MISSING FROM THE RECORD: EXAMPLES OF MISUNDERSTOOD MOMENTS IN REVELSTOKE’S PAST

By Melissa Jameson

When you’re exploring the history of a community it’s easy to get caught up in wanting to look at only the ‘good,’ particularly where you were born there, or it’s where you’ve lived for a long time. Even tourists, intent on learning everything they can about a place they’ve dreamed of visiting for years, can get caught up in learning one version of history. But, Canada, like other countries built on colonialist ideals, isn’t absent from controversy, and neither is Revelstoke.

In Canada, the whitewashing of history refers to the shrugging off or ignoring the negative aspects of our shared history, focusing on telling a narrative that ignores or Indigenous, Black, or other historically marginalized peoples.

In honour of this issue’s historical theme, here are three examples of whitewashing of historical events that took place in, or near, Revelstoke.

Sinixt peoples’ recognition missing from collective understanding of town history

“Before the 1880s, the Sinixt – also known as the Lakes or Arrow Lakes people – lived and thrived in this region as far back as they can remember. Skxikn (pronounced Sku-hee-kin), now known as the Big Eddy, was the site of a Sinixt village or camp and a place of trade and socialization with Eastern Secwépemc people who often joined them as part of their seasonal rounds. We know there were places of importance to the Sinixt all along the river south of Revelstoke, throughout the Arrow Lakes and beyond.” – Laura Stovel, Revelstoke Mountaineer, 2021

On Oct. 5, 1953, Annie Joseph died. Joseph, who lived at the Oatscott Reserve near Burton, B.C., is the last legally recognized Sinixt person in Canada. The Sinixt, like all other Indigenous Peoples of Canada, have endured centuries of racist, colonialist practices aimed at assimilation and the eradication of their cultures.

In 1956, the Canadian federal government declared the Sinixt extinct.

In Revelstoke, the narrative that no Indigenous peoples could have lived in the area in any permanent sort of way due to its long, harsh winters persisted for centuries, even though it is accepted that other Indigenous groups across Canada, and the world, have made their homes in extreme climates for time immemorial.

In a 2016 interview with the Revelstoke Mountaineer about the opening of a new exhibit exploring Sinixt history, Revelstoke Museum & Archives curator Cathy English said when she first arrived in the community, she was told no First Nations peoples lived in the area, or that they may have been seasonal residents but did not have any sort of permanent home. We now know this to be untrue and the problem was in applying colonial understanding of “home” to Indigenous ways of knowing and being.

Efforts to undo the harm caused by the whitewashing of Sinixt history in Revelstoke include the permanent exhibition at the museum, where visitors can learn about the history of the Sinixt, view artifacts and listen to audio displays of their language. The Indigenous Friendship Society of Revelstoke has worked to build connections with Sinixt elders and knowledge keepers.

Identities of Japanese workers killed in 1910 avalanche unknown for nearly a century

On March 4, 1910, Canada’s worst avalanche disaster occurred at Roger’s Pass. In the afternoon of that day, an avalanche came down Mount Cheops and buried the mainline of the Canadian Pacific Railway. Men arrived on a work train dispatched from Revelstoke and, along with the help of a rotary snow plow, began to clear the line. Then, disaster struck.

It was around midnight when a second avalanche came down from the opposite side of the valley. An entry in the Revelstoke Museum & Archives curator’s blog titled ‘Overwhelmed- Remembering the March 4, 1910, Avalanche at Rogers Pass’ reads:

“The trench where the men were working became a tomb. When the flurry of snow and wind subsided, there were few survivors. The final death toll: 58 brave men. […] The victims reflect Canada’s cultural mosaic – they were Japanese, English, Irish, Scottish, Danish, and Polish. Some had lived in Canada for generations, and some were more recent immigrants.”

Of the 58 men who died, 32 were Japanese. It would be generations still until their names were uncovered. Approached by museum curator Cathy English to assist with a research project about the deadly avalanche, Tomo Fujimura — a Revelstoke avalanche technician originally from Japan — spent two years searching for the names of the Japanese workers. Eventually, Fujimura found the names of all 32 men. According to an article in the Revelstoke Current, he found a Vancouver-based Japanese newspaper and was able to match the names against paystubs he had obtained.

“Out of the 32 men, Tomo has found the names of all the individuals and has also tracked down five of the families [sic] ancestors still living in Japan and shared them with their family members’ story,” the Current article reads.

In 2010, 100 years after the deadly event, a commemorative service took place in Revelstoke to honour the 58 men who died. Three descendants of the Japanese labourers attended: Mannusoke Yamaji, who travelled from Japan; Reiko Kazumori and Tomoko Yamaji.

The names of the 32 Japanese men are: Masatora Abe, Matsuei Hayashida, Isamu Hirano, Shinzo Hirano, Heikichi Horiuchi, Nakasu Ikeda, Takefusa Imamura, Kinsaku Ishiyama, Shokei Kamugai, Kenichi Kanegawa, Koichi Kaboyashi, Kanjuro Maeda, Kiyoshi Matsumoto, Kitaro Miyake, Fusakichi Mizukawa, Yasujiro Mochizuki, Kesakichi Omura, Takeshi Onodera, Kisaburo Otake, Hikohachi Sakoda, Kitaro Saski, Seiichi Sasaki, Kenjiro Sato, Tokuichi Takeda, Yasuharu Takeda, Ginzo Tanabe, Aitaro Tsuboi, Genichi Tsuboi, Sentaro Tsujimura, Keisaburo Ueno, Otokichi Wasa, Mannosuke Yamaji.

Chinese labourers missing from the infamous Last Spike photo

An iconic photo of Canadian history, The Last Spike, commemorates the final, ceremonial spike driven into the Canadian Pacific Railway at Craigellachie on Nov. 7, 1885. It was the realization of a campaign promise made by Canada’s first Prime Minister, Sir John. A Macdonald in the 1870s: to have a railway linking the country from coast to coast. The photo is also an everlasting example of historical whitewashing.

In the photo, railway financier Donald Smith is pictured driving in the last spike. Behind him stands a young boy. Surrounding the two is a small crowd of men. Smith, the boy (18-year-old Edward Mallandaine a.k.a. “The Craigellachie Kid”), and all of the other men in the photograph are white. Prior to the photograph being taken, all the Chinese railway labourers (and any other nonwhite workers) were removed from view.

In total, about 15,000 temporary labourers from China helped to build the railway. They were paid $1.00 a day, while white men received $1.50 to $2.50. They were given the most dangerous tasks and faced harsh working conditions. Hundreds died from accidents, illness, cold and malnutrition.

An article on the BC Provincial Government website about the history of the railway and the legacy of Chinese people in BC states:

“With the beginning of the construction of the CPR in the 1880s, Chinese workers were crucial for the building of the difficult western sections of the railway. Chinese railway workers were brought by ship from both California and China to start building the CPR from the west coast at the same time that European labourers began building the eastern section from coast to coast. Over the course of the construction and by the end of 1882, of the 9,000 railway workers, 6,500 were Chinese Canadians. They were employed to build the BC segment of railway through the most challenging and dangerous terrain.”

There is, however, a possibility that at least one Chinese railway labourer appears in the Last Spike photo. According to an obituary published in the Jan. 5, 1956 in an issue of the Revelstoke Review, Wing Chung was present at the historical event.

“Cathy English, curator of the Revelstoke Museum and Archives for four decades, cautions that the information in the obituary can’t be verified, and the article doesn’t provide further details,” reads a story published by the CBC on May 13, 2023.

“There’s nobody that appears to be of a different race in the photograph, but the newspaper account says that he was there,” English is quoted as saying in the CBC story. “Wing Chung certainly wouldn’t have been included in the ceremony even if he was present there.”

There are many other examples of misunderstood moments and the marginalization of various groups throughout Canada’s (and Revelstoke’s) history. What’s important moving forward is that we recognize these misunderstandings and mistakes and do our best to seek out sources that can help us correct the historical narrative. Ideally these sources should come directly from the marginalized group itself. For example, visiting the Indigenous Friendship Society of Revelstoke’s website (indigenousrevelstoke. com/resources) to learn more about the Sinixt, as well as well as the Secwépemc, Syilx (Okanagan) and Ktunaxa peoples who also claim Revelstoke as part of their territory.

The Revelstoke Museum & Archives hosts permanent exhibits about the Sinixt and the 1910 Rogers Pass Avalanche. While in the past, museums have often been guilty of perpetuating colonized versions of history, these two exhibits are examples of how we can retell these stories through the lens of, and with the assistance of, people from marginalized groups.