British Columbia travel | Travel Thru History

Welcome to My City: Vancouver, BC

Hosting the World for the 2010 Winter Olympics and Paralympic Games

by W. Ruth Kozak

With its balmy climate, the natural surroundings of sea and panorama of mountains, Vancouver is one of the most beautiful cities in the world and a major tourist destination. As Host City of the 2010 Winter Olympics and Paralympic Games, we Vancouverites will welcome the world this February. I’ve lived here most of my life and will share with you all the sights and attractions my city has to offer, including Vancouver’s colourful history.

The city area was first settled in 500 BC by Coastal Indians. The Spanish navy explored the area and in 1792 the British naval captain George Vancouver arrived here. When Captain George Vancouver sailed into the inlet he was greeted by the First Nations people who paddled out to meet his ship and welcomed him with a shower of white feathers. Vancouver has always been a city of many cultures, from the First Nations Coast Salish people who originally inhabited this area, the early British and Portuguese sailors who decided to jump ship and stay, the Chinese who arrived, inspired by the gold rush in the ‘80s, the Japanese who came to fish, to other immigrants such as the Indo-Pakistanis who brought their logging skills; and other cultures including the French, Italian, German, Scandinavian, Ukrainians and Greeks that have given Vancouver its rich cultural heritage.

Today’s population is 550,000 people who reside within a larger area of two million, forming the Greater Vancouver region. It is the third largest city in Canada.

With it’s gorgeous setting, some people call Vancouver “Lotus Land”. It’s a year-round paradise for sports and outdoor activities with easy access to the North Shore mountains for skiing. You can go golfing and sailing and then take in an opera at the theatre or a sports event at BC Place at night.

Yes, it rains a lot of in Vancouver (on the average 1.117 m. over the 164 wet days annually) so bring your umbrella when you come. But Vancouver boasts some of the most spectacular public gardens in North America such as the VanDusen Botanical Garden on Oak Street (left) and the Nitobe Memorial Garden at UBC. Just across the Lions Gate Bridge on the North Shore you’ll find the Capilano and Lynn Canyons where there are forest walks and suspension bridges.

Vancouver has outdoor activities all year round, rain or shine. Locals don’t let the rain stop them from going out to enjoy the sights, walking, jogging or cycling. And if you don’t like being out in the rain, hunker down in one of the many coffee shops that you’ll find in every area of the city, or take in an exhibit at the Vancouver Art Gallery or Museum. Several of the gardens, such as the Dr. Sun Yat Sen Classical Chinese Garden in Chinatown, have covered walkways and pavilions. And the trees in Stanley Park provide a natural umbrella.

Stanley Park (400 hectares) is the soul of the city, slightly bigger than NYC’s Central Park, making it the largest urban park in North America All around the park is a seawall with nine kilometers of spectacular waterfront views (above right) and beaches where you can walk, cycle or in-line skate. The Vancouver Aquarium is located in the park as well as Malkin Bowl where outdoor concerts are held during the summer.

In Vancouver’s West End (left), a high density residential as well as business area, you’ll find many excellent restaurants and shopping areas as well the Vancouver entertainment hub with theatres and cinemas.

There are several large shopping malls in Vancouver, including Pacific Centre downtown, Oakridge, Metrotown in Burnaby, and Park Royal in West Vancouver. But one of the biggest tourist attractions is the Granville Island Market (right), located across the Granville St. Bridge on Granville Island in False Creek. This was once an industrial area of ironworks and shipyards and it’s now a highlight for visitors and locals and includes a moorage for yachts and houseboats. The Market specializes in local BC produce. As well, there are art galleries and craft shops, boutiques, restaurants, pubs and several performance theatres. You can get there by bus or take the little striped Aqua buses that stop all over False Creek and English Bay.

Because of the city’s multicultural heritage you’ll find ethnic enclaves such as Chinatown and Little India. Vancouver’s Chinatown is the third largest in North America after NYC and San Francisco. It’s a busy marketplace crammed with shops and restaurants. Be sure and visit the Chinese Cultural Centre and the Dr. Sun Yat Sen Gardens (left) while you’re there.

Up at Main and 49th Ave you’ll find the Punjabi Market where you can buy exotic merchandise and groceries. In Vancouver’s East End, Commercial Drive, once known as “Little Italy” is now one of the city’s most bohemian areas where you’ll find shops and restaurants including Jamaican, Ethiopian, Mexican and Moroccan as well as Spanish tapas bars and Portuguese and Italian coffee shops, Chinese grocers, and French and Italian bakeries.

Culturally Vancouver has a lot to offer. Downtown at the Vancouver Art Gallery you can see paintings by BC’s beloved artist Emily Carr as well as collections of work by other Canadian or internationally known artists. The Museum of Anthropology at UBC is Canada’s largest teaching museum, designed by Vancouver architect Arthur Erikson. It displays aboriginal sculptures, totem poles, and a rich display of First Nations art including works by famous BC artist Bill Reid’s Cedar Bear and Sea Wolf.

If you’re looking for entertainment the Chan Centre at UBC holds impressive concerts as does the Orpheum Theatre, once the largest theatre on North America’s Pacific Coast. This is the permanent home of the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra. The Queen Elizabeth Theatre hosts ballets and theatrical productions. This will be the site of the Aboriginal Pavilion during the 2010 Winter Olympic Games. For sports events, if you come for the Games, you’ll be attending GM Place and the Pacific Coliseum or the BC Place Stadium.

As prestigious and beautiful a city as it is, Vancouver has its ‘dark’ side too. If you’re coming for the Olympics, you can expect higher prices and road restrictions.Security will be tight around the Olympic venues such as the Olympic Village, the Convention Centre, the Richmond Oval and the Vancouver International Airport. In the Downtown East Side area, you can also expect to see Vancouver’s growing homeless population. (It’s estimated that between 500 – 1200 people sleep on the streets each night, although recently more shelters were opened.) About a quarter of the population here lives below Statistics Canada’s low-income level and there is a growing concern regarding the drug trade and crime. Although Vancouver has sometimes been dubbed the ‘no fun city’, because of strict liquor laws, some of these have been relaxed in time for the influx of thousands of guests coming for the Games. Bylaws prohibiting singing and dancing in restaurants were repealed and bars and nightclubs have had their hours extended (up to 3 a.m. in the Granville Street area downtown).

Vancouver is served by the Vancouver International Airport (YVR), the second busiest airport in Canada with the second largest international passenger gateway on the West Coast of North America. The public transit (Translink) include trolleys, buses, a sea-bus service and a sleek Skytrain (monorail) that will take you across town in minutes.

We Vancouverites are proud of our city. How many other cities can claim to have ocean beaches and lofty mountains just minutes away, a huge park in their midst, a striking array of architecture and cultural opportunities and performing arts? And now, we are hosting the biggest show of the year with the 2010 Winter Olympics and Paralympic Games. Come and join us for the fun!

Full Day Best of Vancouver Private City Tour and Alpine Adventure

If You Go:

www.discovervancouver.com
Vancouver Tourist Info Centre:
Downtown Vancouver, Plaza Level 200 Burrard St.
TEL: 604-683-2000
Information about the 2010 Winter Olympics:
www.tourismvancouver.com
www.HelloBC.com

About the author:
W. Ruth Kozak has lived in Vancouver since she was 13 years old so she knows the city well. She is the ‘roving reporter’ for Planet Eye’s “Vancouver Guide” – www.planeteyetraveler.com where you can read all about what’s going on in the city.

Photo credits:
First photo of Vancouver by Mike Benna on Unsplash
All other photographs are by W. Ruth Kozak.

Celebrating the Birth of B.C. on Douglas Day, 2009

Fort Langley, British Columbia

by Julie H. Ferguson

New Fort Langley, 20th Nov. 1858 – Yesterday the birthday of British Columbia was ushered in by a steady rain, which continued perseveringly throughout the whole day.
– The Victoria Gazette, November 25, 1858.

Rain pours down and the chill creeps into my bones as I trudge up the hill, past a statue of James Douglas. I splash through the gate in the tall palisade at Fort Langley towards the Big House. I have come to participate in the 151st anniversary of the founding of British Columbia and the swearing-in of James Douglas as the colony’s first governor. I’m alone. No one has come on the day itself for it is a soggy Thursday – the main celebration is on Saturday.

The gloom of this wet November day in 2009 helps me imagine Douglas’s impression on arriving at the place he knew so well – clouds obscuring the mountains, bare trees, and muddy paths. The sole splash of colour in this monochrome scene of grey and black is my pink umbrella. Just one person is braving the weather in the heart of this former Hudson’s Bay Company (HBC) fort and trading post. She is a First Nations volunteer wrapped in a blanket. “Miserable weather,” she sniffs, peering at me from below her woven cedar hat. Today, no Hudson’s Bay employees are working at their jobs that operated the fort – the blacksmith, coopers, cooks, labourers, clerks, and traders are gone now. No visitors either, I realize.

I pause and consider what it was like on November 19, 1858. I can hear the constant drip of the raindrops and the squawking of a couple of Stellar’s Jays that Douglas also heard, but not the 13-gun salute fired by the SS Beaver anchored in the river. Nor can I hear the marching feet of the Royal Engineers’ honour guard clad in scarlet jackets as they led Douglas and his entourage into the fort and up to the Big House. The cooperage and smithy are shut and no Union Jack flies from the flagpole in 2009.

The warmth of the Big House is as welcome to me as it must have been to James Douglas. Today I stand in a faithful replica, the original house long gone. The wood lining the walls is not darkened by age and electric light dispels the dark day outside. Kerosene lamps would have brightened the interior for the 100 men squeezing into an average-sized room on the ground floor for the ceremony to proclaim the Colony of British Columbia. The organizers had hoped to hold it in the open air but the weather intervened. They did not transfer the event to the large hall upstairs that would have handled the crowd more comfortably because servants were preparing it for the celebratory dinner.

I wander in silence through the rooms of the Big House. On the ground floor, I see an office, a small kitchen, and the rest of the living quarters of the fort’s chief trader and his family all filled with furniture and items of the mid-1800s. Through the back window, the cookhouse stands silent. Upstairs, the large hall is now arranged, in part, as a trading post with displays of artifacts from 150 years ago. In Douglas’s day, the trading took place in another building within the palisade and was a lively business. The First Nations people brought the furs here and received trade goods in exchange. Favourite items are piled almost to the ceiling – blankets, bolts of fabric, sacks of flour, pots and pans, guns and ammunition, and axes. These goods travelled a long way in Douglas’s day. HBC brought them overland by canoe and pack horses from Montreal or York Factory on Hudson Bay, a hazardous journey that took many months of privation for the voyageurs.

When I stand on the spot where Douglas had actually been sworn-in and reflect on what happened here, I hear strains of lively French Canadian fiddle music. My heart lurches – is it a ghost? No, it’s a volunteer hidden close-by adding atmosphere for the “Proclamation Play.” My reverie vanishes abruptly as 30 teenagers clatter into the room and take their seats to watch.

The play takes some dramatic licence with British Columbia’s birthday and the stories about James Douglas, but it certainly engages the students. The narrator portrays Douglas as a tough, rather unpleasant man. Of course, the truth is more complicated, but he certainly had difficulty adjusting to governorship after spending so many years influenced by the controlling ways of HBC. I remember other sides of Douglas’s character too. He loved children, was faithful to his wife, Amelia, treated the First Nations bands better than his peers did, and was a successful project manager. Intense and lacking humour, he often acted unilaterally as governor forgetting to consult the Legislative Council beforehand, which tarnished his stellar reputation in the fur trade. Douglas’s handling of the Fraser River Gold Rush that precipitated the British decision to create a Crown Colony on the mainland was dictatorial but mostly effective, and later his ambitious road-building schemes opened up the interior to colonization.

As I watch the play, whispers from that momentous day reach my ears. Douglas first swore-in the new Chief Justice Matthew Begbie. Then with great solemnity, Begbie read the proclamation that created the Colony of British Columbia and Douglas, its first governor. Douglas announced three edicts, the most important of which instituted English Common Law in the colony. Never one to smile, he maintained his familiar air of gravitas throughout.

That evening Douglas and his associates enjoyed a formal dinner. In the hall, tables were laid with white linen and silverware, and crystal glasses sparkled in the light of many candles. The men feasted on salmon and venison as they talked about politics and the future. They drank many toasts to the new colony and Douglas; however, the toast to Queen Victoria moved Douglas the most as his new reality sank in – he was now her representative in, not one, but two jurisdictions at the outermost edge of her empire. Douglas admitted to his journal that he felt proud. Given his obscure beginnings as an illegitimate, part-Black man from British Guiana (Guyana today), he understated his reaction as he always did.

Next day, another ear-splitting 17-gun salute, this time from the fort, ricocheted around the cloud-draped mountains across Fraser’s River as the new governor left Fort Langley. Raising his hand in salute, Douglas climbed into a rowboat on his way to the ship that would return him to Victoria in the Colony of Vancouver Island, his other responsibility, and home.

In stark contrast, on my departure I am accompanied only by the loud dripping of the rain and my squelching footsteps, sounds James Douglas could not possibly have heard over the booms of the cannon honouring him and the newborn British Columbia.

The Fraser Valley Winery Tour

If You Go:

The fort is a National Historic Site run by Parks Canada and is located in the town of Fort Langley beside the Fraser River in southern British Columbia. A dry day allows visitors the best opportunity to see the re-creation of a busy Hudson’s Bay Company fort and trading post. Volunteers, dressed in costume, re-enact life and work in the mid-1800s.

The quaint town of Fort Langley is well-worth a visit to enjoy the many cafes, antique stores, and boutiques.

Fort hours of operation:
7 days a week, year round; except December 25, 26, and January 1
Regular Hours: 10:00 am – 5:00 pm (September 2 – June 27)
Summer Hours: 9:00 am – 8:00 pm (June 28 – September 1)

Fort entrance fees:
Adult – $7.80
Senior – $6.55
Youth – $3.90
Family – $19.60 (Up to 7 people visiting together, with a maximum of two adults,)
Commercial Group, pre-booked – $6.55 per person
School Groups: Entry and a Heritage Presentation Special Program, per student – $3.90
School Groups: per student – $2.90

Much more visitor information is available at www.pc.gc.ca

How to get there:
Fort Langley National Historic Site
23433 Mavis Avenue, Fort Langley, B.C. Canada V1M 2R5
P: 604-513-4777
F: 604-513-4798
E: fort.langley@pc.gc.ca
W: www.pc.gc.ca

Maps:
Neither the Fort Langley website map at www.pc.gc.ca, nor Google Maps show the new Golden Ears Bridge across the Fraser River from Maple Ridge to Langley. For visitors arriving from the Tri-Cities and further east on the north side of the river, this is now the fastest route.

About the author:
Author and speaker, Julie H. Ferguson writes Canadian history for adults and teens. Her latest book is James Douglas: Father of British Columbia, a YA biography published by Dundurn, 2009. Julie has lived in British Columbia for forty years and is a member of Photoclub Vancouver.
She invites you to visit her author blog on James Douglas at www.jamesdouglasofbc.blogspot.com. Julie can be reached at info@beaconlit.com and also at her website at www.beaconlit.com.

Photo credits:
All photographs © Julie H. Ferguson 2009, except:
Photo #1 of the Big House, © M. Jassak (www.seefortlangley.com), with permission.
1. The Big House inside Fort Langley where British Columbia was proclaimed on November 19, 1858.
2. The statue of Sir James Douglas outside the fort. An identical one made from the same mold graces his birthplace in Guyana.
3. The dining room in the chief trader’s family quarters on the ground floor of the Big House.
4. Some trade goods given in exchange for furs. The most desirable were fabric, flour, kitchen utensils, axes, and guns.
5. The narrator of the Proclamation Play, Amn Johal, holding a doll that represented Douglas’s wife, Amelia. She did not attend the ceremony.
6. The mural in the room where the proclamation took place. Douglas is on the 2nd left holding the scroll. Beside him is Chief Justice of BC, Matthew Begbie who swore-in Douglas as governor.

Festival du Bois in Maillardville Celebrates French-Canadian Heritage

Coquitlam, British Columbia

by W. Ruth Kozak

I’m standing in line waiting to enter the big tent in Macklin Park, aware that I am surrounded by French-speaking folks. On this cold West coast evening, I imagine that I could actually be in Quebec. But this is Maillardville, a neighbourhood in the city of Coquitlam near Vancouver, BC.

It’s almost time for the evening show to go on and the enormous tent is already crammed to capacity. Long tables are set up, banquet style, occupied by hundreds of people, some of them sporting toques and sashes, some enjoying plates of French Canadian cuisine and a glass of beer or wine. The atmosphere is definitely festive.

This is Maillardville’s annual Festival du Bois, an event celebrating it’s francophone roots. Maillardville is the largest francophone community in Western Canada. It was built up by workers from Sherbrooke Quebec and Rockland Ontario in 1909/10 when skilled workers were recruited to work at the Canadian Western Lumber Company. Soon many other French-speaking people from across Canada arrived. The parish of Notre Dame de Lourdes grew under the spiritual guidance of Father Maillard, and the community took the name Maillardville in 1912.

You’ll still hear French spoken in the community of Maillardville. The street signs, business and interpretive signs are in both French and English. Even some of the architecture reflects a “French” style. The Festival du Bois is held one weekend every March to promote French Canadian culture and language with music and dance. The Main Stage, daytime on Saturday and Sunday, offers a variety of artists melding traditional Quebecois, Celtic and World tunes. The highlight is the evening performance on Saturday night.

In the tent, announcements are made in French and English introducing the first group of entertainers. The stage is crowded with young adults, teen-agers and some kids no older than Junior High school. The North Shore and Coquitlam Celtic Ensemble (left) is a culturally diverse collection of about two dozen musicians from the Greater Vancouver area who have an international reputation, and it’s not hard to understand why. With fiddles, guitars, percussion and wind instruments they perform lively Celtic music that soon has toes tapping and people step-dancing in front of the stage.

During the intermission there’s lots going on. Venders have set up tables selling French-Canadian DVDs and videos. A popular spot is the table displaying home crafted souvenir “Frog” items, everything from frog toques and scarves to knitted booties and frog toys. Out in back there are lots of delicious French Canadian treats for your eating pleasure including Montreal-style corn beef sandwiches, tourtiere and maple sugar pie. I was disappointed to find there was no poutine available Saturday night. A plate of French fries heaped with the popular, typically Quebecois cheese-curd topping would have made the evening complete.

After intermission, the hand clapping and dancing starts again with the distinctly French Canadian foot-stomping rhythms of Juno award winning La Bottine Souriante (The Smiling Boot). This group has been at the forefront of Quebec traditional music internationally for over 30 years. They began back in 1976 in the Lanaudiere region of Quebec and have become one of the most popular tradition-based groups in the world.

The early French colonists called themselves les Canadienes (the Canadians) to distinguish themselves from les Francais (the French) who were natives of France. The Canadienes inherited a rich tradition of songs and dances from Northern France, and this explains the Celtic connection that Quebec still shares with Brittany, Ireland, Scotland and the Maritimes. In time, the French Canadians developed their own music, incorporating and transforming the styles of music played by the British settlers.

La Bottine Souriante melds French, Irish and Scottish sounds. Along with jigs, reels and ballads you’ll hear salsa, ska, funk, Cajun, Latino and African melodic and rhythmic influences. Besides several Junos, the group has won FELIX awards and the BBC Folk Award for Best Live Act.

An exuberant, typically francophone mood permeates the tent. There are cheers as the band’s lively percussive dancer, Sandy Silva, step dances across the stage, flirting with the fiddler, then dancing a lively foot-stomping duet with one of the other musicians. Strings of people, holding hands, dance up and down the narrow aisle between the tables. The entire tent is bouncing, vibrating to the beat of the music. My own feet can’t stop tapping and moving to the rhythm. It doesn’t matter if you don’t speak French, or if you can dance or not. Like me you will feel part of the celebration, part of the joyous beat of the music and the camaraderie of this unique French-Canadian Festival.

Fraser Valley Private Wine Tour and Bistro Lunch

More Information:

Maillardville’s Festival du Bois: www.festivaldubois.ca
The North Shore and Coquitlam Celtic Ensemble: www.nscelticensemble.com
La Bottine Souriante: www.bottinesouriante.com
French-Canadian music: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Music_of_Quebec

About the author:
W. Ruth Kozak is not only a travel writer, but also a historical writer. She enjoys the music, dance and folklore of many different cultures and growing up in Canada is particularly interested in the history of the French Canadians. Maybe it’s her own Celtic roots, because she’d really like to step-dance! www.ruthkozak.com

Photo Credits:
All photos are by Paul Norton.

Burnaby Heritage Village: Ye Olde Fashioned Christmas

British Columbia, Canada

by Rick & Chris Millikan

Every December, Burnaby Heritage Village in Burnaby, B.C. Canada reopens for its heritage holiday schedule. Festively dressing up and entertaining guests with special activities, it’s an opportunity for visitors to rediscover the true meaning of Christmas.

Entering this charming 1920’s village, families cross a bridge above a murmuring creek and step back to a simpler era. The narrow roadway curves upward between an old schoolhouse and a tiny cabin. Just below sits a high peaked church, where a children’s choir practices melodic carols.

Opening the door of Seaforth School we feel like new students as the plainly clad school-marm sternly teaches all grades, all subjects. Evidently she’s directed her class to adorn this one-room school with classic handmade decorations, making it very Christmassy!

A plaque posted on the two-room log home tells us that Tom Irving and Bob Moore first built this house near Burnaby Lake. Tom prospected in the Yukon and later helped build BC’s early tram line, represented nearby in a barn sheltering a beautifully restored 1923 interurban tramcar and model toy train diorama. Tom never married and died in 1964 at the age of 100. Like most of the thirty structures there, this cabin’s interior, dons early Christmas trimmings.

Red-ribbon bows and greenery decorates the corner bandstand and drapes over the village’s main street. Spotting Father Christmas, we follow him into the Village studio to snap a few photos of this Yuletide hero. The bewhiskered chap proudly tells us, “You’ll notice I’m not dressed in red and white like today’s chubby elf. Coca-Cola created him in their 1931 ad campaign. My long, brown fur-trimmed robe and cap represent apparel of that fourth-century gift giver and famed Turk, Saint Nicholas.”

Peering through Burnaby Lake General Store’s windows, we see a bygone wish list and examples of popular toys of that era. And outside the soda fountain, a brass band plays familiar Christmas melodies. Listeners mingle with still costumed Footlight Theatre Company performers, who’d just staged a children’s tale in the cozy Village Theater. Inside the soda fountain, we sip cups of mulled cider. Exiting later, we watch a clown perform mirthful magic in front of the old-fashioned Home Bakery.

Weaving in and out of shops, we check out paper lanterns in the Chinese herbalist shop, pick up seasonal bookmarks at the print shop and admire little Union Jack flags ornamenting the Royal Bank’s fir tree. At the end of Main Street, a one-room cabin is decorated as a gingerbread house; a costumed gingerbread gal skips mischievously about, posing with visitors of all ages.

Remaining on its original site at the other end of town, the Bateman family home is authentically furnished with 1922 décor. This December, their home depicts “The Night Before Christmas,” an old red sleigh sits on the verandah and a large toy mouse sleeps in its spacious living room. Their garage was converted a few years ago into a playhouse stocked with vintage toys for ageless girls and boys.

A popular family attraction is the festively decorated C. W. Parker 1912 Carousel. There’s not enough time to take a spin, or hear the costumed carolers serenading visitors each evening. But, before departing we pop into the Love farmhouse. Simple decorations hint at this home’s jolly winter gatherings. The tweedy-suited interpreter reports, “The Loves were Burnaby’s first landowners. Building in 1893, they added this kitchen and living room in 1911. These rooms were important for big Christmas get-togethers, when Grandpa took the train from Vancouver, bringing a turkey, goose and his fiddle…”

And long may these merry celebrations continue!

Full Day Best of Vancouver Private City Tour and Beer Tasting

If You Go:

It’s easy for visitors to find. For drivers: it’s just off Trans-Canada Highway 1 at Exit 33 and left on Canada Way for one block to its colorfully quaint entrance on Deer Lake Avenue. For public transit users: take Bus 144, 123, or 129.

Check out the Burnaby Village Museum website to learn about seasonal schedules, special events and programs.

Vancouver Craft Beer and Distillery Tour

About the authors:
Much-traveled freelance writer/photographer team, Chris and hubby Rick Millikan reside near Vancouver, BC. Former educators, they now present travel as an inviting ‘curriculum’, globe trotting in search of historic, cultural and zany adventures, their accounts appear in many BC Newspapers, local magazines, in-flight magazines and occasionally the Vancouver Sun or Province.

Photo credits:
All photos are by Rick and Chris Millikan.

BC First Nation History in Alert Bay

by Bev Lundahl

As my companion and I wound through the forest and mountains of Vancouver Island from Nanaimo up to Port MacNeil, my thoughts kept returning to the mystery of what lay ahead. I was nearing the end of my journey from the prairies to Alert Bay on Cormorant Island, a short ferry ride from Port McNeill, British Columbia. And I was bringing with me the crest from HMCS Quesnel, the corvette my father had served on in World War Two. This crest had embroidered on it the image of a thunderbird totem, a totem that I had discovered originated from a burial ground at Alert Bay, British Columbia. Some of the crew had snatched this grave marker while on shore the summer of 1942 and it had become their mascot until the end of the war.

The ‘Namgis First Nation of the Kwakwaka’wakw people I was soon to meet were as mysterious to me as the symbolism of the thunderbird. To the veterans the totem was a lucky talisman but one of them thought it was a horned owl and another saw an eagle. An officer had wanted it removed from the ship because he considered it to be idol worship. When I mentioned its horns a friend suggested tufts was a better word because horns denoted evil. And finally the son of a Quesnel veteran writing about this badge described the image in part as a “multi-colored demon.” It seemed none of us really understood what the thunderbird represented.

Who were these people? Reading at the library of the First Nations University of Canada, I had learned that outsiders cannot decipher the markings on totem poles as if they were graphic or pictographic presentation of myth or history. They are visible expressions of a family history and of the possession of powers derived from their ancestors. The history had to be publicly recounted and witnessed and the erection of a pole was to be surrounded by ritual.

When we descended the ferry at Alert Bay I looked around with anticipation. An elaborate gateway (photo top) carved with “ ‘Namgis First Nation, Gilakas’la Welcome” greeted us. Down Front Street, which ran forever along the waterfront was the “Namgis Burial Grounds” (photo above) dotted with numerous totem poles interspersed with a few crosses to mark the graves.

Walking further along Front Street we passed houses with people sitting out on the verandas carving masks and totems. The U’mista Cultural Center (photo at bottom) at the far end was situated beside the derelict remains of a faded brick residential school, that had closed some thirty years earlier. The old shop in the basement of the school was used as a workroom for carvers. (Photo left of Sean Whonnock)

Inside the Cultural Center the history of the government’s banning of the potlatch was told in excerpts taken from Indian Affairs documents and displayed beside the ceremonial masks that had been confiscated by the authorities in the 1920’s and then returned over half a century later.

Up the hill in the Big House we learned more about their history and culture. There we watched the dancers (photo right) step to the beat of the music pounded out on a cedar log – dances that told of stories and legends through the use of masks and costume. It was a spectacular and moving sight, watching them circulate around a fire in the middle of the earthen floor.

On the other side of the island a boardwalk led us on the eco-walk through the trees and marsh. As one gazed upward at the old defoliated trees, interspersed throughout the forest it wasn’t hard to see beaks and faces and wings – the inspiration for the totems that have been carved by these people for thousands of years – long before European contact.

Before retiring that evening to the Lodge, which was an old United Church that had been converted to a hostel, we watched the sunset from the waterfront deck of the Nimpkish Pub. Could this have been the same pub the sailors of sixty years ago had frequented? The orange glow of the sinking sun created burning steel gray shadows against the silver water, water that reflected the black, mountains in the background. Such a calm peaceful scene!

Prior to leaving this village I spent some time with Andrea Sanborn, the director of the Cultural Center and felt her pain regarding the theft of the grave marker of an Alert Bay family sixty years ago. The Navy newspaper “The Trident” quotes her as saying, “These stories need to be brought out in public, because not enough people really understand the history of First Nations people in this country”. In a quote in another newspaper she says “We would say that his spirit has been disturbed and that he is not at rest until it (the grave marker) is replaced”

I did not learn the meaning of the markings on the thunderbird nor did I meet the family of Mr. Dutch, whose grave it had marked. I did learn something about our entangled histories but I believe this is only the surface. Because our country had a policy of segregation the mystery of this history can really only be learned through face to face contact and honest exchange. My trip to Alert Bay is only the beginning but it has opened my eyes and revealed another world out there. Alert Bay and the culture expressed there is beautiful but sadly the imprint of our intertwined history has left an indelible mark.

More Information:

U’mista Cultural Society
Village of Alert Bay, BC

To Get There:
Take the ferry from Tsawassen or Horseshoe Bay to Nanaimo B.C., then head up the Island Highway # 19 north from Nanaimo to Port McNeill. From there take the ferry to Alert Bay. Info: www.bcferries.com

About the author:
Bev Lundahl is a genealogist by nature thus most of her writing is historical, based on her research. She has been published in The Beaver magazine, Folklore Saskatchewan, The Heritage Gazette of Trent Valley (Ontario), Lifestyles (Estevan Sask.) and some of her research has been used on CBC Radio as well as in various Canadian newspapers. Bev lives in Regina, Saskatchewan.
Contact: bev.lundahl@accesscomm.ca.

Photo Credits:
All photos are by Bev Lundahl.