MEMBER LOGIN
These watercolour sketch maps show some of the Indian Reserves Peter O’Reilly’s work touched. Source: Indian Reserve Commission. Federal Collection; Minutes of Decision. Correspondence and Sketches, Volume 9. Digitized by the Union of BC Indian Chiefs Research Department and Resource Centre
Since the 1960s, Point Ellice House in Victoria has engaged visitors with stories of tea, croquet, romance, and high society. [1] If you have ever visited this provincial heritage site, you probably came for afternoon tea, a fixture of the visitor experience for more than 30 years. Of course, there’s much more to the site than tea on the lawn, as the Vancouver Island Local History Society is demonstrating since we took over management of the site in 2019. We are working to understand Point Ellice House as a “historical hub,” a site connected to its neighbourhood, the wider city of Victoria, and to British Columbia’s and Canada’s legacies of colonization.
As the executive director of Point Ellice House Museum and Gardens, I like to point out to visitors an interpretive plaque at the site. It’s one of those provincial Stop of Interest signs from 1969 — you’ve likely seen them at highway rest stops throughout BC. The sign reads:
This historic residence, built in 1861, was the home of the Honourable Peter O’Reilly. As Gold Commissioner, County Court Judge, and member of the first Legislative Council of British Columbia, he was prominent during the formative years of our province. This graceful house was the O’Reilly home for more than a century, and remains an example of mid-Victorian charm.
I bring visitors to this sign because it’s significant — not for what it tells us about Peter O’Reilly or his home but for what it leaves out. Every job O’Reilly ever had with the colonial and provincial governments is listed on the plaque — except for his 18 years as Indian Reserve Commissioner. From 1880 to 1898, O’Reilly acted on behalf of the Federal and Provincial governments to set out, eliminate, reduce, or, in some cases, expand Indian Reserves across the province. Of the more than 600 reserves in BC, O’Reilly had a role in nearly all of them. [2]
The omission of O’Reilly’s time as Indian Reserve Commissioner at a provincial heritage site and on a Stop of Interest sign was not simply an oversight or mistake; it was by design. Interpretive and programming documents from the last few decades regularly omitted O’Reilly’s influence on the colonial geography of the province. Instead, past managers and curators focused on the domestic space, on privileging romantic narratives of Victorian-era courtship, afternoon tea, and roses. The idea that colonization was inevitable, is complete, and is disconnected from the everyday life of settlers remains a pervasive and troubling narrative in BC and Canada. [3]
Historian and geographer Kenneth Brealey argues that O’Reilly’s time as Indian Reserve Commissioner is “the framework upon which our own contemporary provincial geography remains suspended.” [4] In other words, the continued existence of Indian Reserves — on a map or in daily life — reveals that colonization is not simply a past event; it’s ongoing. [5]
Interpreting and narrating the past is a primary objective of public history. As archaeologist and anthropologist Joanne Hammond reminds us, “public histories that paint Canada’s story as inevitable, necessary, and beneficent are dangerous because they work — and not just in the past.” [6] Narratives that obfuscate or omit the work of colonization remain prominent because they have been built up over time and reinforced, and the Stop of Interest signs are one example of this. [7] (See Hammond, “Decolonizing BC’s Roadside History,” British Columbia History 53.4, Winter 2020.)
There can be no reconciliation without truth, something that white settler heritage sites such as Point Ellice House must work to address. Borrowing a term from academics Alissa Macoun and Elizabeth Strakosch, I think about making the past and present of colonization visible as “explaining settlers to ourselves.” [8]
When we started at Point Ellice House, our non-profit society began a reassessment and overhaul of the dated interpretation and training documents. We also continue to reimagine site programming; we’ve dropped 30 years of declining afternoon tea service in favour of storytelling and exhibits. Central to these changes is interpreting the house and its families within the context of the British Empire and settler colonialism. A new interpretive panel in O’Reilly’s study reads:
Peter O’Reilly was BC’s Indian Reserve Commissioner, responsible for assigning reserve lands without treaty. He travelled the province from 1880 to 1898, returning to this room to make decisions that would have devastating impacts on First Nations peoples. Many First Nations reported that he set out reserves hastily and without due consultation. In several cases, he assigned reserves while leaders were absent. O’Reilly had been instructed to consider any First Nations land that was not occupied by houses or cultivation as “waste.” The view that Indigenous people were not making “proper” use of the land was prominent in Canada; today, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission calls on us to reject such concepts, which were used to justify European sovereignty over Indigenous lands and peoples.
The updated visitor experience at Point Ellice House makes connections between the everyday life of a privileged Victoria family and the everyday work of empire and colonization. At the direction of Prime Minister John A. Macdonald, O’Reilly’s brother in-law Joseph Trutch, and others, Peter O’Reilly shaped the geographic violence of colonization in British Columbia. Everyday artifacts on display inside the house speak to these connections — a desk, an ink well, tea cups, riding boots, etc. The O’Reillys went about their lives gardening, painting, cooking, and entertaining as a colonial project unfolded around them and because of them. This remains true for most non-Indigenous people in British Columbia today.
Understanding Point Ellice House or other heritage sites in this way does not prohibit interpretation of personal and familial narratives of love, loss, and life experience, but it does reshape them. Peter O’Reilly’s work as Indian Reserve Commissioner was all but expunged from the visitor experience for 50 years; it may take us that much time to untangle and repair the generational influence of these obfuscations and omissions. [9]
Explaining settlers to ourselves is a call to action — for those involved with public histories — to make visible the disruptive processes of colonization that seek to replace Indigenous peoples with a settler society. At Point Ellice House, our response to this call begins with the understanding that the site is more than a family home; it’s an axis that connects tea parties to dispossession and roses with reserves.
1. “Stepping back into history.” The Daily Colonist, December 17, 1967. 2. Kenneth G. Brealey, “Travels from Point Ellice: Peter O’Reilly and the Indian Reserve System in British Columbia,” BC Studies, Autumn/Winter, No. 115/6, 1997/1998, pp. 181-236. 3. Liam Britten, “Homework assignment to list ‘positive’ stories about residential schools under investigation,” https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/residential-school-homework-assignment-1.5816491 4. Brealey, p. 235 5. Patrick Wolfe, “Settler colonialism and the elimination of the Native.” Journal of Genocide Research, 8(4), 2006, pp. 387-409. doi: 10.1080/14623520601056240 6. Joanne Hammond, “Decolonizing BC’s Roadside History,” https://culturallymodified.org/decolonizing-bcs-roadside-history/ 7. Emma Battell Lowman and Adam J. Barker, Settler: Identity and Colonialism in 21st Century Canada. Black Point, NS: Fernwood Publishing, 2015. 8. Alissa Macoun and Elizabeth Strakosch. “The ethical demands of settler colonial theory,” Settler Colonial Studies, 3: 3-04 (2013), pp. 426-443, doi: 10.1080/2201473X.2013.810695 9. Erin Thompson, “Why Just ‘Adding Context’ to Controversial Monuments May Not Change Minds,” https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/why-just-adding-context-controversial-monument-may-not-change-minds-180976583
Kelly Black, PhD, is a researcher, writer, historian, and collector of books. He is executive director of Point Ellice Museum & Gardens/Vancouver Island Local History Society and adjunct professor in the Department of History at Vancouver Island University. He is a settler currently residing within the territory of the Malahat Nation and Cowichan Tribes.
Below: watch Kelly Black’s presentation, The Rooms Where it Happened: Practicing Public History at Victoria’s House Museum.
The British Columbia Historical Federation is pleased to announce this year’s finalists for the annual Lieutenant Governor’s Historical Writing Competition. The 2021 book awards gala will take place online on June 5 at 7 p.m. The award celebrates books that make significant contributions to the historical literature of British Columbia. Congratulations to all the finalists whose works keep British Columbia’s rich history vibrant and relevant.
Author: Liz Bryan
Publisher: Heritage House Publishing
For many European settlers who arrived on Vancouver Island in the late 19th century, building a church was as important as establishing a homestead or erecting a school. The church was the heart of the community. Today, although demographics have shifted and church attendance has waned, many of those early structures are still standing.
Pioneer Churches of Vancouver Island and the Salish Sea features more than 40 surviving churches whose construction dates back to the 1800s. It explores the architecture; the local history of the area; and the stories of the builders, worshippers, clergy members, those who are buried in the adjoining graveyards. Divided into geographical sections — Victoria, Esquimalt and the Saanich Peninsula, the Cowichan Valley, Salt Spring Island, Central Vancouver Island, and the North Island — this book is a beautifully photographed, easy-to-follow guide for anyone interested in exploring these architectural treasures and learning more about the history surrounding them.
Liz Bryan is a journalist, author, photographer, and co-founder of Western Living magazine. Bryan has written several books, including River of Dreams: A Journey through Milk River Country, Stone by Stone: Exploring Ancient Sites on the Canadian Plains, and Country Roads of Western BC: From the Fraser Valley to the Islands.
Author: Lara Campbell
Publisher: UBC Press
A Great Revolutionary Wave rethinks the complex legacy of suffrage by considering both the successes and limitations of women’s historical fight for political equality. That historical legacy remains relevant today as Canadians continue to grapple with the meaning of justice, inclusion, and equality.
This book is for readers interested in women’s history, British Columbia history, or the history of women’s fight for political equality, including secondary school and university students. It will also find an audience among those concerned with gender equality and social justice.
Lara Campbell is a professor of gender, sexuality, and women’s studies at Simon Fraser University. Her publications include Respectable Citizens: Gender, Family, and Unemployment in Ontario’s Great Depression, which received honourable mentions from the Canadian Historical Association and the Canadian Women’s Studies Association. She is a co-author, with Willeen Keough, of Gender History: Canadian Perspectives, the only textbook in the field of Canadian gender history.
Author: Catherine Clement
Publisher: Chinese Canadian Historical Society of British Columbia
Chinatown Through a Wide Lens: The Hidden Photographs of Yucho Chow, is the story of one remarkable, early photographer whose work was almost forgotten. Yucho Chow was Vancouver’s first Chinese commercial photographer and its most prolific. His lens captured thousands of faces of all skin colours, religious beliefs and backgrounds and chronicled a tumultuous time in Vancouver’s and Canada’s early history. This limited-edition, coffee table book displays 344-pages of long-hidden, community photographs taken by Yucho Chow Studio. The private images showcase the different, marginalized communities that Yucho Chow chronicled in his lifetime, as well as the remarkable stories that accompany these photographs. In English and Chinese.
Catherine Clement is a community curator and designer based in Vancouver’s Chinatown. Her work focuses on uncovering and sharing the lesser-known stories of the community.
Author: Claudia Cornwall
Publisher: Harbour Publishing
Like many British Columbians in 2017, Claudia Cornwall found herself glued to the news about the disastrous wildfires across the province. Her worry was personal: her cabin at Sheridan Lake had been in the family for sixty years and was now in danger of destruction. Presented in British Columbia in Flames are stories that illustrate the importance of community. During the 2017 wildfires, people looked after strangers who had no place to go. They shared information. They helped each other rescue and shelter animals. They kept stores open day and night to supply gas, food and comfort to evacuees. This memoir, at once journalistic and deeply personal, highlights the strength with which BC communities can and will come together to face a terrifying force of nature.
Claudia Cornwall is most recently the author of Battling Melanoma and Catching Cancer (Rowman & Littlefield, 2016 and 2013). Her book At the World’s Edge: Curt Lang’s Vancouver, 1937–1998 (Mother Tongue, 2011) was shortlisted for the City of Vancouver Book Award, and Letter from Vienna: A Daughter Uncovers Her Family’s Jewish Past (Douglas & McIntyre, 1995) was awarded the Hubert Evans Non-Fiction Prize. Cornwall has taught creative writing at Simon Fraser University for many years. She lives in North Vancouver.
Authors: Deborah Griffiths, with Christine Dickinson; Judy Hagen & Catherine Siba
Step into Wilderness features never-before-seen photos from the Courtenay and District Museum collection, showcasing the growing community’s varied interactions with the wilderness they inhabit, from early hiking and skiing expeditions to encounters with wildlife, afternoon tea in the wilderness, beach races and early outdoor activity clubs. The collection also explores the ways in which inhabitants have altered the landscape, including K’omoks Bay fish traps and stump blasting to clear fields. These unique and arresting photos are complemented by equally engaging accounts of individuals surviving and thriving in the midst of natural beauty and great devastation, including survivors of the great fire of 1922 and pioneer skiers on Forbidden Plateau during the Great Depression.
Christine Dickinson is an educator with a passion for regional history. She co-authored Atlin: The Story of British Columbia’s Last Gold Rush (Atlin Historical Society, 1995), which received the Lieutenant-Governor’s Award.
Deborah Griffiths is the executive director of the Courtenay and District Museum and has been involved in curatorship in the Okanagan and on Vancouver Island for over 40 years. She has an MA from Royal Roads University.
Judy Hagen has been writing her popular “Hunt for History” column for Comox Valley newspapers since 1992. She received an award from the Canadian Museums Association for her book Comox Valley Memories, published by the Courtenay and District Museum in 1993.
Catherine Siba is the curator of social history at the Courtenay and District Museum. She has led a number of historic digitization projects and has been involved with museum curatorship and research for many years.
Ernst Vegt, photo editor for Step into Wilderness, has spent 50 years in the graphic arts field specializing in colour reproduction and has taught colour reproduction at VCC, BCIT and Auckland University of Technology, New Zealand.
Author: Nina Shoroplova
An engaging, informative, and visually stunning tour of the numerous native, introduced, and ornamental tree species found in Vancouver’s Stanley Park, combining a wealth of botanical knowledge with a fascinating social history of the city’s most celebrated landmark.
Unlike many urban parks, which are entirely cultivated, the area now called Stanley Park was an ancient forest before Canada’s third-largest city grew around it. Tracing the park’s Indigenous roots through its colonial history to its present incarnation as the jewel of Vancouver, visited by eight million locals and tourists annually, Legacy of Trees is a beautiful tribute to the trees that shape Stanley Park’s evolving narrative.
Nina Shoroplova is a historian, researcher, photographer, and author. Born and raised in Wales, she immigrated to Canada in 1969 and settled for a time at the Douglas Lake Ranch, the subject of her first book, Cattle Ranch: The Story of the Douglas Lake Cattle Company. An avid walker, amateur botanist, and tree enthusiast, she lives three blocks away from Vancouver’s world-famous Stanley Park.
Author: Peter Smith
Publisher: Self-published
Silver Rush tells the story of British Columbia’s “Silvery Slocan.” In the 1890s, mining camps like Sandon, Three Forks, Whitewater and their neighbours; New Denver, Silverton, Slocan City, Kaslo and Nakusp, thrived. Once the most productive mining region in British Columbia, prospectors and miners came from Idaho, Montana and other mining centres to reap the silver harvest. Capitalists flooded in from Spokane, Seattle, Vancouver, and investment centres across North America and the world. Plummeting silver prices, labour troubles and the Klondike gold rush eventually put an end to the silver rush but the legacy of that rush endures to this day.
Peter Smith was born and raised in Victoria and the Saanich peninsula on Vancouver Island. In the mid-1970s he moved to the Slocan, had breakfast at New Denver’s Newmarket Hotel, and was captivated by the region’s history. Part owner of a mining claim south of Silverton, he eventually moved back to Victoria. He retired as director of the province’s Information Access and Records Service Delivery Division in 2011. He lives in Ladysmith.
The BC Lieutenant-Governor’s Medal for Historical Writing will be awarded together with $2,500 to the author whose book makes the most significant contribution to the historical literature of British Columbia. The second place winner will receive $1,500 and third place, $500. One book will also be awarded the Community History Award, worth $500. Certificates of Honourable Mention may be awarded to other books as recommended by the judges. New this year will be a people’s choice winner selected by the audience in real time during the awards gala.
Mike, a black and white English sheepdog-terrier cross, was trained to serve bottle beer to customers in the Bowser Hotel, 1937–1941. Mike even collected the money and came back with the change. Photo: Vancouver City Archives, 586-348
I love a good story. I suppose my appreciation began in childhood when I eagerly looked forward to the nightly bedtime story. I did well at social studies and it only got better in high school when I got an A in History 12.
I graduated with a BA in history from Simon Fraser University in 1986, then was accepted into an entry-level job in the BC Government. My partner and I moved back to Victoria in July 1986.
It was in the Ingraham Pub near closing time, while a very drunk fellow was slurring his story about an Island hotel from his past, and I was trying to decipher just what he was saying, that it happened. I had an epiphany—why don’t I take the two things I love most, history and beer, and combine them into a study of the historic saloons, bars, and hotels of Victoria? So that’s what I did.
Working for the government paid the bills and gave me a little left over to enjoy the occasional Friday night in the pubs. It was in the Ingraham Pub where I heard stories from those around our table, usually retired men, of the places they used to drink in and the humorous or tragic events that took place in those pubs. I began showing up at the pub after work on Fridays more often and with a small notepad so I could write down the stories. I started to learn about the history of hotels and bars long gone from the very people who had frequented them. I wanted to know more and began to ask questions, purposely leading conversations back to events that happened in these old bars. Using not only my bar notes but the resources in the Victoria and BC archives, I researched the history of local saloons, bars, and hotels. I found notes from those who had gone before me, leaving lists of hotels compiled from old phone books. That was the beginning of the research for what would be my first book, Aqua Vitae: A History of the Saloons and Hotel Bars of Victoria, 1851–1917. I sent my first book proposal to Taryn Boyd at TouchWood Editions in 2015 with no expectations. After six months, I contacted them and shortly afterwards received a call from Taryn.
The Riverside Hotel in Courtenay, ca. 1908. Author’s collection
They liked my proposal, felt it could sell, and picked it up. I shall forever be grateful to Taryn and TouchWood for taking a chance on an unknown writer, yet I felt that the topic was strong, and sales proved us right. Two years later, my second nonfiction history book was released by TouchWood, Along the E&N: A Journey Back to the Historic Hotels of Vancouver Island. The book did very well, spending 22 weeks on the BC Bestseller List. I realized that people loved stories as much as I did, especially when they were about familiar places like local hotels.
The Covid-19 pandemic put a temporary halt to my live presentations. Following a short adjustment period, I focused on writing a new book while utilizing social media to promote my past books and my current project. I rejoined Facebook with a clear vision to talk about historic hotels. One group lead to three; the most successful, named Historic Hotels & Pubs of British Columbia, now has more than 9,000 members and is still growing.
The Facebook format, while it limits the amount of text I can use on a given story, has proven to be an excellent means to share and exchange information, photographs, and related ephemera, and to comment on the history of British Columbia’s hotels and drinking establishments. I thought I’d teach others on the subject, but the experience has enriched my knowledge too. It has proven to be an excellent two-way street, where the history of both bygone and existing hotels in BC is examined. My favourite posts are those in which people open up about their families who either worked in or owned one of the historic hotels under discussion.
Along the E&N: A Journey Back to the Historic Hotels of Vancouver Island cover, designed by Colin Parks.
This online community has far surpassed my expectations and makes me want to work harder (believe me, it’s a labour of love), uncovering more true stories and discovering old hotels hidden in the mists of time. It has not only enabled me to discover historic hotels I hadn’t known about, but it’s allowed me to find new ways of exploring and sharing hotel history. One example is viewing historic hotels through art — paintings, drawings, sketches — and therefore through the eyes of the artists.
I’ve learned so much since that day all those years ago in the Ingy pub when I decided to seriously research and write about BC hotel and pub history that my only regret is that I didn’t come up with the idea when I was much younger. But there is no time like the present.
Glen A. Mofford, author of Aqua Vitae and Along the E&N, is a historian and writer with a passion for sharing the social history of British Columbia. He graduated from Simon Fraser University, and has been writing about BC’s historic hotels for 20 years.
■ Pacific Northwest History (pre-colonial, pre-1850s) (1,200) ■ Maillardvilleites (1,200) ■ Chilliwack History Perspectives (4,000) ■ BC Ghost Towns & Forgotten Places (8,700) ■ People of Nelson, BC (8,700) ■ Boundary Heritage (3,300) ■ Cariboo Historical and Legends (8,300) ■ History of Hope and the Fraser Canyon (2,200) ■ British Columbia Nautical History (6,300) ■ British Columbia’s Abandoned History (14,300) ■ Our Chilliwack Heritage (1,100) ■ Historic Hotels and Pubs of BC (9,000) ■ North Shore Picture and Memory Group (2,600) ■ Kamloops History (12,100) ■ Lost Kootenays (45,000)
The BC Historical Federation has a Facebook group with 1,300 followers.
Kinsol Trestle with logging train, date unknown. Ralph Morris fonds CVMA 2006.8.2.2
Completed in 1920, the Kinsol Trestle is the largest wooden railway bridge in the Commonwealth, offering a spectacular crossing of the Koksilah River. The trestle is notable for both its size and its unusual seven-degree curve.
Also known as the Koksilah River Bridge, the trestle reminds us of the once powerful forest industry and the ambition and ingenuity required to overcome substantial geographical challenges in the construction of railways.
The last train crossed the Kinsol Trestle in 1979, and by 2006 the deteriorating bridge was threatened with demolition. The regional government planned to replace it with a simpler, lower-cost structure in order to complete the Cowichan Valley section of the Trans Canada Trail.
After initiating an independent analysis of the trestle, Gordon Macdonald of Macdonald & Lawrence Timber Framing presented an alternative to demolition, demonstrating why and how the structure should be saved. Strong public support for the project fuelled the decision to rehabilitate the historical trestle.
At a sunrise ceremony at the newly restored Kinsol Trestle on July 28, 2011, CN Rail’s senior engineer Ralph Morris, was remembered for his expertise and 30 years of engineering records that contributed to the preservation of the Kinsol Trestle, his favourite of the more than 4,000 wooden trestle bridges in the Western and Mountain Division for which he was responsible. In 2020, the Kinsol Trestle is celebrated as part of Canada’s built heritage.
The Virtual Museum of Canada exhibit Abandoned, Then Embraced: The Kinsol Trestle was created by the Cowichan Valley Museum & Archives and the Shawnigan Lake Museum in 2011.
Ralph Morris at the Kinsol Trestle, 2006. CVMA
Photographs have a wonderful power to uncover long-buried memories. While scanning the Bulkley Valley Museum’s Collections Online portal I stumbled across a photo of the Smithers CNR train station that triggered an instant flashback.
The Smithers CNR Station beneath Hudson Bay Mountain. This is where the author first stepped off the train in 1974 — on a warm spring day. (Bulkley Valley Museum P1038)
It’s where I stepped off the train in 1974 for my first broadcasting job as; a frizzy-haired 19-year old from Ontario with one blue trunk and a guitar. I’d watched the Canadian landscape unfold from my seat thanks to a ticket purchased by my grandparents. Although my time in Smithers was brief — just six months — the town and surrounding valley have never left me. Indeed, the Bulkley Valley Museum’s digital collection allows me to return and learn more about this fascinating region near the geographic heart of our province.
BVM curator Kira Westby reports that visits to Collections Online have consistently grown since its launch three years ago. Another uptick came with the Covid-19 pandemic.
“It’s all about facilitating community access. Having the site has been phenomenal for remote researchers, or for folks who are looking to learn more about the collection.”
Some 8,000 archival and catalogue records are banked online, thanks to financial assistance from the Library & Archives Canada Documentary Heritage Communities Program and the Wetzin’k’wa Community Forest Corporation. AndorNot Consulting helped develop the site.
Hudson Bay Mountain reflected in Lake Kathlyn. Postcard circa 1930s. (Bulkley Valley Museum P4309)
Kira says the portal has produced other benefits. “It provides a great way for us to show donors that the items that they gave to us are available to the public. Especially for photographs or artifacts, the donors enjoy knowing that the items they gave are accessible, that people can view them, even if they aren’t immediately integrated into a traditional exhibit.”
Bulkley Valley Museum, with its full- time staff of two, continues to upload new maps, plans, and documents. A PDF reader with the ability to search is a welcome addition: “That’s been a huge bonus for research, even sometimes revealing things to staff. For example, if we search the website for a specific name, and find out that they’re mentioned in a yearbook or newspaper we’ve uploaded, that’s new information we may not have known previously.”
Searching through Collections Online let me revisit places I experienced 45 years ago, such as Glacier Gulch Trail with its jaw-dropping views of the Twin Falls pouring off Hudson Bay Mountain. It was my first hike as a newcomer.
A little further west at Widzin Kwah (formerly Moricetown), I had watched a young man gaff salmon; a thin rope tied around his waist was the only thing keeping him from being swallowed by the roaring Widzin Kwah Canyon. Little did I know that the Wetʼsuwetʼen people had fished in this exact spot for millennia. (Today, the Widzin Kwah Canyon House Museum conveys the story for visitors.)
The Bulkley River is squeezed into a narrow canyon at Moricetown (Widzin Kwah) where Witsuwit’en have fished salmon for thousands of years. (Bulkley Valley Museum P1032) Written on the back of photo taken at Hagwilget: “First bridge over Hagvilget canion Bulkley River; built by the indians, using telegraph wire from the Trans Sibirian Telegraph Line.” Also known as the Collins-Overland Telegraph, the line was abandoned before completion in 1867 when the transatlantic cable successfully linked North America with Europe. Part of the telegraph trail was later used for the Yukon Telegraph, an All-Canadian route built during the Klondike gold rush. (Bulkley Valley Museum P5241)
Settler culture moved into the valley with construction of the Grand Trunk Railway in 1913. Smithers, a divisional point, was named after its chairman, Sir Alfred Waldron Smithers, a British financier and politician said to fish with an assistant at his side who baited his hook. The first GTR passenger train rolled through in March 1914, however, the railway went broke following the Great War, and was later absorbed by the Canadian National Railway. Much of the Smithers story is found in Lynn Sherville’s popular 1981 book, Smithers: From Swamp to Village, written to celebrate its 60th anniversary. It is now out of print, but available through Collections Online.
Wetʼsuwetʼen people helped build the railway and clear the townsite. As Tyler McCreary notes in his BCHF Lieutenant Governor Medal-winning book, Shared Histories: Witsuwit’en–Settler Relations in Smithers, British Columbia, 1913–1973, “Wetsuwit’en [sic] have rarely been noted as town founders and often treated as interlopers.” The book reveals much about this often painful history, and the museum’s archives were critical to the story.
Ned Charleson (second from right) ran packs trains into remote areas, including cabins strung along the Yukon Telegraph line. Charleson was killed during the Great War. The man on the far right is Charlie Sterritt, grandfather of Indigenous leader Neil Sterritt (1941-2020) whose book Mapping My Way Home: A Gitxsan History won the Roderick-Haig Brown Award and a BCHF book prize in 2017. This photo appears in the book. (Bulkley Valley Museum P7087)
Kira Westby says the museum gets about 90 requests a year for research assistance, but the connection to this project was deeper than most: “Our archivist was processing a ten-year backlog of material that had never been catalogued, and was actively identifying new photos or document collections that were of interest to the project as it was developing. We were nominated for a BC Museums Association Award of Merit for Excellence in Community Engagement for our contributions.”
There’s more to come, including a permanent exhibit and a growing relationship with the Wetʼsuwetʼen. “It is very important to us to reflect the diversity of our region, and we continue to build our relationship with the Wetʼsuwetʼen community, from acknowledging the territory at our events, to having Wetʼsuwetʼen representation on our board of directors.”
Bulkley Valley Museum’s Collections Online presents the online explorer with many intriguing detours a.k.a. rabbit holes): There’s architect Francis Rattenbury’s land speculation in the Bulkley Valley, telegraph trails slashed through the bush to the Yukon, Cataline’s famous mule trains — even the invention of the egg carton by local newspaperman Joseph Coyle.
Joseph Coyle was a Bulkley Valley newspaperman who saw the need to prevent eggs from breaking during transport from a local ranch to the hotel, so he invented the egg carton. Photo: Coyle at the Los Angeles egg carton factory in 1924. (Bulkley Valley Museum P1539)
The current pandemic may restrict our travels to B.C.’s communities and museums, but the impressive evolution of digital resources like Collections Online gets us all a lot closer. Happy trails!
Reproduction copies of images from the Bulkley Valley Museum’s collection are available for personal or publication use. Find Collections Online at https://bvmuseum.org
Crowd waving to Japanese Canadians interned during the Second World War departing on Greyhound bus, New Denver, mid-1940s. Arrow Lakes Historical Society 2012.003.289
The Arrow Lakes owe a debt of gratitude to the photographic foresight of a former Paldi mill hand. Ichiro Shiino left a legacy in film, chronicling the industrial and social life of Nakusp and its environs over several decades. Born in Cumberland in 1915, Shiino (nicknamed Ichi or Ichon) worked in his youth for Mayo Brothers Timber Co. at Paldi, where he and friend Masanobu Kawahira began documenting everyday life with their cameras.
In 1942, at age 27, he was interned along with thousands of other Japanese Canadians at Lemon Creek in the Slocan Valley. Internees were forbidden from possessing cameras, but Shiino managed to take photos anyway. He also used his artistic abilities to render realistic charcoal portraits of film stars. He began working for the Big Bend Lumber Co. at Nakusp in 1943, first as a faller, then in its sawmill. After Celgar purchased and shut the mill down, he became a tugboat operator for the company and excelled in that position for nearly 20 years, until his retirement in 1980. In 2014, a rebuilt Celgar tugboat was dubbed the MV Ichiro Shiino.
All the while he was seldom without his Rolleiflex camera that produced 2.5-inch (6.35-cm) square negatives, developed in his own darkroom. Although it was strictly a hobby for him, Shiino took thousands of photos and became Nakusp’s pre-eminent photographer. He was frequently asked to take pictures at graduations, weddings, and other community celebrations. Shiino also embraced video. His Super 16mm footage shows July 1 parades, tugboat operations, and the life of the Big Bend sawmill, among other.
Ed Desrochers of Nakusp at bat, New Denver-Nakusp baseball game, rec grounds, Nakusp Recreation Park, 1951. Arrow Lakes Historical Society 2012.003.64
Crowd gathered around scene of automobile accident, New Denver area, circa 1940s. Arrow Lakes Historical Society 2012.003.323
In 1954, Shiino was on hand to chronicle the final sailing of the venerable CPR sternwheeler SS Minto in photographs and 16mm colour film. Many of his most valuable images were taken prior to the completion of the Hugh Keenleyside Dam in 1968, which flooded the Arrow Lakes valley, forcing the relocation of entire communities.
Shiino died in 1999, but his images live on. The Arrow Lakes Historical Society has made 1,349 of them available on its website while 20 of his silent colour films from the 1950s and ’60s can be viewed at UBC Okanagan’s Kootenay Columbia Digitized History site.
Crowd gathered on Canadian Pacific Railway wharf at Upper Arrow Lake, Nakusp to bid farewell to SS Minto on its final run, April 24, 1954. Arrow Lakes Historical Society 2012.003.415
Celgar tug crew member John Swanson feeds bear cub on shore near Vipond Creek, Upper Arrow Lake, circa late 1950s–early 1960s. Tug Vanstone in background. Arrow Lakes Historical Society 2012.003.761
To mark what would have been Shiino’s 100th birthday in 2015, the Arrow Lakes Historical Society’s Kyle Kusch produced a 60-minute slideshow entitled Ichi100, which is available on DVD.
“Ichiro’s work touched generations of Nakusp residents,” Kusch says. “It’s still common to walk into someone’s house and, if they’re of a certain age, find a photo taken by him framed on the wall or mantle. Not only do people here still remember his work, they above all remember his kindness and humility.”
Last year, 13 of Shiino’s charcoal portraits were donated to the Nakusp Museum, which prompted an exhibit combining his drawings and photos entitled The Art and Life of Ichiro Shiino.
“We knew that having these portraits in our collection is an honour,” says curator Melissa Koftinoff. “We wanted to showcase Ichi as an artist while acknowledging the painful backstory of the Japanese internment in the Slocan Valley.”
Koftinoff says those who knew Shiino emphasize his generosity and how they valued his friendship. “Part of Ichiro’s legacy is the preservation of memory through art and part is the positive impact he had on people in this community.”
Greg Nesteroff is a director with the Arrow Lakes Historical Society and BC Historical Federation
Teenage boys playing marbles on steps of Masonic Building, Nakusp, late 1940s or early 1950s. L-R: George Bedard, Fred Desrochers, Ed Desrochers, Doug Hakeman. Arrow Lakes Historical Society 2012.003.1322
Children posing inside Nakusp Public Library, then located in Parish Hall (Small Hall), Nakusp, February 1952. L-R: Carol Gregory, Hiro Yanagisawa, Lynn Smith, Stephen Baird, Donna McIntosh, Brian Hoshizaki. Arrow Lakes Historical Society 2012.003.317
Mark Forsythe travels through BC, and back in time, exploring the unique work of British Columbia Historical Federation members.
Langley Heritage Society president Fred Pepin. Photo: Mark Forsythe
Time itself seems to have ground to a halt. The COVID-19 pandemic has forced people and organizations to take stock, and imagine a path forward. Over the last two years, Time Travels has highlighted the exceptional work of British Columbia Historical Federation members in the Slocan, Similkameen, Fraser Valley, and Vancouver Island. The column hopes to profile members in other regions of BC, but for now, I remain closer to home in Fort Langley.
Kwantlen, Katzie, Matsqui, and Semiahmoo peoples have lived here for thousands of years. The Hudson’s Bay Company planted palisades for a fur trading post in 1827, and the Fort Langley area became the first pocket of Colonial settlement in the Lower Mainland. After the Fraser River gold rush ignited in 1858, the Colony of British Columbia was proclaimed here as thousands of American miners jumped in the chase.
Nearby Derby was Governor James Douglas’s choice for the first Mainland capital, until Colonel Richard Moody and the Royal Engineers opted for higher ground across the river at New Westminster. If you paddle on the nearby Bedford Channel you can almost hear these voices echoing off the water.
When my retirement from CBC Radio approached a few years ago, Langley Heritage Society president Fred Pepin invited me to join its board. It has an impressive record. Over the last 40 years, dozens of houses, barns, and churches have been spared the wrecker’s ball because of the society’s efforts.
Many buildings had been vandalized or faced demolition, and today they remain standing and highly useful. Successful conservation grew from a spirit of collaboration with municipal governments, businesses, parks authorities, educational institutions and dedicated volunteers.
Today, the the society maintains and manages nine buildings, each home to a caretaker tenant. (One outbuilding has been turned into a cat sanctuary.) The Society has crafted a remarkable legacy, one nail at a time, and it is the vision of those first volunteers that must be recognized.
Trunk belonging to the first British war bride to arrive in Langley following the Second World War, Lois Bowling, on display at the CN Station. Mark Forsythe photo
The first project (with a local arts council) was restoration of Michaud House, home to the first Francophone family to settle on Langley Prairie. Others followed, including the Lamb/Stirling House and Harrower House at Murrayville in the mid-1990s.
Fred Pepin remembers the ripple effect it had in the neighbourhood, ”you could see the difference down the street, people started cleaning up their houses. In six months the street looked totally different…the impact was enormous.”
At nearby Milner, Judy Lamb-Richardson’s great-grandparents operated the Dixon dairy farm during the First World War era. Nine years ago the house and barn were restored in partnership with the Township of Langley, prompting this message from Judy: “I don’t know if whomever was involved had ever thought during the restoration process how much that act would mean to the generations coming after to have the opportunity to touch the hands of their ancestors. There are no words to tell you how much I appreciate this.”
Fred Pepin led that restoration. The original stained-glass windows and various fixtures had been stolen from the house, and the barn was one windstorm away from collapsing. The two-year restoration earned an Award of Honour from Heritage BC.
Volunteerism is in Fred’s DNA. He has spearheaded restoration work in historic Milner, Murrayville, Langley Prairie, Sperling, Willoughby, Aldergrove, and Fort Langley for decades. Named a Freeman of the Municipality by the Township of Langley, he also received an Award of Merit from the BCHF. Now in his 80s, Fred still crawls beneath buildings to patch leaking pipes and volunteers with the BC Farm Museum and sits on Township’s Heritage Advisory Committee. He’s called “Mr. Heritage” for good reason.
The society’s most-visited building is a gem — the 1915 Fort Langley CN Station restored by volunteers beginning in 1983. Built by Canadian Northern Railway, it is one of the last Class 3 stations standing; it is owned by the Township of Langley and operated by the Langley Heritage Society. For decades, Bays Blackhall was its biggest promoter and protector. She was also a feisty advocate for local heritage and landscape conservation, and the Society initiated a high-school scholarship in her honour following her death in 2017.
The CN Station sits in the heart of the village and has become one of Fort Langley’s most frequented sites. It includes a 1920s wooden caboose (with a marvelous model railway) and a 1940s passenger car. Last summer a short dramatic production called Wheels of Time was launched in collaboration with the Creative Compass Society, a non-profit that mentors young people in the arts. It tells more of the CN Station story, and life in Fort Langley.
At the time of writing, the CN Station remains closed, but exciting work continues behind the scenes and out front in the historic gardens. Our station manager Helen Williams and her army of volunteers can hardly wait to show you.
Heritage gardens at Fort Langley CN Station. Photo: Mark Forsythe
An evening stroll on the platform at the Fort Langley CN Station. Photo: Mark Forsythe
Cast from the Wheels of Time production performed on the platform at the CN Station. Photo: Mark Forsythe
For information and videos highlighting restored buildings visit: langleyheritage.ca. The CN Station is located at the corner of Mavis and Glover in Fort Langley.
BC Historical Federation Vice-President Mark Forsythe caught up with the 2019 Lieutenant-Governor’s Medal for Historical Writing prize winning author Michael Layland to discuss his book “In Nature’s Realm: Early Naturalists Explore Vancouver Island” (Touchwood Editions, 2019).
A celebration of the richly diverse flora and fauna of Vancouver Island as explored through the records of explorers, settlers, and visitors, and with due respect to the wealth of Indigenous traditional knowledge of the island’s ecosystems. In Nature’s Realm gathers initial reports, recorded histories, and personal accounts left by Vancouver Island’s early naturalists who studied the region’s flora and fauna.
The Spring 2020 issue of British Columbia History features a story on haiku poetry written in the Tashme Japanese-Canadian interment camp. Here is a gallery of recent images of Tashme that we did not have room for in the magazine, courtesy Jacquie Pearce.
For more information about Tashme, see the Tashme Historical Project website at http://tashme.ca/ and the Tashme Project play at https://thetashmeproject.com. The play has references to the playwright’s grandfather, who wrote haiku in Tashme and wrote haiku.
Site of internment housing
Barn interior
Kitchen
Tashme Museum
Tashme, February 2019
Stop-of-interest sign, erected 2017
The following story by Dayle Sheridan takes place at Sweetwater school in 1949, during her second teaching assignment, and was included in her Christmas letter this year. Our thanks to Dawn Klassen for sharing it with us.
Dayle Sheridan during her teaching days.
The place was Sweetwater School. It was 17 miles north of Dawson Creek on the Alaska Highway and three miles due east toward the old highway abandoned during World War II because the U.S. needed access to the USSR through the nearest outpost state, Alaska.
Sweetwater School served the settlers of the pre-war days, but was still needed for the tag-end families of those pioneers.
It was an old log building when I arrived, but still good for a few more years.
It was a one-room school and the teacher was expected to teach all grades from I to VIII if that were necessary, though it wasn’t always necessary. I think there were only Grades IV to VIII that year, with about 11 pupils attending.
When I arrived, there was nowhere for the teacher to stay, so a teacherage had to be brought in. That took a week, so I had to stay with the neighbouring teacher about four miles away.
My teacherage could not have been more than 12 x 12 feet at the most — if that. It was built of wood, but with no insulation, regardless of the very sub-zero temperatures for most of the winter.
A cord of wood was hauled into the school yard and piled against a wall of the teacherage. There was no source of water there, indeed, the water definitely would have been sweet had you found any!
For the school, blocks of ice had to be cut from the Peace River and stored in the ice-house which was filled with sawdust to stop it from melting. Still, by the beginning of school in September, almost all the ice had vanished, and somehow, we slumped along until about mid-October when the snow began to fly again. After that, until spring our water-supply was no problem.
I don’t recall where the paper to start the fire came from. But, the fire was definitely made. I would hop out of bed in the freezing temperature, quickly stuff the paper in the stove, pile the prepared kindling on top of it with a couple of sticks of wood, fly back to bed, get under the covers, and stay there until the one room warmed up.
I don’t recall what breakfast was like. I’m sure I would have had no milk for porridge, certainly no eggs, and I can’t imagine the luxury of coffee.
The closest neighbours around were an old bachelor and his housekeeper, about a half-mile down the road. (I don’t think I ever went there). The rest were a mile out or more in a great circle around me.
The Coopers were three miles to the north, the Wallaces four miles to the northwest, the Myhres lived to the east four miles, the Parodoskis three miles to the southeast and the Belzuiks four miles to the west, beyond the Alaska Highway.
Regardless of the temperatures, the pupils showed up. David and Vern Belzuik would arrive at 8 each morning, in spite of temperatures down in the -30s or -40s, though when the temperature got down to -40′, the pupils were not legally required to come to school.
When the temperatures were low, the scarves around the mouths of the children were covered with hoar frost, their lashes, and any bits of hair showing, were thickly frosted as well.
Sweetwater School was my most difficult assignment, but always my most memorable one. I was surrounded by great wheat fields, both productive and fallow — and little else except miles of isolation and long, straight roads which led out to the store or highway or up through miles of wilderness.
I often think, now of those places of isolation and wonder if I could endure them again. Yet I and a lot of other young teachers didn’t seem to even worry about these details that would probably not happen these days.
Such were these pioneer teachers. Many of them, of course, were brought up in similar conditions, and so had learned to cope with the hardships they encountered.
Fall came and went. I survived on juice for my water.
Finally the snows came, and life settled down to some resemblance of normality.
Christmas was approaching and there was the usual school concert to prepare for. That happened toward the end of November and occupied hours of time, rehearsing and practicing. Concerts are exhaustive work, especially on top of regular school work. I was very much looking forward to getting home for Christmas.
Not long before I was planning to leave for the holidays, I received a letter from Mom saying that Dad was sick. He had been plagued with asthma for years, so this was not a surprise. It was also the time before Medicare, so I wrote home and said that I would send my travel money home and then Dad could go to the hospital.
All the holiday plans were scrapped, and I prepared to spend Christmas alone in the teacherage. I was disappointed, of course, but I adjusted and simply focused on the upcoming concert.
Just before school closing for the holidays, a letter came form home saying they would rather have me than my money. But it seemed too late to change my plans again, so I simply put Christmas out of my mind.
The concert happened on the night before the holidays. It was about 2½ hours long. We had all given it our all, and I felt good as I heard the sounds of the horse’s harnesses fade into the semi-darkness of the northern lights.
Then came the following morning. I rose, as usual, lit the wood fire, hopped back to my bed until the room warmed up enough to get up, get my breakfast and prepare for the day.
The inside of the teacherage looked like a casket. There was the thick, smooth frost on the inside of the windows and doors. Silence was everywhere, of course, inside and outside. I made sure I had plenty of kindling and wood indoors. Then I settled in front of my open oven, I sat on a chair, put my feet in the open oven and began to read a book. I think I was doing fine up to that point.
When it snows in the northern wilderness, the silence can be overwhelming. Everything is soft and very quiet. As one writer once described it, “The silence is so overpowering, you want to go outside and yell at it, just to make a noise!” and that is just how it was.
As I sat reading, I was suddenly aware that my whole body was going stiff. I couldn’t move my arms or my legs. The only thing that was moving was my mind, and it was telling me in words I could not agree with. “You better get out of here now or you may never get out!” It was a command and I knew it was true. The casket had already been prepared and it was obvious I would be next!
I tried to get up, but it was difficult. Neither arms nor legs would move of their own accord. I literally had to peel them and move them as best I could.
I managed to get off the chair and get to the dresser where my clothes were stored. I did the necessary packing and was soon ready to leave. I had no idea what was going to happen once I got outside the door. All I knew was that get outside the door I must. What happened after that I knew not. By this time it was early afternoon.
I had just closed the door behind me and was preparing to make my way through the unploughed snow to the road, when who should come along but Larry, the younger son of the woman who lived in the midst of the woods with the woodcutter.
Larry was going out to the store on the Alaska Highway where I needed to go to get the bus to Fort St. John, about 40 miles away, where I could take a plane to Edmonton, then home! What an absolute god-send! It would have taken me hours to walk through the snow to the highway. That would have been late. Traffic on that old highway was scarce. There may have been no one else travelling that road that day!
How would I have gone to Fort St. John? It was the North. Dark happened early, and along with it, the cold. The gods must have been on hand that day. By sheer luck I was able to get the afternoon bus to Fort St. John. I was sure it was already Christmas Eve, so I would have had to get a hotel that night and fly out on Christmas morning.
I can no longer remember the details of that date, but I got to Edmonton (or was it Calgary?), and from there I took the train to Notch Hill, our railway town, where Dad met me and took me home.
I missed Christmas Day, of course, but at least I escaped freezing to death in my spacious casket. Had I not, I don’t know when I would have been found. Certainly not until school opened in the New Year. Almost no one would have passed by the school and if they had, would they have stopped in — especially if there was no smoke coming form the stove-pipe? Since I was not sure I would be escaping for Christmas, it is not likely anyone else would either.
My plight was probably not too different from many of the northern wilderness teachers. Stories of young school teachers in those very isolated rural communities were common and yet I am not aware of the people there showing too much concern. Maybe the incidents of such cases were more common than I realized.
A lot of new teachers to the North never came back to their own homes. They stayed and married the young farm boys. It was an easy thing to do. The shortage of both males and females was always a chronic problem, so if you didn’t want to become a young pioneer’s wife (or even an old one!) it was hazardous to go North!
And so, such is a slice of what could happen in earlier days.
This sort of thing comes with the building of a new nation and these stories are very easy to get lost — because who is there to keep the pot boiling with Canada’s early tales?
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.
Follow us on Facebook.