Innholdsfortegnelse for 57.2 Summer 2024 i British Columbia History

Kee-So-Ku-Kwit, As-salamu Alaykum, Bula, Namaskaram, Ramram, Sat Sri Akaal, and Hi-Shah-Way-Oh. I begin my greetings with that of the Ktunaxa Nation, who allowed me the privilege of being born and raised in their trad itional territory in the Elk Valley, and I end with that of the Semiahmoo First Nation, who have been gracious hosts here, where I live and work today. Although these lands were wrongfully stolen from you, I will always be in your debt for allowing my family to create a life in this great land. Thank you from the very bottom of my heart. As a young student entering university in the mid1990s, I wanted to study archaeology, but I didn’t think there was anything worth studying about my Indo-Fijian culture. There wasn’t much information published…

stretch your vowels slow-motion psalms prolong our survival they hear everything we say snow falls in the Caucasus like elongated words on cossack ears peace is your spear wear your good shoes on Sunday your grandfather is imprisoned in Kirensk his back whipped by conscription if anyone slaps you on the right cheek turn to them the other cheek also compose a song with plow and harrow sing six words in ten minutes wrestle the spirit of the Russian Empire and turn the Tsar’s head with a hymn…

Brother-and-sister team Ashneil and Angelene Prakash talk about their lived experiences growing up in a predominantly White Canadian suburb as children of immigrants from the Indo-Fijian diaspora. This podcast aims to shine a light on the history of the indentured labour system in Fiji and to expose the sad truth of life in girmit. They note, “This is our path to healing. Plus, we like cracking a couple of jokes here and there!” Find No Ties 1879 on Apple podcasts and Spotify. Produced by Prakash Media.…

Dear Editor: Having spent my childhood in the West Kootenays I particularly enjoyed your spring edition of BC History. My father was a family doctor in Castlegar and had many Doukhobor patients. This was in the days before Medicare, and we often woke up to a porch full of produce in lieu of monetary payment. My mother did a lot of canning. My father took the trouble to learn some Russian and often acted as interpreter between Doukhobors and other health professionals. Instead of prescriptions he often used folk remedies with which the Doukhobors were more familiar. He was adored by his Doukhobor patients, something I didn’t find out about until fifty years later. My husband and I were singing at a Mothers’ Day peace rally in the park at…

When I stir my fingers into my daal I feel distant memories of a place long ago Where I once had a home and a family Turmeric stains my soul and my fingers I bite into a coriander seed and the expanse of flavour pains me I long for something that doesn’t have a name I look into the curry for answers It glimmers with the tears of my ancestors in the ghee They left their homes only having to flee In all the leaving we lost ourselves Strewn across the world like grains of rice We are everywhere but where we should be Displaced and erased from the colonial memory We make our own way And carry our legacy with the fistful of spices Carried from home to the unknown The dark waters we cross incessantly To meet ourselves In the reflection of our daal.…

As summer approaches, I’ve been looking forward to having more vacation days to tackle my to-be-read pile, but I’ve also been thinking about last year’s wildfire season. More than 2.84 million hectares of forest and land were burned in British Columbia last year. Tens of thousands of people were displaced from their homes and hundreds of structures were lost or damaged. It was the most destructive wildfire season in the province’s recorded history, and I can’t help but wonder: Will the upcoming fire season break that record again? I think we’ve all become a little weary of encountering the word “unprecedented” when it comes to wildfires, atmospheric rivers, and other weather-related events, and sometimes it’s hard not to feel like we’re living through a period of immense uncertainty. It doesn’t…

We are honoured that Spencer Legebokoff is joining us through 2024 as our Writer In Residence. This is the second of four articles he will share with us. http://www.thegraphicsmonarch.blogspot.com The metaphorical and physical distance between the privileges many North American settlers enjoy and the sacrifices offered by our ancestors for our privilege is unfathomable. Thinking of my Doukhobor ancestors who were made to live in the harsh environments of the Caucasus and Transcaucasus regions, I meditate on the perseverance they had not only to survive, but also to preserve their culture in the face of spiritual oppression. The practice of elongating vowels in Doukhobor psalm singing masked the words of their traditional songs—an adaptive and creative method to hide beloved beliefs from the spiritual oppression of imperial Russia’s religious and…

How many generations does one have to live in a place to be allowed to call it home? ~Dr. Brij V. Lal My great-great-grandparents were Pathans from Peshawar living in a free India a century before colonial partition separated our people along religious and perceived racial lines. Moving freely along the Himalayan foothills and through the fertile lands of the Punjab, they settled in Makha, a bedroom suburb of the growing town of Mansa, where my Dadda (great-grandfather), Abdul Gaffur Khan, was born. Probably not much later in his life, after moving to Allahabad with his family, he met and married Azima, my Daddi (great-grandmother), and from there the story of my family and our people deviates from those familiar with the history of India and its citizens. In the…

We are delighted to have podcast co-host and community activist Angelene Prakash join us to reflect on her journey from her childhood in Ladner to finding—and sharing—her voice. It never occurred to me that I was unique until my peers in elementary school began pointing it out to me. “Why does your hair smell like that? And why do you keep it so long? Your lunch looks gross!” I use the word unique here with a positive spin. I realized later in my teen years that while some of my peers were coming from a place of genuine curiosity, that certainly was not the sentiment of the majority. I was seven years old, in Grade 3, when my brother, Ashneil, age eleven, was called the “N-word” for the first time.…

I married into an Indo-Fijian family, not realizing the distinctions between my Pakistani upbringing and the Indo-Fijian culture. I actually had no clue how unique the language, food, and culture were until we moved closer to my husband’s family. In my first year living close to my in-laws, I witnessed the way the women of the community came together to cook huge meals for large family gatherings. There is laughter, socializing, and an ease of cooperation that occurs throughout the day as we chop and prep the food before the event. I truly adore how it is the men’s responsibility to wash the big hundies (large pots) after the festivities! The distinctiveness of the food comes not so much in the preparation, which is very similar to Pakistani and Indian…

The fire which destroyed most of the village of Lytton on June 30, 2021, is an event British Columbians will not soon forget, a disaster that will likely be studied by historians of the future. Poetry can offer a means to capture the human experience during historical events, and Burning Sage, the debut collection from Lytton poet Meghan Fandrich, does just that. Living just outside of town, Fandrich’s home was spared, but she lost her downtown business. Born out of a need to process and then share her emotional response to the fire that shattered her life and her community, Fandrich’s poems are raw, vulnerable, and honest. She shares moments from her immediate experience during the fire, but also from the difficult times afterwards when she continued to process how…

Starting as a disadvantaged child and finishing as a successful educator, Leslie Vivian Rogers’ story “offers a striking example of a rags-to-prominence life-history” (Malcolmson and Malcolmson, 1). This booklet follows L.V. Rogers’ life from his birth in England, to his subsequent immigration to Ontario as a Barnardo boy, to his rise as an influential educator in British Columbia. Moving to BC in 1911 after graduating from Queen’s University, Rogers held positions in Kelowna and Vancouver before arriving in Nelson for the start of 1922. He was to spend the next 24 years as the well-respected principal of the Nelson High School before his death in 1946. His 35year career as an educator certainly touched thousands of people in this province. Read it for the success story of a British Home…