More than 100 years after being buried in unmarked graves at a New Westminster cemetery, four members of the Qayqayt First Nation have been remembered in their resting place.
About a hundred people gathered at St. Peter’s Cemetery on Oct. 20 for the unveiling of headstones for four people who had been buried in unmarked graves. A plaque about Qayqayt First Nation was also unveiled.
“It was in the ‘80s when I went to St. Peter's Church. And the woman there … went through all the records and found the site; so six graves for Indians only,” said Rhonda Larrabee. “It was marked on their documents: Indians Only.”
Four of those gravesites belonged to some of Larrabee’s relatives, including her grandfather George Joseph (his wife Ida Charley is buried in Chilliwack because that’s where she was from). Also buried there are her great-grandparents George and Sophia Joseph, and Francis Joseph, who she believes may be her great-uncle.
“I have heard no stories about Francis Joseph, so I don't know who he was. They passed away in 1921 on the same day,” she said of George, Sophia and Francis Joseph. “I can find out no information of how that happened, if it was a disease, if it was an accident. I'm still trying to get a hold of people to discover what happened.”
Larrabee and her siblings grew up in the Chinatown area of Vancouver, believing they were Chinese on her father, Arthur Lee’s side of the family and French on her mother, Marie Joseph’s side of the family. Because the family would visit family on a reserve in Chilliwack, Larrabee grew suspicious of her family’s roots, and she eventually asked her mom about it – who told her, one time only, with great pain and shame, about her childhood.
“Our land was taken away in 1916, and our family was uprooted,” she said. “My mom and her siblings were sent to the residential school in Kamloops. The discovery of the 215 really affected our family. … When mum came out of residential school, she said she had no home to come to. She had no land to live on. And she made a wonderful, wonderful life for myself and my three brothers. We miss her still.”
After Larrabee’s mother died in 1984, her father passed along her birth certificate, which stated she’d been “born on reserve.” No longer fearing she would hurt her mother by asking about her past, Larrabee embarked on a journey to honour her mother’s memory and to search for her Indigenous ancestors.
Larrabee shared her family’s story at a Rotary Club of New Westminster meeting, which led the local service club to fund the grave markers and plaque.
“The Rotary Club, in the spirit of reconciliation, has offered to cover the cost of these,” she told those gathered at the cemetery. “And we are eternally grateful, eternally grateful.”
Larrabee said Stewart Monuments Limited gave the service club a deal on the price of the monuments St. Peter’s Church helped in the search for the graves and the Gardens of Gethsemani (which provides burial services) donated the time to have the markers placed and helped locate the burial sites.
“They actually found the gravesites for us because they were unmarked,” she said. “It was a lot of getting out the measuring tape and figuring out exactly where they are buried, and they are right here.”
For Larrabee, the installation of grave markers is significant as it identifies the location of the people who are buried there.
“Because of what has transpired since I've started on this journey, now it is important because the presence of the ancestors here can let people know that we were here,” she said.
After the grave markers were revealed, cedar branches were placed on the headstones and tobacco was sprinkled as a ceremonial offering.
Acknowledging ancestors
Bradley Dick (Yuxwelupton Qwal’qaxala), who is of Walas Kwagul, Lekwungen and Ditidaht ancestry, is a knowledge keeper and the manager of cultural safety and reconciliation in the Ministry of Children and Family Development. He attended the ceremony, after meeting Larrabee at a conference, where she told her family’s story; when nations extend an invitation to participate or to witness the work that’s being done, he said efforts are made to follow through with those commitments.
“I can't speak enough to what this means for myself to witness this work,” he said. “But also, my reminder in how I walked gently on the lands of the Qayqayt and the ancestors of this space, to acknowledge that my role is to simply live, learn and grow from the experiences that I have on their traditional lands as best I can, to acknowledge that their ancestors have been here since time immemorial.”
Dick said the families have connections “going way back” to when his Lekwungen ancestors, an area known today as Victoria, would travel annually to the Stó:lō to fish.
“And so, our role was to nurture the relationships of our families and communities that live along the Stó:lō as well,” he said. “And that this is a beautiful opportunity to reaffirm that relationship to community and how we walk together in this journey of reconciliation, as sometimes the reconciliation isn't so much about, you know, having to restore or to repair something, but rather to rebuild the relationships that were once there or to build the relationships that we hope to see moving forward as well.”
History in dispute
In recent months, representatives from Kwantlen First Nation have taken to social media to dispel what they say is the myth that there is a Qayqayt First Nation – and that the group presenting themselves by that name is Indigenous to New Westminster.
“We are disappointed to see that the leadership of ‘Indian Band 566’ continues in its appropriation of the name of the historic Kwantlen village of Qayqayt without our consent, and to misrepresent our history. Throughout history, New Westminster has been a hən̓q̓əmin̓əm̓-speaking region and exclusive home to Kwantlen and Musqueam villages,” said the Kwantlen First Nation in a statement to the Record after the ceremony. “The Kwantlen Nation was created in what was now New Westminster thousands of years ago, and the historic record and archeological record, and our own oral histories confirm this fact. In the spirit of truth and reconciliation, we ask that municipal officials, and the Catholic Church seek to establish the truth of the history of this region before participating in any further events purporting to represent its history.”
A small step towards reconciliation
Coun. Jaimie McEvoy, a member of the Rotary Club of New Westminster, said the City of New Westminster’s reconciliation efforts include a partnership with the Tŝilhqot'in National Government and a long-standing relationship with the Qayqayt First Nation.
“We know that there are many First Nations that use this river, that this was a river culture,” he said. “And the city acknowledges the Halkomelem-speaking peoples in its land acknowledgement.”
McEvoy said the ceremony marked the fact that the Qayqayt First Nation has a continued permanent land occupation in this area going back many generations.
“And so we would like to acknowledge today, the First Nations of the river, the Qayqayt First Nation, that the land that we occupy, is still a topic of discussion,” he said. “And I think that that discussion not only is very important, but I think we need to continue to take our time with it. Because there's a long history of non-Aboriginal people trying to help and getting it wrong. And that's been part of the unfortunate history.”
Larrabee said the placement of markers on the graves of her ancestors is significant to her people.
“Very,” she said. “We keep establishing our presence here because we have a claim in, and the government's like, well, who are you? And I have other First Nations saying ‘Oh, well, who is she, who are they?’”
Mayor-elect Patrick Johnstone was among those attending the ceremony. He said it was “one small but positive step” in the city’s reconciliation journey.
“You know we are at a spot in a city in a reconciliation journey where we still have a lot of work to do on the truth part,” he said. “And I think that doing work like this to pull back layers and to expose the truth of the history of the city and of the Indigenous history of the city is really important.”
Follow Theresa McManus on Twitter @TheresaMcManus
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