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Remembering Loo Gee Wing (1861-1923)

Posted on December 3, 2024 @9:50 am by Andrew R. Sandfort-Marchese

Loo Gee Wing: The Forgotten Tycoon Who Helped Shape Chinese Canadian History

This blog post is part of RBSC’s new series spotlighting items in the Phil Lind Klondike Gold Rush Collection and the Wallace B. and Madeline H. Chung Collection.

Part 1: Do you know this man?

Compared to famous early Chinese Canadians like Yip Sang 葉春田, Chang Toy 陳才, and Won Alexander Cumyow 溫金有, very few known the name of Loo Gee Wing 盧梓榮  (or 盧仰喬 Loo Yet Kue.), despite him being one of the richest and most prominent leaders of those early times. His portrait, in fact, hangs in Vancouver’s Chinese Benevolent Association alongside such well-known and respected company, as a “founding father” of Chinese Vancouver, and indeed Chinese Canadian history.

A photo of the portrait of Loo Gee Wing that hangs in Vancouver’s Chinese Benevolent Association hall, captured by author-historian Paul Yee in 1986.

Photo of Loo Gee Wing at the Vancouver Chinese Benevolent Association, City of Vancouver Archives, AM1523-S6-F21-: 2008-010.1304 Paul Yee Fonds, Box: F24-E-01 fld 24. Paul Yee 1986

Loo was born around 1861-1863 to a yet unknown woman and Loo Chock Fan 盧卓凡, one of two partners in the massive Kwong Lee Company 廣利號. This firm was the largest corporate landowner in the colonial period after the Hudson Bay Company, and Chock Fan was one of the first four Chinese merchants in British Columbia. Just a few years before his birth, in the summer of 1858, his father’s Hop Kee Company 合記號 brought the first boat of Chinese gold miners to Fort Victoria from San Francisco, starting the first large wave of Chinese migration to British Columbia.[i] His mother, or one of his father’s wives, may have been the first Chinese women to enter what would eventually become Canada. [ii]

 

You can view the historic 1858 deed issued to Loo Chock Fan, perhaps the oldest record of a property owned by a Chinese person in all of Canada, in the Chung Lind Gallery.

 

Loo’s childhood is unclear; we don’t know if he grew up in China or spent his early years in North America. However, there is evidence that he was in San Francisco managing the massive Hop Kee Co headquartered at 617 Dupont St, in his father’s absence in Victoria until at least 1885.[iii] At that time, Hop Kee was one of the largest Chinese companies in North America.[iv] In 1887 he bought out the smaller, but still titanic, Kwong Lee firm from bankruptcy due to family and business disputes. He then relocated to Victoria to manage the large operations, traveling frequently between both key Chinese ports of North America. Kwong Lee Co supplied dry goods and labour for operations up the Fraser Canyon to Yale, Quesnel, and then beyond to Barkerville, netting a fortune in the early years of settlement and mining.[v]

 

According to Head Tax payment data, most Loo 盧 surnamed people in Canada had origins in the counties of Jang Shing 增城, Hoksan 鶴山, Namhoi 南海, and Shundak 順德 in Guangdong/Canton province.[vi] These were places that didn’t send tons of men to Canada, so they formed a very small group compared to people from the Szeyup, or Four Counties 四邑, that formed the majority.[vii] More men may have come from the smaller sending-areas during the 1850-1885 gold rush period, but are unrecorded. Victoria seems to be the hub for this clan surname, as well as eventual farming operations in the Okanagan run by Jang Shing countrymen, including famous hockey player Larry Kwong’s father.

Loo Gee Wing, centre, with glasses. Surrounded by a mixed group of family and friends, including Leon J Eekman family. Text on the left reads: “This is the day when every year, friends gather together at various chosen scenic spots to eat and drink, and then go boating back at night.”

Loo Gee Wing, centre, with glasses. Surrounded by a mixed group of family and friends, including Leon J Eekman family. Text on the left reads: “This is the day when every year, friends gather together at various chosen scenic spots to eat and drink, and then go boating back at night.”[Canada Day group photograph taken at Kanaka ranch] RBSC-ARC-1679-CC-PH-11089, Chung Collection. July 1st 1907, Leon J Loo.

By the 1890s Loo was firmly part of the merchant elite of Victoria, forming a business and political alliance with Lee Mongkow 李夢九 (translator, comprador, and CPR ticket agent), Chu Lai 徐全禮 (Hakka merchant supplier) and others from non-Sze Yup origins. In 1892 — alongside these merchant brokers and others from the business community — Loo offered a $300 dollar reward to find out who had forged the names of his faction members on a notice posted on a public bulletin board, hiring someone to kill prominent translator Yip Wing and another man. This shows that tensions were brewing between factions based on place of origin that would later continue to grow even larger.[viii] The community presented a united face, when “the Chinese Bismarck” Li Hung Chang visited Vancouver, with Loo attending alongside Chinese big-wigs from across the Pacific Northwest.[ix]

Part 2: Building an Empire

Loo Gee Wing naturalized as a British subject in 1895, and one of his wives Jsong Mong Lin did so in 1899. She signed her documents in English and had been in Canada for at least ten years. She formed a part of the Kwong Lee business empire in BC, signing partnership documents in her own right, including in 1897 for the formation of a dry goods and general store branch in Barkerville called Kwong Lee Wing Kee 廣利榮記.[x] The building for this store still stands in the large National Historic site. Hydraulic gold mining in the Cariboo region for the Loo family firm also operated under the Kwong Lee Wing Kee Company name. Kwong Lee had business with numerous copper and gold mines across the province throughout its existence. In addition, the Point Hydraulic Gold Mining Co. which was active in the Slough Creek claims near Barkerville, was also managed for a time by Loo’s son Leon J Loo 盧宗亮.[xi]

 

There are many items relating to Kwong Lee Company activities in many collections through UBC Rare Books and Special Collections. We display some documents and artifacts at the Chung Lind Gallery.

 

One of the many lucrative gold mines operated by the Kwong Lee empire in the Barkerville region.

: Kwong Lee Wing Kee gold mine at Barkerville in the 1880s, Barkerville Historic Town, CA Barkerville Historic Town BARK_1993.0093.0001.3, Mah Dick fonds. 1880s, Photographer unknown

In 1897, Loo Gee Wing submitted an application to the privy council through the Minister of Trade and Commerce requesting that when he sent his children to China for education, upon their return to Canada they would not pay the head tax. He listed his children as follows: Loo Chung Sheung and Loo Chung Leung, twins both of age 11; Loo Yuo Bet, age 9; Loo Chung Key, age 6; Loo Part Wo, age 2; and Loo Gem/Gein Mon, age 1. All children recorded as Canadian-born. The Minister requested the Privy Council approve the request and “that assurances be given to Loo Gee Wing that on return of the children to Canada the amount of the Capitulation Tax [Head Tax] payable under the existing law will be remitted [re-payed] on proper application and evidence of identity.”[xii] This shows Loo already was a known quantity to the federal government, powerful enough to get this direct line to the top, and wealthy enough to pay up front for so many head tax costs.

 

Photo signed by Loo Gee Wing’s oldest son Leon Loo after a Canada Day picnic in the Victoria region. Shows two of Loo’s sons and other white acquaintances and friends.

Photo signed by Loo Gee Wing’s oldest son Leon Loo after a Canada Day picnic in the Victoria region. Shows two of Loo’s sons and other white acquaintances and friends. [Picnic photograph at Kanaka Ranch] / Sunho Loa, RBSC-ARC-1679-CC-PH-11071, Chung Collection. July 1st 1907, Leon J Loo.

Not just accumulating wealth and power in Canada, Loo Gee Wing accompanied the famous late-Qing reformer Kang Youwei 康有爲 to the east as his translator in 1899. At that time he was a director of the Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association in Victoria, and still managing Kwong Lee and Co.[xiii] The Chinese Empire Reform Association (CERA) was one of the first mass political parties in Chinese history, and deeply connected to the elite merchants of Western Canada. Loo and the Kang party were the talk of the town in Montreal that May, with many remarks on Loo’s fine silk attire, perfect English, and impeccable Victorian manners.[xiv] Loo eventually became disillusioned with the Empire Reform movement by later that Summer, when Kang failed to get support in Europe. At that point he left the organization, returning to Victoria to try to get Lee Mongkow to distance the Victoria merchants from Kang’s plans but was shunned by powerful Reform partisans. Eventually unknown enemies tried to assassinate him multiple times.[xv]

 

In the early 1900s, Loo invested in three things that brought even more money to many of BC’s Chinese merchant dynasties: Vancouver real estate, labour contracting, gambling operations, and opium.[xvi] Each of them had him involved in legal cases both inside and outside the Chinese community, including bribing police and attempted murder. In this period, Loo seems to relocate the center of his operations to Vancouver, where the Chinese community was growing on the land between the Burrard Inlet and False Creek; future Chinatown. He built a Chinese opera theatre and patronized troupes as an important contributor to the rise of early Cantonese opera in Canada.[xvii]

 

Loo remained active in fights between those with Szeyup origins and his minority community. This evidenced by a letter in our collection from 1903 about his “bullying and threats” sent to powerful Vancouver Szeyup merchant Yip Sang, asking for his support in the struggle.[xviii] Around the same time, the Loo residence on Fisgard St. caught fire in a case of arson, shortly after an attempt to blow it up had failed.[xix] Leon Loo, one of his elder sons, courageously broke through the wooden walls at great risk to his own life to save his mother, brother, and cousin from the flames.[xx]

 

Headline of the Victoria Daily Times, April 25 1907 Pg. 1 Victoria BC

Leon Loo’s heroic act to save his family’s life was recorded in major newspapers across the province. Victoria Daily Times, April 25 1907 Pg. 1 Victoria BC

Apparently not fazed, Loo backed an attempt led by non-Szeyup merchants to break the hold of the Yip clan over the corrupt Vancouver Chinese immigration machine. The Yips were CPR ticket agents, translators, and connected to Vancouver’s white elite, and had the ability to prevent entry of Chinese who were not their clients. Using accusations of fraud lobbed by rakish instigator and fixer David C. Lew 廖鴻翔, their enemies tried to unseat their control of the growing city and Chinatown.[xxi] Not incidentally, Lew was a manager for Loo Gee Wing and in his own words considered him “like a father…he raised me” and was close to Loo’s son Claude Loo Chung Key.[xxii]

 

Loo’s “adopted son” and fixer David Hung Lew was a common sight in BC courts until his untimely death. A talented legal mind, he fought discrimination to be one Vancouver’s most powerful interpreters and private agents during the head tax period.

Loo’s “adopted son” and fixer David Hung Lew was a common sight in BC courts until his untimely death. A talented legal mind, he fought discrimination to be one Vancouver’s most powerful interpreters and private agents during the head tax period.
Artist’s Impression of David Lew in court, Vancouver Daily World, Jan 18 1911, Pg. 17.

These internal fights over control of illegal immigration and “middleman” positions like broker and translator exploded onto the national political stage in 1911, heightening anti-Chinese sentiment still simmering from the 1907 Vancouver riots.[xxiii] Loo Gee Wing testified before the commission alongside Chang Toy with the English Press reporting:

 

“This morning the two wealthiest celestials in British Columbia appeared, Loo Gee Wing and Sam Kee, their combined wealth exceeding a million dollars…The remarkable difference between Loo and Sam, the former dressed like a tailor’s model in the suit of a prosperous Englishman down to his patent leathers, while Sam still retains his Chinese costume and speaks only in his native tongue.”[xxiv]

 

Loo Gee Wing built some of his most lasting and famous buildings during this time. They include: the Sun Ah Hotel Building, famous for the Ho Ho Restaurant, in 1911, the Chinese Theatre, presently home of Dragon Boat BC offices, in 1909, the first two stories of the Wong Benevolent Association Building in 1908, and the Loo Building, present-day Abbott Mansions, in 1909. The latter construction led to many courtroom battles, with Loo trying to construct this massive edifice in spite of permit restrictions by short charging or avoiding his suppliers and builders. This eventually culminated in an appeals court case.[xxv] For these and other buildings, Loo seems to have had the mentality to dare the city and contractors to come for him, preparing a strong and well-funded legal team to fight back. This pattern of shady behavior ran in the family apparently, with Yorkshire Guarantees and Securities Co. suing Loo Gee Wing’s son Claude Loo for issuing a bounced cheque for $2574 in 1915.[xxvi] Loo would assign leases and property ownership to relatives to avoid debtors, though practices like this appear in records of other prominent Vancouver and Victoria merchant families.

Part 3: The End of an Era

This photo of Loo Gee Wing’s son Leon Loo was taken a few years before his untimely death at age 33. He is buried in Mountainview Cemetery, Vancouver.

This photo of Loo Gee Wing’s son Leon Loo was taken a few years before his untimely death at age 33. He is buried in Mountainview Cemetery, Vancouver.
Loo Chung Leung, CI 9#00219, Library and Archives Canada, RG76 D2di, ID 108091. Immigrants from China, 1885-1952, October 5 1916.

This powerful family who could easily sweep away legal obstacles would not last. Loo Gee Wing’s capable son Leon J. Loo died unexpectedly in 1918, a personal loss that stripped him of one of his chosen successors.[xxvii] Loo himself then died in 1923, leaving an estate valued at $245,000 dollars (4.3 million in 2024). In a twisted reflection of what Loo himself had done in picking up the Kwong Lee Co in the aftermath of a family feud, his own vast family now fought over their inheritance. His estate had 17 named beneficiaries, but only two sons, Loo Chung Sheung 盧宗向 and Claude Loo Chung Key remained in Canada. To their horror, the vast fortune evaporated when the will was probated (submitted before the court). This was due to huge mortgages on the many buildings Loo had constructed, debtors calling from all across BC and the Pacific, outstanding tax debts, judicial payment orders, and even much of his property being seized by the federal government.[xxviii] The net valuation as a result fell to just $28,274, with one sixth set aside for his wife alone, with an additional $300 dollars for her maintenance.

 

Claude Loo, the perennial family troublemaker, then contested the will in court, alleging his father was not of sound mind and that he had forgotten to include the Barkerville gold mines and his bank account in his assets.[xxix] Claude also claimed that at the end he was disoriented, unable to clothe himself, ordered 12 meals a day, and was “indulging in vulgar and foolish talk with his servants.” As the family fought, Loo Gee Wing’s body lay embalmed in the Nunn & Thompson Funeral Parlor awaiting transport back to China. This writer does not know if Loo Gee Wing ever made it back home, but his body sat there for over four years at least.[xxx] In the meantime, Loo’s fixer, the fiery courtroom battler David Lew, was gunned down in September 1924 in what is still one of Vancouver’s longest cold cases. Claude Loo soon lost his fight for the will, and seemingly left Canada permanently in 1926 with only his father’s funeral home and estate lawyer as contacts in immigration documents.

This photo from the 1960s-1980s of Vancouver Chinatown shows the enduring presence of Loo Gee Wing’s buildings, with his Sun Ah Hotel, also known as the Ho Ho Restaurant building, dominating the central intersection of Columbia St and east Pender St.

This photo from the 1960s-1980s of Vancouver Chinatown shows the enduring presence of Loo Gee Wing’s buildings, with his Sun Ah Hotel, also known as the Ho Ho Restaurant building, dominating the central intersection of Columbia St and east Pender St.
[View of the 100 block East Pender Street], City of Vancouver Archives, COV-S511—: CVA 780-44, City of Vancouver, Box F14-E-01 fld 20. Vancouver Planning Dept. 1960-1980

Despite this sad end, Loo Gee Wing’s legacy does live on. He was a founding director of the Vancouver Chinese Benevolent Association and a builder whose business empire shaped our image of Vancouver Chinatown today. His businesses and family left traces in archives across the province, including the UBC Chung Collection and the Barkerville Historical Society. As an early “pioneer” he was close to the center of all Chinese Canadian historical moments from the mid-1800s till the beginning of the Exclusion era. While some of his family seemingly did return to Canada during that period, they never reclaimed the prominence they formerly had.[xxxi] By the 1920s and 30s the monopolies of the early merchant dynasties like the Yips, Loos, Lee Kee, and Chang Toy families were losing centrality. In their place rose a new generation of Chinatown businessmen, local-born brokers, and western-educated elites

 

Endnotes

[i] Zhongping, Chen. “Vancouver Island and the Chinese Diaspora in the Transpacific World, 1788-1918.” BC Studies no. 204 (2019): 45-65.

[ii] The British Colonist, March 1 1860 Accessed 20/11/2024 https://www.mhso.ca/chinesecanadianwomen/en/database.php?c=1512

[iii] Victoria, B.C. 12 Mar 1885 3c Insurance Cover to Loo Gee Wing https://allnationsstampandcoin.com/victoria-b-c-12-mar-1885-3c-insurance-cover-to-loo-gee-wing-sfr/

[iv] San Francisco Chronicle, Aug 26 1883 Pg.8

[v] Tzu-I Chung, “Kwong Lee & Company and Early Trans-Pacific Trade: From Canton, Hong Kong, to Victoria and Barkerville,” B.C. Studies, 185 (Spring 2015), 137-161.

[vi] This was based off the author’s original research and assessment of head tax databases.

[vii] Loo Gee Wing made a large donation in establishing a benevolent society for those with Zengcheng/Jang Shing origins 增邑仁安堂公. This was done in partnership perhaps with Loo Nai Tong 盧乃堂 of Chee Jone Wo Co 致中和 of 67 E Pender or Yen Nam Tong 87 E Pender St)

[viii] Victoria Daily Colonist, Tues Nov 8 1892

[ix] Vancouver Semi-Weekly World, Sept 15 1896 Pg 5

[x] Atkin, John. Coupland, Andy “Loo Gee Wing” buildingvancouver, blog, accessed 20/11/2024, https://buildingvancouver.wordpress.com/2011/08/22/loo-gee-wing/

[xi] Quesnel Cariboo Observer, May 5 1917, Pg. A1

[xii] Privy Council Minutes. 7 Jan-12 Jan 1897. Library and Archives Canada. RG 2, Series 1, Vol. 715. http://central.bac-lac.gc.ca/.redirect?app=ordincou&id=163519&lang=eng

[xiii] Chen, Zhongping 2023. Transpacific Reform and Revolution: The Chinese in North America, 1898-1918. 1st ed. Stanford, California: Stanford University Press Pg.31

[xiv] Montreal Star, May 13 1899 Pg.11

[xv] Chen, Transpacific Reform Pg. 34

[xvi] Loo Was head of the operations of the Man On Company, 330 Carrall St, which traded labour contracts and opium. Documents relating to this viewed by author in private papers of the Ian Lee family, accessed July 11 2022.

[xvii] Ng, Wing Chung. The Rise of Cantonese Opera. 1st ed. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2015. Pg. 155-157

[xviii] Letter to Yip Chun Tien complaining somebody’s evil behavior, 1903, Yip Sang Collection. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.14288/1.0113998. UBC Open Collections.

Original Format: City of Vancouver Archives. Yip family and Yip Sang Ltd. fonds. Correspondence. Older letters in Chinese. AM1108-S2-3-083.

[xix] Victoria Daily Times Apr 25 1907 pg.1

[xx] Daily News Advertiser April 26 1907 Pg.1.

[xxi]Mar, Lisa. Brokering Belonging: Chinese in Canada’s Exclusion Era, 1885-1945. 1st ed. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2010. Pg. 22

[xxii] 1911 Immigration Commission: Vol 2, Chung Collection, Box 130 folder 18, Pg.839. Pg.968

[xxiii] David Lew interpreted the 1907 Riot commission before W.L.M King. In the aftermath of the 1908 Opium Act which King wrote after the riots, Loo also lost access to the vast revenues of legal opium factories in Victoria and Vancouver, which numbered about 15 at their height. David Lew then led the 1911 immigration corruption debate.

[xxiv] The Province Jan 04 1908 Pg.4

[xxv] Loo Gee Wing v. A.F. Amor (1909), 10 W.L.R. 383 (B.C. Co. Ct.)

[xxvi] Sept 30 1915, Vancouver Daily World, pg 12

[xxvii] Leon J Loo Chung Leung 盧宗亮 was born in Victoria in 1885 with twin brother Chung Sheung, and an active manager in Loo Gee Wing’s businesses. He was recorded as entering the country March 2 1902 in the Head-Tax General Register (probably after studying abroad). He travelled to HK October 1916, using a head-tax certificate even though he was native-born (CI.5 #33702, Vic. NB CI 9#219) He was issued a replacement head tax certificate with photo when he returned March 5 1917 (CI 36#12404). Leon Loo died young at age 33 on Oct 3 1918. Grave at Mountainview has nothing but English name, Chinese name, and death date. Interestingly, someone registered under his identity for a Native-born CI 9 to go to China in Oct 1923 (Vic. NB CI9#828). Under instructions from the Chief Controller of Chinese, Nov 12 1930, this CI 9 permission was removed, i.e. canceled, preventing return. This indicates that it was fraudulent and had been caught.

[xxviii] The Province Aug 4 1923 Pg.21

[xxix] The Province, Sept 26 1923 pg.11

[xxx] The Province May 30 1926 Pg.30

[xxxi] Loo Chung/Jung Yat 盧宗日. CI 44#57901, born in Vancouver Oct 18 1918, left as a child age 4 to China, returned July 17 1935 under status of student to Vancouver. In 1946 he was 27 years old and living in North Vancouver working as a merchant in the food industry. That year he married Chu Shut Far, daughter of Victoria merchant Chu Kum Wah.

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26 Above Bonanza

Posted on November 20, 2024 @11:13 am by Emily Witherow

This blog post is part of RBSC’s new series spotlighting items in the Phil Lind Klondike Gold Rush Collection and the Wallace B. and Madeline H. Chung Collection.

When Phil Lind’s grandfather, John (Johnny) Grieve Lind, arrived in what was then part of the Northwest Territories in June 1894, he first traveled to a mining town on Fortymile River. Following the discovery of gold on Bonanza Creek in August 1896, Johnny and several business partners purchased interests in a dozen mining claims in the Klondike – including one of his most famous and wealthy claims, 26 Above Bonanza, pictured below.[1] 

Image of mining claim 26 Above Bonanza in Yukon Territory, mining equipment and miners in background

26 Above Bonanza ca. 1897, Yukon Territory. RBSC-ARC-1820-PH-0966

With his partners, Johnny bought half of 26 Above in January 1897 for $12,000 cash (around $360,000 today). To prepare it for mining, they purchased lumber, provisions, nails, and tools at high prices and built sluice boxes, flumes, dams, a food tent, and a cabin. By spring 1897, they employed 200 men working two shifts per day. Their payroll alone cost their business $4,000 a day, and Johnny recalls that the returns were “at times enormous and at other times hardly anything.”[2] Sometimes, however, the pay dirt was fabulously rich – in a single day, 26 Above once yielded over $50,000 in gold dust and nuggets. For every dollar Johnny and his partners made, they re-invested it into other claims, until they grew to be large operators; in February 1898, they purchased the other half of 26 Above for $200,000. 

 

In July 1897, when Dawson’s nouveau riche arrived in Seattle and San Francisco carrying half a million in Klondike gold and setting off a mad stampede north, they also carried some of the gold mined from 26 Above Bonanza. Johnny, who cashed out of the Klondike in 1902 and established a cement company in St. Mary’s, Ontario, with his mining partners, was always proud of his role in helping to ignite the famous Klondike Gold Rush (1897-1898). 

 

This image is currently on display at the Chung Lind Gallery. For more information or to plan your visit, please visit the Chung Lind Gallery website. 

  

[1] Mining claims were staked in relation to the first claim, or Discovery claim, on each creek. As Johnny wrote in his family memoir; “Discovery did not have a number, but was always know[n] as discovery. The first claim downstream was No. 1 below, next No. 2 and so [on], as far as they were staked.” John Grieve Lind, 40 Mile River and the Klondike [Unpublished Memoir] (1983), 24. 

[2] Lind, 40 Mile River and the Klondike, 25.

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Posted in Carousel, Chung | Lind Gallery, Collections, Exhibitions, Frontpage Exhibition, Lind, Research and learning | Tagged with , , , ,


The Wide World of Queer Travel

Posted on November 13, 2024 @8:42 am by cshriver

Many thanks to guest blogger Quinn Monleon for contributing the below post! Quinn is a graduate student at the UBC School of Information and completed a co-op position with Rare Books and Special Collections at UBC Library this past summer.


As Project Librarian at RBSC during a summer co-op from May to August 2024, I undertook the task of organizing and processing a significant donation from Rick Hurlbut, a former travel agent operating in Vancouver and specializing in LGBTQ+ travel and tourism from the early 1990s to the late 2010s. The donation consisted of 15 loosely organized bankers boxes which contained an assortment of over 3,500 LGBTQ+ travel and tourism-related items including ephemera, artifacts, business correspondence and other records, monographs, serials, and audiovisual resources from the 1970s to the late 2010s.

The Rick Hurlbut LGBTQ+ travel, tourism and hospitality collection offers a unique window into the private circles of LGBTQ+ tourists and travelers and the ways in which they connected with one another before the internet was widely used. At first, I had little knowledge of this specialized travel industry, but the more I examined each item in this collection, I discovered the remarkable level of detail and specificity that characterized this industry. Also, based on the sheer volume of materials collected on locations such as Palm Springs, Fort Lauderdale, Key West, and Puerto Vallarta, it became clear that these were “queer destinations,” at least historically.

I wanted to share some of the materials in the collection that stood out as highlights; these are only a few of the types of materials found in this very diverse collection.

 

The Rick Hurlbut LGBTQ+ travel, tourism, and hospitality collection showcases the diversity of materials available for research at Rare Books and Special Collections, and adds an important collection for research into the material history of 20th century LGBTQ+ travel.

To access the collection, contact RBSC about making a research visit. You can also learn about other resources related to 2SLGBTQIA+ community and organizations through our 2SLGBTQIA+ History and Archives research guide.

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Part 1: The Mah family of Crystal Bakery-Letters and Legacies

Posted on November 4, 2024 @4:07 pm by Andrew R. Sandfort-Marchese

This blog post is part of RBSC’s new series spotlighting items in the Phil Lind Klondike Gold Rush Collection and the Wallace B. and Madeline H. Chung Collection. This Part One of two long-form blogs.

 

Thank you to Kelly Attrell and Kathleen East from the Grand Coteau Heritage & Cultural Centre for helping share this story.

 

Often when people ask me about doing archival historical work, they think that it involves sifting through boring stacks of musty papers for hours on end, just cataloging, sorting and writing dates down. While this can sometimes be part of the work, the core of archives are the people and memories they hold. The papers, photos, and artifacts within these collections allow us a window into individual lives, a glimpse of our shared humanity.

 

One of the great gifts of the Dr. Wallace B. and Madeline H. Chung Collection is that there is an abundance of opportunities to have these personal encounters, with countless stories from around the world found in the over 25,000 materials stored. While some of our greatest treasures are currently on display at the Chung | Lind Gallery, I wanted to allow you a peek into the vaults with a humble letter that captures the intimacy of archival encounters.

 

This letter from the Crystal Bakery shows the network of connections that brought together Chinese Canadian communities.

Crystal Bakery. 1940. “[Letter and Envelope Sent from Crystal Bakery in Shaunavon, Saskatechwan to Mar Long & Co. of Seattle, Washington].” C. Chung Textual Materials. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.14288/1.0363223.

This letter, posted in 1940 from the town of Shaunavon, Saskatchewan, the “Oasis of the Prairies,” challenges the idea that the Chung Collection is only a BC collection, and that Chinese Canadian history is only about big cities. While we cannot identify the sender, it was mailed to Mr. Harry K. Mar Dong in Seattle, most likely a relative or clansmen, showing how interconnected these networks of migration and business were. The letter itself concerns money, which was always a pressing concern, especially in a society still dealing with the aftermath of the Great Depression, and particularly for Chinese migrants living under the oppressive 1923 Chinese Exclusion Act. But this made me wonder, what is this Crystal Bakery, and who are some of the men behind this letter?

 

The Crystal Bakery is above the second car from the right in this 1930s photo of Shaunavon's Main St.

Crystal Bakery above 2nd car on the right “Post Office Blk, Shaunavon Sask.” 1930, Photographic print, 1988.16.167, Grand Coteau Heritage and Cultural Centre, https://saskcollections.org/grandcoteau/Detail/objects/13014

 

The Men of the Crystal Bakery

I began my exploration at the online resources of the Grand Couteau Heritage and Cultural Centre in Shaunavon, cross referencing them with digitized documents from Canada’s vast Chinese immigration surveillance apparatus. I came to discover that Crystal Bakery was opened on November 6, 1930, by Mah Yock Cheong 馬毓祥 and Mah Ark Shim 馬德深, who had been in the Shaunavon area since the 1920s.[i] Both journeyed from the same village in Toisan county in Southern China, to Canada in 1918 and 1921 respectively.[ii] There were many men from the Mah clan employed or share owners in the Crystal Bakery throughout its history. From the 1920s-50s, Shaunavon’s Chinese men worked in industries common to bachelor men on the prairies: Chinese Canadian cafes and restaurants.[iii]

Mah Yock Cheong "Slim" in 1934 applying to go to China with an Exclusion era document called a CI 9

Mah Yock Cheong “Records of entry and other records” 1933-12-14/1935-10-31, Microfilm, Canadian Immigration Service, RG 76, T-16609, Image 1474, CI 9 #83571, Library and Archives Canada.

Mah Ark Shim in 1936 applying to travel to China to visit family.

Mah Ark Shim “Records of entry and other records”1935-10-31/1938-06-21, Microfilm, Canadian Immigration Service, RG 76, T-16610, Image 501, CI 9 #85447, Library and Archives Canada.

Other businesses in Shaunavon run by Chinese people included tailors, laundries, hotels, and of course special stores like confectionaries and bakeries. Most of the Chinese men in the town came from regions that sent a lot of their sons to North America, such as Toisan 台山, Hoiping 開平, and Hoksan 鶴山 counties. They were well connected to other men in the towns and cities of the region, many of them being village cousins and relatives, often meeting for special holidays, recreation, and to share a meal. These networks were critical in that harsh Prairie winters, as well as keeping folks connected to major Chinatowns across Canada. People, goods, and services were facilitated by the ties of shared town of origin, clan, schoolmates, sworn brotherhood, business partnership, and friendship.[iv]

 

In April 1940, the same spring our letter was written, a glowing column was written about the Crystal Bakery in the local Shaunavon Standard Newspaper:

“During the winter, the Crystal’s modern equipment turns out an average of 500 loaves per day…In hot weather the daily output of the bakery rises to an average of 700 and more loaves per day. Capacity of the steam-heated oven is 210 loaves at a time and the bread is baked at a temperature of 350 degrees F. Alongside the oven is a warming oven where the bread rises and in a separate room are the cooling racks where the product cools for market.  An average of 400 lbs. flour per day or 300 sacks per week is used.  Bread is baked six days per week, the idle day being Saturday since there are no trains on Sunday.  Modern, electric, machinery is used for mixing, etc. Bread from the Crystal is shipped as far east as Meyronne and Assiniboia, west as far as Senate and Manyberries and all intermediate points, as well as to towns on the southline.”[v]

Many men across Canada thought about their hometowns and families with significant fear and anxiety during World War Two. The men of the Crystal Bakery collected $10 dollars to be donated to the Chinese War Relief Fund drive that was organized in nearby Swift Current, SK, in 1943, most likely sending more donations on other occasions.[vi] As the War continued, Chinese community leaders, working alongside allies across Canada, began to advocate for the end of the Exclusion Act and for civil rights for all. They were later joined by some Chinese Canadian veterans, who took the fight to Ottawa.

 

In 1949, after the repeal of the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1947, Mah Yock Cheong was one of four Chinese men to be the first Chinese granted Canadian citizenship in the Shaunavon region. That cold February day they braved snow-blocked roads to finally be recognized as equals in a country that had been their home for so long.[vii] Now the men of Crystal Bakery entered a new era, the period of family reunification after the repeal of the cruel separating provisions of the Exclusion Act.

 

Despite the act’s demise, Canada still maintained a system of race and nation-based quotas that kept Chinese families trapped in a web of paperwork, delays, and even invasive interrogations and medical examinations in order to come together again. For Mah Yock Cheong, the same year he got his citizenship, he was able to bring his wife May and teenage son Danny through the maze of regulations to join him in Shaunavon after thirteen years of separation. He had left China four months before his son was born, not uncommon for many bachelor men, and had not seen them since. He explained to The Standard’s reporter that “he was very happy that when the opportunity came for them to sail to San Francisco, their passports were in perfect order and all other details had been attended to. ‘There is too much trouble in China, Mr. Mah said, ‘this country will be a lot better for them.’”[viii]

 

Demand for baked goods was booming in those post-war years, especially for staples like bread. The Crystal Bakery also became famous for its donuts and cream puffs. Sweet treats that had once been unaffordable luxuries during the Depression, became weekly indulgences for those who benefited from Post-War prosperity. With new help from his son Danny and Mah relatives who had also reunified with their families, Yock Cheong was able to install new modern equipment in 1953, like a slicer that cut 400 loaves an hour, and a fully automatic bread wrapper that could package over 800 loaves per hour.[ix] Responding to increased demand, the Crystal Bakery extended family of workers and partners still had to work extremely hard. Sadly, Yock Cheong would pass away suddenly of a heart attack in 1958.[x] He had been in Canada for forty of his sixty years on earth and was sorely missed by his community of Shaunavon that he had supported through the hard Depression years.

 

Danny Mah (Mah Yock Cheong's son) and an unidentified man, most likely a worker or partner at Crystal Bakery

Danny Mah and Unidentified Man, most likely a Crystal Bakery partner or employee, c.1950s. “Crystal Bakery Men,” Unknown, Photographic print, 1986.6.18, Grand Coteau Heritage and Cultural Centre

 

The bakery was put up for sale in 1958, after his death but was purchased and operated by longtime partner King Yee 余景, who had known Yock Cheong since the 1920s.[xi] After the passing of Yee and later Chan Wah Sen 陳華銓 , another partner in the bakery for many years, the bakery was closed permanently in 1970 (Shaunavon Standard, October 7, 1964, and July 22, 1970).[xii] It became an appliance store, and then was vacant for a time, before being torn down at the end of August in 1986. The Chan, Mah, and Yee families remained in Shaunavon and in Saskatchewan for years to come, continuing to participate in many businesses and community-oriented activities.[xiii]

 

“The old Crystal Bakery is due for demolisation [sic] at the end of August,” July 15 1986, Photographic print, 2004.13.168, Grand Coteau Heritage and Cultural Centre

Please join us for part two of this blog exploring Harry K. Mar Dong, the letter’s recipient, and connections to Seattle’s rich Chinese American history.

 

Footnotes and References

[i] “Chinese C.I. 44 forms and index cards” 1923-1946, Microfilm, Canadian Immigration Service, RG76-D-27, T-16181, Image 163, CI 44#46558.

“Chinese C.I. 44 forms and index cards” 1923-1946, Microfilm, Canadian Immigration Service, RG76-D-27, T-16181, Image 468, CI44#46860

[ii] Their hometown: Taishan (Toisan) County 台山 Sanhe (Samhop) Town 三合鄉 Lidong (Laitung) Township 黎洞鄉新華里 Xinhua (Sunwah) Hamlet

[iii] Details about aforementioned: Mah Ark Shim “Sam” 馬德深 also known as 馬世孚 (Grave Name) born in the town above, Ark Shim immigrated in 1921, and spent time in the Frontier, SK and Shaunavon area before opening the Crystal Bakery. He lived in Halifax in 1949, according to immigration documents, and then moved to Calgary in 1955. Was later reunited with his wife Mah Fung Siu 馬余鳳秀; his wife and three children, William, Helen, and Anne all lived in Canada when he passed. Mah died in Calgary in 1977, and was buried in Queen’s Park Cemetery.

[iv] Marshall, Alison R. 2014. Cultivating Connections : The Making of Chinese Prairie Canada UBC Press., Cheung, Helen Kwan Yee. 2022 Mercantile Mobility: Chinese Merchants in Western Canada University of Alberta Library.

[v] Unknown. 1940. “The Crystal Bakery Supplies Large Area.” The Shaunavon Standard, Apr 10.

[vi] Unknown. 1943. “China Fund Going Up.” The Regina Leader-Post, Sep 9, 11.

[vii] Unknown. 1949. “Chinese Receive Citizenship.” The Shaunavon Standard, Feb 24.

[viii] Unknown. 1949. “Three Chinese Families are Re-united Here.” The Shaunavon Standard, Dec 15.

[ix] Unknown. 1953. “Crystal Bakery Instals [sic] New Equipment.” The Shaunavon Standard, Oct 15

[x] Unknown. 1958. “Rites for ‘Slim’ Mah Tomorrow.” The Shaunavon Standard, Mar 19

Posthumous (Gravestone) name is 馬世纘

[xi] Unknown. 1958 “Crystal Bakery Sale.” The Regina Leader-Post, Sept 25, 36.

Yue King “E.King” Yee King 余景 Imm. Docs. CI 44#8593, CI 36#15858, multiple CI 9s. From Sanhe Township 三合鄉  Taishan County 台山. Born in 1889, Yee arrived in Canada in 1911. He worked as a farm hand in the Steveston, BC area, contracted through the famous Lee Yune/Yuen Co. before coming to Shaunavon to work at the Royal Cafe alongside Yock Cheong, then becoming a owner-partner at the Crystal Bakery. Ran the bakery after Yock Cheong’s death. Brought part of the family over after repeal, and was related to Mr. Mah Poy who worked at the Ohio Café in town, and who had himself brought his wife back from China in 1955 to Shaunavon. Yee King died in 1961.

[xii] Unknown. 1964 “Services Held for Joe Chan.” The Shaunavon Standard, Aug 12, Unknown. 1970 “Announcement: Crystal Bakery Now Closed.” The Shaunavon Standard, Oct 7 1964

Chan Wah Sen “Joe” 陳華銓, Imm. Docs. CI 44#3340, CI5#88604. Born in Taishan County 台山 Sanhe Township 三合鄉 Gangmei Village 崗美村 in 1901 and immigrated to Canada in 1918. Worked in the Weyburn district of Saskatchewan, operating cafes in Ponteix, Orkney, and Limerick SK before coming to Shaunavon and working at the Crystal Bakery in 1942. Married in 1924 in China, after he traveled back during the year of Exclusion Act registration. He returned to China in 1947, the year of repeal. He got citizenship in 1949, reunified with wife and one year old son the same year, and worked at Crystal Bakery, most likely until his death in 1964.

[xiii] This is further reinforced by volunteer Kathleen  and materials in the GCHCC Archives.

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Map of Guangdong Province, 1924

Posted on October 30, 2024 @3:04 pm by Andrew R. Sandfort-Marchese

This blog post is part of RBSC’s new series spotlighting items in the Phil Lind Klondike Gold Rush Collection and the Wallace B. and Madeline H. Chung Collection. 

Welcome to our second short-form blog highlighting items from the Dr. Wallace B. Chung and Madeline H. Chung Collection. This week we will be introducing one of the of many large and oversized materials we have in the collection: a historic map of Guangdong Province (廣東省).

 

This map of Guangdong Province, c.1924, highlights the Chung Collection’s transnational holdings CC-OS-00034, https://dx.doi.org/10.14288/1.0216272

 

This vibrant and colourful map was published in February 1924 by the Commercial Press of Shanghai (上海商務印書館), the first modern publishing house in China, which is still running today. It belonged to Vancouver’s prominent Yip family of merchants associated with the Wing Sang Co. Guangdong province, also known as Canton or Kwantung province during this period, is the ancestral origin place of the vast majority of Chinese Canadians before the immigration reform of the late 1960s, including the Yips. Similarly, many generations have emigrated from Guangdong to other places overseas, including from the Chaoshan (潮汕) and Hainan (海南) regions to Southeast Asia, as well as to other parts of North and South America. Maps like these are a valuable resource for rediscovering family roots.

A particularly cool detail of this map includes the line showing the Sun Ning Railway (新寧鐵路) one of China’s first railways, and entirely financed by Chinese rather than colonial capital. Its main proponent, Chin Gee Hee (陳宜禧), was a titan of the Pacific Northwest Chinese community, especially in Washington. Also indicated is the Chao Chow-Swatow Railway, the very first Chinese owned line, that was favourably supported by overseas donations from Southeast Asian Chinese. Sadly, both these important railroads would be torn up and destroyed during the 2nd Sino-Japanese war in the late 1930s.

We welcome you to explore these themes and connections between migration, memory, transportation, and colonial conflict in the Chung Lind Gallery, as well as through the Rare Books and Special Collections Reading Room.

 

Further Reading

Willard G. Jue, “Chin Gee-hee, Chinese Pioneer Entrepreneur in Seattle and Toishan”, The Annals of the Chinese Historical Society of the Pacific Northwest, 1983, 31:38.

Hsu, Madeline Y. (2000). Dreaming of Gold, Dreaming of Home: Transnationalism and Migration Between the United States and South China, 1882-1943. Stanford University Press

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Dawson City Firemen

Posted on October 18, 2024 @10:04 am by Emily Witherow

This blog post is part of RBSC’s new series spotlighting items in the Phil Lind Klondike Gold Rush Collection and the Wallace B. and Madeline H. Chung Collection. 

“Dawson is Once Again in Ashes” – The Klondike Nugget, April 27, 1899. 

Hastily built using green timber and canvas, the gold rush town of Dawson City, Y.T, was particularly vulnerable to flame and suffered several catastrophic fires in 1897, 1898, and 1899. The fire which took place on April 26, 1899, was by far the worst. Starting in the Bodega Saloon, the blaze rapidly destroyed at least 117 buildings and consumed over 1 million dollars’ worth of property, goods, and gold.[1]  

Picture of a fireman in Dawson after a fire at 45 Below.

Dawson City fireman after a fire at 45 Below, April 1899. Phil Lind Klondike Collection, RBSC-ARC-1820-PH-1655.

This black and white photo of a fireman after a mining claim fire in April 1899 reveals the hazards of fighting fires in a subarctic climate. After the alarm was sounded on April 26, Dawson’s volunteer firemen were eventually able to halt the flames using water hoses and chemical suppressants, but not before it leapt across cabins and tents.[2] The Klondike Nugget reported that “many of the losers in the fire had but recently rebuilt from the last fire, while some were still more unfortunate and had suffered three fires in three months.”[3] However, local residents remained resilient. In a letter to his brother later that summer, bank employee Thomas Kay described the fire’s aftermath: “I never seen anything like it, before; it came pretty [far] out the town; but some of the people commenced to build again within a few hours after and while the ruins were still smouldering.”[4] 

Unfortunately, this conflagration was followed by another fire in January 1900 which once again decimated the city. It wasn’t until the winter of 1900-1901 and the arrival of professional fire protection that Dawson City experienced its first year without a major fire. 

This image is currently on display at the Chung Lind Gallery. For more information or to plan your visit, please visit the Chung Lind Gallery website

 

[1] Ken Coates and William R. Morrison, Land of the Midnight Sun: A History of the Yukon (Montreal & Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2005), 102. 

[2] “Worst is Known,” Klondike Nugget vol. 2, no. 34, April 29, 1899, p.2, https://www.canadiana.ca/view/oocihm.N_00021_18990429/1  

[3] “Extra Edition! Dawson is Once Again in Ashes,” Klondike Nugget vol. 2, no.33, April 27, 1899, p.2, https://www.canadiana.ca/view/oocihm.N_00021_18990427/1  

[4] “Kay., T. to Jim Kay, His Brother, Regarding His Life in Dawson, Including a Description of the Unemployed in the City and a Disastrous Fire on April 26, 1899,” BC Historical Documents, June 4, 1899, https://dx.doi.org/10.14288/1.0370103

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Le Wan Nian Cantonese Opera Troupe

Posted on October 30, 2024 @3:44 pm by Andrew R. Sandfort-Marchese

Welcome to our first short-form Chung Lind blog! Today we will be highlighting an incredible 1923 group photo by C. B. Wand of the Le Wan Nian Cantonese Opera Troupe featured in our Chung Lind Gallery exhibits. 

Le Wan Nian Opera Troupe Photo

Item: RBSC-ARC-1679-CC-PH-10648, in Gallery
Open Collections

Cantonese opera and music have been an important cultural and social activity for Chinese Canadian communities for over 100 years. By the early 1900s, Cantonese opera troupes like Le Wan Nian were sponsored by companies and musical societies to perform for packed theaters across North America. This cultural entertainment was a welcome alternative to less ”wholesome” leisure activities for the vastly single-male “bachelor” communities of Chinatowns and work-camps. Opera troupes were able to secure special permits via their sponsors to enter Canada and the USA, enabling them to see the world at a time when most Chinese people were constrained by Exclusionary laws. 

 

Today, there are many Chinese musical societies across Vancouver that continue the tradition of providing musical education, socialization for seniors, and sponsoring opera performances. They include Jin Wah Sing 振華聲藝術究社, Ching Won 韻音樂社,  Vancouver Cantonese Opera 燕鳳鳴劇團, and the B.C. Chinese Music Association (BCCMA) 庇詩中樂協會. Continued connections to Hong Kong have enabled Vancouver to remain one of the world’s most vibrant centers of Cantonese opera. 

 

On your next visit to the Chung Lind Gallery, we encourage you to also visit the UBC Museum of Anthropology where you can view Cantonese opera costumes in living color!  

 

Further Reading: 

 

Ng, Wing Chung. The Rise of Cantonese Opera. Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 2015. https://muse.jhu.edu/book/39750. 

 

Rao, Nancy Yunhwa. Chinatown Opera Theater in North America. University of Illinois Press, 2017. http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5406/j.ctt1kc6hrk. 

 

JinPei, Huang and Alan R. Thrasher. “Cantonese Music Societies of Vancouver: A Social and Historical Survey.” Canadian Folk Music Journal 21, (1993): 31 

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Commemorating Orange Shirt Day

Posted on October 8, 2024 @1:33 pm by Emily Witherow

Each year on September 30, people across Canada wear orange to recognize, commemorate, and raise awareness about the history and ongoing legacies of the Indian Residential School system (IRSS). Here at the Chung | Lind Gallery, we are commemorating the day with this blog post by Gallery Attendant and Exhibitions Assistant, Emily Witherow.


Commemorating Orange Shirt Day/National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, September 30th 2024

This post introduces readers to the history of Residential Schools in the Yukon, and specifically those schools which were attended by Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in children.

Warning: This story contains details about Indian Residential Schools, graves of missing Indigenous children, experiences of spiritual, sexual, physical, and emotional abuse, and suicide. Please see bottom of the page for information on resources including mental health resources.

About the Indian Residential School System

From 1867 to 1996, the Canadian government and Catholic religious institutions (specifically the Roman Catholic, Anglican, Presbyterian, United and Methodist Churches) removed over 150,000 First Nations, Inuit, and Metis children from their families and sent them away to 140 state-funded religious schools. According to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, this system was educational in name only; it was created with the intention of assimilating Indigenous peoples into “civilized” society by weakening ties to family, culture, language, religion, and by indoctrinating children into dominant Euro-Canadian culture.[1] As such, it was a key element of Canada’s “Indian policy,” which for over a century aimed to “eliminate Aboriginal governments; ignore Aboriginal rights; terminate the Treaties; and, through a process of assimilation, cause Aboriginal peoples to cease to exist as distinct legal, social, cultural, religious, and racial entities.”[2] This process is best described as “cultural genocide.”[3]

Residential schools, which were underfunded, overcrowded, and poorly maintained, were sites of neglect and abuse by supervisors. Indigenous languages and cultures were suppressed, discipline was harsh, life was highly regimented, and students’ educations were neglected in favour of manual labor. Thousands of children died at these schools without the dignity of a proper burial and without their families knowing. When they returned to their communities, survivors often felt alienated from family members, did not learn important parenting skills, and lost their pride in their culture and heritage. This trauma has had long-term intergenerational effects upon Indigenous families and communities.

Thanks to the activism of survivors like Phil Fontaine (Sagkeeng First Nation) in the 1990s, IRS survivors pursued Canada’s then-largest class action lawsuit, leading to a formal apology from Prime Minister Stephen Harper in 2008, the Indian Residential School Settlement Agreement, and the formation of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) in 2009. After spending years collecting stories from nearly 7,000 survivors, documenting the history and legacy of the IRSS, and founding a national research centre, in 2015 the TRC published several documents including its Final Report, Summary Report, Ten Principles of Truth and Reconciliation, and the 94 Calls to Action.

Orange Shirt Day originates from Phyllis Webstad’s (Stswecem’c Xgat’tem First Nation) experiences at St. Joseph’s Residential School in Williams Lake, BC. On her first day of school in 1973, school staff stripped Phyllis of the new shiny orange shirt her grandmother had bought her, never to be worn again. On September 30, 2013, Phyllis spoke publicly for the first time about her experience at St. Joseph’s, founding the Orange Shirt Day movement.

 

“When you wear an orange shirt it’s like a little bit of justice for us Survivors in our lifetime, and recognition of a system we can never allow again.” – Phyllis Webstad [4]

 

In 2021, following the discovery of gravesites of missing children at Kamloops Residential School and in response to the TRC Call to Action 80, which calls the federal government to establish a statutory day to honour survivors and publicly commemorate the history and legacy of residential schools, the Canadian government designated September 30 as National Day for Truth and Reconciliation.

Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in and the Klondike Gold Rush:

 

The Phil Lind Klondike Gold Rush Collection, currently on display at the Chung | Lind Gallery, sheds light on life in the Yukon before and after the discovery of gold in 1896, but also speaks to the longer-term changes brought about by the migration of tens of thousands of stampeders to the traditional lands of the Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in First Nation.

Since time immemorial, the Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in (meaning “the people who live at the mouth of the Klondike”) made their seasonal home at Tr’ochëk, an ancestral fishing village at the confluence of the Yukon and Tr’ondëk (Klondike) Rivers. Every summer, around sixty to eighty individuals lived, fished, hunted, and harvested on the bank of the river, relying on the annual salmon run and the caribou and moose who grazed in the swamp across the river.[5] Although the Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in had encountered missionaries, fur traders, and prospectors within their traditional territories since at least the 1870s, the discovery of gold at Gakdëk (Rabbit Creek) in August 1896 catalyzed a long-term catastrophic process of colonization, assimilation, and dispossession. By 1898, the moose pastures across the river had been replaced by the new town of Dawson City, and Tr’ochëk was quickly overrun by gold seekers who dispossessed Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in of their land and cabins, renaming it Klondike City (and later, Lousetown). Fearing Dawson City’s corrupting influence, Chief Isaac moved his peoples downriver to Moosehide Creek (Jëjik Dhä Dënezhu Kek’it) while protesting miners’ destruction of the environment, overhunting, and land theft.[6] Anglican Bishop William Bompas and fellow missionaries also advocated to the Canadian government on their behalf to secure a reserve at Moosehide.[7] Reverend Benjamin Totty later established a church and mission school in Moosehide Village to convert and teach Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in children, although they continued learning the language, values, beliefs, and traditions of their people.[8]

 

The Moosehide Day School was an early harbinger of the Indian Residential School System and the assimilationist policies yet to come. In the decades after the Klondike Gold Rush, six Indian Residential Schools were established across the Yukon Territory; St. Paul’s Hostel in Dawson City (1920-1943, Anglican Church); Choutla Residential School in Carcross (1903-1969, Anglican Church); Yukon Hall (1960-1985, non-denominational), Coudert Hall (1960-1971, Catholic Church), Whitehorse Baptist School in Whitehorse (1947-1960, Baptist Church); and Shingle Point School in Shingle Point (1929-1936, Anglican Church).[9] From 1903 to 1969, Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in children generally attended one of two schools; the St. Paul’s Hostel, and the Choutla Residential School.[10]

 

Please take a moment to read more about the Choutla (Carcross) Indian Residential School and St. Paul’s Hostel below. We have included several quotes from anonymous survivors cited in Tr’ëhuhch’in Näwtr’udäh’ą: Finding Our Way Home, who are best situated to tell the truth about these histories, having lived through them. For UBC students, staff and faculty interested in learning more, this community scrapbook is available to check out from Xwi7xwa Library. More information about this book is included in the Impacts, Legacy, and Healing section below.

Scanned book cover of Tr’ëhuhch’in Näwtr’udäh’ą: Finding Our Way Home, compiled by Chris Clarke and Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in survivors.

Tr’ëhuhch’in Näwtr’udäh’ą: Finding Our Way Home, a community scrapbook compiled by Chris Clarke and the K’änächá Group.

Choutla (Carcross) Indian Residential School:

 

Disgusted with the “moral perversions” that stampeders had brought with them to the Klondike, Bishop Bompas moved his diocese headquarters and established a mission school in Carcross in 1903.[11] Following his death in 1906, the new “Carcross Indian School” (also known as Choutla/Chooutla Residential School) was built outside of Carcross in 1911.[12] From 1911 to 1969, around 1,300 First Nations children attended the school from the Yukon, the Northwest Territories, and northern British Columbia. Upon their arrival at Choutla, children were taken to the basement and told to line up and strip as staff shaved their hair and threw away their clothes. Students were forbidden from speaking Hän and were required to pray each night before bed. Any breach of school regulations, especially theft or “unauthorized socialization,” was dealt with swiftly and harshly.[13]

 

“I was only 4 ½ when I went. I wasn’t even in kindergarten yet. They just dragged us out. Put us on the bus. I didn’t know where I was going. They just said I was going to School. And that’s it. They didn’t say where.” – Survivor [14]

 

“I don’t know, soon as you get there, you’re not a child anymore… you don’t know what’s going on… Gotta get up in the morning, gotta go down and eat, do your chores, and this and that… And at night I cry, lonesome, lonesome cry, nearly every night, under blanket cause I don’t want them to see me cry… or else I’ll get punished over that.” – Survivor [15]

 

“We weren’t allowed to speak our language. And we wondered why.” – Survivor [16]

 

Following a “half-day” schedule, students at Choutla were taught reading, writing, and basic math in the morning, and trade skills in the afternoon. In reality, however, students’ educations suffered as they worked to keep the school open, sewed, gardened, harvested crops, hauled wood, and cut and bailed hay for animals. This work was so difficult and dangerous that in 1941, the Department of Indian Affairs investigated the cases of seven boys who were hospitalized from September 1939 to August 1941 as a result of accidents caused by their work of cutting and transporting wood.[17]

 

“It was more like a work camp than a school.” – Survivor from Champagne, YT [18]

 

Although some parents initially supported their children being educated at these schools, many later appealed to authorities to have them return home, their pleas falling on deaf ears.[19] Because the riverboat trip between Dawson City and Carcross was expensive, children generally did not go home for holidays and had minimal contact with their families throughout the year.[20] Some children tried to run away, although most were unsuccessful.[21]

 

“My brothers and sisters, we were separated in school… can’t even talk to each other once in awhile.” – Survivor [22]

 

“I don’t remember very much about going home in the summer… My mom and dad, every time I went home they’re just like strangers to me…” – Survivor [23]

 

On April 17, 1939, the Choutla Residential School burned to the ground. While the old school had had a reputation for poor health, harsh discipline, bad food, and unpleasant living quarters, after the fire, conditions worsened. In 1942, a doctor wrote to J.E. Gibben, the Indian Agent at Dawson, reporting that overcrowding, unprotected water supply, and inadequate toilets had led to a high incidence of communicable diseases like measles, “in which every child was affected with but one exception,” causing at least one death.[24] During this time, there were several incidents of physical abuse such as strapping, cutting hair, and corporal punishment – the school’s principal even admitted to strapping students so severely that they had to be held down.[25] Despite these investigations and rampant abuses, a new school building was completed in 1954 and ran until 1969.

 

While the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation lists twenty students who died at Choutla, independent researchers have found that at least sixty students died either at the school, in hospital after injury at the school, or during school-related activities.[26] In September 2023, the discovery of fifteen potential gravesites near Choutla appear to confirm the accounts of survivors and witnesses.[27]

 

St. Paul’s Hostel:

 

In 1920, St. Paul’s Hostel in Dawson City opened to house mixed-heritage children who were not eligible to attend Choutla. Like at Choutla, St. Paul’s students carried the burden of underfunding, and were expected to do chores like cleaning, chopping and stacking wood, and cooking. Food supplies were insufficient and of poor quality, and as the students lived off the products of the school’s garden, they regularly went hungry.[28] One student says that the school “knew how to just barely keep you alive, you know, as far as groceries was concerned.”[29] Survivors particularly remember the atrocious abuse they suffered at the hands of their principal, Charles F. Johnson, and his wife, Margaret Johnson.[30]

 

“My experience in the hostel was not good. The caretaker was an extremely hatred-filled man. We’d get brutal beatings for no good reason. We were starving, which affected our learning. We couldn’t concentrate, which hampered me in later years with jobs and such. Humiliation and fear were a daily occurrence.” – Survivor [31]

 

“For any little reason at all, they would beat you to death. So that come from Mr. Johnson himself. He’s the only one that ruled with an iron hand… and Mrs. Johnson was just as bad… When the girls got into trouble or something and needed discipline, she’d take them upstairs and… just give them a flannel nightgown to wear. Then she’d call Johnson in to beat them. He’s a savage, you know.” – Survivor [32]

 

In 1954, two years after the territorial capital moved to Whitehorse, St. Pauls’ Hostel was closed and eligible students were sent to the newly re-built Choutla Residential School.

 

Impacts, Legacy, and Healing:

 

Some children did not come home from Choutla. For those who did return to their communities, they often felt disconnected/alienated from their families and ashamed about their own cultures and experiences at residential school. (long-term intergenerational effects) Many had never learned important life skills, like how to parent, how to speak their language, or how to live off the land.

 

“We were happy to be home, but… to me I was coming out of prison and in a different world. I felt like that, you know… ‘cause I don’t know what my life was. I didn’t feel happy. I didn’t feel happy to be home.” – Survivor [33]

 

“Fifteen years of residential school… You know by the time I left there I didn’t have a clue about nothing. Like I never knew about those different types of foods, different types of clothes.” – Survivor [34]

 

“Didn’t hug my parents when I got off the bus… Blamed them for sending me away.” – Survivor [35]

 

The intergenerational legacy of residential schools is complex, and has contributed to ongoing issues within Indigenous communities. These include the dramatic overrepresentation of Aboriginal people in Canadian prisons, high rates of alcohol and drug use within Indigenous communities, and mental health disorders like PTSD, depression, and addictive and suicidal behaviours.[36]

 

“A lot of parents were forced to drink then. Well, not really forced. That’s what they turned to. That was the only thing they could do ‘cause they couldn’t go to the welfare, they couldn’t go to the cops and ask for help.” – Survivor [37]

 

“I used to feel like giving up on life and join the ones I miss and love. The ones that I’ve just gotten to know were taken away from me again. I sit and try to figure out why I’ve always had these suicidal thoughts. Then found out I wasn’t the only one feeling this way.” – Survivor [38]

 

For many years, Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in survivors were unable to share their stories with others. Inspired by the kindness and empathy of friend Dorothy (“Dot”) Roberts, who, with her daughter Krystal, created a safe space to talk about their experiences, and with the help of Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in Council, community members, and the Aboriginal Healing Foundation, survivors were able to hire a support worker and establish a weekly support circle named K’änächá (“Taking Care of Ourselves”). They used this space to support one another emotionally, file claims for abuse at school, and share pictures and memories of life at Choutla and St. Paul’s in a community scrapbook. In 2006, the scrapbook was placed on display at Dänojà Zho Cultural Centre in an exhibit on residential schools, and was later published as Tr’ëhuhch’in Näwtr’udäh’ą: Finding Our Way Home. At the exhibit’s opening, Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in held a Welcome Home ceremony to honour and acknowledge the children who had left Dawson to attend residential school.

 

“The whole community of Dawson came out and others, too, from around the territory. For many of us, this was the first time anyone said ‘Welcome Home.’” – Survivor [39]

 

When people in Canada participate in Orange Shirt Day/National Day for Truth and Reconciliation on September 30, it is an opportunity to recognize the injustice and brutality of the Indian Residential School system, honour survivors and intergenerational survivors, recognize ongoing impacts on Indigenous people, families, and communities, and to remember the children who never came home. As the TRC Summary Report states: “Reconciliation is not an Aboriginal problem; it is a Canadian one.”[40]

Resources:

If you have information on a child who did not return home from an IRS, please contact the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation at nctr@umanitoba.ca or 1-855-415-4534.

For additional information on the IRSS, please consult the Indian Residential School History and Dialogue Centre, the Orange Shirt Society, the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation, and the Truth and Reconciliation Final Report.

For additional information about Tr’ondek Hwech’in survivors’ experiences, explore the K’änächá Group scrapbook at X̱wi7x̱wa Library: Tr’ëhuhch’in Näwtr’udäh’ą: Finding Our Way Home.

Mental Health Resources:

  • 24-hour National Residential School Crisis Line – 1-866-925-4419 or 604-985-4464
  • UBC Employee and Family Assistance Program – 1-800-424-0770
  • KUU-US Crisis Line Society (crisis services for Indigenous people in BC) – 1-800-588-8717
  • Tsow-Tun-Le Lum Society (toll-free support line) – 1-888-403-3123
  • Hope for Wellness Help Line (crisis services for all Indigenous people across Canada) – 1-855-242-3310 or by online chat (https://www.hopeforwellness.ca/)
  • Metis Crisis Line (BC) – 1-833-638-4722

 

[1] Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada, Honouring the Truth, Reconciling for the Future: Summary of the Final Report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada (Kingston/Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2015), v. https://ehprnh2mwo3.exactdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/Executive_Summary_English_Web.pdf

[2] Honouring the Truth, Reconciling for the Future, 1.

[3] Honouring the Truth, Reconciling for the Future, 1.

[4] “September 30, 2024: Orange Shirt Day | National Day for Truth and Reconciliation,” UBC Department of Medicine, September 18, 2024, https://medicine.med.ubc.ca/september-30-2024-orange-shirt-day-national-day-for-truth-and-reconciliation/.

[5] Helene Dobrowolsky, Hammerstones: A History of the Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in, 2nd ed. (Dawson City: Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in, 2014), xii.

[6] Dobrowolsky, Hammerstones, 28.

[7] Chris Clarke and the K’änächá Group, Tr’ëhuhch’in Näwtr’udäh’ą: Finding Our Way Home (Dawson City, YT: Tr’ondek Hwech’in Publication, 2009), 10.

[8] Clarke and K’änächá, Tr’ëhuhch’in Näwtr’udäh’ą, 10-13.

[9]  “Carcross IRS School Narrative,” National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation, University of Manitoba, June 22, 2004, last updated August 19, 2004, https://t-r-c.ca/nctr/school_narratives/carcross.pdf#:~:text=This%20narrative%20history%20of%20a%20Residential

[10] From 1903 to 1969, Carcross, Chooutla, and Choutla are used interchangeably to refer to this residential school.

[11] The original school site chosen was two miles from Carcross on 160 acres of land, and cost around $16,000 to build. This building could accommodate forty students, whereas the 1954 building had a capacity of 120.; “Carcross IRS School Narrative,” https://t-r-c.ca/nctr/school_narratives/carcross.pdf#:~:text=This%20narrative%20history%20of%20a%20Residential

[12] (https://www.explorenorth.com/library/history/choutla-NCTR.pdf)

[13] Kenneth Coates, “’Betwixt and Between’: The Anglican Church and the Children of the Carcross (Chooutla) Residential School, 1911-1954,” BC Studies 64, (Winter 1984-85): 35.

[14] Clarke and K’änächá, Tr’ëhuhch’in Näwtr’udäh’ą, 60.

[15] Clarke and K’änächá, Tr’ëhuhch’in Näwtr’udäh’ą, 63.

[16] Clarke and K’änächá, Tr’ëhuhch’in Näwtr’udäh’ą, 65.

[17] Quoted in Clarke and K’änächá, Tr’ëhuhch’in Näwtr’udäh’ą, 26.

[18] Clarke and K’änächá, Tr’ëhuhch’in Näwtr’udäh’ą, 26.

[19] Clarke and K’änächá, Tr’ëhuhch’in Näwtr’udäh’ą, 33.

[20] Clarke and K’änächá, Tr’ëhuhch’in Näwtr’udäh’ą, 44.

[21] Clarke and K’änächá, Tr’ëhuhch’in Näwtr’udäh’ą, 75.

[22] Clarke and K’änächá, Tr’ëhuhch’in Näwtr’udäh’ą, 66.

[23] Clarke and K’änächá, Tr’ëhuhch’in Näwtr’udäh’ą, 67.

[24] Clarke and K’änächá, Tr’ëhuhch’in Näwtr’udäh’ą, 41.

[25] “Carcross (Choutla),” National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation, University of Manitoba, accessed September 29, 2024, https://nctr.ca/residential-schools/northern/carcross-choutla/.

[26] Juanita Taylor, “First Nations in Yukon hope search for unmarked graves of missing children can ‘bring peace’,” CBC News, June 18, 2023, https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/ground-search-chooutla-residential-school-yukon-1.6874540

[27] Sara Connors, “Search of former Yukon residential school locates 15 potential unmarked graves,” APTN News, September 27, 2023, https://www.aptnnews.ca/national-news/search-of-former-yukon-residential-school-locates-15-potential-unmarked-graves/

[28] Clarke and K’änächá, Tr’ëhuhch’in Näwtr’udäh’ą, 50.

[29] Clarke and K’änächá, Tr’ëhuhch’in Näwtr’udäh’ą, 50.

[30] Charles F. Johnson was trained as an engineer and mechanic and travelled to the Klondike in 1897 as a prospector, but in 1898 he became an assistant teacher at the St. Peter’s mission school in Hay River, NWT.  From 1910-1920, he worked as the manager of the Choutla Residential School, and from 1920-1927 he was the principal of St. Paul’s Hostel. Survivor Richard Dixon recalls that he and his brother Ollie “had the hell beat out of us” by Johnson; Ollie later needed a wheelchair. In 1933, Johnson was ordained as deacon. ; “Fonds glen-1332- Charles F. Johnson fonds,” Alberta on Record, Archives Society of Alberta, accessed September 29, 2024, https://edit.albertaonrecord.ca/charles-f-johnson-fonds#:~:text=Fonds%20glen-1332%20-%20Charles%20F.%20Johnson.; Genesee Keevil, “Dawson residential school finally recognized by feds,” Yukon News, June 30, 2007, https://www.yukon-news.com/news/dawson-residential-school-finally-recognized-by-feds-6974231.

[31] Clarke and K’änächá, Tr’ëhuhch’in Näwtr’udäh’ą, 51.

[32] Clarke and K’änächá, Tr’ëhuhch’in Näwtr’udäh’ą, 51.

[33] Clarke and K’änächá, Tr’ëhuhch’in Näwtr’udäh’ą, 83.

[34] Clarke and K’änächá, Tr’ëhuhch’in Näwtr’udäh’ą, 82.

[35] Clarke and K’änächá, Tr’ëhuhch’in Näwtr’udäh’ą, 82.

[36] Piotr Wilk, Alana Maltby and Martin Cooke, “Residential Schools and the Effects on Indigenous Health and Well-Being in Canada – A Scoping Review,” Public Health Reviews 38, no. 8 (2017): 1-23. https://papers.ucalgary.ca/paediatrics/assets/residenial-schools.pdf

[37] Clarke and K’änächá, Tr’ëhuhch’in Näwtr’udäh’ą, 86.

[38] Clarke and K’änächá, Tr’ëhuhch’in Näwtr’udäh’ą, 89.

[39] Clarke and K’änächá, Tr’ëhuhch’in Näwtr’udäh’ą, 98.

[40] Honouring the Truth, Reconciling for the Future, vi.

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What’s That Number?

Posted on August 29, 2024 @1:25 pm by Claire Malek

Many thanks to guest blogger Lily Liu for contributing the below post! Lily is a graduate student at the UBC School of Information and recently completed a Professional Experience with Rare Books and Special Collections Library.


What’s That Number? A Thirty-Minute Dive into Deciphering a Traditional Chinese Numeral System

During my time working with the Lock Tin Lee fonds at the RBSC, I came upon a certificate that used a number I had never seen.

Image 1: close-up of a number I did not recognize [Lock Tin Lee fonds, Rare Books and Special Collections, University of British Columbia Library, RBSC-ARC-1849-09-03]

From my RBSC peers, I learned that this number belonged to a system called Suzhou numerals (苏州码子; 蘇州碼子). As per their namesake, these numerals originated from the Suzhou region in China and were a traditional numeral system used by the Chinese before the introduction of Indo-Arabic numerals. Due to its ease of use, the Suzhou numeral system was popular amongst merchants, bookkeepers, and other calculation-centric occupations. It is the only surviving variant of the rod numeral system still in use today and can be found in the markets, old-style tea restaurants, and traditional Chinese medicine shops in Hong Kong and Macau.*

But what was the number on the certificate specifically? It did not correspond immediately to any numbers on the comparison chart for Suzhou numerals.

Image 2: comparison chart for Suzhou numerals

Deciphering the number became a collaborative effort between my curious roommate, myself, and the comparison chart. Our thought process proceeded as follows:

Option 1: 42?

〤 and 〢 are accounted for, but there are two additional horizontal strokes to the right that do not correspond to any number immediately on the chart, and the strokes look too intentional to be a mistake.

Option 2: 417?

Perhaps the writer just really elongated the short vertical stroke on top of the Suzhou numeral “7” (〧), and just really missed the stroke’s centre positioning and shifted it to the left? Yes…we were pushing it.

Image 3: a visual explanation supplied by my roommate

Option 3: 422!

My roommate spotted the smaller text that noted exceptions to the standard comparison chart.

Image 4: Wikipedia excerpt explaining exceptions to the numbers’ forms

Essentially, because numbers 1, 2, and 3 all use vertical strokes in the Suzhou numeral system, adjustments to these numbers’ standard forms are made whenever they appear consecutively to avoid confusion. In our case, when two “twos” appear consecutively, their form changes to “〢二”: the certificate’s number is 422.

Between reading up on the system and our back and forth quibbles we took a total of thirty minutes to arrive at the answer—but what a satisfying conclusion it was!

*Please note: The overview above is paraphrased from Wikipedia pages on Suzhou numerals, which are below. A link about counting rods (算筹; 算籌), the ancient form of mathematical calculation in East Asia, is also below.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suzhou_numerals

https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E8%8B%8F%E5%B7%9E%E7%A0%81%E5%AD%90

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Counting_rods

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Visit the new Chung | Lind Gallery

Posted on May 8, 2024 @1:00 pm by cshriver

UBC Library is excited to announce the official opening of the Chung | Lind Gallery showcasing the Wallace B. Chung and Madeline H. Chung Collection and Phil Lind Klondike Gold Rush Collection. The new exhibition space in the Irving K. Barber Learning Centre on UBC’s Vancouver campus brings together two library collections of rare and culturally significant materials from Canada’s history.

Read more about the Chung | Lind Gallery:

 

We know that our patrons have missed being able to visit the Chung Collection Room as we have worked to prepare the new gallery. Thank you so much for your patience! We look forward to welcoming you to the new space and also introducing you to the Phil Lind Klondike Gold Rush Collection for the first time.

The Chung | Lind Gallery, on level 2 of the Irving K. Barber Learning Centre, is open Tuesday-Saturday, 10 am-5 pm. The gallery is free and open to the public, and people of all ages are encouraged to attend. Small group tours and class visits are available by appointment. For more information, please contact (604) 822-3053 or rare.books@ubc.ca.

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