My first Canada Day in Canada, although as I said previously, also for the first year ever, Canada Day was being celebrated in Trafalgar Square yesterday.
Although today is the actual day, the public holiday is Monday, so I had insisted on having the whole week off anyway because Alex arrives, but Kevin will be off so it'll be like having two Sundays, magic.
So, Canada Day. The day when Canada became a country in its own right. So, not about throwing out the dastardly British or chucking all our ghastly tea into Halifax harbour or anything, just the day when the wilderness got a name.
I've seen most of the CBC 'History of Canada' but I don't think I actually grasped the enormity of what those early pioneers achieved until I saw the vastness of the landscape they crossed on foot and bicycle. Ok, I made up the bit about bikes, but I don't think you'd have got a horse to go in some of those places. Just jaw-dropping.
So Simmi asked about the First Nations, and I'm going to write down my own observations and perceptions and I'd be more than happy for any Canadians to jump in and correct what I say or add to it.
I guess for First Nations people, Canada Day was the day when the Land that belonged to no-one was stolen.
Kevin tells me that the Canada Day in our capital, Ottawa, most certainly has quite an element of First Nations involvement. I'm not sure how much there will be in and around Vancouver. The big festival for us in Richmond would be the Salmon one in Steveston, and you would think the First Nations would be represented there because the salmon were so important to their survival. It appears a lot as a symbol in their art here.
Yet I wouldn't hold my breath. I don't know enough to understand why some bands are more visible than others.
Canadians are generally proud of the way the First Nations have been allowed to survive and even prosper in Canada whereas further south many more were wiped out. One reason for this may be that the bands up here were possibly less vicious in their treatment of settlers and thus the fur trade on which Canada was built, was as a result of mostly peaceful trading with the First Nations.
Here in Richmond our local band is the Musqueam. I think they have a tough deal in comparison with the band who own the West Bank of the Okanagan.
Once they would have had access to grounds rich in berries, peat bog and fertile land. Now there is little that isn't populated. There are some disputed parcels of land, including the piece on which the Skating Oval for the Olympics is being built, but so far as I can tell there are no big chunks of land that they live on. You can always tell the First Nations' big parcels of land, what would have been originally referred to as reservations, by the giant billboards which border them. The government doesn't allow advertising boards along highways and freeways, but the First Nations are allowed to put them up and sell advertising space.
Probably the best known band in this region of BC is the Haida. Pupils at school learn about the Haida and they were well publicised because they were very prolific totem pole makers. The artist Emily Carr recorded a lot of Haida artefacts and I believe that some can still be seen on the Queen Charlotte islands - I would love to go and see them some day.
There are some problems caused by First Nations status. For example, in North Vancouver, there has been a problem caused by addicts and undesirables wandering on to First Nations territory and littering the woods with drug paraphernalia, but the police have no jurisdiction there, so if addicts prefer to take their chance with the local warband, well, what's to stop them?
Around Vancouver there is a lot of First Nations art, and you can get a real feel for it. The culture is something many Canadians value. What was quite saddening a couple of months ago when we went to the Vancouver museum was that we learned that many young people from within the bands do not themselves value or learn about their own cultures.
I seriously think this is a great shame, one of the very many things I have learned from the Nature Park is a deep respect for First Nations traditional knowledge and their feel for their environment.
We've had a loverly Canada Day, apart from the one moment when we found out the football score. We was robbed I tell ya, robbed.
3 comments:
and Brazil lost. There went the $16 I was going to win in the work pool.
And did you know that I am 1/64 native?
I remember when I lived in Medicine Hat, Alberta for 3.5 years in the early 1990's. We had there the world's tallest tepee. Right off the highway. In case you missed it, there was a big sign that said, "world's tallest tepee" and an arrow. As far as I knew, whenever they wanted to have a little celebration there, they had to import the natives in from the nearby city of Lethbridge. I think Hatters had scared all of the natives away. A small town was the Hat, not known for its respect for non-whites. It had a great Zellers store though.
- Karen
With regard to Steveston, what we remember most recently is that the fishermen there were Japanese -- until they were interred in camps and their boats and homes taken away from them by the Canadian government. Whether they had been born here or their fathers and mothers had been born here or their grandparents had been born here, or not. A terrible thing.
Of course the aboriginals who lived here before the incoming whites, obviously fished for salmon. At least most West coast native people fished for salmon and other fish and sea food. But not all.
The Haida people were warriors and took slaves from other tribes. They were proficient at making long canoes and frequently came down from where they lived in Northern BC to Victoris and sold their crafts and also took slaves. Not that they necessarily mistreated their slaves. After a year or so they were allowed to marry Haida women and became members of the tribe.
Haida Gwaii is a wonderful place and it's very spiritual and beautiful. If you go to the Museum of Anthropolgy at UBC you will see much work by Haida carvers as well as from other West Coast natives.
Emily Carr did much of her painting on various island of Haida Gwaii (the Queen Charlottes, as the English named the islands -- after, disgustingly enough, not the Queen, but a ship).
Karen - Interesting about Zellers obviously, but I'm still confused about the teepee. When or under what circumstances did First Nations people live in teepees? I learned about longhouses during the training at the Nature Park, but obviously some of them must have used/use teepees...?
Anne - Hopefully those poor Japanese people were dead before they were interred - just kidding, I know a typo when I see one. But seriously I had no idea that this happened so close to us in Steveston.
Thank you for the info about the Haida and Haida Gwaii, I intend to go to the Museum of Anthropology. I didn't realise that the Haida were warriors - you get the impression when you arrive at Vancouver airport that they were peace-loving fishermen, that big sculpture of the native in the round boat, wearing what looks like an upturned flowerpot.
I would very much love to have the experience of that spiritual place you told me about and hope to go Haida Gwaii one day.
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