BC History Sample : simplebooklet.com

Copyright 2019 by Arrowwood Holdings Ltd All rights reserved No part of this publication may be reproduced distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means including photocopying recording or other electronic or mechanical methods without the prior written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other non commercial uses permitted by copyright law For permission requests write to the publisher ISBN 978 1 989397 22 0 The Great Canadian Adventure Box 4 Arrowwood AB T0L 0B0 www thegreatcanadianadventure ca Proposed Schedule Week 1 Introduction to British Columbia People of the Pacific Northwest Week 2 To Russia with Fur The Spanish Claim and The British Move In Week 3 Gold Rush A Railway to Unity The Qing Dynasty The Head Tax Movie options For younger children Week 4 Timeline of Events for British Columbia Brother Bear Codebreaking the Arms Mulan For older children British Columbia History 2 Shanghai Noon PG12 The Great Canadian History Adventure 2019

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BRITISH COLUMBIA HISTORY TOPICS TITLE AUTHOR ISBN ASIN People of the Northwest Coast All aboard Frida Wishinsky 978 1897349397 A whale tale Nations of the Northwest Coast Friday Wishinsky Kathryn Smithyman 978 1897349175 978 0778704706 My first Solo Erika Yahgujaanaas 978 1729573532 The Salmon Twins Caroll Simpson 978 1927527009 Raven A trickster Tale Gerald McDermott 978 0152024499 The Song Within My Heart David Bouchard 978 0889955721 Eagle Boy Richard Lee Vaughan 978 1570615924 Gray Wolf s Search Bruce Swanson 978 0977918317 S if for Spirit Bear G Gregory Roberts 978 1585362912 Spirit Bear Jennifer Harrington 978 0992032043 Boom Town Sonia Levitin 978 0531300435 What was the Gold Rush Joan Holub 978 0448462899 Gold Rush Winter Claire Rudolf Murphy B004C43F84 The Bite of the Gold Bug Barthe Declements B0031TZ9BW The Gold Rush Pedro s Pan Bobbie Kalman Mattheyw Lasley 978 0778701118 978 1513261874 Dear Canada A trail of broken Dreams Barbara Haworth Attard 978 0439974059 You wouldn t want to work on the railroad Ian Graham 978 0531228548 The Railways Robert Livesey 978 0773759015 Blood Iron Building the Railway Paul Yee 9780545985932 Ghost Train Paul Yee 9781554983896 Chinese Culture Holly Duhig 978 1786371980 Flat Stanley s Worldwide Adventures 7 The Flying Chinese Wonders Chinese New Year Jeff Brown 978 0061430022 Judith Jango Cohen 978 1575057637 Chinese Fairy Tale Feasts Paul Yee 978 1566569934 Dim Sum for Everyone Grace Lin 978 0440417705 Kit Flying Grace Lin 978 0553112542 Thanking the Moon Grace Lin 978 0375861017 Moon Festival Ching Yeung Russel 978 1563975967 The Ballad of Mulan Song Nan Zhang 978 1572271333 A Journey in Our Family s Chinese Garden Li Jian 978 1602204553 Lin Yi s Lantern Brenda Williams 978 1846861475 Mooncakes Loretta Seto 978 1459814318 My Name is Yoon Helen Recorv its 978 0374351144 Tikki Tikki Tembo Arlene Mosel 978 0312367480 Gold Rush The Railroad Chinese Culture British Columbia History 3 The Great Canadian History Adventure 2019

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Hello My name is Chen I came to Canada with my father to work on the railroad He was a navvi and I carried water My father and I tried to save enough money to return to China when the railroad was completed but by then the voyage was too expensive and nobody would give us a loan We now rent a room in Vancouver s Chinatown My father built a noodle cart I sell noodle soup on the street and he does laundry I miss my mother but we do not have enough money saved yet to bring her and my sister to Canada I have been practicing my writing and I want to send my mother a letter describing what our life here is like so join me while I tell her what I have learned on my Great Canadian Adventure in British Columbia British Columbia History 5 The Great Canadian History Adventure 2019

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Peoples of the Pacific Northwest I have discovered that people who speak many different languages live on the Pacific Coast of British Columbia Although every group seems to have its own unique way of doing things in general they share one culture I have heard that before Europeans arrived and introduced cloth most coastal people wore almost no clothing Men went naked when it wasn t too cold and women would wear a simple skirt made of shredded cedar fiber The men peeled long strips of bark from the trees They would split the outer layer away and shred the flexible inner layer The resulting felted strips of bark were soft and could be plaited sewn or woven into a variety of fabrics that were either dense and watertight or soft and comfortable If a man built the longhouse for his own family he lived in that longhouse along with his wife his male and female children and their children As each member of the family grew to adulthood and married they were assigned space for their family within the family longhouse The Northwest Pacific Coastal people did not live in teepees They lived in longhouses built of thick cedar planks Villages were always close to sailable water with houses positioned parallel to the beach facing the water The longhouses were huge Some were about 100 feet long and twenty five feet wide with low roofs for easy heating The only openings in the whole building were the entrance door and a hole in the roof to allow smoke to escape 1 In what way were these houses different from the tipis of the Plains people 2 In what way were these houses similar to the longhouses of the people of the Eastern Woodlands 3 In what ways were these homes suitable for the environment the coastal people lived in If the longhouse was built by the tribe the Chief would assign the spaces within the house Each family would be assigned a living area a space of their own within the house British Columbia History 4 Why do you think people used to live in homes that offered so little privacy compared to today s standards 7 The Great Canadian History Adventure 2019

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The Haida One thing that sets the Northwest Coast people apart from other First Peoples groups is that they recognize ownership of land and property Families claim sites for fishing and gathering and own land The amount of property that a family owned helped them to accumulate wealth The Haida people are the most fearsome of the tribes that live along the coast They live on the Queen Charlotte Islands Haida Gwaii and in the southern part of southeast Alaska Father and I met a Haida man and his son in the city when they came to trade and they invited us to visit them We were eager to accept and we learned a lot Haida society is divided into two groups or moieties one called Raven and the other Eagle Haida families belong to specific linages which hold the family s property Linages give family members rights to salmon streams trapping sites patches of edible plants and tobacco cedar stands bird rookeries stretches of coastline and house sites Management of the lineage s property was in the hands of the lineage chief 1 What is a lineage 2 What does it mean when a lineage is matrilineal 3 Do you have a lineage 4 5 Is your lineage matrilineal or patrilineal Does your lineage secure you any property How does owning property result in wealth 6 7 Linages also included rights to a wealth of myths and legends dances songs and musical compositions Names are a highly coveted lineage property and were bestowed to mark different stages of people s lives It is typical of Haida culture for men to acquire several different names in their lifetimes especially powerful and distinguished men 8 9 10 Names are also given to important material belongings such as fish traps houses canoes feast dishes and even feast spoons Face painting and tattoo designs were also lineage property as are all crests 11 How is this different from the social economies of the Plains and Eastern Woodlands people who did not own property Consider the resources the eastern peoples relied on to survive Why would owning property not work for the Plains and Eastern Woodland tribes Consider the resources used by the Northwest Coastal people Why would owning property work for them How do you think the coastal peoples concept of ownership might have affected Treaty negotiations in British Columbia Were the coastal people under the same pressures to sign treaties with the Canadian government Families are ranked within the village The chief of the most powerful and prestigious family is the village Chief British Columbia History 9 The Great Canadian History Adventure 2019

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T R E A T I E S I N B C When BC joined Confederation in 1871 only fourteen treaties on Vancouver Island had been signed 1 Do the BC First Nations have the same motivations to sign treaties than the Plains people had 2 Why might the Treaty negotiations be considered complex 3 What do you think a non assertion model treaty would look like The BC treaty process currently includes sixty First Nations at fortynine sets of negotiations BC treaty negotiations are arguably the most complex set of negotiations Canada has ever undertaken In the past the Government of Canada required First Nations to cede release and surrender their aboriginal rights in exchange for treaty rights This is referred to as an extinguishment model First Nations in the BC treaty negotiations process have explored an approach known as the non assertion model the First Nation agrees to not assert any governance related right other than those exhaustively set out in the governance agreement British Columbia History 10 The Great Canadian History Adventure 2019

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Our friends explained that the ocean was the major source of food for all the peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast They catch salmon halibut and other fishes collect shellfish smelt crabs seaweed and even hunt whales Shellfish including clams oysters and mussels are gathered by women or by the slaves of the higher ranking individuals Men are responsible for fishing Smaller fish were often caught by means of small nets woven of nettle fibres attached to a wooden frame Humpback and grey whales migrating along the outer coasts of Vancouver Island and Washington State s Olympic Peninsula are the most prestigious prey of Nuu chah nulth and Makah sea hunters They pursue the whales in cedar canoes in the open Pacific It looked to me as though when fish were caught a small amount is eaten fresh but the largest proportion would be cleaned by the women and hung out to dry in smokehouses to preserve it for use during the winter months Whales successfully killed and towed back to the whalers village as well as dead whales that drifted to shore were important sources of meat oil bone and sinew They served us some dried fish with oil and our friends explained that the oil came from three important sources whales seals and eulachon Eulachon is a type of smelt that is so full of oil one end can be lit and it will burn giving it a common name of candlefish Can you find an image of a painting by Bill Holm called The Strike for your album What equipment did they use for whale hunting Eulachon fisheries are located on a number of major rivers People catch the eulachon which are then processed into oil This is either kept or traded with other people Once food had been gathered its preparation was the responsibility of the women who often cooked in either wooden boxes or baskets British Columbia History 11 The Great Canadian History Adventure 2019

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Canoes are their main means of transporting goods and people up and down the coast My friend s father owns a beautiful canoe Haida canoes are carved from the gigantic red cedar trees that grows on Haida Gwaii They are highly prized by chiefs of other nations throughout the coast Canoe makers in each village work on their new craft throughout the autumn at sites where the very best red cedars stood They wait for snowfall which allows them to sled the roughed out canoes from the woods to the nearest beach and tow to the home village where they are finished over the winter The Northwest Pacific Coast tribes who build these distinctive canoes believe that each canoe has its own personality and spirit which is why they are given lineage names War canoes have the same sharp projecting prow as the freight canoes and but often have separate carved crests at the bow or stern The Haida are feared along the coast because of their practice of lightning raids against which their enemies have little defence The Haida were known as raiders Vikings of the North Pacific in villages from Sitka Alaska to northern California They go to war to acquire wealth such as copper and Chilkat blankets but primarily for slaves Slaves increased their productivity or were traded to other tribes High ranking captives are also the source of other property received in ransom such as crest designs dances and songs British Columbia History Chilkat blankets were status symbols worn typically by male elites at potlaches and ceremonies Owning one necessitated incredible wealth as the blankets take a year to make Because of their importance they were sometimes hung outside of grave houses to honor a high ranking deceased tribal member 14 The Great Canadian History Adventure 2019

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T O T E M P O L E S Walking around the village our friends pointed out their totem poles A totem pole or monumental pole is a tall structure created by Northwest Coast Indigenous peoples Although I don t understand the symbolism I know that the poles are very important and that they show a nation s family s or individual s history and displays their rights to certain territories songs dances and other aspects of their culture They are carved of red cedar and are usually painted Poles vary in size and generally face the shores of rivers or the ocean Animal images on totem poles depict creatures from family crests These crests are considered the property of specific family lineages and reflect the history of that lineage I have noticed that two contrasting colors such as red and black are used to show solid and empty space Some have animals like beaver bear wolf shark killer whale raven eagle frog and mosquito on their crests My friend says the animals on the top of the pole represent a group s membership and identity while the rest of the pole may represent a family s history Totem poles do not show a nation s social organization in a top down method rather they tell a story about a particular nation or person s beliefs family history and cultural identity Not just anyone can carve a totem pole Specialists known as carvers are commissioned to make them They are sacred monuments specific to certain nations and therefore carry deep meaning for those peoples and their ancestors British Columbia History 16 The Great Canadian History Adventure 2019

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VICTORIA BC CANADA SEPTEMBER 1 2013 Totem poles in Thunderbird park carved by Indigenous Canadians The park is part of the Royal BC Museum All but two of the totem poles in the park are replicas carved by indigenous ar sts hired by the BC Museum as part of the pole restora on project Use the photo on the next page and see what you can you discover about the symbolism used on the totem poles Totem Pole animals and carvings might include beaver eagle frog hawk owl raven Thunderbird whale wolf bear salmon White White is used along with other light colours as a background and it symbolizes skies and spacious heavens It can also represent purity peace and death Red Red is made from a mineral called cinnabar When used it represents blood war or valour Blue Made from copper salts and most commonly used as the symbol for rivers waters lakes and skies Certain tribes used it for mountains in the distance Blue stands for sincerity and happiness Yellow Yellow is created with clays moss roots and tannic barks from cedars It reflects the symbol of the sun light and happiness This is often a predominating colour Green Made from algae or juice from grass it represents trees and mountains Purple Made from Huckleberries Represents mountains in the distance Black Made from charcoal or mud from sulphur springs black represents power British Columbia History 17 The Great Canadian History Adventure 2019

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Our new friends had invited us to a potlatch We didn t know what to expect but they told us that it was a sharing ceremony practiced by wealthy individuals among the Northwest coastal nations The word potlatch means to give and wealthy members of the tribe would acquire honor by giving away wealth in the form of material goods like dried foods canoes blankets etc The receivers would earn honor by reciprocating The potlatch redistributes wealth throughout the community The potlatch could last many days and nights We were not the only guests that were invited and people started arriving from far away At the ceremony we witnessed the inheritance of names privileges the honouring of the dead and one day everybody helped to erect a new totem pole It surely was a very important family event It was clear to us that the village s greatest symbol of wealth and power was their copper shield They called it a copper Every shield has its own name history and value They were about three feet long and are painted or sometimes engraved with the owner s crest design The chief wanted to name a child and he invited people to witness it telling the history of that name to the guests After the naming the child s father stood up and announced the family s ceremonial belongings that would be passed to his son in the future Our friends told us that the only thing more valuable than a copper was a song They said that songs are usually passed down within families to the oldest son and are considered the most treasured gift one can receive No amount of blankets can equal the value of a song There were so many gifts and so much food that I am sure Potlatch hosts must take years to gather make and prepare gifts to be given away at a potlatch Like wampum belts for the Eastern Woodland people a copper documented the most important events and transactions engaged in during the life of its owner and perhaps his or her descendants as well It looked like the chief gave away much of what he had collected throughout the year The more a chief gives away the more he is respected Other chiefs also hold potlatches That way during another potlatch a chief gets some things back This keeps everyone happy It was like being in one big family Each chief possesses certain songs dances and stories These can also be given away as gifts British Columbia History In 1893 there was copper nicknamed Making The House Empty of Blankets that was worth 5 000 blankets Another worth 7000 blankets was called All Other Coppers Are Ashamed To Look At It 19 The Great Canadian History Adventure 2019

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One missionary William Duncan even wrote in 1875 that the potlatch was by far the most formidable of all obstacles in the way of Indians becoming Christians or even civilized The gifts that were exchanged were designed blankets dried foods like oilcans candle fish oil rendered from whale blubber salt sugar flour baskets pottery slaves between the wealthy and many other gifts In 1884 hoping that it would force the North West Coast people to assimilate into western culture the Canadian government banned various cultural practices in the Indian Act including the potlatch What do you think determined the value of a gift Every Indian or other person who engages in or assists in celebrating the Indian festival known as the Potlatch or the Indian dance known as the Tamanawas is guilty of a misdemeanor and shall be liable to imprisonment for a term not more than six nor less than two months in any gaol or other place of confinement and any Indian or other person who encourages either directly or indirectly an Indian or Indians to get up such a festival or dance or to celebrate the same or who shall assist in the celebration of same is guilty of a like offence and shall be liable to the same punishment What do you think made a person wealthy What meaning do you think poverty had for the Northwest Coast people How might a person achieve wealth However with the coming of regular trade with Europeans in the 19th century items that were considered incredibly valuable like blankets could be purchased with otter skins that took not time to hunt and therefore had no value Suddenly there was so much of everything that merely giving the objects eventually became no longer enough Some burned their wealth in piles on the beach as an ultimate display of wealth The honoree was expected to reciprocate without having received anything Totem poles were cut down taken away by Europeans and placed in museums and parks around the world After amendments to the Indian Act in 1950 Northwest Coast people were allowed to have potlaches and erect totem poles again However many communities have struggled to get back the poles that were taken from them For example in 1803 a Nuu chah nulth chief gave away 200 muskets 200 yards of cloth 100 mirrors and gunpowder in 1921 a Kwakiutl chief gave away thousands of dollars worth of purchased goods including gas powered boats and boat engines sewing machines pool tables and gramophones What is the significance of a government allowing a people to practice their culture traditions that are thousands of years old Missionaries and government agents could not understand this gift giving practice and considered it a worse than useless custom It was seen as wasteful unproductive and contrary to civilized values British Columbia History 20 The Great Canadian History Adventure 2019

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To Russia with Fur I wanted to understand more about why the Europeans came to British Columbia and learned that it started with the trade of sea otter furs There was already a huge fur trade for beaver pelts buffalo and lynx furs on the eastern side of Canada but crossing the Rocky Mountains was a difficult journey so British Columbia was not easy for the French and the British to reach It was the last part of North America they explored However looking at a map we see that the Pacific Northwest is closer to the continent of Asia When the Russians established trading posts the Alaskan people the Inupiat became the middleman in the fur trade The Inupiat traded seal oil and maqtaak to the Athabascan people inland in exchange for beaver wolf moose and caribou skins They traded the excess furs to the Russian traders for tobacco metal and other European goods Sea otter pelts were in high demand by the upper classes in both China and in Europe because the thick water repellent furs were sewn into coats hats and even bed covers In 1725 the Czar of Russia Peter the Great instructed explorer Vitus Bering to prove definitively that Russia Siberia was separated from North America and to find the nearest European settlement in the New World Between 1743 and 1799 Russian fur hunting expeditions returned to Russia with 187 000 pelts from Alaskan waters worth about 6 million dollars The Russians established a permanent settlement in Sitka in 1804 which at least by European standards gave them legitimate claim to the area What reasons might Czar Peter the Great have had to hope that North America was connected to Asia Bering sailed to the Aleutian Islands west of Alaska from Siberia Although the ship was wrecked and Bering died his surviving crew got home in a ship they built from what was left over of their vessel They had enough otter pelts to earn a small fortune and soon Russian entrepreneurs and shipowners were sailing down the Pacific coast of North America On some islands and parts of the Alaskan peninsula groups of traders were capable of relatively peaceful coexistence with the local inhabitants Other groups had more conflicts culminating in the Battle of Sitka between the Russians and the Tlingit As with other areas of European contact eighty percent of the Aleut population was destroyed by diseases against which they had no immunity during the first two generations of Russian contact British Columbia History Why did a permanent settlement give Russia a legitimate claim to Alaska 21 The Great Canadian History Adventure 2019

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Like the Hudson s Bay Company the Russian America Company was given rights by the Russian tsar to govern the area Soon the Russian Orthodox Church established itself in Alaska As Russian fur traders settled in Alaska and married Aleut women their children became known as the Alaskan Creole The Alaskan Creole What other nation s history sounds similar to this one s Russian America was operated by the RussianAmerica Company a business similar to the Hudson s Bay Company but the difference was that the Russian settlements were meant for trade not as a colony As a Russian colony the RAC observed Russian laws for the individuals and families living within its boundaries in Alaska Under Russian law the offspring of Russian men and Native women were referred to as Creoles They were highly respected for their ancestry were considered vital members of society and viewed as a higher class of citizenry within the colony When Russia ceded Alaska to the United States it offered full citizenship to any Aleut or Creole people that wanted to move to Russia within three years of the treaty but many felt they wanted to stay in their homelands At this point in American history those of mixed blood were considered half persons Despite being born and raised in Alaska Creoles were not offered American citizenship until 1927 How is this different from how the Metis were viewed in the British colonies of Canada By 1867 the sea otter furs were depleted and Russia did not see the economic value of maintaining a colony in Alaska It offered to sell Alaska to the United States of America believing that America would prevent Russia s greatest rival Great Britain from settling the area America agreed to purchase the land and signed the Treaty of Cession The terms of the treaty turned the colony of Alaska turned over to American control British Columbia History 23 The Great Canadian History Adventure 2019

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the Spanish claim Spain had claimed North America with the Papal Bull of 1493 but the Spanish didn t settle up the western coast further than California They felt it was too remote and they weren t able to find colonists willing to settle there What did it signal to countries like Britain that Spain did not settle the Pacific coast A young man named George Vancouver was on board Cook s ship He returned on his own expedition in 1790 1795 and named many of the bays inlets and coastal landform features Soon trade was dominated by British and Americans with Russians to the north in Alaska Among Americans the most famous expedition to the region was that of Meriwether Lewis and William Clark Hearing that the Russians had starting settling outposts Spain sent its navy from its colony in California Its purpose was to keep the region out of Russian and British hands It made symbolic acts of possession like planting a cross in Alaska but they returned to California without establishing any control so did not prevent the Russians from continuing their trade Four years later in 1778 a British explorer named James Cook was exploring a possible route for the Northwest Passage He travelled south from Europe around the southern most tip of Africa past Australia and up the Pacific Ocean until he reached Nootka Sound on the west coast of Vancouver Island Within a few years British traders came by sea and developed a flourishing fur trade with coastal Aboriginal peoples When Spain discovered the British fur trade around Vancouver Island in 1789 it seized some British commercial ships triggering Britain to threated war Spain unable to take on the fierce British navy surrendered many of its trade and territory claims in the Pacific to Britain and eventually transferred its claims north of California to the United States in 1819 British Columbia History The British Move IN 25 In 1793 Alexander Mackenzie explorer for the Northwest Company followed the Peace and Fraser rivers to the Pacific The breadth of Canada was now crossed The Hudson s Bay company received the fur trade monopoly from the crown Britain named the colony Vancouver Island and named James Douglas as Governor to manage the area Soon American fur traders and missionaries devoted to converting First Nations to Christianity started arriving in the region The decline of the fur trade after 1840 reduced both British and Russian interest in the Pacific Northwest Russia started negotiations with the United States to sell its land claim to America The United States also negotiated a large portion of the Northwest Coast from Britain as part of the Oregon Treaty of 1846 The Great Canadian History Adventure 2019

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