Editorially speaking...
“Previous milestone celebrations centred on settler history from 1877 and onward and neglected the history, contributions and stories of First Nations peoples. The working group sees 2023 as an opportunity to move away form a traditional milestone celebration.”
So says a staff report from Barb Floden, North Cowichan’s communications director. As reported in the Cowichan Valley Citizen, she’s referring to plans for next year’s 150th celebration.
Recently, the Chronicles noted that B.C.’s fifth oldest municipality revised its crest to include the Cowichan Valley’s original inhabitants and this theme of Reconciliation will be integral to 2023 anniversary events.
Floden said there’s much more work to be done in planning and executing events which will include learning and art, historic tours, place markers and interpretative signage, exhibits at the Cowichan Valley and Chemainus museums, videos, banners, interactive community conversations and First nations celebratory events.
First up is the matter of funding; applications to Heritage Canada will determine how much, if any, money is available and set the scope of next year’s events.
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Speaking for myself, I look forward to reading a new book just released by Askew Creek Publishing of Chemainus. In the Shadow of the Red Brick Building is the memoir of Raymond Tony Charlie who attended the Kuper Island Residential School in the 1960s.
As is so well known now, many of these schools, operated for a century by the federal government and Christian churches, were created to force-feed White values on First Nations children by eradicating their own culture and further victimized them as environments for emotional, physical and sexual abuse.
It took Mr. Charlie, a member of the Penelakut Tribe, eight “very difficult” years to write the book and to find a publisher.
The Kuper (Penelakut) Island Residential School. Upon its closure the Penelakut people had it torn down—every last brick. --Author’s collection
No fewer than seven immediate relatives (his mother and six brothers and sisters) attended Residential School as did uncles, aunts and cousins. All were impacted negatively by the experience as were untold 1000s of others whose wounds have inevitably affected succeeding generations.
As Mr. Charlie notes, “Many issues we have as a people today have been brought onto us directly as a result of the residential schools we attended across Canada.”
Copies are available from Volume One Books, Duncan, and Books, Miniatures & More, Chemainus, and directly from Askew Creek Publishing, www.publisher@askewcreek.com.
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The old (57 years) B.C. ferry Queen of Burnaby has been the hapless subject of news stories in recent weeks. The retired Queen, one of the first of Premier W.A.C. Bennett’s famous Dogwood Fleet, was built 1964-65 as one of the Victoria-class ships and retired in May 2017.
Reason for her being in the headlines is the fact she was going to be scrapped at Union Bay, the former Island coal port now home to one of the province’s largest high-end residential developments. No wonder, then, that chopping up a rusty full-sized ferry immediately beside the highway and in full view of residents, drew angry response.
Above and beyond the aesthetic concerns was knowledge that, at the time she was put up for sale by B.C. Ferries, the Burnaby was leaking hydraulic oil and contained hazardous materials including asbestos.
The Comox Valley Regional District went to the B.C. Supreme Court over the matter and B.C. Ferries blinked. A month ago, the poor old girl was towed back to the corporation’s facilities at Richmond. There’ll be no reprieve but her final disposal will be at an appropriate location.
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—By Qualicum Beach - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=18532552
Speaking of crests, North Cowichan isn’t the only jurisdiction to look at revising its shield. Qualicum Beach Councillor Scott Harrison believes that the tepee used on the town shield, designed in the 1940s, is historically inaccurate, that it’s representative of Prairie tribes and totally unrelated to the Coast Salish peoples who lived in longhouses. “That’s Alberta, Saskatchewan,” he says.
Harrison made changing the crest part of his election campaign in 2018. He’s going to recommend that the town ask the Quallicum First Nation for a more appropriate image for the bottom third of the crest. He expects the matter to come before Council in June.
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