Che-Wech-i-kan’s ‘Dusky Diamonds’ Put Nanaimo on the Map

More than a century after he was immortalized in bronze, his honorary title is to be erased in the name of reconciliation.

A cliche 140 years ago, it’s politically incorrect today.

Nevertheless it was meant as a tribute to the man who earned his place in Vancouver Island history as the true discoverer of the coal fields that put Nanaimo on the map.

So, when he died, ‘Coal Thyee’ (even the spelling has changed over the years) as he’d become known to First Nations and Whites, was off to, in the words of a newspaper headline, the Happy Hunting Ground.

Great Coal Chief, as he became known, (Che-wech-i-kan or Tee-a-Whillum or, as most recently given, Ki-et-sa-kun) was treated deferentially by the men of the HBC and as something of a celebrity by his own Snuneymuxw First Nation.

In later years he was honoured by the naming of Coal Tyee Elementary School.

But that was then and this is now—he’s being demoted into anonymity, the Nanaimo-Ladysmith School District having decided to rename the elementary school. A leading contender so far is Syuw’eb’ct, meaning, “our traditions,” or “our history”.

Next week in the Chronicles, the story of how the man known as the Great Coal Chief sparked the founding of what became the Hub City, for 80 years one of the greatest coal producers in the province and, today, one of British Columbia’s largest metropolitan cities.

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PHOTO: Ever-growing Nanaimo owes it all to the Indigenous man who became known as the Great Coal Chief.