Nick Ruskin

Nick is part of our 2007 experiment in bringing more theatre people onto the storytelling stage. He has been a part time resident of Nelson for the last nine years and is currently a theatre student at the University of Victoria. He played a leading roll in the Silverking Theatre Company’s production of the Glass Menagerie and was also seen in TNT’s Zastrozzi. Nick spent the last four summers in Barkerville telling stories of rowdy, gold hungry miners and those who tried to control their rowdiness. Nick is 21 years old.

Begby’s Methods, Miners’ Madness

Judge Matthew Begby is perhaps the most famous of the small troupe of lawmakers and enforcers (judges), who on foot and horseback, made their way through the rough terrain of the interior of BC to bring justice to Her Majesty’s colony. Their mandate was also to prevent the Manifest Destiny and vigilante justice that were the hallmarks of the California Gold Rush. Nick’s story includes first hand accounts and anecdotes of the ludicrous situations the judges would find themselves in and of the methods they used to mete out fair and decent justice among the mix of American, British, First Nations and other peoples who found their way to this distant and inhospitable land seeking riches and/or anonymity.