56.2 Summer 2023

British Columbia History

Discover British Columbia’s Past!

British Columbia History2 min read
Inbox
Truths Not Often Told: Being South Asian in Burnaby is a new exhibit at the Burnaby Village Museum highlighting the stories of Burnaby’s South Asian Canadian communities as they migrated to Burnaby in the early 1900s to find jobs, experienced restric
British Columbia History2 min read
Collective Futures
From utopian communities of the past to rethinking how history should be shared in the future, this issue is, at different times, provocative and entertaining, encouraging conversations about both BC’s history and our collective future. Over the cour
British Columbia History1 min read
British Columbia History
EDITORS Mark Forsythe Time Travels Aimee Greenaway Books Editor Greg Nesteroff Editor-at-Large Addison Oberg Photo Editor Robyn So Copy Editor Sue Safyan Editorial Advisor K. Jane Watt Managing Editor PROOFING TEAM Ron Greene Greg Nesteroff Spencer L
British Columbia History5 min read
Front Words
The steamship slices through the water on its approach to Fintry Estate on Okanagan Lake. Passengers are seen walking near the bow, and the camera soon cuts to a huge piston and flywheel that power a massive paddlewheel. Charlie Chaplin’s Little Tram
British Columbia History1 min read
The Velocipede
A chance donation of an unwanted garden ornament that “looked like it had some thing to do with railroads” turned out to be a rare velocipede in dilapidated condition which, when fully restored by Fraser Valley Heritage Railway Society (FVHRS) direct
British Columbia History4 min read
Weaving Teachings Through Storytelling & Cedar
As a cultural leader and interpreter from the Snuneymuxw First Nation, I work on Saysutshun Island (Newcastle Island) and Gabriola Island, both accessed by ferry from Nanaimo. I am a cedar weaver and copper weaver, and I work in the community teachin
British Columbia History1 min read
Harvesting Cedar
Visit the Gabriola Museum website to see images of Laxˇiya Dave Bodaly harvesting cedar bark, teaching about cedar harvesting and uses of bark, and learning about the cultural landscape of Gabriola Island: https://gabriolamuseum.org/connections-from-
British Columbia History11 min read
The Cult of Brother XII
Thank you to Darrell Bell, my colleague at the Nanaimo Museum, for his ongoing Brother XII research support. Brother XII established one of the most infamous cults in Canadian history on Vancouver Island. He claimed to be a benevolent spiritual leade
British Columbia History2 min read
Utopian Sointula
Sointula is synonymous with utopias in British Columbia. The future commune’s charismatic leader, Matti Kurikka, was invited to Vancouver Island by a group of “culturally and politically active” Finns, including Matti Halminen, who worked in the Exte
British Columbia History1 min read
Editorial Calendar
British Columbia History is a quarterly magazine chronicling British Columbia’s unique story through the words and images of community writers, archivists, museum professionals, academic historians, and more. Our editorial team makes every effort to
British Columbia History3 min read
Behind The Scenes Of We Work Together For The Benefit Of All
A Finnish immigrant at the turn of the last century, Matti Halminen became one of the few people to experience the establishment of the Malcolm Island settlement from its earliest stages to its ultimate ideological demise. He was a true believer in t
British Columbia History9 min read
An Inferior Culture or an Inferior Exhibit Policy?
William A. White, B.A. (University of Victoria), is a Cultural Historian, traditionally trained Snuneymuxw Elder, and a cultural teacher. He recently weighed in at the public engagement session in Nanaimo for the Royal British Columbia Museum (RBCM),
British Columbia History2 min read
The Resilience of Apples
a century ago vast orchards coloured the West Kootenays drive north to Appledale south to Fruitvale you will find remnants often in backyards or abandoned and scraggly in the airport fields of Ootischenia or amidst the conifers of Grohman Narrows her
British Columbia History5 min read
Purpose-Built What Happened To The Lost Towns Of BC?
A company town is a place dominated by an individual business or industry, which employs the majority of the town’s workers. This company owns the businesses and buildings in the town, making the community completely dependent on it for housing, good
British Columbia History3 min read
The Rooming House
I began writing The Rooming House on a camper van odyssey through a remote part of Australia in 2009. No matter where we pulled in for the night, there was an internet connection. Everyone we knew, wherever they were in the world, could be contacted.
British Columbia History9 min read
WHISKY AND WATER The Spirited Ventures Of Jimmy Detweiler, BC's Last Rum-runner
James “Jimmy” Longmore Detweiler had criss-crossed North America since the dawn of the twentieth century, chasing opportunities for adventure and fortune. His August 1919 homecoming to Vancouver’s Coal Harbour was shrewdly calculated. Dreams of an im
British Columbia History9 min read
"WRONG FONT" THOMPSON MEETS THE MONTANA COPPER KING A Down-on-his-luck American Launches A Canadian Boomtown's First Newspaper
In the fall of 1895, the mining camp of Trail Creek Landing was teeming with hopeful prospectors and ragged-trousered industrial workers who had rushed to the British Columbia mining boomtown. They were looking to either strike it rich in the ore-lad
British Columbia History6 min read
Gold on Cariboo Creek!
No, not that Cariboo. In the mid-1890S there was a brief placer gold rush on Cariboo Creek, which emptied into the Columbia River close to Burton, not far from Nakusp, in West Kootenay. The silver riches of West Kootenay were vast, but silver did not
British Columbia History13 min read
Mejade'sse Portrait Of A Women Navigating Cultural Erasure
Terry has accepted BC History’s invitation to sit as Researcher-in-Residence throughout 2023 as he continues to learn about the story of his great-grandmother and the personal legacies of colonial and federal policies. This is the second of four part
British Columbia History10 min read
Paddling Through History
Paddling to DeCourcy Island is at the top of my summer activities wish list. The Southern Gulf Island region is steeped in thousands of years of culture and history for the Snuneymuxw, Stz’uminus, Lyackson, Halalt, and Penelakut First Nations. DeCour
British Columbia History2 min read
Recently Released
British Columbia in the Balance: 1846–1871 by Jean Barman (Madeira Park, BC: Harbour Publishing, 2022) $36.95 Echoes of the Supernatural: The Graphic Art of Robert Davidson by Gary Wyatt with Robert Davidson, in collaboration with Vancouver Art Galle
British Columbia History3 min read
Experiments In Photogrammetry
Ever since the fire of June 30, 2021, destroyed the Lytton Museum and Archives, I have been trying to assemble preservation methods designed to reduce the effect of another catastrop loss. To this end, I have been studying ways of making digital thre
British Columbia History2 min read
After The Fire Lytton Still Waiting
It’s one of the most traumatic events in BC’s recent history: the instant destruction of an entire village. June 30, 2023, marks two years since a wildfire tore through the village of Lytton, killed two people, and consumed 90 pecent of the community

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