Print Turn Images Off Return to Web Version
animated man
NATURE
· Vanishing Natural Habitat
FIRST PEOPLES
· First Nations in the City
HISTORY
· Seeking a New Home
This is a link to a map of the cities of British Columbia with an optional close-up map of Vancouver and Victoria.

FOCUS  Vancouver and Victoria

First Nations in the City
Page 
12345
Print friendly version
This is a black and white photograph of a Nuu-chah-nulth canoe carver with canoe at Mud Bay, Songhees Reserve.
Nuu-chah-nulth canoe carver at Mud Bay, Songhees Reserve, 1909. Harlan I. Smith, RBCM PN 26009.
In September 1881, Johan Adrian Jacobsen, a European artifact collector, observed "the streets of this town swarmed with Indians of all kinds, for Victoria is the Indian centre of the coast . . . . Indians come here each year to trade their furs, others came to seek employment, and fishermen came for commissions from canneries." The Songhees Reserve was a centre for the artifact and curio trade. Edgar Fawcett, a Victoria resident, wrote:
"Groups of men may have been seen carving miniature canoes with carved Indians . . . while three or four Indians would be at work shaping a full-grown canoe . . . . The women made fancy articles out of tanned deer hides embroidered with pearl buttons and beads, moccasins mostly . . . worn for slippers. I have bought many pairs at fifty cents a pair. The blankets they wore were decorated with rows of pearl beads down the front, red blankets being the favourite . . . All these articles, as well as . . . game, fish and potatoes and fruits, were brought to our door[s]."
Canoes and a Kwakwa̱ka̱’wakw-style pole in various stages of completion at Mud Bay, Songhees Reserve, 1909. Harlan I. Smith, RBCM PN 6872.
This is a black and white photograph of canoes and a Kwakwaka'wakw-style pole in stages of completion, at Mud Bay, Songhees Reserve.
Sealing was a major industry in Victoria in the latter decades of the nineteenth century, employing many First Nations people. In 1894, 59 schooners operated out of Victoria, employing 518 aboriginal and 818 non-aboriginal people. Victoria was also a recreational centre. First Nations canoes competed in the popular regattas in Victoria, for example, and many crews came to compete in the races.
First Nations canoes at Victoria Day races in Victoria's Inner Harbour, May 24, 1904. BC Archives HP20270.
This is a black and white photograph of First Nations canoes and paddlers at Victoria Day races in Victoria's Inner Harbour.
Encampment, probably Nuu-chah-nulth, at Mud Bay, Songhees Reserve, ca. 1908, with railway cars in the background. RBCM PN 8767.
This is a black and white photograph of an encampment, probably Nuu-chah-nulth, at Mud Bay, Songhees Reserve, with railway cars in the background.
View from Songhees Point toward Johnson Street, ca. 1896–97, showing the last plank house on the reserve. Garret Smith, BC Archives H-02546.
This is a black and white photograph of the view from Songhees Point toward Johnson Street, ca. 1896–97, showing the last plank house on the reserve.

In 1911 the Songhees reached an agreement with the provincial and federal governments to move from the old Songhees Reserve on Victoria's Inner Harbour to a new reserve at Esquimalt Harbour adjacent to the Esquimalt Reserve. The legal agreements made more than 150 years ago with the Songhees – giving them the right to hunt, fish and gather food on their unoccupied lands – are still in effect.

(For more history and images from the Songhees Reserve, see Grant Keddie, Songhees Pictorial: A History of the Songhees People as Seen by Outsiders, 1790–1912, Royal British Columbia Museum, 2003.)

First Nations in the City - 
12345