that Foreman’s role in the creation and production of High Noon has been unfairly downplayed. The film originated from a four-page plot outline Foreman wrote that turned out to be very similar to The Tin Star (1947) a short story written by John W. Cunningham (1915 – 2002). Foreman purchased the film rights to Cunningham’s story and wrote the screenplay. Unfortunately, the documentary vilifies High Noon‘s director, Stanley Kramer (1913 – 2001), rather than providing insights into the creative process used in producing High Noon.
Westerns, novels or films, demand a deeper understanding of violence. I lack this, but gained some basic understandings in order to appreciate McCabe’s dead-eye shot, the adaptation of his Colt revolver to fire without a trigger. Unfortunately, my mind refuses to live in the past. It goes forward to the Rust (2021) film project at Bonanza Creek, New Mexico, which resulted in the death of Halyna Anatoliivna Hutchins, née Androsovych (1979 – 2021), a Ukrainian cinematographer. I see parallels. McCabe has killed one man, and in his mind this can be attributed to an accident. McCabe lived his earlier life mostly as a traveling gambler. He reminds himself that he was chased off a riverboat as a greenhorn amateur. At times he lacks the ethical values of the time. Unlike the other Euro-Americans, he tries to be fair to everyone, including Chinese and Indians (yes, the First Nation people rather than people from the Asian subcontinent) in the little mining town of Presbyterian Church where he decides to set up a saloon and, later, a whorehouse. I am uncertain if McCabe’s vocabulary allowed him to use other, potentially more polite, terms for such an establishment: House of assignation, brothel, bordello and bawdy house, may not have been available to him.
In English, there is an expression: calling a spade a spade. The idiom originates in the classical Greek of Plutarch’s (46 – 119) Apophthegmata Laconica (c 100), and was introduced into the English language in 1542 in Nicolas Udall’s (1504 – 1556) translation, incorporating some of the work of Erasmus (1466 – 1536) including the replacement of Plutarch’s images of “trough” and “fig” with the more familiar garden tool.
I had wondered if spade originated with a card suite. Their symbolic representations, colours, French names and English names are: ♣ often black, sometimes green, blue or pink = trèfles = clubs; ♦ often red, but sometimes orange, yellow or blue = carreaux = diamonds; ♥ most often red, but sometimes yellow = cœurs = hearts; ♠ most often black, sometimes green or blue = piques = spades. I was wrong.
McCabe is set in the Puget Sound area of Washington State in 1908. My grandfather arrived in British Columbia in 1910. As a cattle buyer, he was armed. Was he part of the wild west? I have no definitive answer, but tend towards a yes. When I think of westerns, I only have vague ideas of place and time. How far west is the west? Where does the west stop? What is further west than the west? Sometimes I think of the time period 1870 – 1900. However, one of my first exposures to Westerns involved the Roy Rogers show, which is set in the 1950s. I know this because Pat Brady drives what looks like a military jeep. I have written about Roy Rogers before. My other reference point for westerns is Have Gun – Will Travel, a radio and television series from 1957 through 1963, with Richard Boone (1917 – 1981) as Paladin, a gentleman gunfighter for hire. The name originates from the name of a group of twelve knights in Charlemagne’s (748 – 814) court. However, paladin has come to refer to any chivalrous hero.
I would like to update some information about Dale Evans (1912–2001). An 8 minute YouTube video discusses 5 men she allegedly disliked/hated, for various reasons, although the common thread seems to be masculine intoxication. It is claimed that she carried wounds that never healed. The allegation is that the men she disliked most were: Roy Rogers (1911 – 1998), John Wayne = Marion Robert Morrison (1907 – 1979), Clark Gable (1901–1960), Gene Autrey (1907–1998) and Bob Hope (1903–2003). That said, the truthiness of YouTube videos can always be discussed.
McCabe is far ahead of his time in his attitude towards women — or at least towards Mrs. Miller, who arrives and takes over the job of running McCabe’s second business. Though the two are partners in business and, fairly regularly, in bed, McCabe understands that he cannot take their relationship for granted.
McCabe was sensitive about being noticed in her room. He took care, though, to be discreet, and to attend to business. There were nights when he didn’t want to visit. Those were the nights when he knew she would be smoking, naked on the bed, with the wicks down in the kerosene lamps. If he came, she would look at him with eyes like violet stones in cold water — as if he were to blame for the man she had sold herself to that evening.
McCabe also exhibits a degree of emotional intelligence that’s still pretty rare in most male characters. He struggles with Mrs. Miller’s dispassionate approach to their nights together. Though frustrated that she quickly sees that he is close to illiterate and far less trustworthy with figures, he wishes they could share more than just a physical intimacy: “All my life I been walking around with a block of ice inside me, Constance, and I don’t hardly get the sawdust brushed off before you got me back in the icehouse.”
Naughton’s view of good and evil is a far cry from High Noon, too. McCabe is a gambler, a schemer, a coward and, when pressed, a killer. Rev. Elliott, who has erected the church that gives Presbyterian Church its name, is bitter, bigoted and anti-social: he would prefer that the rest of the town disappeared. When gunmen arrive to face off with McCabe, they are like Trump, transactional. They are present as representatives (some would say stooges) of a distant corporation, carrying out a simple business transaction: Snake River Mining Company can’t afford you: can’t afford a man it can’t buy out. Know that? Never tolerate that. Can afford Sheehan, damned fop they sent to you last week: margin of corruption it allows for in its budget. Company calculated the cost of Presbyterian Church; who collects doesn’t matter. More corrupt people are, easier they can be controlled; company can always send them to jail when they get to be a nuisance.
… At any rate, McCabe, they can’t afford you around. Bad example. Pile all these mountains on you, if they have to; so people thereabouts will believe it, if they deny you ever existed.
Naughton may have been the only writer of westerns to have learned more from George Orwell (1903 – 1950) than Zane Grey (1872 – 1939) — although Brad Bigwell tells us that one English reviewer cited a different influence, dismissing the book as the “Latest example of the neo-Freudian [from the work of Sigmund Freud (1856 – 1939)] intellectual death-wishful Westerns.” Suffice it to say that McCabe merits more than just footnote status in reference to a much better known movie. It’s original, innovative, and as gripping as any thriller. As that one reviewer put it, “You don’t have to like westerns to like this one.”
Notes
Northern soul is a music and dance movement that emerged in Northern England and the Midlands in the early 1970s. It developed from the British mod scene, based on a particular style of Black American soul music with a heavy beat and fast tempo (100 bpm and above).
Perhaps the best known northern soul track is Tainted Love, composed by Ed Cobb (1938 – 1999), originally recorded by Gloria Jones (1945 – ) in 1964. It attained worldwide fame after being reworked by British synth-pop duo Soft Cell with vocalist Marc Almond (1957 – ) and instrumentalist David Ball (1959 – ) for their album Non-Stop Erotic Cabaret (1981). The main synth used in Soft Cell’s Tainted Love was the Korg Maxi-Korg 800DV, along with a Synclavier for additional sounds. The bassline was played on a Korg SB-100 Synthe-Bass.
Then there is Mod = modernist = someone who listens to modern jazz. It started as a London based 1950s working class subculture with a focus on music and fashion. In terms of transport, mode rode motor scooters, usually Lambrettas or Vespas. To understand mods, I recommend the London trilogy novels by Colin MacInnis (1914 – 1976): City of Spades (1957), Absolute Beginners (1959) and Mr Love & Justice (1960). The first book uses spade in a different context than that previously mentioned, because it is about the adventures of Johnny Fortune, a recently arrived Nigerian immigrant, and the emergent black culture in London in the late 1950s. The middle book in particular, is about mods, specifically. In addition there is Richard Weight (1970 – ) Mod: From Bebop to Britpop, Britain’s Biggest Youth Movement (2013). MOD = Ministry of Defense, which may be the reason why the British roundel is used as a symbol for the subculture version of mod.
In my world, modern jazz is exemplified by Herbie Hancock (1940 – ), Chic Corea (1941 – 2021) and Norwegian Nils Petter Mohr (1960 – ). Then there are the old timers: Scott Joplan (1868 – 1917), Bix Beiderbecke (1903 – 1931), Billy Holiday (1915 – 1959), Ella Fitzgerald (1917 – 1996), Dizzy Gillespie (1917 – 1993), Art Blakey (1919 – 1990), Dave Brubeck (1920 – 2012), Sarah Vaughan (1924 – 1990), John Coltrane (1926 – 1967) and Miles Davis (1926 – 1991). Maybe Isaak Hayes (1942 – 2008) should also be included somewhere. I would also like to mention that for many years when my family stayed at a cabin at Blind Bay on Shuswap Lake, the only music I was willing to listen to was Rhapsody in Blue, by George Gershwin (1898 – 1957).
Rockers were the alternative subculture to the mods. To understand them, one must realize the position motorcycling held during the post-world war II period. Initially, it held a prestigious position and was positively associated with wealth and glamour. However, starting in the 1950s, the working class were able to buy inexpensive cars, so motorcycles became transport for the poor. These motorcycles were transformed into cafe racers, which were used to intimidate others (mods!) and project masculinity. In terms of clothing they wore leather motorcycle jackets, no or a classic open-face helmet, aviator goggles and white silk scarves. Also popular were T-shirts, leather caps, jeans and engineer or motorcycle boots. These boots were laceless so they would not interfere with motorcycle drive belts, with well insulated shafts and almost full lower leg protection in case of an accident. Yes, I went through a phase myself where I wore engineer boots. Today, almost all of my footwear are Allbirds.
