The Historical Society Newsletter

Preserving and promoting the history of Vancouver since 1936 HS Vol. 58 No. 6 | March 2019 | ISSN 0823-0161

An unidentified group on Greer’s Beach in 1889, during the time when Sam Greer and his family lived in a cabin near the shoreline and Greer pursued his claim of ownership of and its beach area. Photograph by W.T. Dalton, CVA L-12-66. Exploring the Lives of Ordinary People in the Making of Colonial B.C. working on the history of colonialism in and 1914. The letters were written during By Madeleine de Trenqualye British Columbia. Today, she is an assis- a time when British immigrants were set- tant professor of history at UBC, where tling on Indigenous land and establishing ike many of the students who enter her she teaches courses on Canadian history new political and social structures that priv- Lclassroom, Laura Ishiguro graduated and directs the Public History Initiative. ileged themselves over Indigenous people from high school thinking that she had to “One of the things that really drives and non-Indigenous people of colour. look beyond for interesting stories my work as a researcher and a teacher is a But Ishiguro found that the letters about the past. But after she couldn’t get commitment to the histories of so-called remain largely silent on these big themes into the courses on Russian and Soviet his- ordinary people,” she says. “I think it’s in- that dominate the scholarship on this pe- tory, she enrolled for a course that fit her credibly powerful to realize that all people riod. Rarely, if ever, do the authors touch schedule. It turned out to be a class on Ca- reflect the moment that we’re in and we on topics around Indigenous-settler rela- nadian Indigenous History. change the moment we’re in.” “It gripped me, and surprised me, Ishiguro’s forthcoming book (UBC continued inside and changed the way I saw the world,” Press, 2019) is a detailed study on 2,000 she says. She went on to complete a letters written by British settlers in BC to March Speaker: PhD at University College London, their families back home between 1858 Laura Ishiguro

Next Meeting: Thursday, March 28, 2019 at 7:30pm at the Upcoming Speakers President’s Notes Thursday April 25, 2019 Waterfront Battles and the Squatters who fought them in ancouver Councillor Col- 1970s Vancouver Vleen Hardwick presented Jean Walton, Professor of English, University of Rhode Island a motion to City Council on February 26th, “Declaring Two settlements on Vancouver’s waterfront fringes in the 1970s: April 6th as Vancouver’s Of- Bridgeview, a working-class neighborhood on the south bank of ficial Birthday.” This has been the Fraser and the Maplewood Mudflats squatters, a counter- a matter on the minds of some cultural village of shacks on stilts on the city’s North Shore. From VHS members who would like her literary non-fiction book Mudflat Dreaming, Jean positions to see us involved in a rein- settler society conflicts and ongoing questions about the dubious statement of Vancouver Day. distinction between squatting and “legitimate” land ownership. Councillor Hardwick’s motion noted that Vancouver Day was Thursday, May 23, 2019 established in 1929, using June 13th, the day of the Great When Labour Mattered: Twenty Years of Turburlence in the Fire of 1886. It was celebrated until the end of WWII. BC Labour Movement (1960-1980) The Vancouver Pioneers Association also apparently cel- Speaker: Rod Mickleburgh, Journalist ebrated Incorporation Day, April 6th, which has been The British Columbia labour movement emerged after WWII as the traditional hook for our own annual celebration. The a provincial centre of power and in the 1960s and 1970s directly City last celebrated with a birthday party in 2011, when it challenged both the province’s Social Credit and New Democratic turned 125. governments for political influence. Labour pushed back fiercely Her motion, which passed unanimously, resolved against the anti-labour policies of WAC Bennett’s Social Credit that civic institutions including the Museum of Vancouver, government but also fought for influence over the Dave Barrett the Vancouver Maritime Museum, and the H.R. MacMil- government, which in 1975 legislated the largest back-to-work or- lan Space Centre plan a free annual celebration, with the der in BC’s history. Newspapers hired labour specialists to report Vancouver flag to be raised in Vanier Park on April 6th. on and interpret the discord. This talk presents a first person per- There will also be a proclamation read by the Mayor on spective on twenty years of labour turbulence in BC history. that date, beginning this year on the City’s 133rd birthday. A question for members: are you interested in be- New VHS Members coming involved in such an event and, if so, what do you Linda Hull Allan McDonald Lindsay Ward think the VHS ought to do? We do have our own cele- bration of Incorporation Day on the 7th of April at the University Golf Club. Please buy your tickets as soon as Vancouver Historical Society Executive Board: possible – if you like good old cash or cheque, you can get 2018 - 2019 tickets from Scott and Amber at the March lecture. Alter- (Elected May 24, 2018) natively, buy them online with a credit card – I just did it President Michael Kluckner and it took about a minute! Vice President Madeleine de Trenqualye * * * Treasurer Tom Carter Long-standing VHS members will recall Barbara Recording Secretary Kellan Higgins Coles and will perhaps have noted her obituary in early Director (membership) Mary Wallace Poole February. Barbara was a microbiologist who volunteered Director (Field Trips) Brenda Peterson for many years on the VHS board. Former president Bruce Director (Programs) Robert McDonald Watson recalled: “Barbara had an incredible wit and kept Director Jessica Quan us all laughing with her dry sense of humour.” RIP * * * Appointed Positions And a final note – the photograph of Incorporation Archivist Alexandra Allen Day speaker George Garrett that ran in the last newsletter Info Line Jeannie Hounslow had a caption (by me) saying it was taken in 1962, which Newsletter Mailing Mary Gavan of course is absurd because the Harbour Centre in the Meeting Setup Greg Leach background wasn’t built until the late 1970s. We’ll go with Contact 1982 this time. Vancouver Historical Society Info Line: 604-827-3622 Mailing Address: P.O. Box 3071 Vancouver, BC V6B 3X6 Michael Kluckner Website: www.vancouver-historical-society.ca [email protected] Newsletter Editor: Jessica Quan | [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

Greer’s Beach, as it was then known, in 1904 when it was a popular camping spot, more than a decade after Sam Greer’s claim to “Kits Beach” ended in gunfire and imprisonment. Photo by Philip Timms, CVA 677-563 continued From front page an Indigenous woman, but never revealed fessional work, because it reminds me of tions, race, land and immigration policy. this to his family back at home. “You can who I am and what my perspective is.” Instead they talk about the banal everyday track the way he maintained a relationship Her upcoming talk to the VHS on things they were doing - what they were with his family in England by not telling March 28 looks at a legendary Vancouver eating, where they went for a walk, their them about his marriage,” she says. story: the dramatic “Battle for Kitsilano” relationships with distant relatives. And For Ishiguro, part of working on between Samuel Greer and the Canadian over and over again, the authors of the the history of colonialism also means re- Pacific Railway Company. Both Greer letters report having “nothing much to flecting on her own family history and and the CPR