An interesting photo from 1914 shows a group of Squamish Valley residents assembled for a “First Annual Dance — Orange Lodge.” The Orange Order was established in Canada specifically to promote Protestantism and loyalty to the British Crown.
The photo was taken for the Pacific Great Eastern Railway to be included in a prospectus for British investors. The company and the provincial government were seeking to raise more money for railway completion. The Squamish photo was sent to London to show off the patriotic and loyal citizens of this new port city of the British Empire.
Settlers coming to the Squamish Valley during the 1890s up to WWI were nearly all of British background. Ties to Northern Ireland and Scotland were especially strong, also among early business investors from outside — for example, William Shannon, George Magee, Duncan Bell-Irving, and J.C. Keith.
Valley settlers also included a number of “remittance men” from English aristocratic families. Theresa Gertrude Read, wife of Thomas Read, wrote in 1900 to the London Daily Mail that the Queen’s Birthday was better observed here in the Squamish Valley than in the Motherland and should be renamed “Empire Day.
The progress of PGE Railway construction and the establishment of the new terminus townsite of Squamish in 1914 were described to both Canadian and British audiences as “achievements of the Empire.”
According to Premier Richard McBride, the tremendous resources that could be accessible with the new railway and port at Squamish were “a heritage not for Canadians but for humanity, although we would specialize the Britisher as the one capable of bearing the responsibility of citizenship.”
The 1914 City of Squamish Incorporation Act provided that “no Chinese, Japanese, or other Asiatics or Indians shall be entitled to vote at the said elections.” This was simply in compliance with a provincial law on municipal elections passed in 1908.
Chinese, South Asian, Japanese and Aboriginal Canadians were finally given the right to vote in B.C. provincial elections only in the late 1940s.
However, despite the lack of reference in photos sent to England, and despite long delays in granting of civil rights, the real picture in the valley and around northern Howe Sound in 1914 was certainly already one of ethnic diversity.
Chinese work crews had recently been building more sections of diking around the Squamish delta. Chinese, South Asian, and (both Squamish and Lil’wat) Aboriginal people provided much of the labour for the hop farms of the valley.
Japanese people worked in logging camps, mines and mills all around Howe Sound. East European and Italian immigrants made up a large portion of the railway construction crews camped at Cheakamus and further up the line.
Immigrants from many Motherlands and First Nations people were contributing substantially to building this place, a century ago and ever since.
Squamish evolving to become a true “Multicultural Community” over the course of the past century is a great achievement to celebrate.
