The Historical Society Newsletter

Preserving and promoting the history of Vancouver since 1936 HS Vol. 58 No. 4 | January 2019 | ISSN 0823-0161 People of the Inlet: Tsleil-Waututh History in

“Draft map of Indian villages and landmarks, Burrard Inlet and English Bay, before the whiteman came” by J.S. Matthews, part of his recording of people and places in the early 1930s. CVA MAP 56.01.

were situated when the reserve was created, actually a former By Jessica Quan summer village site. The current Tsleil-Waututh Nation is a small community of 500+ people, with half of them living on f you’ve never heard of the Tsleil-Waututh Nation until the reserve in North Vancouver. They may be small in num- Irecently, you are probably not the only one. Pronounced bers, but they are growing and have been building relationships “Slay-wah-tuth”, TWN has been using their original name for generations. only since 2000, from their traditional language, Downriver Someone who has been building bridges and has spent Hunq’eme’nem. In 1869, the federal government set out In- her lifetime in education, activism and spreading understand- dian reserves in TWN traditional territory (occupied and used) CONTINUED INSIDE that spans 190,000 hectares: from the in the south to Mamquam Lake (east of Whistler) in the north. January Speaker: 276 acres was called Burrard Inlet Indian Reserve #3 (government-allocated) and is where the Tsleil-Waututh peoples Carleen Thomas

NEXT MEETING: Thursday, January 24, 2019 at 7:30pm at the Museum of Vancouver Upcoming Speakers President’s Notes appy Gregorian-calen- February 28, 2019 Hdar New Year to all of Dreams and Designs: The Making of West Vancouver you! Francis Mansbridge, author Since the last newsletter In the past century West Vancouver has developed from a low- in November, the board met for cost vacation destination for visiting Vancouverites to a highly its planning meeting and sent desirable and expensive community. This history shows how out invitations to a very diverse the British Properties, the Squamish Nation, and other groups group of speakers for the 2019– have worked to imprint their different visions on the land, often 2020 season. We have also con- in uneasy concert with the municipal government and vocal firmed the two vacant slots this citizens’ groups. coming spring. Long-time labour jour- nalist Rod Mickelburgh will speak in May on his recent book March 28, 2019 On the Line: A History of the Labour Movement, his The Untold Story of Sam Greer’s Battle for overview of the Left Coast. As inequality deepens in cities Laura Ishiguro, Department of History, UBC such as Vancouver, it’s hard not to be nostalgic for decades In September 1891, Samuel Greer either accidentally or inten- such as the 1970s when a large portion of the workforce was tionally shot Deputy Sheriff Tom Armstrong through the door unionized and workers made “living wages.” of his family’s small house near what’s now called Kitsilano Further to the 1970s and opportunities for nostalgia, Beach. This was the dramatic climax of a much longer war Jean Walton will speak in April on her lyrical book Mudflat between Greer and the Company. Dreaming. It ties together Malcolm Lowry’s writings, the low- This talk will explain the “Battle for Kitsilano” by connecting it lying Bridgeview community in Surrey, issues of displacement to the larger untold story of Greer’s life in British Columbia. In and housing including the Habitat conference and Habitat so doing it will reveal the significant underlying history of land, Forum of 1976, and the Tsleil-Waututh Nation whose reserve law, corruption, and colonialism in the making of Vancouver. adjoined the Maplewood mudflats – the local utopian hippie village of the era. Tsleil-Waututh history itself is the focus of this month’s New VHS Members lecture by Carleen Thomas on January 24th. These years Helen Alko Jack Little of reconciliation have brought forward new voices who can Alan Haynes Robert Patton explain to non-specialist audiences such as us the stories of communities who were lumped together in colonial history as “Squamish” or “Burrard Band.” Vancouver Historical Society Executive Board: * * * 2018 - 2019 Readers of BC History magazine, among others, will (ELECTED MAY 24, 2018) know that Mary Keiko Kitagawa was appointed to the Order PRESIDENT Michael Kluckner of British Columbia at a ceremony at Government House VICE PRESIDENT Madeleine de Trenqualye this last September. VHS members will recall her impas- TREASURER Tom Carter sioned lecture in September, 2017, with her husband Tosh. RECORDING SECRETARY Kellan Higgins Born on Salt Spring Island and displaced from it as a DIRECTOR (MEMBERSHIP) Mary Wallace Poole girl, Mary was incarcerated along with 22,000 other Japanese DIRECTOR (FIELD TRIPS) Brenda Peterson , three-quarters of whom were Canadian-born, DIRECTOR (PROGRAMS) Robert McDonald in 1942. She came into the public eye in 2007 campaigning DIRECTOR Jessica Quan against the proposed naming of a federal government build- ing at Burrard and Pender after the racist politician Howard Appointed Positions Green; her actions resulted in its naming for Douglas Jung, ARCHIVIST Alexandra Allen the first Asian Canadian elected as an M.P. Her subsequent INFO LINE Jeannie Hounslow campaign in 2012 awarded honorary degrees to the 76 Jap- NEWSLETTER MAILING Mary Gavan anese-Canadian students booted from UBC during the war. MEETING SETUP Greg Leach Congratulations, Mary! The lecture by her and Tosh CONTACT is archived online (Google “Vancouver Historical Society on Vancouver Historical Society Info Line: 604-827-3622 YouTube”), where it has been seen 371 times so far. Mailing Address: P.O. Box 3071 Vancouver, BC V6B 3X6 Website: www.vancouver-historical-society.ca Michael Kluckner Newsletter Editor: Jessica Quan | [email protected] [email protected] Newsletter Design and Production: Kellan Higgins The Patterson home at Nob Hill, ca.1890. Left to right Fred Patterson, Emily and Willie Williams. CVA OUT P330

Join us for our 50th Incorporation Day Celebration

ABOVE: The first two Incorporation Day celebrations of the Society, held in 1965 and 1966. COURTESY VHS ARCHIVES LEFT: President Michael Kluckner speaking at the 2018 Luncheon. PHOTO BY KELLAN HIGGINS

Celebrating the founding of the City of Vancouver on April 6, 1886

April 7, 2019 at the University Golf Club Tickets will be available online soon and for sale at the Febru- ary and March lectures.

Speaker TBA

Book raffle, Good Food, Ringing of the Robert Kerr bell

CONTINUED FROM FRONT PAGE cil. She currently serves on the Wild Bird for the District of North Vancouver City ing is Carleen Thomas. Carleen was Trust of BC, Indigenous Advisory Board Council, once again with the goal of born and raised in North Vancouver and of School District and Capilano building bridges and working together served 8 terms (16 years) as an elected University where she is also on the Board not only for her grandchildren’s future, council member for TWN. She received of Governors. but looking far into the future for the her Bachelor of Education from UBC In 2014, Carleen was recognized many generations to come. and taught in North and West Vancouver by the City of Vancouver’s Remarkable Carleen Thomas will tell the his- School Districts. Her work experience Woman awards, honouring women who tory of her people through the experi- has required her to collaborate with vari- build understanding and empathy be- ences of one family as revealed in photos, ous federal and provincial ministries and tween people. Carleen has also been in- maps, and personal family stories. Tak- she has served on many boards related to volved with TWN’s Sacred Trust Initia- ing the time to listen to one person’s his- education at SFU, Capilano University, tive - their official opposition to Kinder tory and story, is a small step we can do Burnaby and North Vancouver School Morgan Trans Mountain Pipeline ex- in passing on knowledge, understanding Districts and Nautsamaut Tribal Coun- pansion. Most recently in 2018, she ran and change. A Tale of A Landmark

The Landmark Hotel on Robson Street under construction about 1974. Note the sign on the right for the street’s first modern tall Tribute to Mining, the mosaic that used to be on the wall of the building, the Blue Horizon Hotel, also built by the Wosk family. Sheraton Landmark hotel. PHOTO BY COLIN PRICE, PACIFIC NEWS GROUP PHOTO BY VANCOUVER SOCIAL PLANNING DEPARTMENT, CVA

the Sheraton Landmark in Vancouver. opers and the city government headed By Michael Kluckner Each sample was marked with the name by the NPA’s Tom Campbell in 1970. of the mine it came from. The work Developer Ben Wosk wanted to reg Snider, emeritus professor of was initiated by Ben Wosk, the builder build the tallest building in Vancouver Gvisual art at SFU Woodward’s, is and owner of the hotel; organized by and used his role as chair of the Board trying to find out what happened to one Jack Greenwood of the BC Museum of Variance to advance his cause. An- of his favourite works of public art in of Mining; designed and assembled by other appointee on the Board was a di- the city, and one important to the his- the mosaic artist Gino Lenarduzzi; and rector of Wosk’s company, only resign- tory of the province. It was installed on unveiled by the BC Minister of Mines, ing from that role the day before the the façade of the Sheraton Landmark Leo Nimsick, in 1974. The samples crucial vote at a meeting Wosk himself Hotel, now under demolition in the were collected by Vancouver geologist didn’t attend. Municipal Affairs Minis- 1400 block of Robson Street to make Nona Tobber of Cities Services Miner- ter Dan Campbell had both men dis- room for new condominium towers. als Corp. missed from the Board for the conflict It has not been seen publicly since The demolition of the Landmark of interest, but the decision stood. the late ‘90s, when the façade was cov- Hotel, scarcely more than 40 years old, Information from articles in the Vancouver Province ered over with black granite. Tribute will probably be seen in the future as a (September 28, 1974) and the Vancouver Sun by John to Mining was a collection of 140 ore symbol of the excess and waste of con- Mackie (September 24, 2016; and September 28, samples from over 50 mines around the temporary Vancouver. Historically, the 2017); also see Vancouver Sun, December 26, 1970, and Allan Fotheringham’s Sun column of January 21, province, organized on 2 panels of 70 hotel demonstrates the tight connection 1971, quoted in Vanishing Vancouver: The Last 25 samples each, installed on the façade of between a handful of prominent devel- Years, page 192.)

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