Burnaby, British Columbia

July 22, 2024 By: Sam Al-Alimi

Location: 49.227964253985384, -123.01736532302347

I live in the Metrotown area, on Beresford Street, in the heart of Burnaby, British Columbia. My address belongs to South Burnaby riding. While the Metrotown area or Kingsway-Sussex area as it was called in the past is not new, the neighborhood am in is new across the metrotown SkyTrain station. This area was developed recently and is part of the grand plan of Metrotown’s expansion of high-rise buildings by removing older low level apartment buildings.

[1]Indigenous peoples settled in what is today Burnaby 10,000 years ago. Oral history from the Halkomelm and Squamish speaking peoples is evidence of their long history of settling in this land. In winter, the indigenous peoples lived in permanent villages. The ancestral villages of the native peoples hosted hundreds of people and in some larger ones, they hosted more than 1000 residents. Historical documents from Burnaby Village Museum documented that hundreds of years ago, there were more than 100,000 Coast Salish people lived in what is today British Columbia and Washington State. The large number of indigenous people was due to abundance of food and the ability to store it such as preserving salmon. The arrival of settlers drastically changed the ways of the indigenous peoples.

In spring, tribes fished for eulachon in the Fraser River and for sockeye salmon in the summer. [2]Many fishing camps along the Fraser River brought thousands of the Central Coast Salish People together in these temporary camps. Wildlife was abundant in the area such as bears, birds, deer, elk, beavers and many plant resources such as wild potatoes, cedar and cranberries.

By the 1850s, there were a few Anglo-Canadian settlers in what it is today British Columbia. The new settlers and fur traders brought disease from Europe which wiped out a big portion of the indigenous population. Early explorers believed that Burnaby was just a vast wilderness and the depopulation of the indigenous people helped drive this belief further. Furthermore, not all indigenous practices altered the land and the early settlers concluded that these lands are available for settlement and farming.

[3]The colony of British Columbia was created after the Fraser River gold rush in 1858. The British colony established New Westminster as the capital of the colony. The process of pre-emption was introduced to allow early settlers to claim pieces of land as their own if they cleared the trees and built homes. Royal engineers arrived from England and began plans to build roads and townsites to help newcomers settle in British Columbia. Kingsway and Marine Drive are a few of the routes that were built by the Royal Engineers. In the 1870s and 1880s, logging permits enabled settlers to log most of southern Burnaby disrupting the ecology indigenous peoples depended on. All these processes excluded indigenous people and drove them out of their land which they have not ceded till today.

[4]In 1891, Burnaby was established as a municipality in British Columbia. Before that, the area of Burnaby was seen as just a connection New Westminster and the emerging port city of Vancouver. Construction of the tram in Burnaby encouraged property sales, especially around the deer lake area and in 1892, the province officially recognized the municipality of Burnaby. By early 1900s, Burnaby had a real estate boom which brought in 14,000 new residents and this excluded indigenous peoples who were forced out of their ancestral lands. The early residents of Burnaby worked on railways, light manufacturing plants and sawmills. Some opened shops around Kingsway and Hastings while others grew fruit and vegetable gardens on their land for personal use and for sale as well. However, Burnaby still did not have a sewage system for the city, so every resident had to install their own sewage systems.

[5]The urban shift of Burnaby, especially in what was to be named later the Metrotown area, was significant. The city’s council approved low rise apartment buildings and commercial buildings as well. A bold plan was introduced to build 40,000 units within 25 years starting in 1970. Metrotown station was opened and the shopping center, Metropolis, opened its door to customers and this area became the core of the municipality. Now, Burnaby is the third largest city in the province and development is not just happening in the Metrotown area but also in Northern Burnaby with no signs of stopping (Pereira, 2012).

[6]Indigenous communities faced with fast urbanization in their traditional territory began programs such as habitat restoration to help restore local fish populations, help preserve traditional lands and of course preserve indigenous practices. Because Burnaby is an urban city, indigenous peoples have not been able to harvest from their traditional and ancestral lands, but they remain connected to these lands through sharing knowledge and other practices such as the programs mentioned before.

In conclusion, what is now Burnaby was a home to indigenous peoples and wildlife that was rich with culture and ecology. Urbanization, disease and settler use of force may have driven the indigenous peoples and their practices to near extinction, but it still lives today as a remarkable reminder to how this land was.

 

 

Work Cited

Burnaby Village Museum Staff. “History of Burnaby Resource Guide.” https://www.burnabyvillagemuseum.ca. History of Burnaby Resource Guide.pdf (burnabyvillagemuseum.ca)

Burnaby Village Museum Staff. “Indigenous History in Burnaby Resource Guide.” https://www.burnabyvillagemuseum.ca. Indigenous History in Burnaby Resource Guide.pdf (burnabyvillagemuseum.ca)

Baran, A. (2021, September 24). Indigenous Burnaby. Tourism Burnaby. Indigenous Burnaby – Tourism Burnaby

Pereira, David. “Metrotown.” UrbanShift, 2012, https://urbanshift.ca/projects/burnabys-town-centres/metrotown/

[1] “History of Burnaby Resource Guide” P.3-5

[2] “History of Burnaby Resource Guide” P.3-5

[3] “History of Burnaby Resource Guide” P.5-6

[4] “History of Burnaby Resource Guide” P.7-10

[5] Pereira, David. “Metrotown.” 2012

[6] “Indigenous History in Burnaby Resource Guide” P.21

 

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