Three exhibits that highlight the Museum’s commitment to truth and a decolonial future
Rishi Mittal (any/all) // Crew Writer
Anya Ali Mulzet (they/them) // Crew Illustrator
The Museum of Vancouver (MOV) is located in Kitsilano’s Vanier Park. The museum is also atop the ancestral village of Sen̓áḵw, a major Squamish trade centre. In 1913, “Sḵwx̱wú7mesh families were placed on barges and forcibly removed to reserves on the north side of the Burrard Inlet,” the museum notes on a plaque. The village was destroyed to make way for Vancouver.
This is a pattern of violence that repeats frequently in our city’s history. But it has always been challenged by the continuous struggles of Indigenous peoples to reclaim what they have lost and affirm their right to live. After decades of legal struggle, the Squamish Nation won back their right to a portion of their original land: about 10 acres out of the original 80, according to the museum.
As it acknowledges on their website, the museum today sees “Redress and Decolonization as a priority.” It is working to highlight the history and legacy of colonialism and the efforts by Indigenous peoples to resist their erasure and set history right. Above all, it highlights the solidarity that we must express as settlers and guests on the unceded traditional territories of the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh Nations. Currently, the museum has three exhibits that together work towards these goals.
The first of these exhibits is c̓əsnaʔəm, “The City Before The City.” Located in the MOV’s History Galleries, it tells the story of the ancient Musqueam village of c̓əsnaʔəm, in what is now Marpole. The village had been a home for the Musqueam people for over 4,000 years, existing as a node in a large network of villages. There is a large map of Metro Vancouver in the gallery, which displays a small sample of these original territories with the original Musqueam place names.
The gallery itself is organized—as it says on the plaques of the museum—in “interconnected governance, ceremonies and economy” of the Musqueam people. Through artifacts that are chosen and treated with care, alongside their stories, c̓əsnaʔəm comes to life. We learn about the importance of seasons and how each season has its own purpose. “Spring, summer and fall are dedicated to fishing, hunting and gathering,” it reads on an exhibit display.
Families lived together in large cedar longhouses and decisions were made in consultation with everyone. We learn about the hən̓q̓əmin̓əm̓ language, proudly displayed, where “words are rich with information,” each name containing elements that specify use or action. The land and its other inhabitants provided the people with what they needed.
Tall forests surrounded the ancient villages, populated by elk and deer. Cedar trees were and remain of particular importance in daily and ceremonial lives. Bark and roots were used for hats, baskets and ropes. Wood was burnt for heat and light. The villagers travelled into the Salish Sea for seals and sea lions and to the North Shore mountains for mountain goats. The Fraser River was a trade route that hosted various species of salmon.
Things for c̓əsnaʔəm and the Musqueam people changed with the arrival of the settlers. In 1865, newcomers established the settlement of Eburne on the site, which would later be renamed Marpole. By the turn of the 19th century and into the early decades of the 20th century, archeologists and museums sought to “salvage” the belongings of what they thought were “vanishing people.”
The formerly named Vancouver City Museum uncovered and displayed the belongings and ancestral remains from c̓əsnaʔəm, to show that Vancouver had a history of human settlement that rivalled that of any major European city. At the same time, they erased completely the Musqueam people from this history and stripped them of their deep connection to c̓əsnaʔəm. The Musqueam people continued to struggle, eventually winning major legal battles to affirm their right to c̓əsnaʔəm. In 2018, they culminated in the partial return of their land.
A crosscut of a 500-year-old Douglas fir tree serves as a bridge between this and the next exhibit: “That Which Sustains Us.” The exhibit stresses the importance of forests and the natural environment to the lives of the people. And further on the role that culture—Indigenous or settler—plays in influencing how we interact with the natural world. There is a connection between the people and the forest that has always existed, and it is only through (re)building resilient forests that we can respond to the current global climate emergency.
The gallery is divided into separate sections. Each focuses on different intersections of the past, present and possible future. They tell the story of the economies and lives made possible by the forest and the role that our cultural attitude plays.
The Indigenous peoples of the region co-existed with the forests, harvesting its resources while ensuring their survival for the next generations. Forests provided medicine, food, a source for housing and a way to travel. The newcomers did not view these ancient red cedars and Douglas firs as sites or complex ecosystems worth protecting. But merely as commodities and barriers to progress.
Beginning in the 1860s, a new economy sprang up that cleared away massive swathes for the city’s urbanization. After two centuries of continuous logging and destruction, people were beginning to turn away and look to Indigenous land management strategies once again. We can turn our economy of waste into one of renewal, a “circular economy,” with a focus on the recirculation of nutrients back into the environment.
A section of the gallery is devoted to the MOV Mini-Indigi Library. The shelf has a couple dozen books, including picture books, graphic novels, young adult genre fiction, among others. There are wooden benches around a firepit, with a screen playing a short stop-motion film. From the gallery windows you can see the next and final exhibit.
The Unity Indigenous Plant Garden is called a living exhibition. It is housed in the interior courtyard garden, and from this central location you can peer into the rest of the museum. In the garden, Douglas fir and red cedar trees, among others, tower over the rest. While the ground is covered with grapes, pinecones, berries and mushrooms.
Every plant is labelled in hən̓q̓əmin̓əm̓ and Sḵwx̱ wú7mesh sníchim and every plant has a purpose. The sword fern is used for berry baskets and fireweed seeds are used to make wool. The garden exists to tell a story. What once was, can once again be. If we can re-indigenize these lands, we—people, plants, Indigenous, settlers—can exist in harmony.