PIONEER, OLDTIMER, NEWCOMER: PLACE AND THE CONSTRUCTION OF COLLECTIVE IDENTITY LABELS AMONG NORTHERN VANCOUVER ISLAND WOMEN By ANNE MILLER, M.A. A Thesis Submitted to the School of Graduate Studies in Partial Fulfilment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy McMaster University (c) Copyright by Anne Miller, June 1996 DOCTOR OF PHILOSPOHY MCMASTER UNIVERSITY (Anthropology) Hamilton, Ontario TITLE: PIONEER, OLDTIMER, NEWCOMER : PLACE AND THE CONSTRUCTION OF COLLECTIVE IDENTITY LABELS AMONG NORTHERN VANCOUVER ISLAND WOMEN AUTHOR: Anne Miller B. A. (Laurentian University) M. A. (McMaster University) SUPERVISOR: Professor David Counts NUMBER OF PAGES: v, 372 ii COLLECTIVE IDENTITY LABELS ON NORTHERN VANCOUVER ISLAND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank my thesis supervisor, Dr. David Counts and my committee members, Dr. Richard Preston and Dr. Dorothy Pawluch for their helpful criticism and support. I thank Dr. Karen Szala-Meneok for her support and encouragement throughout the process of completing this thesis. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS Chapter 1: Introduction 1 Chapter 2: Identity and Place: A Review of the Literature . 43 Chapter 3: Pioneer Women: Living in the Wilderness 87 Chapter 4: Oldtimer: Domesticating the Wilderness 135 Chapter 5: Newcomer: Preserving the Wilderness 207 Chapter 6: North Island Women: Images of Wilderness and Women Transformed 293 Chapter 7: Conclusion 335 References 349 Map: North Vancouver Island 88 v ABSTRACT This thesis examines the process by which three generations of women living on Northern Vancouver Island, British Columbia construct the collective identity labels north island woman, pioneer, oldtimer and newcomer. The label north island woman is a composite of pioneer, oldtimer and newcomer labels. The meanings which north island women attached to these labels in their life stories reveal core attributes that constitute self and group identity. A sense of place and connection with in- migrating groups of women are central elements in the construction of self and group identity by these women. This thesis draws attention to the importance of viewing collective identity labels as a significant cultural element in understanding how women construct self and group identity. iii CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION "We are all the same here. All north island women." Vancouver Island lies off the mainland of southern British Columbia. The island's coastline, particularly on the west side, is broken up by numerous inlets, notably Barkley, Clayoquot and Nootka in the south and Kyuquot and Quatsino in the north. The mountains in the interior are part of the Coast Ranges and average 2,000 - 3,000 feet in elevation. The island resembles the west coast of mainland British Columbia, with fjords, mountains, tall coniferous forests and extremely mild, wet winters. Anyone travelling through the communities and along the rugged coastline of the north section of Vancouver island, as I did during 1983, will hear stories about the people of the north island, especially its women. The stories span three generations of in-migrating women. There are stories 1 2 about the women who first settled the region prior to World War II when the island was still sparsely populated by a transient population of white males and a stable population of native peoples. These women, referred to as pioneers, epitomize the north island woman and their stories are told with great admiration and respect. Some stories tell about oldtimers who came later and had to adapt to the transformation of the region into a popular tourist area. There are also stories about more recent newcomers to the north island and their experiences of north island life as modernization became a common feature. All these stories constitute a common lore about the north island woman. In this dissertation, I analyze the life stories of these women. I treat the concept of the north island woman as a collective identity label. My concern is to identify the key elements of this collective identity from the perspective of women, putting particular emphasis on the centrality of place and the connection to in-migrating groups of women, in the way these women construct their identities and on the value they attach to self-reliant behaviour. I am intrigued by the distinctions captured by the labels pioneer, oldtimer 3 and newcomer. In what ways do these labels reflect the generational changes in women's experiences of north island life? What is their relationship to the dominant label north island woman? What continuities and discontinuities are there in the way these woman see themselves, in the ways they relate to their sociocultural surroundings and in the way they construct their sense of self? I argue that the label north island woman is a key symbol (Ortner 1973:1340) which summarizes, expresses and represents the common identity attributes of these women. As a key symbol, it not only provides orientations, i.e., cognitive and affective categories, but also suggests strategies for behaviour. For north island women, these strategies are most often expressed in self-reliant behaviour. Women's everyday experience of self-reliant behaviour is described by them within the context of the transformation of images of the physical wilderness. In the case of pioneer women, this spatial image is seen as a matrix of interconnected footpaths and waterways which link isolated, scattered and often one-family settlements. For oldtimers, the wilderness evokes the image of logging roads connecting 4 the isolated towns of the north island with the southern parts of the island. For newcomers, this image is transformed, in part, by paved highways and increased mobility between regions. The images of pathways and waterways, the unpaved road and the paved road all serve as important symbols of belonging and identification with the north island. In their life stories, women reveal a strong attachment to a specific place, the geographic region which extends from Campbell River to Cape Scott. The inclusive identity label north island woman, along with the exclusive identity labels pioneer, oldtimer and newcomer, embody a cluster of shared concepts related to the meanings women associate with geographical and cultural places in the region. Women are adamant in claiming that it is this attachment to place which forms the basis for self-identity as a north island woman. Like Spicer (1971:796), I use collective identity to mean the self-ascribed identity of a group which persists and is based on a common understanding concerning a set of symbols and their subjective meanings which arise out of a unique historical experience. When women say they are all north 5 island women, they powerfully express the relationship that women have with each other as well as their relationship to place. In this stressing of homogeneity, women create a rhetoric of historical and cultural continuity which counterbalances the substantial change evident in north island social life as well as the diversity present between groups of women, including native women, based on income, education and occupation. Class structure and membership are not significant criteria by which women identified themselves as north island women. In their life stories, they clearly state that membership in the pioneer, oldtimer and newcomer categories is not based on education, income or occupation but on time of arrival on the north island and self-reliant behaviour. Since class membership is not reported as significant by them, I have not imposed a class analysis perspective as an interpretive framework for understanding how north island women construct their collective identity labels. Instead, I rely on an insider • s perspective, that is, I examine the construction of collective identity labels from the perspective of individual women as expressed in their life 6 stories. In this thesis/ I examine the key stories contained in the life stories of north island women as a means of illustrating the meanings women attach to collective identity labels. By life story 1 I mean a personal narrative which examines a life or a segment of a life (Bertaux 1982; Denzin 1989) . As Titon (1980:276) suggests/ a life story is a "person's story of his or her life/ or of what he or she thinks is a significant part of that life. It is/ therefore, a personal narrative, a story of personal experience." The life story comprises all the individual stories and the relations between them told by an individual during her lifetime that focus directly on the speaker or some event framed as relevant to the speaker. Life stories are a very important way north island women communicate and negotiate a sense of self with others (Howard 1991; McAdams 1985:150; Rosenwald and Ochberg 1992:9). Women use these stories to claim or negotiate group membership and to demonstrate that they are, in fact, worthy members of these groups, understanding and properly following their moral standards. Coherence is an important element in the narration 7 of a life story, in that demonstrating high level of coherence indicates an effective cultural presentation of self (Linde 1993:3; Rosenwald and Ochberg 1992:9). A narrator demonstrates coherence, and it is understood by the listener, through continuity in the expression of shared cultural meaning in key phrases and stories within a life story. When coherence is consistent across the life stories of a group of women, and their life stories contain similar connecting themes, a strong group identity is communicated among members of a group. Coherence is created by speaker and addressee in a social context (Linde 1993:47). This interactive process of creating and negotiating coherence in the life story, throughout the life time of individuals, is a social obligation that must be fulfilled in order for the participants to be recognized as competent members of their culture. Linde (1993:25) notes that life stories touch on the widest of social constructions, since they make presuppositions about what can be expected in a culture, what the norms are, and what common or special belief system can be used to establish coherence.