Cultivating Safe Spaces Workshop

Posted on 31 May 202122 September 2021 by Vernon Museum

cultivating Safe Spaces

online Workshops

After two sold-out sessions in June, GVMA is honoured that Elaine Alec is able to run a September session of the Cultivating Safe Spaces Online Workshop.

WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 29, 2021

1-2:30 PM

Cultivating Safe Spaces will be an online workshop led by Elaine Alec, a Syilx and Secwepemc community planner, author, political advisor, women’s advocate and teacher.

The Cultivating Safe Spaces Workshop is recommended to those working in Not for Profit sectors, Community Planning, Public Health, Education, Arts and Culture, Tourism, and anyone interested in learning more about creating and cultivating safe spaces of respect and inclusion in our community.

community, advocacy, & safe spaces

Elaine Alec is a direct descendant of hereditary chiefs, Pelkamulaxw and Soorimpt.

For over two decades, Elaine Alec has been leading expert in Indigenous community planning, health advocacy and creating safe spaces utilizing Indigenous approaches and ceremony.

We were honoured to have Elaine Alec visit, virtually, the Okanagan Online Book Club to discuss her book, Calling My Spirit back.

Click here learn more about Elaine Alec and her work.

Cultivating Safe Spaces Workshop Facilitator, Public Speaker, and Author, Elaine Alec

Bitter Root, or Spitlem in nsyilxcən language, is important to Syilx culture and people

Cultivating Safe Spaces registration information

Cultivating Safe Spaces will take place in an online workshop forum on Wednesday, September 29, from 1-2:30 PM.

Registration is open to all, with a maximum of 24 participants in each session. The Cultivating Safe Spaces Workshop fee is $40.00.

Please contact us below to register for one of the two sessions. We will then contact you to confirm your registration and provide you the link for the online workshop. Thank you – lim lemt!

S.P. French Family

Posted on 28 May 20217 June 2021 by Vernon Museum

french family land

May 28, 2021

Near the entrance to the Vernon Recreation Centre, a humble plaque in the shade of a tall tree memorializes the 1891 residence of S.P. French.

That year, Samuel Phelps French, born in England in 1844, moved his wife Susannah and nine children from Winnipeg to Vernon and purchased between 10 to 20 acres of land to raise cattle.

A warm welcome

The family’s 1891 residence was actually not located where the plaque indicates, but on 32^nd Avenue, then known as Schubert Street.

Many important events passed beneath the roof of this residence, and the French family extended a welcome to friends and strangers alike.

In November of 1902, the Vernon News reported that “the hospitable home of Mr. and Mrs. S.P. French was

DA plaque outside the Vernon Recreation Centre memorializes the first two residences of S.P. French (pictured top right, GVMA #5088). The Vernon Museum does not have a photograph of either of the houses.

taxed to it utmost capacity to receive the large number of visitors who during the afternoon and evening assembled to extend a welcome to the bride of Mr. S.P. French, Jr.

changing ownership & land use

It was not until 1905 that S.P. purchased 65 acres near where the Rec Centre now stands from the Estate of the late Luc Girouard and built a second house. By 1914, the land had been parceled up, with some of it being sold to the Canadian Northern Pacific Railway. S.P. then purchased a parcel of land east of Vernon and built a third house, on Sarsons Road. This residence still stands, while the plaque serves as a memorial of the two family homes that came before it.

S.P. helped to lay Vernon’s first sidewalk on 30^th Avenue in 1893. He also served on the Vernon City Council in 1903 and was a devout member of the local Presbyterian Church.

names & recognition

S.P. passed away in 1926, predeceased by his wife Susannah in 1912. His nine children and twenty-eight grandchildren went on to have remarkable lives of their own. One son, Percy, even followed in his father’s footsteps and was named the Okanagan’s first “Master Farmer” by Winnipeg’s Nor’ West Farmer Magazine in 1932.

While his son was bestowed with the title “Master Farmer”, the residence of the family of S.P. French family is recognized with a plaque.

Plaques such as this, as well as street names, are often in memory and recognition of the pioneers, agriculturalists and ranchers who first “settled” this area.

In recent years, there has been more of an acknowledgment of Syilx place names, and the nsyilixcen language of the Syilx people of the Okanagan Nation is being incorporated into place names and signs in places such as the UBC Okanagan campus.

Gwyn Evans

Bride Ships

Posted on 21 May 2021 by Vernon Museum

ship of brides

May 21, 2021

In September of 1862, the S.S. Tynemouth arrived in Victoria to the great excitement of the city’s mostly-male population; 60 young women between the ages of 14 and 20 were on board, having been brought over from England to a new life in Canada.

The Tynemouth was the largest of the “Bride Ships,” a series of vessels that transported British women overseas to help populate the North American colonies.

Little More Than Cargo

Of the 60 individuals onboard the Tynemouth, most were orphaned or came from impoverished families, and were promised a brighter future in Canada.

The sea voyage was a rough one: the women were treated as little more than cargo, stuffed into the bottom of the ship with inadequate food and poor sanitation. Many became ill during this journey of nearly 100 days.

Dr. John Chipp’s house in Vernon circa 1891. Chipp arrived in B.C. via a “Bride Ship” from England in 1862.

“mostly cleanly, well-built, pretty-looking young women”

Even so, when the ship finally arrived in Victoria, the women were deemed “satisfactory”: the Colonist newspaper reported that they were “mostly cleanly, well-built, pretty-looking young women … Taken altogether, we are highly pleased with the appearance of the ‘invoice,’ and believe that they will give a good account of themselves in whatever station of life they may be called to fill.”

The stories of approximated half the women who traveled overseas in the Tynemouth have been traced. Some married and started families, while others worked as governesses, midwives, and teachers. Sadly, many also faced lives of destitution and depravity in B.C.’s mining towns.

A Local Connection

This interesting story also has a local connection. Alongside the 60 female passengers who traveled on the Tynemouth in 1862 was a man named John Chipp, who served as the vessel’s chief doctor.

When the ship arrived in B.C., Chipp set up a business in Barkerville before moving to Vernon in 1891. Here he became one of the city’s first doctors. Chipp’s daughter, Clara Cameron, was instrumental in the establishment of the Vernon Jubilee Hospital and his son-in-law, W.F. Cameron, served as Vernon’s first mayor.

John Chipp passed away in August of 1893. The contributions of Chipp, as well as W.F. and Clara Cameron are relatively well-documented and honoured.

We can also take a moment to think about those whose names and faces we don’t know, or remember, the young women who were integral to early settler life in Canada.

Gwyn Evans

Asian Heritage Month: Indo Canadian Culture

Posted on 18 May 202118 May 2021 by Vernon Museum

recognition, resilience, resolve

May 17, 2021

May is Asian Heritage Month, and this year’s theme is “Recognition, Resilience, and Resolve.”

Vernon is home to hundreds of individuals of Pilipino, Vietnamese, Japanese, Pakistani, Chinese, and Korean descent. The city also has a large Indo-Canadian population.

First Sikh Immigrants to Okanagan

The first immigrants from India began arriving in the Okanagan Valley at the turn of the 20^th century; three Sikh men arrived in Rutland in 1909, and others followed in 1913.

“Little Evidence of Discrimination”

Most took up jobs in the lumber industry, with plans to eventually return to India. It was not until a few years later that some decided to settle their families permanently in the Valley.

By the 1970s and ‘80s, the East Indian population in Vernon had increased significantly. A 1976 report on the ethnic composition of the Okanagan Valley suggests that Vernon had “little evidence of discrimination.”

And yet, the report also states that “East Indians claim that their members have been beaten by white men for no apparent reason. They are afraid to take part in public events because of bad experiences.”

A 2006 photo of the North Okanagan Sikh Temple and Gurdwara. The temple was built in Vernon by the North Okanagan Sikh Cultural Society in 1987

Traditional Indian clothing for rent or sale for attendees of Bollywood Bang charity event

“We Mainly Kept to Ourselves”

In 1997, a researcher interviewed several Indo-Canadian families living in Vernon, and found that 17 out of 20 of those interviews lived in one high-density neighbourhood, often in duplexes. Some of the reasons the families cited for living there were the lower cost of housing and the proximity to friends.

However, the researcher concluded that this collective housing was also a reaction to feelings of alienation from the larger community.

One interviewee suggested that “people looked at our turbans and the traditional outfits that our women wear with disgust and suspicion. We kept mainly to ourselves.”

Celebrating Indo Canadian Culture

In 2021, the treatment of Vernon’s Indo Canadian population has certainly improved, largely through efforts to introduce Sikhism, Hinduism, Jainism and Indo Canadian culture to a new generation of people through public events like the Diwali Festival.

The wildly popular Bollywood Bang event, spearheaded by Vernon City Councillor, Dalvir Nahal, attracted hundreds of people and contributed thousands of dollars each year to local North Okanagan charity organizations.

In the 2020 provincial election, NDP candidate Harwinder Sandhu faced horrific racism during her Vernon-Monashee MLA campaign, with her signs defaced by swastikas and misogynistic words. Despite this opposition, Ms. Sandu was elected in a clear statement by the majority of Vernon’s citizens against this kind of discrimination.

The resilience and resolve of MLA Sandu, Councillor Dalvir Nahal, Activist Min Sidhu, and the many other Indo-Canadian men and women who have come before them have contributed to Vernon’s recognition of this diverse cultural group, even if work remains yet to be done.

Gwyn Evans

Mary Neilson

Posted on 10 May 2021 by Vernon Museum

Honorary “Granny” to many

May 10, 2021

She was a mother to seven of her own children, and honorary “Granny” to dozens of others.

Darn Good Citizen

In 1960, Mary Neilson was presented Vernon’s Good Citizen award for her years of mending sweaters and darning socks for young hockey players.

A Love of Music

Mary Neilson was born in Kirkmichel, a village in Southern Scotland. From a young age, she had a love for music, winning first place at a music festival when she was nine years old for her rendition of a Scottish ballad titled “Caller ‘Ou.”

Portrait of Mary Neilson, seated, with her husband Andrew and seven children in 1955

She continued this trend as a young woman, singing in church choirs and entertaining veterans, as well as performing Scottish songs on her own radio show on CKY-FM Winnipeg between 1924 and 1928. Her show, “Burns Nicht,” was on the air during radio’s infancy, making Mrs. Neilson a pioneer in this form of entertainment.

A Love of Children

In 1939, Mary, her husband Andrew, and their seven children moved to Vernon. While here, Mrs. Neilson truly began to cultivate another of her life’s passions: the nurturing of children, regardless of if they were her own or not.

Mary had a close relationship with her six daughters and one son; in a 1956 Vernon News article, she described her children as marvelous people. But she also cared deeply for the well-being of other children. When asked about her commitment to creating and repairing clothing for Vernon’s young hockey players, she simply said “I like darning.”

A “Granny” to Many

Despite her evident modesty, Mary’s efforts did not go unnoticed by the city’s youngsters, who gave her the affectionate nickname of “Granny.” She was also asked, on two occasions, to pitch the opening ball at the start of the local lacrosse season. The young players autographed one of the balls and presented it to Mary, who displayed it proudly on her mantelpiece.

Mary’s Scottish roots had a profound effect on her approach to life. She was very kindhearted, but also had a no-nonsense demeanor. “I had a strict upbringing,” she said. “I gave my own children a strict upbringing. My grandchildren are getting a strict upbringing. We’re all in good health. You can’t get away from the good old Scotch way.”

Mary Neilson passed away on February 4, 1966. During her funeral service, Reverend Pritchard said “we can grieve only at our loss. She blessed the world with her presence and it is a better place for her being here.”

Gwyn Evans

Sharing History Through Community

Cultivating Safe Spaces Workshop