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A major expansion project at Shawnigan Lake Museum has been boosted by a $500,000 grant from the province's Destination Development Fund. The BCHF member society has successfully sourced multiple donations since launching a campaign to triple the size of its 2,100 square foot facility. Plans include highlighting the life and work of artist E.J. Hughes, the Kinsol Trestle and sharing more stories from local history. The cost for the project is expected to be $2.1 million; shovels will go in the ground next summer. Read more in this Cowichan Valley Citizen story.
The British Columbia Historical Federation invites submissions for the 41st Annual Historical Writing Awards for authors of British Columbia history.
Judges are looking for quality presentations and fresh material. Submissions will be evaluated in the following areas:
The B.C. Lieutenant Governor’s Medal for Historical Writing will be awarded together with $2500 to the author whose publications makes the most significant contribution to the history of British Columbia.
The 2024 awards evening will be held in spring, 2024. Finalists will be publicized in the weeks prior to conference, and the winners, announced during the event, will be publicized immediately afterwards. Submission Requirements: https://forms.office.com/r/dwYBdCBHb3
Submission Deadline: December 31, 2023
By submitting books for this competition, the authors agree that the British Columbia Historical Federation may use their name in press releases and in its publications. Books submitted to the judges are not returned to the publishers or authors.
SUMBIT NOW
Image: Sunder Singh Thandi (“Joe”), left, and Jassa Singh on the right standing in front of a flatdeck truck. Taken on Main Street, Vancouver, when Sunder purchased a new threshing machine, 1939. (Photo courtesy of The Reach Archives.)
The history, culture, and contemporary character of the South Asian Canadian community in Abbotsford is the subject of an ambitious exhibition organized by The Reach Gallery Museum. Des Pardes opens on Saturday, Oct. 14 from 12 to 3 p.m. with a family friendly event featuring hands on activities and entertainment.
The exhibition title is borrowed from the Hindi/Punjabi phrase which can translate to “home and abroad” or “Motherland/Other Land” which is commonly used to describe the South Asian Canadian experience, where families have deep ties in Canada and abroad. The project showcases the unique and major contributions of the ethnically, culturally, and religiously diverse South Asian diaspora to the social, economic, and cultural fabric of Abbotsford and beyond.
Des Pardes is one of the most significant projects ever presented by The Reach and includes contributions from hundreds of participants and collaborators from the community. Many contributors are featured in interviews on flat screen displays, and several families loaned heirlooms and other artifacts that are on view. The large-scale, multi-sensory experience uses historical photographs, oral histories, contemporary interviews, historical objects, and newly commissioned works of art to illustrate six themes: Migration, Faith, Family, Business & Livelihoods, Oppression & Opposition, and Contemporary Culture.
At the heart of the project has been a major initiative to digitize and make accessible to the wider public a vast array of South Asian heritage resources, generously funded by a Digital Access to Heritage grant from Canadian Heritage, with support from the Irving K. Barber Learning Centre’s British Columbia History Digitization Program at the University of British Columbia, and the South Asian Studies Institute at the University of the Fraser Valley. The exhibition makes visible a vast array of personal histories, images, and documents that represent three years of community-based research and many more of collecting.
Baltej Singh Dhillon in 1991. Dhillon was instrumental in removing the ban on beards and turbans in the RCMP. (Photo courtesy of the Baltej Dhillon Archive)
Amongst the newly digitized materials is the Punjabi Patrika archive. This significant local newspaper is one of only two bilingual newspapers in Canada and offers a unique insight into the history of Abbotsford and the surrounding region. The Reach has digitized the entire hardcopy archive spanning from October 1996 to 2014, inclusive. Another interactive kiosk features the Baltej Dhillon Archive which documents the challenges Dhillon faced in his quest to secure the right to wear the dastār or Sikh turban with his RCMP uniform.
“This project is important to our community, and to the broader historical narrative of the region,” says Laura Schneider, executive director of The Reach. “The Reach has featured exhibitions about various aspects of South Asian-Canadian history in the past, but the scope of community involvement that was undertaken to develop this project better represents the diversity of experience that exists in our community and makes it truly special.”
Des Pardes will be on view through May 18, 2024. For the full schedule of public and educational programs that will accompany the exhibition, please visit www.thereach.ca. For exclusive behind-the-scenes content related to the project, follow @despardes.exhibition on Instagram and Tik Tok.
Image: Baltej Singh Dhillon in 1991. Dhillon was instrumental in removing the ban on beards and turbans in the RCMP. (Photo courtesy of the Baltej Dhillon Archive)
Boasting 30 heritage-listed houses built 1888 to 1908, Mole Hill is the last surviving block of pre-World War I housing stock in Vancouver. The block exemplifies BC’s Victorian and Edwardian domestic architecture, providing a direct link to the earliest days of the city.
The City of Vancouver intended to demolish the block, but the efforts of the Mole Hill Living Heritage Society persuaded them to change their plans, promoting a community vision which preserved social history and heritage architecture, while providing affordable housing and green space.
In his presentation to the BCHF 2023 conference, Quentin Wright explores how Mole Hill was saved and restored, highlighting the success of the block as a community resource. Wright has worked in non-profit housing for 20 years, and has been executive director of Mole Hill Community Housing Society since 2014. He helped to found Mole Hill Neighbourhood Support Society in 2019.
An excerpt from the Fall 2023 edition of British Columbia History.
Calf 6 and other cows and calves in the Central Selkirk Caribou Maternity Pen, 2023. Photo: Arrow Lakes Caribou Society
The Central Selkirk herd of southern mountain woodland caribou (Rangifer tarandus caribou) is the last herd south of Highway 1, and it is the southernmost herd remaining in Canada. The herd has seen a decrease of 87 percent since the 1990s, from over 200 animals down to 28 animals remaining in 2021. Woodland caribou are a species at risk under federal legislation. Due to a complicated myriad of factors including predation, habitat changes and fragmentation, climate change, and backcountry recreation activities, caribou populations have struggled throughout BC and particularly in southern BC.
In 2009, a Government Action Regulation order created approximately 320,000 hectares of protected range for caribou, which was 95 percent of the core winter habitat of the Central Selkirk herd. Fast forward to 2019, when a series of well-attended public forums hosted a total of 300 community members to discuss local caribou recovery efforts that were not having the desired effect of stopping the decline of caribou.
To provide a local voice in recovery efforts, Arrow Lakes Caribou Society (ALCS) was formed in early 2019. ALCS is made up of interested individuals across a wide spectrum including backcountry recreation groups, the forestry and mining industry, the community forest, trails groups, and local government. ALCS is governed by a volunteer board of directors that includes foresters, biologists, and loggers, as well as a wildlife photographer and a local trapper, and it is advised by regional, provincial, and US biologists and veterinarians. From early on, ALCS has had a close relationship with the regional biologists who oversee the caribou herd on behalf of the government.
Volunteers helped to transport the caribou in a snowmobile skimmer from the helicopter landing zone to the maternity pen during capture in March 2022. Photo: Arrow Lakes Caribou Society.
ALCS’s mandate is to help facilitate recovery actions, particularly with the Central Selkirk caribou herd. To date, ALCS has created a communication platform between local and regional groups and governments. One such example was work done to build and strengthen relationships with local winter recreation groups to decrease disturbance to caribou in their natural habitat.
ALCS helped the process by working with the province of BC and local snowmobile groups to facilitate a stewardship management agreement covering the herd area. A spatial app developed by government geomatics specialists provides “moving closure” areas based on actual caribou locations at any given time. The tool is informed by GPS data from the collars of groups of caribou within the herd area. This spatial tool has been key in minimizing disturbance to the caribou herd.
After a long push to gain support for the concept, construction of the Central Selkirk Caribou Maternity Pen was initiated in 2019. After studying the methods and results of similar projects north of Revelstoke (see Revelstoke Caribou Rearing in the Wild Society, cmu.abmi.ca/testing-recovery-options/revelstoke-caribou-rearing-in-the-wild/) and in the Moberly Lake area (see Klinse-Za Caribou Maternity Pen, hctf.ca/hands-on-conservation-at-the-klinse-za-caribou-maternity-pen/), the pen construction process began. The project was initially “boot-strapped” by local donations and labour until the BC government came on board with some timely employment funding in 2019–2020 and, subsequently, Caribou Recovery Program personnel and funds.
The maternity pen blind is a great viewing spot into the pen for shepherds and visitors. The storage container underneath holds feed and tools. Photo: Arrow Lakes Caribou Society.
The electric fence surrounds the outside of the maternity pen to manage predators. Photo: Arrow Lakes Caribou Society.
The caribou maternity pen is a large enclosure that keeps pregnant females and calves safe from predators during calving and up to six weeks after calving. After six weeks, the calves are more easily able to escape predators and grow to help support the caribou population. The maternity pen will help to alleviate environmental pressures on pregnant caribou and calves and to improve body condition and fecundity due to a good diet and fewer environmental stress compared to natural conditions.
The pen, a black geotextile fence that stands 4 metres tall and encloses 6.6 hectares of old growth and second growth forest, is situated on provincial crown land and on municipal land (Village of Nakusp) near the Nakusp Hot Springs. Fence posts are made of mostly living trees, which gives the pen structure a natural look. The supporting cables, guys, and hardware for the fence were pieced together based on knowledge from logging and powerline industries. There is a separate electric fence on the outside of the pen structure to keep predators like wolves, bears, cougars, and wolverines at bay.
A caribou shepherd headquarters (the “bou shack”), which houses an office and affords a great view into the feeding area of the pen, was constructed from local wood provided by the community forest and placed on top of a shipping container by a crane. Within the container are maintenance supplies and dry storage for feed. Wireless internet services were set up that offer a very good ability to work and communicate with the outside world. There are ten wireless trail cameras inside and outside the fence as well as tree stands and natural lookout points to help shepherds monitor the animals.
The group of 14 caribou in the Central Selkirk caribou maternity pen are comfortable with their shepherd while he fills their feeding trough, 2023. Photo: Arrow Lakes Caribou Society.
Fresh, clean water comes from a gravity water system built on a nearby stream. After the initial caribou capture, they are fed their normal diet of lichen and then transitioned to high-nutrition pellets. Twice daily, shepherds use feeding troughs to feed the caribou the high-nutrition diet. There is an additional feeding trough beside a set of scales, which captures periodic weights and allows weight gains to be tracked.
Caribou are very temperature dependent. Prior to the annual caribou capture, large snow piles are put in a gully and covered by cedar mulch to offer the caribou a cool refuge when the temperature rises. In addition, water-misting stations were installed, all designed to keep the temperature in the pen as cool as possible during the warming months after calving and before caribou release in July.
A large community-building task that involves many groups and individuals is lichen collection for use as feed during the pen operation. Elementary, high school, and college school groups, ski clubs, environmental stewardship societies, and individuals collected approximately 250 air-dried kilograms of Alectoria spp. and Bryoria spp. tree lichen that is needed to transition the caribou to pellet feed. Lichen is mostly water by weight, so it takes a very large effort to collect, dry, bag, and store.
The Central Selkirk maternity pen is located in the Kuskanax Creek drainage near the Nakusp Hot Springs, approximately ten kilometres northeast of the Village of Nakusp. The Nakusp Hot Springs pen site was identified by ALCS using a coarse set of criteria, local knowledge and advice from regional and provincial caribou experts. Pen construction was fully completed in the winter of 2022, just in time for the first caribou capture in March 2022, of eight caribou (seven adult females and one yearling female).
All seven cows were pregnant, and six calves were born between late May and early June 2022; one cow had a still-born calf. Cows and calves were fed, cared for, and monitored by caribou shepherds until the calves were six to eight weeks old. Six caribou calves were released into their natural habitat in late July—five survived the summer and next winter, one being lost to predation. This compares quite favourably to the typical scenario in the past years where zero to perhaps one calf would survive.
Cow and calf No. 1 stand together in the maternity pen feeding area, 2022. Photo: Arrow Lakes Caribou Society.
In March 2023, 14 caribou were captured (10 adults and 4 calves from last year’s surviving calves), including the last remaining cow from the adjoining South Columbia herd near Revelstoke. The cow will be released from the pen with the Central Selkirk herd in July 2023, and should have a better chance of survival being with a herd rather than alone, as well as a much larger chance of future pregnancy. To learn more about the South Columbia herd, visit the Parks Canada website Caribou, Mount Revelstoke National Park: parks.canada.ca/pn-np/bc/revelstoke/nature/faune-flore-fauna-flora/caribou.
Capturing caribou is a very time-sensitive and delicate job to reduce stress on the animals. Thirty-seven people helped to capture the caribou using helicopters and wildlife capture experts, and then the caribou were transported the final distance to the maternity pen with three snowmobiles pulling skimmers. Wildlife veterinarians, BC provincial biologists, local volunteers, wildlife capture experts, and ALCS members helped to make the operation run smoothly. Capture planning and operations is weather dependent with respect to visibility, snow conditions, and avalanche hazard.
Moving forward, the ALCS hopes to continue the Central Selkirk Caribou Maternity Pen project to grow this southern mountain caribou population. A five-year trial period will determine if this recovery action is effectively contributing to the population. If successful, it is likely that the ALCS will continue recovery actions until the population reaches a sustainable number. A self-sustaining population is thought to be 150 to 200 animals.
The volunteers, contractors, wildlife capture experts, veterinarians and biologists gathered in March 2023 after capturing 14 caribou for the Central Selkirk caribou maternity pen. Photo: Arrow Lakes Caribou Society.
In conjunction with the maternity pen operations, the ALCS has been building partnerships with First Nations in BC and the United States. Some significant support from First Nations includes shepherding at the Central Selkirk Caribou Maternity Pen with the Ɂaq’am community, blessing ceremonies with the Ktunaxa Nation, the Okanagan Nation Alliance, and the Shuswap Band, and building a relationship with the Colville Confederated Tribes (headquartered in Washington state) via their Sinixt (Lakes People) Nation members. A very early and consistent supporter of the project has been the Kalispel Tribe of Indians from Washington state. These partnerships have been integral to the success of the ALCS, and support has increased via funding streams, in-kind support, volunteerism, and public outreach.
Nakusp and Area Community Forest (NACFOR) has played a key role in ALCS from the beginning by supplying management expertise and seed funding to get the society and maternity pen project off the ground. Part of NACFOR’s operating area was included in the Government Action Regulation order in 2009—approximately 10 percent of its total land base was given over for caribou habitat protection. The community forest mandate is to return economic, social, and environmental benefits from forest operations back to the local area.
Looking forward, the ALCS works to build relationships and to increase community involvement, education, and outreach by sharing caribou maternity penning operational information, photos, and updates on our social media and on the Arrow Lakes Caribou Society website: arrowlakescaribousociety.com. ALCS also regularly participates in public speaker series and presentations and has an annual open house.
The pen fence was constructed by many volunteers and ALCS contractors working in 2020/21. The fence stands 4 metres tall and encloses 6.6 ha of land. Photo: Arrow Lakes Caribou Society.
Based in Nakusp, Skye Cunningham is the communications specialist for the Arrow Lakes Caribou Society where she does the social media updating, website management, community events, and outreach for the society. Skye loves to help the ALCS gain audience and support, create educational resources, and see the cute baby caribou born in the Central Selkirk Caribou Maternity Pen. Hugh Watt is a consulting forester and community forest and woodlot manager. Since 1991 he has lived in Nakusp where, with his wife Sandra, he has raised a family. Along with local and regional groups, he helped found the Arrow Lakes Caribou Society in 2019 to protect the future of the Central Selkirk Caribou herd.
The writing and relations between Syilx women and settler women who lived in the Okanagan and Similkameen is the focus of this presentation called “Okanagan Women’s Voices: Syilx and Settler Writing and Relations, 1870s-1960s.”
A collaborative work, this anthology brings together memoirs, newspaper and other essays, poetry, fiction, letters, and storytelling of Syilx and settler women, much of it discovered in local archives and not previously published. It provides a gender-specific perspective on the contact history of this region. Janet discuss how this compilation speaks to the many changes in the way BC history has been studied in recent decades in its inclusion of diverse voices.
Janet MacArthur is one of three editors and contributors to Okanagan Women’s Voices. She has published on Renaissance poetry, women’s literature, autobiography, postcolonial literature, and trauma narratives. At present, she is working on a book about Princeton settler Susan Allison’s unpublished writing. She is an Associate Professor Emerita of English at UBC Okanagan.
Major J.S. Matthews. (City of Vancouver Archives, AM54-S4-: Port P567)
Happy 90th anniversary to City of Vancouver Archives. Its collection captures the city’s story through 7.2 million photographs, 6,800 maps, 2,800 audio recordings, documents measured in kilometres and terabytes of digital material.
How did it begin? Major James Skitt Matthews, born in Newtown, Wales, and raised in New Zealand, was appointed the first city archivist in 1933 and brought along his vast personal collection. Matthews had landed in Vancouver as a 20-year-old, in 1898, where he worked for Imperial Oil and, later, operated a tugboat business. Twice wounded during the Great War, he achieved the rank of major, and never gave it up.
Matthews interviewed hundreds of people, including Squamish Chief August Jack Khatsahlano. Fiercely defensive about the collection, Matthews often sparred with mayors and bureaucrats—at one time he took his collection home during a dust-up with the library board. He refused to retire, remaining on the job until age 91. The current archives repository in Vanier Park is named in his honour. BC historian Jean Barman has written: “James Skitt Matthews is arguably the single most important individual in the history of Vancouver. While others generated events, he ensured that a record of their activities would survive.” [1] Visit the City of Vancouver Archives: searcharchives.vancouver.ca.
Community discussions begin on the creation of a South Asian Museum. (Courtesy of South Asian Studies Institute)
There has been movement on an NDP election promise made three years ago to build a South Asian Museum. Lana Popham, Minister of Arts, Culture, Tourism and Sport, hosted a roundtable of community leaders and stakeholders to discuss creation of the first museum of its kind in Canada.
There were 100 South Asians living in British Columbia in 1901. By the 2021 census, that number had grown to 473,970. They faced systemic and overt racism, including restrictions on immigration and voting rights.
The South Asian Studies Institute at the University of the Fraser Valley is part of the working group attempting to develop a collective vision for a museum and commented on the gathering: “The primary focus was for community leaders to share their thoughts on how the Ministry should engage with the community to help establish the next steps in realizing the exciting project of a South Asian Museum.”
Some delegates reject the South Asian label and are concerned it homogenizes distinct ethnic communities. The door is now open to further engagement.
Joanne Plourde welcomes visitors to the Francophone heritage picnic at Portage Park in Langley City. (Mark Forsythe)
Next year will mark 200 years since fur trader James McMillan paddled north from Fort Vancouver (at the mouth of the Columbia River) in search of a new location for a Hudson’s Bay Company fort. The Americans were expanding into Oregon and Washington territory, and the HBC could see the writing on the wall. After reaching Mud Bay, the party followed an Indigenous route along the Nicomekl River, portaged to the Salmon River (across what became Langley Prairie) and landed on the shores of the Fraser River. Fort Langley was built three years later, becoming the first permanent non-Indigenous settlement in coastal British Columbia.
The band of adventurers featured a mix of English, Canadiens, Indigenous guides, Métis and Kanaka peoples (Hawaiians). A Francophone heritage picnic has sprouted in recent years where the McMillan party began its portage from the Nicomekl, directly beside historic Michaud House (home to the first Francophone family in Langley). Joanne Plourde and her group, Voyageurs & Co., dress in period costume, belt out Voyageur songs and welcome storytellers from BC and Washington State. It’s a celebration of fur trade history and of new relationships formed with Indigenous peoples. Plans are in the works for further acknowledgement of the 1824 expedition, including by the Surrey Historical Society.
y̓ilmixʷm ki law na Chief Clarence Louie addresses a gathering beside the Okanagan River. He says his band is short some 4,000 acres of original reserve lands. (Courtesy of Aaron Hemens, IndigiNews)
Hundreds of people gathered beside the Okanagan River as drums and songs honoured the return of a sacred fishing site. The Osoyoos Indian Band says it was denied access when reserve lands were taken back by the provincial and federal governments. The 1913 McKenna-McBride Royal Commission opened the door to reduce the size of reserves. The syilx people had fished here for thousands of years and always regarded the loss of 71 acres as theft; a blockade was launched by syilx Okanagan Nation members back in 1974.
Recently a one-acre parcel came on the market and the Osoyoos Indian Band purchased it. y̓ilmixʷm ki law na Chief Clarence Louie told the gathering, “Land is always more important than money. Always has been and always will be. We don’t like the fact that we have to buy our own land back, but that’s just the way it is.”
Navvy Jack House sits on the West Vancouver waterfront. (Courtesy of West Vancouver Historical Society)
Scheduled to be demolished by the District of West Vancouver, Navvy Jack house has a second lease on life. A grassroots campaign (that included West Vancouver Historical Society) convinced the District to apply brakes to the plan. Built in about 1874 by a Welshman, John Thomas, the pioneer building is the oldest structure in West Vancouver, and was the location of its first post office. Thomas, a.k.a. Navvy Jack, was a true pioneer who hunted for Cariboo gold and who ran the first ferry service from Ambleside to Vancouver and also a successful gravel business. He married a granddaughter of “Old Chief” Kiapilano and is an ancestor to many Squamish, Tsleil-Waututh and Musqueam families.
Vacant since 2017, the house sits just above the tide line on Argyle Avenue. This spring, the district announced it had located a partner to restore the home and turn it into a café where settler and Indigenous history can be shared and celebrated. The district will contribute $1 million and a $1.6-million fundraising campaign continues: information about the history of the house is at Save Navvy Jack House, savenavvyjackhouse.com. •
1 Jean Barman, foreword to The Man Who Saved Vancouver: Major James Skitt Matthews, by Daphne Sleigh (Surrey, BC: Heritage House, 2008)
Mark Forsythe travels through BC and back in time, exploring the unique work of British Columbia Historical Federation members.
The Fall 2023 issue of British Columbia History is guest-edited by Angie Bains, a researcher for the Union of BC Indian Chiefs among other roles. The theme is “This Land.”
Stories inside include:
Plus we have contributions from regulars Mark Forsythe, Terry Arnett, and books editor Aimee Greenaway.
Subscribe or order individual issues with our online store.
In this presentation, Jon Bartlett and Rika Ruebsaat tell the story of a coal miners’ strike in Princeton during the Depression. The winter of 1932-33 saw the small town of Princeton divided. Princeton’s few thousand citizens saw much of the human drama of the Great Depression play out right in their own lives over the course of just a few months.
Bartlett and Ruebsaat are on the board of the Princeton and District Museum and Archives Society and have worked as teachers, authors, and professional signers. Together they have released seven CDs and two books focused on the Similkameen valley where they live.
In this presentation, Jon Bartlett and Rika Ruebsaat tell the story of a coal miners’ strike in Princeton during the Depression. The winter of 1932-33 saw the small town of Princeton divided.
Princeton’s few thousand citizens saw much of the human drama of the Great Depression play out right in their own lives over the course of just a few months.
British Columbia Historical FederationPO Box 448, Fort Langley, BC, Canada, V1M 2R7Information: info@bchistory.ca
The Secretariat of the BCHF is located on the unceded territories of the Coast Salish speaking Peoples.
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