Title page, Chinese and English Phrase Book and Dictionary, 1897. Courtesy Imogene Lim

An excerpt from the Winter 2024-25 edition of British Columbia History.

By Imogene Lim

When someone says the word “Chinatown,” a certain image comes to mind. In British Columbia, it is of Vancouver or Victoria’s streetscapes of narrow laneways or buildings of two- or three-storeys in height, recessed balconies, “Chinese” businesses and associations, as well as a gateway to signal to the visitor that they have arrived. Each of these Chinatowns holds a distinction in the Canadian context: Victoria as the oldest, Vancouver as the largest. Both are in populous urban centres. Historically, they were a hub for migration (or destination) and dispersal, as well as commerce. 

But many early immigrants to Canada sought opportunity and fortune outside Vancouver and Victoria (the reason that those early Chinese referred to their destination as Gold Mountain, Gum Saan). [1] Their existence is represented in the historical record through physical remains, including cemeteries; oral history; and ephemera. In BC, where did the early Chinese find work or home—a place of belonging—besides Vancouver or Victoria?

As a result of a Legacy Project of the province, launched in 2015, [2] Heritage BC produced Chinese Canadian Historic Places Cultural Map, available on its website: https://heritagebc.ca/cultural-maps/chinese-historic-places-map.

The interactive map, which announces the depth and expanse of the Chinese Canadian presence in BC, was created through a community-nomination process. What sites might be missing? What will be remembered after the last Chinese Canadian pioneer dies in their remote community, or when there are only “newcomers” present? Erasure happens. [3] According to John Meares’ s expedition, Chinese arrived as early as 1788 accompanying the ship’s crew as artisans. [4] 

Through the passage of time, information is lost. However, there is one resource that the average person interested in Chinese Canadian history may have overlooked—in part, because of its title, Chinese and English Phrase Book and Dictionary. [5]

It is not obvious from the title that place names were included—to be valued by those who purchased or had access to it. [6] The back of the book includes names of countries from every continent except Antarctica, plus “Principal Town Names of Canada” [7] and “Principal Cities and Towns in the United States.” [8] Of specific interest to BC History readers is “Places, Names of British Columbia,” [9] which lists over 200 locations. 

Composite image of the BC place names listed in the Chinese and English Phrase Book and Dictionary, 1897

In the late 1800s, the places that mattered changed over the course of a century or more. As evident in BC, there has been an ebb and flow of population and industry, resulting in the boom and bust of communities. [10] For example, McDame Creek in the Cassiar Land District is unlikely to be known to most today; it is noteworthy because gold was found there by a prospector named Harry McDame.

For Chinese pioneers coming to Gum Saan, knowing the locations of various gold strikes [11] offered the potential of economic success. Though McDame Creek was meaningful enough to be included in the CEPBD, [12] equally important is to acknowledge its cultural significance to Black Canadian history. McDame and his partner, John Robert Giscome, were both from the Caribbean. According to the geographical name’s origin notes, McDame and Giscome may have been part of the 1858 emigration of San Francisco Blacks to Vancouver Island. [13] 

Consider another place name, this time in the United States: Asotin, Washington. In 2024, it is neither a principal city nor a town, yet there it is in the CEPBD. [14] Its population in 2022 was just under 1,200. [15] Historically, it was known as a Nez Perce winter camp, [16] and more importantly to immigrants of the day, gold was discovered in the area. [17] Again, in the late nineteenth century, gold was an allure to many, including those who were Chinese.

Some place names were by association, that is, created with the use of the descriptor “China,” plus a “fill-in-the-blank” geographic feature, to create place names such as, “China Creek, “China Bar,” et cetera. [18]

Screenshot of a map of BC geographical names with the term “China.”
BC Geographical Names

Even the pejorative “Chink” was employed to denote where early Chinese had lived and worked. Although none of these anonymous Chinese sites are stated in the phrase book, the notes about the origin of a particular name in the BC Geographic Names database [19] are revealing.

For example, consider the phrase book listing of Beaver Creek; [20] in the BC Geographic Names database there are over a dozen locations with this exact same name.

Screenshot of a map of BC geographical names with “Beaver Creek.”
BC Geographical Names

Which Beaver Creek in the screenshot is the one listed in phrase book? Presumably one of these Beaver Creeks had an association with Chinese immigrants. As mentioned, “Chink” was used in past place names; this was true, according to the BC Geographic Names database, for a creek originally “identified as Beaver Creek in 1912,” then the name “Chink Creek [was] adopted 1 March 1938” and finally changed in 1963 to its current designation of Atrill Creek. [21] Given the location of Atrill Creek, a.k.a. “Chink” Creek, in the Bulkley Valley, it perhaps is the Beaver Creek listed in phrase book.

The association of “China” with a place establishes a Chinese presence, yet the individuals who lived there remain unknown. Being nameless, these individuals were “erased from the story of building BC and Canada,” [22] unlike the example of Harry McDame. Think again how the word Chinatown is used: China + town; it is a defined space outside of China that is inhabited by Chinese people and, more often than not, is located on the margins of a town or city. [23]

Yet, this town within a town has no moniker to honour the memory of any notable resident. This is part of a larger discussion on naming and memorialization [24] mentioned here to encourage the reader to consider how a place becomes known—within the community and outside of it. [25] For example, the eponymous cities of Vancouver and Victoria are named after Captain George Vancouver and Queen Victoria. [26]

These were and are the names familiar to residents and visitors since the 1800s. However, among those who resided in Vancouver’s and Victoria’s Chinatowns, each city was known by a Chinese name based on descriptors of their respective geographic locations, that is, 鹹水埠 haam sui fao (“saltwater city”) and 大埠 dai fao (“big port”), respectively. [27]

One other aspect to consider in thinking about “Chinatown,” whether the neighbourhood is an urban or rural setting, is that the name is assigned by those who do not live there. Though the word Chinatown might be used today, among early Cantonese speakers the place name was 唐人街 tong yun gai (“street of Tang [dynasty] people” [28]).

A Chinatown in the mid-twentieth century could consist of city blocks of buildings and thousands of residents, like in Vancouver or Victoria, or less than a handful of structures and families or individuals that everyone knew, like in Alert Bay. [29] As well, the sights and sounds of the place are marked by the people and not necessarily the structures.

People make the place. This is a reminder that our view of contemporary prominent Chinatowns, specifically Vancouver’s and Victoria’s, has affected the way we perceive, even “imagine,” Chinatowns of the past. By examining the place names of BC found within the Chinese and English Phrase Book and Dictionary, the reader comes to know the geographic extent to which early Chinese sought economic success. Moreover, with additional analysis of specific locales the narrative of one of the oldest settler groups in BC is enriched and expanded well beyond urban Chinatowns.

ENDNOTES

1. See Ann Hui, Chop Suey Nation: The Legion Cafe and Other Stories from Canada’s Chinese Restaurants (Madeira Park: Douglas & McIntyre, 2019).
2. Government of British Columbia, “Historic Places,” last updated May 3, 2018, https://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/governments/multiculturalism-anti-racism/chinese-legacy-bc/legacy-projects/historical-sites-artifacts/historic-places.
3. Imogene Lim, “Erasure: A Statement on Racism, Inclusivity and Equity,” Heritage BC (blog), August 9, 2020, https://heritagebc.ca/2020/08/09/erasure-a-statement-on-racism-inclusivity-and-equity/
4. Farzine Macrae, dir., 1788 (Vancouver: Chinese Canadian Historical Society of BC, 2008), 9:36, https://youtu.be/V7e9tTvpmvo?si=GdXpfVD6pXyvqMdP; Kathryn Mannie, “The Rise and Fall of Chinatown: The Hidden History of Displacement You Were Never Told,” Global News, May 26, 2022, https://globalnews.ca/news/8793341/chinatown-history-toronto-vancouver-montreal-canada.
5. Chinese and English Phrase Book and Dictionary (Vancouver: Thomson Stationery Company, 1897). Two copies, with preface dates of 1910 and 1913, are available through the Chung Collection, UBC Library Open Collection. From the title page, the book appears to have been registered in 1897, which is the date I use in referring to it.
6. I own a copy of the Chinese and English Phrase Book and Dictionary, hereafter cited as Phrase Book, courtesy of my father, who acquired it on his return to BC in 1937. His family left Cumberland’s Chinatown, where he was born, in 1928. My copy has a preface with the date 1910.
7. Phrase Book, 367–372.
8. Phrase Book 372–391.
9. Phrase Book, 360–367.
10. Sheri Radford, “6 Real-Life BC Ghost Towns You Have to Visit Once in Your Life,” Daily Hive, July 22, 2024, https://dailyhive.com/mapped/ghost-towns-british-columbia.
11. Duane and Tracy Marsteller, “Cassiar Gold Rush,” The Historical Marker Database, last updated February 24, 2022, https://www.hmdb.org/m.asp?m=187916.
12. Phrase Book, 364.
13. Government of British Columbia, “McDame Creek,” BC Geographical Names (hereafter cited as BCGN), https://apps.gov.bc.ca/pub/bcgnws/names/16334.html.
14. Phrase Book, 372.
15. Data USA, “Asotin, WA,” 2022, https://datausa.io/profile/geo/asotin-wa.
16. The Nez Perce are an Indigenous Peoples who travelled with the seasons in an area “in what is now Idaho, Oregon, Washington, and Montana.” Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission, 2021, https://critfc.org/member-tribes-overview/nez-perce-tribe/.
17. City of Asotin, “History,” 2020, https://cityofasotin.org/area-information/history; Happy Avery, “Asotin, City of—Thumbnail History,” HistoryLink.org Essay 11080, June 30, 2015, https://www.historylink.org/file/11080.
18. Winnie L. Cheung, Carolyn Heiman, Imogene Lim, David H.T. Wong, and Jim Wong-Chu, Celebration: Chinese Canadian Legacies in British Columbia (Victoria: Province of British Columbia, Ministry of Tourism, Arts and Culture, 2017), 12–13, https://www2.gov.bc.ca/assets/gov/british-columbians-our-governments/our-history/historic-places/documents/heritage/chinese-legacy/celebration-book-pdf-copies/celebration_final_with_cover_lo-res_spreads.pdf.
19. BCGN, database page, accessed September 1, 2024, https://apps.gov.bc.ca/pub/bcgnws/web.
20. Phrase Book, 361.
21. BCGN, “Atrill Creek,” https://apps.gov.bc.ca/pub/bcgnws/names/9840.html.
22. Imogene Lim, “Erasure 2.0: Gatekeepers,” Heritage BC (blog), August 2, 2021, https://heritagebc.ca/2021/08/02/erasure-2-0-gatekeepers.
23. “In Nanaimo and Kamloops, for example, civic governments segregated Chinese Canadians, attempting to confine them to the outskirts of town.” Government of British Columbia, “Anti-Chinese Politics,” Chinese Legacy BC, lines 11–12, last updated November 24, 2016, https://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/governments/multiculturalism-anti-racism/chinese-legacy-bc/history/anti-chinese-politics. This is notable in Cumberland where the Chinese, Japanese, and Black communities were not part of the town proper; see Figure 11 in David Chuenyan Lai, Chinatowns: Towns Within Cities in Canada (Vancouver, UBC Press, 1988), 74. “Chinese Canadians were segregated socially, economically and politically.” Government of British Columbia, “Discrimination,” Chinese Legacy BC, line 1, last updated November 24, 2016, https://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/governments/multiculturalism-anti-racism/chinese-legacy-bc/history/discrimination. See also Cheung et al., Celebration, 56.
24. See Cindy E. Harnett, “In An Act of Reconciliation, Victoria’s Trutch Street Gets a New Name,” Times Colonist, July 10, 2022, https://www.timescolonist.com/local-news/in-an-act-of-reconciliation-victoria-street-gets-a-new-name-5568424; Sarah Reid, “Victoria Parents Pushing to Rename Elementary School,” CTV News Vancouver Island, last updated September 26, 2019, https://vancouverisland.ctvnews.ca/victoria-parents-pushing-to-rename-elementary-school-1.4610897.
25. Prior to the changes in immigration policies in the late 1960s, the majority of Chinese immigrants came primarily from the province of Guangdong, China, and more specifically, from the Pearl River Delta; see Mannie, “The Rise and Fall of Chinatown”; and Paul Yee, Saltwater City: An Illustrated History of the Chinese in Vancouver (Vancouver: Douglas & McIntyre, 1988), 9–10). Chinese Canadians today are much more diverse in their backgrounds; they are not a monolithic ethnocultural group.
26. BCGN, “Vancouver,” https://apps.gov.bc.ca/pub/bcgnws/names/24320.html; BCGN, “Victoria,” https://apps.gov.bc.ca/pub/bcgnws/names/22474.html.
27. Pronunciation is in the Cantonese dialect. See Yee, Saltwater; and Downtown Victoria Business Association, Mysterious Chinatown: Self-guided Heritage Walking Map, 2021, https://downtownvictoria.ca/downtownvictoria.ca/uploads/2021/10/mysteriouschinatown_e.pdf.
28. Mannie, “The Rise and Fall of Chinatown.”
29. See Imogene L. Lim, “Here and There: Re/Collecting Chinese Canadian History,” Canadian Issues, Fall 2006, 61–64, https://www.proquest.com/docview/208683910?sourcetype=Scholarly%20Journals; which reflects on assumptions of what a Chinatown looks like.

Imogene Lim (林慕珍) is an anthropologist with roots in Cumberland and Vancouver’s Chinatowns. Both her maternal and paternal grandfathers were head tax payers, arriving in 1892 and 1890, respectively. Much of her current work involves communities on Vancouver Island associated with early Chinese Canadians. Family documents continue to serve as a source of inspiration and research; they are a reminder that she is a lo wah kiu descendant.