Editorially speaking...
One of the victims of the wildfire that ravaged Lytton earlier this month was the privately owned Lytton Chinese History Museum.
The creation of Lorna Fandrich was built on an empty lot on Main Street that was said to be the site of a Chinese joss house or temple, 1881-1928.
Fortunately, the museum, built to honour the area's Chinese pioneers, many of whom had worked in railway construction, was fully insured and its database was saved. But here's no replacing its 1600 priceless artifacts.
"Over the years, I thought: 'Somebody should do something to remember that they [the Chinese] were there.' Nobody did, of course," she told Vancouver Sun. So she did it herself with two collections of artifacts from the Lytton area and one from Barkerville-Quesnel-Williams Lake.
At last report, with offers of financial and physical assistance pouring in, Mrs. Fandrich was taking time off for a few days to decide whether to rebuild and start anew.
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On the assumption that most Chronicles readers follow the news, I'm going to forego raging about the senseless destruction of Capain Cook's statue in Victoria's Inner Harbour other than to say this:
Of those who participated in this crime—and crime it is—I'd like to know how many of the mob were truly motivated by a concern for murdered and missing women, residential schools, etc., and how many were just ignorant ruffians who hitched a ride aboard the protest for their own anarchistic purposes?
The really scary thing is, when even various governments are dethroning statues in the name of political revisionism, where is all this leading us?
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I intended to close with this thought for today:
"The further backwards you look, the further forward you can see." —Winston Churchill.
Words of wisdom, yes, but it suddenly occurred to me: There's a statue of Sir Winston Churchill, Great Britain's most famous political leader of all time, in Victoria's Beacon Hill Park.
When you think about it, for all of his accomplishments, he wasn't perfect either. Surely those who've learned only enough about history to malign it and to find fault, can come up with a case against Churchill, too.
Then—off with his head.
Surely the beautiful landmark CPR Marine Building in Victoria's Inner Harbour would make an ideal home for a 'new' Maritime Museum of B.C.
It's been several years now since the Maritime Museum of British Columbia had to vacate the historic courthouse building in Bastion Square and several ideas for a new location have been floated. One, recently discounted, would have seen it reborn in landlocked Langford.
But a maritime museum needs to be on or beside the water and by far the most suitable proposed site is the historic and aesthetic CPR Marine Building in front of the Legislative Buildings, long the home of the Wax Museum.
This is a situation that cries out for provincial financial assistance and, dare I say it—vision.
Not just Victoria's but British Columbia's history is the manifest product of our marine heritage; this makes a reinvented Maritime Museum not a luxury but a necessity. It's time, for the benefit of all of us, and for future generations, for the province to come to the MMBC's assistance.
(But only if it's the politically correct thing to do so, of course. You know, some of those ancient mariners were pretty rough diamonds...)
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