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Stanley Park’s Secret: The Forgotten Families of Whoi Whoi, Kanaka Ranch and Brockton Point
Next time you stroll or cycle near the totem poles at Brockton Point, keep an eye out for a lone lilac beside the Stanley Park shoreline. Spare a thought for Martha Smith, the young bride just out of residential school who planted the shrub at her new home more than 100 years ago.
Martha Smith's home has been long-forgotten until the release of Jean Barman's Stanley Park's Secret: The Forgotten Families of Whoi Whoi, Kanaka Ranch and Brockton Point (Harbour $36.95), a "pre-history"; of one of North America's most famous parks. The area now known as Stanley Park was inhabited for thousands of years, and logged extensively, before the Dominion government created Stanley Park with the stroke of a pen in 1888. Barman has skillfully retrieved the collective history of the First Nations and hybrid families who were evicted from their homes by government officialdom. It took until 1958 for the last member of these many families to be forced out. It took another 46 years for their collective story to be told.
Two years ago I invited Jean Barman to be a guest on Almanac to learn more about the pioneer Joe Silvey, central character in her book, The Remarkable Adventures of Portuguese Joe Silvey. Among other subjects, we discussed how Silvey and his Aboriginal wife Kwahama Kwatleematt had lived with the Squamish people in Stanley Park. "People remember Gassy Jack Dayton,"; Barman told me, "in part, because he was British and English and more like us, whereas Portuguese Joe was a fisherman. He was from Portugal and lived on the edge of the water in the peninsula that would become Stanley Park."; Afterwards, Barman received a telephone call from a listener whose family had also lived in the park. This led to a meeting between Barman and the caller's mother, Olive O'Connor, a resident of the Fraser Valley. "She worked very hard during a wonderful afternoon,"; Barman says, "to persuade me to write about the families in Stanley Park. She was descended from the families that lived at Kanaka Ranch, just outside today's park at the foot of Denman Street."; Drawing on family stories, numerous photographs, notes from Vancouver's first archivist Major J.S. Matthews, and various court documents, Barman proceeded to cast light on the communities that disappeared into the park's shadows.
Both Squamish and Musqueam lived on the site for thousands of years, but their middens were dug up and hauled away to build the first road around the park. At least eight First Nations settlements existed on the peninsula, the most recent at Whoi Whoi (near present-day Lumberman's Arch) and nearby Chaytoos. They didn't stand a chance against the colonial imperative. "Even before the park is created,"; Barman says, "there was a Reserve Commission that went around laying out reserves, and for reasons I think are very inappropriate, the families at Whoi Whoi and Chaytoos were denied reserves at that point, and thereafter they were treated as squatters."; Kanaka Ranch was perched near the water on present day Denman Street, occupied by Hawaiians who mostly had Squamish wives. Brockton Point was home to a mixed population, mostly men from the Azores (like Silvey) who'd come to mine gold. They returned to fishing and took Squamish wives, raising their families in the park. "They were very much working men, contributing to the economy,"; says Barman. "Three generations later, they were living very enterprising, worthwhile lives. But they were inter-racial, between societies, and so people didn't know quite what to make of them.";
The courts eventually pushed everyone out. It was a drawn-out process. In 1923, for example, the City of Vancouver launched a suit against Mariah Kulkalem and eight heads of remaining families at Brockton Point, demanding they prove they had title to the land. This step was taken to enable the government to evict the families without providing any compensation for the loss of their homes.
The trial of 1923 was well-covered in the newspapers. Thomas Abraham gave his testimony in "a Squamish dialect"; and reportedly stamped his umbrella stick on the floor of the witness box to make his point. His picture appeared under a headline, "So Old He Forgets When He Was Born."; But the decision against the alleged "squatters"; was a foregone conclusion.
Barman has gained a firm grasp of the prejudices that were entailed, and she has documented the injustices, but her book concentrates on celebrating individuals such as August Jack Khatsahlano, William Nahanee (who shared his family history with Major Matthews), the Gonsalves family, Tim Cummings (the final resident of Stanley Park) and their descendants such as Rose Cole Yelton. Martha Smith's Brockton Point lilac will still push out blossoms this spring.
1-55017-346-4
-- review by Mark Forsythe, host of Almanac on CBC radio.
[BCBW 2006]
Martha Smith's home has been long-forgotten until the release of Jean Barman's Stanley Park's Secret: The Forgotten Families of Whoi Whoi, Kanaka Ranch and Brockton Point (Harbour $36.95), a "pre-history"; of one of North America's most famous parks. The area now known as Stanley Park was inhabited for thousands of years, and logged extensively, before the Dominion government created Stanley Park with the stroke of a pen in 1888. Barman has skillfully retrieved the collective history of the First Nations and hybrid families who were evicted from their homes by government officialdom. It took until 1958 for the last member of these many families to be forced out. It took another 46 years for their collective story to be told.
Two years ago I invited Jean Barman to be a guest on Almanac to learn more about the pioneer Joe Silvey, central character in her book, The Remarkable Adventures of Portuguese Joe Silvey. Among other subjects, we discussed how Silvey and his Aboriginal wife Kwahama Kwatleematt had lived with the Squamish people in Stanley Park. "People remember Gassy Jack Dayton,"; Barman told me, "in part, because he was British and English and more like us, whereas Portuguese Joe was a fisherman. He was from Portugal and lived on the edge of the water in the peninsula that would become Stanley Park."; Afterwards, Barman received a telephone call from a listener whose family had also lived in the park. This led to a meeting between Barman and the caller's mother, Olive O'Connor, a resident of the Fraser Valley. "She worked very hard during a wonderful afternoon,"; Barman says, "to persuade me to write about the families in Stanley Park. She was descended from the families that lived at Kanaka Ranch, just outside today's park at the foot of Denman Street."; Drawing on family stories, numerous photographs, notes from Vancouver's first archivist Major J.S. Matthews, and various court documents, Barman proceeded to cast light on the communities that disappeared into the park's shadows.
Both Squamish and Musqueam lived on the site for thousands of years, but their middens were dug up and hauled away to build the first road around the park. At least eight First Nations settlements existed on the peninsula, the most recent at Whoi Whoi (near present-day Lumberman's Arch) and nearby Chaytoos. They didn't stand a chance against the colonial imperative. "Even before the park is created,"; Barman says, "there was a Reserve Commission that went around laying out reserves, and for reasons I think are very inappropriate, the families at Whoi Whoi and Chaytoos were denied reserves at that point, and thereafter they were treated as squatters."; Kanaka Ranch was perched near the water on present day Denman Street, occupied by Hawaiians who mostly had Squamish wives. Brockton Point was home to a mixed population, mostly men from the Azores (like Silvey) who'd come to mine gold. They returned to fishing and took Squamish wives, raising their families in the park. "They were very much working men, contributing to the economy,"; says Barman. "Three generations later, they were living very enterprising, worthwhile lives. But they were inter-racial, between societies, and so people didn't know quite what to make of them.";
The courts eventually pushed everyone out. It was a drawn-out process. In 1923, for example, the City of Vancouver launched a suit against Mariah Kulkalem and eight heads of remaining families at Brockton Point, demanding they prove they had title to the land. This step was taken to enable the government to evict the families without providing any compensation for the loss of their homes.
The trial of 1923 was well-covered in the newspapers. Thomas Abraham gave his testimony in "a Squamish dialect"; and reportedly stamped his umbrella stick on the floor of the witness box to make his point. His picture appeared under a headline, "So Old He Forgets When He Was Born."; But the decision against the alleged "squatters"; was a foregone conclusion.
Barman has gained a firm grasp of the prejudices that were entailed, and she has documented the injustices, but her book concentrates on celebrating individuals such as August Jack Khatsahlano, William Nahanee (who shared his family history with Major Matthews), the Gonsalves family, Tim Cummings (the final resident of Stanley Park) and their descendants such as Rose Cole Yelton. Martha Smith's Brockton Point lilac will still push out blossoms this spring.
1-55017-346-4
-- review by Mark Forsythe, host of Almanac on CBC radio.
[BCBW 2006]
Submitted on January 26, 2006 in By David.
